A/N: Urm... yeah... on time? What? Sorry I'm late again, everyone. Thanks so much for all your patience, reviews, and compliments! I'm really enjoying writing this fanfic. Plot will start to appear from here on out. Thanks for getting it rolling last chapter Mamoru! Hope you guys enjoy. Oh, and if anyone wants to know where Dolch and Crea are while all of this is going on... keep wondering. XD Enjoy the impending problems!

Chapter 8- Dry Bones

Tokyo had never been considered a subtle city. Even in the dead of night multi-colored neon lights lit up huge portions of the streets, throwing alleys into sharp, bizarre shadows. In these dark areas lurked the scum of the city, thinking themselves invisible in the dark, like shadows within shadows. They committed their petty small-scale crimes in the relative safety of the tinted darkness, and it suited them. However any true professional knows that the best place to hide is directly in the light, so when Brad went out hunting, he stayed firmly in the chilled neon glow of the city and waited for his prey.

He was not used to working without visions guiding him, but even without his powers he was more than competent. He slid seamlessly through the night from one pool of glowing lights to another. It was not exactly a planned journey. He knew he had to search without knowing why, and hoped he would know his quarry when he stumbled upon it. Even without his more vivid precognitive abilities, his intuition was still second to none.

Whatever it was that drove him to the streets that night had terrible timing. The roughness had not left his breath from the inhalation of too much dust, and his body was pathetically weak from his latest brush with death. Even Schuldig probably would have had the sense to stay indoors in the condition Brad found himself in. But try as he might, he had not been able to shake the feeling that something out there in the town needed finding. He had not survived escaping Esset by not listening to his instincts.

He noticed he was being followed at three twenty five in the morning, and was briefly frustrated that the hunter was being hunted. He was already frustrated at his own weakness compared to his usual abilities, and his vision was blurred even behind the new glasses, his body happily reminding him that yes, he was still concussed, and no he should not have been walking for the past five hours. He mentally shook off the fatigue and threw a significant glance over his shoulder, hoping the one following would interpret it as a "come hither" look and show himself. For the first time that night, Brad deviated from his rout of populated areas and ducked into an alley, sliding through cramped space after cramped space until he was so thoroughly encompassed in the streets of lower-class Tokyo that it looked more like his native Chicago than the technology capital of the world. He finally came to a halt, facing the wall before him without trepidation. Let the follower corner him. It would be of no consequence. When he heard footsteps behind himself, he turned to face his stalker.

Red hair glinted like pools of blood in the dim, borrowed light permeating the air even half a mile from downtown, and Brad caught a flash of steel mirrored by cold eyes. Realization dropped upon him like a building (and he'd felt that twice, so he knew what it was like.) Schuldig had been the one to go after Kudoh, his nemesis, so of course...

"Schwartz," hissed a voice, harsher than Brad remembered it being. The steel of a sword glinted again, and Brad resisted the urge to roll his eyes, his gun a reassuring presence against his side. Trust Fujimiya to bring a knife to a gunfight.

"Weiss. A pleasure as always." Brad's legs tried to buckle and he fiercely berated himself for allowing Fujimiya to catch him injured. It narrowed his options for negotiation. The stand off lasted for solid minutes, each assassin observing the other in silence, attempting to read their opponent's body language and intent without the bonus of being able to see them. Brad took a long breath, biting back the cough rising in his chest.

"You have me at a disadvantage." He said calmly. Fujimiya had proven himself a man of obnoxious honor countless times. Brad seriously hoped that Fujimiya hadn't changed. He was rather stunned when steel blurred through the air in a vicious swoop, slashing down towards his neck. He raised his hands on instinct, as his mind tried to comprehend the sight of the dark man descending on him from above.

-- --

After the first night in the bar, Schuldig was everywhere. Yohji had gone off on another job hunting spree, and there he'd been, sitting at an outside cafe and smiling at him. He'd toasted him with his coffee cup and Yohji had nodded briefly in recognition, then gone on his way. When he left the business, Schuldig was still there, this time with an enormous, as-of-yet untouched ice cream sundae in front of him, and chatting with the young woman waitress amiably. Yohji ignored him and went on his way.

When he left his third interview of the day, Schuldig was sitting on a bench across the street and looked up at him, apparently surprised, before calling "Small town!" Yohji grunted in agreement and went on his way, annoyed by his inability to find a job and definitely not in the mood to deal with the chatty redhead.

By the third time he ran into him that way, he was convinced that it was not coincidence. Especially since this time Schuldig walked out of a shop right in front of him, so close they almost ran into one another. Schuldig looked up at him with theatrically startled blue gaze and Yohji resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"My goodness, Mr. Kudoh, one might think you're stalking me." He purred. Yohji sidestepped him with a sigh.

