Warum Nicht?
Chapter 1
Jessica "EJ" Lee

Death was on the plane that arrived at the O'Hare airport from Tokyo, Japan on a cool Saturday morning. Death sat, to be more specific, in a third class window side seat, fantasizing about barreling down the aisles and ripping a particularly snooty flight attendant's spine out her throat.

His name was Farfarello, and he was by far the most interesting piece of eye candy of the four Schwarz on the plane. Almost feathery silver-blue hair (odd for an Irishman) was cut short to his scalp, bisected by the band of the eye patch clapped over his left eye. The remaining eye was a hawk-like amber-gold, blank and unfocused, but nevertheless harboring a spark of intelligence. He was insane—he wasn't stupid.

Directly to Farfarello's left sat Nagi Naoe, a small Japanese boy with purple-brown hair and the gift of telekinesis. He was currently asleep, hands folded in his lap, back straight, maintaining perfect posture even as he blew a tiny sleep bubble from his nostril. What looked frighteningly like a perfectly pressed, meticulously ironed woman's business suit jacket enfolded his thin frame, somehow sealed together in the front without use of either buttons or a zipper. (Behold the power of anime.) He was having a pleasant dream about Tot, the semi-girlfriend he'd been forced to leave behind.

Schuldich lounged in the third seat, wearing a rumpled black trench coat and even more wrinkled khakis. Several strands of '70's love beads hung around his neck, and a pair of black-framed red sunglasses perched above the broad yellow headband that kept his improbably vivid, shoulder-length orange hair from falling into his eyes. He was singing along to "Duhast", though his portable CD player was playing loud enough for passengers on the other side of the plane to hear the lyrics without his help, even with the headphones clamped snugly over Schuldich's ears.

Bradley Crawford frowned at the German from across the aisle, not happy with having had to listen to that Rammstein CD during the entire twelve-hour flight. He squinted his caramel brown eyes, removed his glasses, and wiped off the smear that had adorned the lens. Hooking the legs back over his ears, Crawford sighed and let his head roll onto the back of seat, staring dejectedly up at the ceiling. He wished he'd thought to bring a book…

Schuldich wriggled around in his seat and grinned at Crawford, sending a telepathic whisper slithering past the American's mental defenses. Bored already, Brad? Or has the strain of our occupation finally gotten to you?

Crawford hissed, head snapping up. "Don't call me that. And for the last time, you tiresome little redheaded gnat, stay out of my head." His only reply was a quiet mental laugh before Schuldich withdrew, leaving his mind empty.

Meanwhile, Farfarello perked up at the sight of the city growing larger below them. He'd never been to the United States before. So many new ways to hurt God blossomed before his beady, psychotic eye, that he really couldn't help but smile. Oh, yeah. He'd have fun.


Getting out of the O'Hare was an undiluted nightmare.

Crawford went through the metal detecting contraption first, followed by Schuldich and Nagi, without mishap. Then Farfarello walked through, and the machine erupted with swiveling red lights and an ear-splitting squeal that drew the eyes of every traveler within hearing. Crawford gritted his teeth, turning sharply on his heel and shooting Farfarello a filthy look. He had hoped for a quiet, unremarkable arrival-the less attention they received, the better.

"Farfarello!" The Irishman looked at him. "Take off those…" Crawford waved a vague hand.

Farfie blinked his one eye, shrugged, then unbuckled his wrist straps and dog collar, tossed them into the plastic holding bin, and walked through.

Beep.

Effortlessly ignoring the glares he received from both Crawford and Nagi, Farfarello stepped back and rummaged through his pockets, boots, and pants, coming up with a bowie, machete, butterfly knife, switchblade, push knife, and steel letter opener. Those went into the bin as well. He walked through.

Beep.

A small crowd had gathered by now, and they watched the Farf with mounting curiosity and amusement as he stripped off his newly acquired brass knuckled gloves, tore his six silver-coated rings from his ears, and spat out the lump of metal shrapnel he'd been chewing on, and walked through.

Silence.

The crowd applauded politely.

The red light above the baggage check chose that moment to squeal and blink on, and a cluster of security guards converged on Schuldich's battered travel bag, looking from the redhead to the x-ray monitor. Starring on the silver screen were three automatic handguns, a submachine gun, two half-empty bottles of alcoholic substance, a small case of more or less sterile syringes, and a plastic baggie containing white powder of dubious legality.

