Trigun Maximum Vol. 7: Happy Days

By Yasuhiro Nightow

Rem warns the 2 boys to stay quietly strapped in, regardless of what they hear. The crew wakes up from their pod sleep, walking to where Rem's looking as diagnoses finish calculating, the crew only having to sign off, this 3 yrs since their last wakening. Rem doesn't let on the boys're there, but she does confront who she thinks is the culprit, Knives who guiltily responds, then the captain seeing them, and learning they'd developed over the year. Conrad asks the 2 boys if they had affection for Rem, who planned to take them to sleep along with her when her duties were done.

The boys're earnest about their love and he's onboard with keeping them with her. The 2 boys see a girl then a room suspiciously clean, and when the 2 look at the computer, they see files in a folder called Tessla. Soon they learn Tessla'd been the boys' predecessor, who now is in a tank pod looking a bit changed in a plant way, and decomposed, Tessla's project ultimately closed. Knives passes out, and Rem desperately asks to be let in, when Knives revives he sharply asks if she planned to continue with them where they'd left off with Tessla.

When Knives wakes again, it seems he'd forgotten what they'd chatted about before. So, Rem goes over the Tessla project again, Conrad and she disagreeing with the experiment morally. Rem regards whether Knives is forcing himself to take this all in calmly, and when the 2 boys walk off, Knives states how being scared seems pointless. Everything seems comfortingly normal between the 3 again, until Knives takes a late night look at the computer file again, and bites his fingertip to bleeding profusely.

Later, older Knives seems to transform and now has weird-looking wings, a new time of chaos to come. Next, Vash's mere presence helps diffuse a sheriff from killing someone unnecessarily, and allow them to walk out of town directly, after which Vash and Wolfwood go to the bar with the free men to drink, Wolfwood declining for having some pondering to focus on. Then, a satellite base starts noticing something is causing multiple satellites to go offline, which'll then make universal communication dead. Then, Vash states he and Wolfwood were heading out, but the time he spent with them'd be unforgettable.

They walk through the front entrance, since Vash knew Knives'd be able to sense him, Wolfwood getting a violent and singular impression of getting killed by chains coming from everywhere, he not sharing with Vash since he hadn't seen it. Then, right before Vash continues to meet Knives, Wolfwood realizes Vash'd seen the vision, as well, he next having to face off with 1 of Knives' underlings. When Vash and Knives rejoins Wolfwood and the man-looking woman, Elendira, Knives sees the change in Vash and makes him think he'll now see why they and humans could never mix being due to the blackness of their decay, Knives also wrongly estimating Vash was weaker than himself, and then angered when Vash shares how he still plans to attempt peaceful coexistence with humans, even if they lash out violently.

Despite his bro's typical bratty-ness, Vash declares Knives wouldn't get his way, this making Knives conclude they couldn't agree, and their only choice being to meld, he saying Vash'll at least live through him. Vash almost overpowers him, but Knives power knocks him out, leaving Elendira to tie him up as he readies to open up darkness which hadn't gotten a breath since time's birth.

Cute, to the next!