"Go away, Schuldig. I'm not in the mood."

He didn't see Schuldig again that day, but when he went to his bar that evening, Schuldig was sitting at the counter, chatting with the bartender, who appeared to actually be involved in the conversation. This, at least, intrigued Yohji. He'd picked the place because the man behind the counter had notoriously good taste in his clientèle, and never played the sycophantic, understanding bartender card.

The redhead looked up at him, hair glinting russet in the dim golden light, and a smile curved his lips, playful fire in his eyes.

"Looks like my shift is over," he said to the rugged man behind the counter. "I believe I've intruded enough on Mr. Kudoh's day. See you again, Shinyou." He left money on the counter and slid past Yohji like he was on wheels, shooting him that dangerous look and a wink. Yohji shivered briefly and walked down to the bar, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder at the strange man.

"He's a little weird, huh?" Yohji muttered, sliding onto a stool.

"Not so bad," the bartender, who was apparently named Shinyou. "Just eccentric and new to town. Lookin' to make connections." Yohji frowned slightly at the gruff man as he filled a shot glass with his usual whiskey. The words had sounded almost scripted, and were somewhat out of character.

"You gunna gape at me all night or drink your damn whiskey?" the man griped as he started scrubbing at his eternally filthy bar. Yohji's uneasiness disappeared instantly at his cross words, and he snorted and threw back his whiskey. He didn't make a long night of it, only downing three shots of the stuff before heading on his way. It had, after all, been another obnoxiously tiring day. Nothing had happened, and Yohji was certain that was part of the problem. He got the feeling that he had once been a man of action.

He wandered home by the long route again, mincing towards the shadowed park, eyeballing the figures of other humans strewn around the streets, some thrill-seeking lovers, some addicts, huddled in corners and shadows. It was a cold evening, and Yohji was starting to wish he had a jacket. When he passed under the gentle yellow glow of street lights he could see his own breath fogging the air.

As he walked in silence, contemplating his situation and allowing himself to indulge in self pity while no one was watching, a resounding crash sounded from an alley as he passed. Yohji was startled a moment later to find himself crouched defensively, hand on his wrist, and eyes gazing sharply into the shadows. A figure within the dark stumbled, and Yohji heard a soft cry echo off the dirty walls. He slowly straightened, a terrible chill running up his spine, and his body weak with adrenal backlash. He knew he really ought to just keep moving, but he was a curious soul (according to Asuka) and wanted to know who it was banging around back in the shadows. He approached slowly, fingers twitching slightly. The form within slumped against the wall. Then the laughter started.

It was a quiet, dangerous chuckle, that rose to shrill, hysterical hiccups, more of horror than of mirth. Yohji stood rooted to the spot, at a loss for what he ought to do. The laughter turned into tremendous, heaving sobs that tore through the air like palpable wounds.

"Don't touch me..." the sobbing voice choked out. The pain in that voice wrenched something in Yohji's gut like a twisting dagger. The sobs came so thick that they stumbled over each other, thickening the voice of the person within the alley into an almost inhuman moan of words. "Please... please stop." Yohji grit his teeth and squared his shoulders. He hadn't seen anyone else in the ally, but if someone was being assaulted, he wasn't willing to take the chance of walking away and hearing of their death the next day. He strode back into the shadows, and briefly wondered why it felt so natural.

The sobbing had quieted to a low, quavering shudder humming through the air, and it chilled Yohji to the bone. That was the cry of someone broken. He slowly slipped around the dumpster that had blocked the figure from his view. He was greeted by a glint of russet hair and a disturbingly familiar pair of eyes.

"Schuldig?" he whispered, shocked. The man sat, quite alone, staring up at the dim lights of the apartments above him with empty eyes and tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked like a broken doll, slumped there alone. He didn't respond to Yohji's call, and the blonde briefly considered leaving him there till the alcohol daze he was obviously in wore off. But something felt wrong about the whole situation, and as Schuldig jerked slightly under an invisible assault, Yohji nodded to himself and knelt before the man, placing a hand on his shoulder. Immediately those startling eyes switched to focus on his face.

It was a heart stopping moment. There was desperation written across the handsome face, brows drawn together as though in pain, and lips parted to permit the panting gasps of breath escaping him. In that moment, Yohji knew that the man, obnoxious though he was, was his mystery rescuer. There was no mistaking those haunted eyes. Without the mask of a smile and the lights of a bar, he was unmistakable. It was the exact same face that had looked down on him through a haze of pain and spoken in un-intelligible words.