Nagi buried his face in his hands and shook his head slowly from side to side.

Lips pressed into a thin line, Crawford stepped close to Nagi, keeping his voice low. "A diversion would be convenient."

The boy nodded, took a deep breath, and focused on the enormous electronic flight schedule board on the near wall. Screws popped out, one by one, unnoticed, and the thing tilted forward and hit the tiled floor with a crash of plastic and glass and a shower of sparks as the wiring tore free from the wall. A small group of Japanese exchange students were squished or otherwise injured, not to mention a yapping police dog straining on its leash.

Running. Screaming. Pandemonium. Four young men, fresh off the plane from Japan, lifting their bags from the conveyor belt and walking calmly away.

* * *

Across the Pacific Ocean, Hidaka Ken was arranging a bouquet of carnations for an old lady in the flower shop while Fujimiya Ran (Aya) manned the cash register and Tsukiyono Omi sprayed the hanging pots. A day in the life of Weiss: taking tender loving care of common and exotic flowers-at least, when they weren't occupied with continuously battling Schwarz and saving small portions of the world.

Safe. Sound. Tedious.

Aya blew a lock of crimson hair out of his eyes, wishing idly for a mission, any mission, anything other than sitting behind the counter until his butt grew numb, being forced by Universal Employee Protocol to smile brightly at paying customers and glower darkly at loiterers.

As if on cue, in came Kudo Youji from the back room, waving a sheet of fax paper in the air. "This just in from Command. Reported sighting of Schwarz getting on a plane bound for Chicago."

Omi looked up from his flowers. "Nani?"

"Chicago," Youji repeated, still brandishing the fax. "In that country. You know. Kiddies in school with guns, dying economy, Timothy McVleigh?"

"America?" Ken guessed, waving at the elderly woman through the store window.

"Sou da ne."

Ken frowned. "You're not saying we have to follow them there?"

Apron thrown aside, Aya walked around the counter, almost relieved to have an excuse to escape the flower shop and chase Schwarz to the corners of the earth. "Kids in school with guns. Dying economy. Timothy McVleigh. A place like that is bad enough without Schwarz going in and getting mixed up in it."

"Have any of you even been to America?" Three heads shook a negative. Youji laughed. "I have. And trust me: that country will eat them alive."

* * *

Brad Crawford sighed, staring out the tinted window on his side of the limousine. All the time he'd been in Japan, he'd tried not to think about his birthplace, preferring to concentrate on adapting to Eastern culture and customs rather than belly-aching about homesickness. Now that he was on American soil, being driven to their previously assigned designation by an American chauffeur, sucking on a piece of American candy, he couldn't help but wonder… Why, why, why Chicago? The place was filthy. Crowded. The air polluted and the streets cluttered with trash and rabid homeless people. Broiling in summer, frigid in winter, and intolerably windy all year round. He massaged his temples with his fingertips, wondering how many more things could go wrong in one day.

Schuldich was raiding the mini fridge, ripping out the cork of a chilled bottle of champagne, popping off the lid of a small tin of caviar. He fiddled around with the built-in audio and visual systems, finally grew bored, and slumped in his seat, staring out the window. A minute later he plastered himself against the side of the limo, face and hands pressed against the glass.

"Everybody's driving on the wrong side of the road!"

Crawford fixed him with an accusatory glare. "You didn't read any of the debriefing files I passed out, did you?"

A sheepish, yet at the same charming, smile. "Give me a break, Brad, the thing was eighty pages long. I bet the Farf didn't read it either, did you, Farfarello?"

Farfie looked at him. "Read what?"

"Point in case. Nagi?"

The youngest member of Schwarz blinked, coming out of his reverie. "Nani?"

"Did you read the papers our illustrious leader gave us?"

"Hai. Of course." He fished the bulging manila folder from his travel bag, flipping through the pages. "I highlighted some of the things I didn't understand, and underlined the contradicting data in red. The ones underlined in blue, however, are things I've researched and found have changed during the ten or so years Crawford was in Japan. I cross-referenced the major organizations in the Central time zone area and…" He looked up from the page he was on. "Crawford, I'm afraid I disagree with you on the intrinsic value of K-Mart blue light specials. I was going to talk to you about that before we left but we were so busy packing…"

Crawford nodded, then dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. Nagi made a disgruntled face, but put the file away without a word. "What I was trying to say, Schuldich, was that if you'd bothered to read the debriefing you'd know that you are supposed to drive in the right lane in America."

