"Ghost" Trigun x reader

The Rotting Things Left In Us

Your fingers ran across the slick bright interactive panel that curved in front of you, your expression pensive as you read the data you were pulling up. Over a hundred new red plants had joined Knives' collection over the last two decades you had been gone; wasn't this exaggerated? What were the people of No Man's Land thinking overworking their plants to this extend?

Frowning, you continued your research, grunting in annoyance every time information was redacted or your access was denied because you didn't have high enough clearance. To be honest, you had been surprised your biological sign-ins were still valid when you had tried to connect to the interface a few days ago. Your clearance had been lowered; Knives clearly untrusting you more this time around with your recent behavior. But still, you had access to most of the decaying plants records, probably because of your use you absent-mindedly noted.

As you had regained most of your memories, many more puzzle pieces fell into your hands, even if you still struggled to put them all together. You knew about Knives wish to eradicate humanity and save his sisters in the process. You remembered being told about the Great Fall, as well as Knives role in it. You knew the crucial place plants held in making it possible for humans to survive on this planet, and even if their knowledge was limited- you were sure they knew that plants could not be manufactured. So how in the hell could they have run dry so many of them in so little time already?

Your hands flew above the screen, rapidly tapping on it and pulling out older data from back when you had been held captive here last time. You bit your inner lip when noticing that one plant you had been working with had succumbed after your disappearance.

No matter how much you racked your brain over and over, you couldn't remember even the slightest detail about how or why you had left this place in the first place all those years ago- and there was no way you would ask Knives about it, that would be a death wish. You had combed the database for over a full day after you had been 'freed' a couple of days ago when you had confronted Knives. Neither him or the Doctor had called for you since, to your great relief.

You weren't allowed to sleep, and even if the exhaustion was slowly making it harder and harder to keep your mind focused on your searches and work with the plants, you refused to rest in that creepy cell of a room they had given you.

So instead, you had spent most of the past days in this control room that held Knives' most recent rescues. He had brought back over seven new red plants just in the last three months, one of them being in such an advanced state of decay in the picture on her file that the fluid inside its bulb was opaque with blood and decomposing matter, making it hard to see her form at all. You even doubted she was alive from reading her data and looking at pictures depicting pieces of translucid bones showing and flabs of flesh hanging by strung out feathers over her shriveled limbs.

However, the readings were showing that, no matter how weak and irregular, she still had vitals and was still reacting to external stimuli. When you had found her file- plant #204- brought in just three weeks ago from a city called Paque which Knives had probably already decimated off the map by now- you had first believed it had been a mistake; the stage of rot which was described being impossible for an 'alive' plant to reach.

You had pulled a tablet with her file and location, thankful to realize she was in the same room as you, right behind the protective glass separating the panels from the plants resting in a heavily controlled environment.

Accessing the space, making your way down the path between the two rows of red plants, you had reached her. She was still connected to the server, the inputs on the screen next to her bulb matching the one you received on your tablet for her file. So, this wasn't an error of some sort when she was put away, you noted.