"No..." the redhead whispered, and Yohji saw his eyes clear of whatever daze he had been in. He didn't smell like alcohol at all, and the blonde was certain that whatever he had witnessed was not your everyday drunken rant. "No." Schuldig repeated, "I'm not a hero." Yohji frowned at the words, wondering how in the world the redhead had known he'd been recognized. Without allowing the frown to disappear, Yohji slipped both his hands under Schuldig's arms and lifted him to his feet. The man's legs gave out under him, forcing Yohji to sling and arm around his waist and half-drag him out of the ally.

"You saved my life, yeah?" said the blonde as nonchalantly as possible, despite the thrumming in his chest. He really wanted a cigarette. Something about the foreigner made him automatically exhausted. That he was having to drag the man down the street only made it worse. "That kinda makes you my hero by default."

"No," Schuldig denied, less vehemently, "please, you can't think of me that way..."

"Too late."

Schuldig fell silent, and it took Yohji a moment to realize that he had passed out. Fortunately he was startlingly light, and Yohji's little house wasn't far. His arms were burning by the time he reached his front door from holding up the unconscious man, but he hardly noticed as he wondered what to do with the redheaded asshole he had just brought home. He carefully balanced Schuldig against his side and fumbled his keys out of his pocket one handed, unlocking the door with minimal amounts of cursing. Once inside, he deposited his burden on the couch, taking in the sleeping face and tear tracks tracing down his cheeks, all dried now in faint contrast to pale skin.

Though he wasn't aware of it at the time, one day Yohji would look back on that night as the one that changed his entire world and solidified his future. At the time, he walked back to his room and changed clothes to get the smell of beer off himself before coming back and checking the temperature of the other man. Schuldig shifted in his sleep, and Yohji bit his lip. He was obviously unstable, and probably dangerous, but that hopeless voice in which he'd asked to not be a hero had pulled something in the depth of Yohji, and the pull had not gone away. Besides, he owed his life to the stranger, and he was definitely going to find out why. He'd take any clue to his past he could get.

"Too close..." the redhead murmured, not waking but turning away from Yohji's hand, brow twisting as though in worry. Yohji sighed, decided the man was not in imminent danger and went to make himself a cup of tea. Stress was taking its toll on him, and with a heavy sigh he over-sweetened his tea and settle down in chair, staring at the real-world personification of the man of his dreams.

He was different than he had imagined, that was for sure. His voice was more nasal, his eyes less gentle, his smile twisted cruelly than tilted gently as Yohji had envisioned it. And yet, there he lay, and Yohji knew that one way or another, he wanted to help him in return.

-- --

Brad's hands were covered in blood. Most of it was his own. He'd blocked the sword strike aimed for his neck with bare fists, rendering both his hands slick with blood and shaking. He'd barely dodged the next strike, and then Fujimiya had collapsed on him, then slumped off him to the ground, completely dead to the world. The rest of the blood on Brad's hands had come from the wound in Fujimiya's abdomen.

The future came together in Brad's imagination like the final twist of a rubix cube. and he looked down resignedly at the pale, anemic figure at his feet, and in a feat of staggering insight that no other in either team appeared to posses, he wiped his hands off on his jacket, ignoring the sting of fabric against torn flesh, pulled out his cellphone and called at taxi. He needed Fujimiya to survive, but there was no reason for him to dramatically carry him cross-country to his chosen hotel.

With the taxi on its way, Brad bound his hands with the small roll of bandages he had taken to carrying in his pocket in case he ended up pulling open any one of his numerous un-healed cuts. When they were taken care of, he borrowed the hated katana of his enemy and shredded his abnormally long coat to create a makeshift bandage for his midsection. By the time the taxi arrived, he looked more like a man out for a night with his extremely drunk friend than an assassin having just encountered yet another near death experience.

The katana had certainly been fun to explain to the driver. When the Weissian woke up, and Brad had convinced him that they could assist one another, they were going to have words about conspicuous weapons. And then, mused Brad, they would have to reassemble the shreds of their teams. There would be no other way to reach the young Taketori if he was correct about the number of telepaths surrounding him twenty four hours a day.

It would be a challenge, to say the least. By this point, getting all of them together in one city would be an undertaking. Bringing them all into one room without blood flying would take a miracle. The taxi drove up outside the hotel and Brad smooth-talked a busboy into helping him with his 'friend' before dumping Fujimiya on the couch. Things were foggy enough that he didn't too much care whether the other man lived. Not enough to risk a hospital anyway. With a groan he sat in a relatively comfortable armchair, grabbed the nearest vapid magazine, and settled down to wait.