Schuldich shrugged, turned, and slid an all-too-familiar CD into the sound system and yodeled, "Music, anyone?" seconds before Rammstein's "Sehnsucht" blared from the speakers. Crawford closed his eyes in something very close to pain and slid down in his seat, resigning himself to a Very Long Day.

* * *

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Ken muttered, surveying the contents of his overnight bag. "America. Where toddlers have unobstructed access to their daddies' pistols and high school kids go to school with semi-automatic rifles. And I always the thought the most dangerous thing we'd have to look out for was the Schwarz and bad business."

Omi twisted around to stare at him without a break in hand motion as he continued to cram clothes and tooth brushes into his suitcase. "C'mon, Ken. This is going to be fun! America! Chicago! We'll be on vacation even while we're doing our job." He paused, chewing worriedly on his lower lip. "Do you think I should bring my hat?" he asked, holding up the red-and-white striped, double-balled, fuzzy stringed hat that he'd taken on one of their previous ski trips.

Aya looked around at Omi, amusement warring with horror on his face. "God, no."

Ken raised an eyebrow. "I don't know, Aya, I've heard it gets pretty cold in Chicago. Windy City and all that."

"Now, do you think they call it the Windy City because of weather conditions," Youji mused from his corner of the room as he tossed a few extra rolls of monofilament into his bag, "or because… well… beans."

Ken whipped his goggles at him, laughing.

"Aya," Omi whispered, "what does he mean, beans?"

"Nothing," Aya replied, turning his attention back to trying to fit his katana into his suitcase. "Absolutely nothing."

* * *

Schwarz ended up taking residence in a penthouse suite in a modern apartment building on the outskirts of Chicago. Most of their belongings had already been moved into and arranged in the suite, with thanks to AniMatrix Furniture Encryption Company and Mystical Magic of Mun, Inc.

Nagi Naoe gravitated toward the unfamiliar laptop set on the glass table in the middle of the living room, starry-eyed and sparkly. "Is this… Did you…?"

"Yep." Schuldich hooked his thumbs in his coat pocket, beaming. "We all chipped in. Even Farfarello. Especially Brad."

Farfie glanced up at the sound of his name, picking his nose with the point of an Exacto knife he'd found somewhere. "I picked the color," he said proudly. "And gave dimes. I had dimes. I helped."

Nagi touched the laptop, running his fingers lightly over the sleek black surface, flipping it open and gazing at the keyboard. Someone-probably Crawford-had stuck little hiragana stickers on the keys. "Arigatou gozaimasu," Nagi whispered, dashing the heel of his hand across his eyes.

"Nagi," Crawford said slowly, "are you crying?"

SD moment! Nagi spun to face them, hands balled into fists, tears streaming down his face. "Gomen ne, but I'm so happy! No one's ever done anything so nice to me before!"

Sweatdrops all around. An awkward pause in which Nagi stood weeping with joy; Schuldich shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot; Crawford nodded curtly, looked away, and ran his fingers through his short black hair; and Farfarello sneezed while he had the knife pushed halfway up his nose, slitting his nostril.

Nagi dropped into the stylish black metal chair and booted his new computer up, humming "Mayfly". He blinked and stared at the monitor for a moment as alien text marched across the screen. "Crawford! What is this?"

"English. You did bring the Japanese text installation disc, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course," Nagi said, already pawing through the bag of computer goodies at his feet, shoving 3 ½ inch floppies, microcode chips, and DHTML manuals aside. His rummaging grew more frantic as it gradually became clear that he couldn't find what he was looking for.

Schuldich meandered over and leaned his hip against the table, arms folded across his chest, wearing a Cheshire cat grin, and sang, "Someone lost his translaaation disc."

"No!" Nagi cried, eyes wild. "That's not possible! I am very organized. I don't lose things!" He began going through the side pockets, then back into the main compartment. "It has to be here. It has to be. It is! I wouldn't have… I couldn't have just…" Chaaannng. Horrified eyes. "…left it in Japan." An anguished wail. "Am I getting old?!"

Farfarello stopped trying to lick the blood from his nose. "Disc? Round? Shiny? In a plastic case?"

"Yesss," Nagi hissed, vacating his chair, crossing the room, and bringing his face up close to Farfarello's in a matter of heartbeats. "You've seen it. Where? Tell me."

"When we were packing. Kitchen counter."

"No. Impossible. I clearly recall walking past the kitchen counter several times, and there was nothing on it. I have an impeccable sense of memory."

"And yet," Schuldich drawled, eyebrows arched, "you've managed to leave out the one thing necessary to your own personal survival in this savage land."

Crawford coughed into his fist. "I found it before Nagi came downstairs. I thought it was one of Schuldich's CDs, and I… ah… gave it to him."
Nagi's lizard-like gaze slid toward the German.

"He chucked it at my head," Schuldich said flatly. "It wasn't one of my CD's, and I didn't think Nagi would forget to pack anything important, so I figured it was Brad's, which meant it would be okay if it broke, and I threw it at the door after he left."

"Discs don't break that easily," Nagi grated, enunciating each word with cold precision, forcing the syllables through clenched teeth.

"Yeah, well," Schuldich scratched his head, suddenly finding something of great interest on the floor. He studied an invisible stain in the carpet with concern. "It got stuck in the doorjamb and there was a hammer right there… one of the ones we used to nail the crates shut…" He scowled, then sputtered the next sentence rapid-fire, without pausing for breath. "Well, if Brad hadn't been so mean to me, I wouldn't have felt so bad, and your disc would still be alive."

"Oh. So this is my fault, now," Crawford said. "I see. In any case, Nagi, you'll have no choice but to get by without using hiragana. English is a surprisingly easy language to use."

"…Are you suggesting that I learn this barbaric language?" Nagi demanded.

Crawford sighed. Very Long Day, indeed.

* * *

Omi sat on the edge of the toilet in the lavatory of the plane, his head between his knees, trying to concentrate on taking deep, cleansing breaths. He was still holding a dripping paper airsick bag, letting it dangle away from his knee. There was a soft knock on the door.

"Omi, it's Youji. Open up."

He lurched from his seat, fumbling with the lock and somehow managing to pull it aside. Youji poked his head in, made a face at the used airsick bag, and took it from Omi, pinched between two fingers. "Got you a new bag."

"Arigatou, Youji-kun," Omi said hoarsely, taking the proffered baggie.

"You doing okay in here?"

"Hai."

"Good." He gave Omi a reassuring pat on the head. "Don't feel too bad. Ken just lost his lunch all over a flight attendant, and Aya's looking a little greener than usual."

"Really? Aya? Wow."

"Yeah. Wow." He turned to leave.

"Youji?"

"Eh?"

"What are we going to do about Schwarz?"

"The same thing we do every night, Omi… Try to take over the world!"

The younger Weiss stared. "Nani?"

Cough. "Gomen. American cartoon they played while you were in here. I meant, try to kill them, as usual."

Omi looked thoughtful, albeit exceedingly airsick, for a long moment. "Naze da? If they've gone to America, doesn't that mean we don't have to deal with them anymore?"

Youji smiled, a little tiredly, Omi thought. "Who else will, if you and I don't?"

A flight attendant looked in. "Excuse me. We will be landing shortly. Please return to your seats until the pilot indicates otherwise."

"These people," Youji confided to Omi as the attendant left. "Everything is a line to them."


Two weeks after the initial arrival…


Nagi had been avoiding even looking at his computer, refusing to even enter the living room unless it was strictly necessary. He had never spent so long without at least booting up a terminal, and the tension was beginning to show. He didn't eat much, and there were purple shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. Sometimes Schuldich would try to throw his voice and make it seem as if the laptop were squeaking, "Nagi, why have you forsaken me?"

For some reason, Nagi completely lost the humor of that.

Farfarello had accumulated an impressive collection of Exacto knives from L-sama-knows-where, and killed time by carving intricate designs into the skin of his arms with them. Crawford was his usual poker-backed self. Schuldich volunteered for grocery shopping duty, finding it highly amusing to use Crawford's money to buy things none of them would touch, i.e., buttermilk and avocados.

It was another Saturday morning in Chicago, the sky gray with smog and developing rain clouds. Schuldich hemmed and hawed over the produce section of their local Jewel, trying to decide between two types of tomatoes and vaguely wondering what the difference was. An arm crossed his line of vision, reaching for the oranges.

A suspiciously familiar arm, wearing an even more suspiciously familiar, chunky watch. A watch that may well be able to conceal a roll of monofilament. Schuldich looked up. Slowly.

Youji smiled when the German met his eyes. "Hello, Schuldich."