Prüfung
earth, after rain

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by laila

Part 6 – Fehler: A single step

Dark beasts, by their very nature, stuck to the shadows. By day they blended in, faceless and blameless and lost to the crowds; it was only in darkness that they shed their everyday skins and let themselves run wild…

Of course, a guy could say exactly the same things about Weiss. Florists were supposed to be harmless, weren't they?

9:40 PM. Maybe cities never slept, but with the shops shuttered and the streets grown dark and cold, even Tokyo could manage to ease off a bit. Youji – cold, tense, watchful – looked up and into the leftover light of the city and saw nothing but the waning moon snared by strips of floating cloud. Sighing and shaking his head (there were never any stars) he ran one gloved hand along the sleeve of his coat. Yup, definitely Autumn again. I, he thought, and even the thought felt tired and stale, am getting too old for this.

"Why," he muttered, "can't targets ever meet at lunchtime like normal human beings…"
Ken hadn't been supposed to overhear, but he must have done. He turned, gave Youji a funny look. "Because they're all werewolves. Are we doing this or what?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He simply turned away, pushing between two overgrown bushes and scrambling away down an embankment, down to where Yaeko Nishida almost certainly wasn't waiting for anyone at all. Youji shivered and followed, only to stop short at the top of the rise. Well, he thought, that doesn't look promising.

It was a construction site. A dramatist's dream of bare concrete, naked girders and torn plastic billowing in the slight night breeze, snared in a tangle of scaffolding in the middle of a bare and rutted square of earth. A smaller building, almost complete, crouched alongside the half-finished main block. It had been almost complete for several months, and already it was falling back into ruin, a few weeds sprouting about its sides and winding cautious tendrils of green up its bare walls. There were no cranes, no diggers or cement mixers – just piles of damaged bricks and split bags of mortar, and a dilapidated and weather-beaten pre-fabricated cabin that might once have served as the site office and now was nothing at all.

Even the warning signs were the worse for wear, their cautions half-lost beneath a tangle of graffiti, blotted out by flyers for club nights and fire sales. Youji ignored them just as completely as whatever kid had cut the hole in the cyclone fence had done, slipping through the gap in the wire and cursing as his coat snagged on one of the cut ends.

No, Nishida wasn't going to be anywhere near this place. Nobody would prime such an obvious trap with live bait.

"Damn," Ken said to nobody in particular. "This really looks like a set-up…"

Thank you for that, Ken, but I don't think the rest of us had missed that bit. The last thing Nishida was going to trade that old laboratory for was another waterfront deathtrap— Youji didn't say anything. Annoying though Ken's tendency to state out loud things everyone else was already aware of was, the kid was probably just tense. Hell, they were all tense. Better to focus on the fact of the trap and thank whatever God might still be inclined to look on him kindly that whoever was behind tonight's little diversion, at least it wasn't anybody he'd wanted to trust. Not this time.

(The bitch is dead.)

"Come on," Ken was whispering. "What is this, a movie? Why can't she meet the guy in a bar?"
Youji raised his eyes heavenward, resisted the urge to sigh. Okay, Hidaka, your slack stops there. "Try a cemetery. She'd need a medium, Ken, or have you forgotten?"
"Yeah, but say she didn't—"
"Ken-kun," Omi said quietly. "Please."

Someone's still out there. Watch your back.

Presume we're being followed. Presume this is about to get very bad very fast. Stood with Aya by the sagging pre-fab, Youji watched as Omi peered cautiously in through the verdigrised windows, crossbow poised. Looking for the shadow that fell where no shadow should have done, for the damp and sickening shine of eyes open in the darkness; listening for the subtle shift that told a tale of another person, keeping as still and as silent as they could.

"Christ!"

Youji flinched. Ken. Ken had tried the door.

Recoiling, one hand to his mouth, Ken stood frozen with one hand on the door handle, his eyes wide and gaze fixed on something lying just inside the decaying shack. Youji hurried over, he followed Ken's gaze: he caught his breath, raised his eyebrows, pulled a face. Quick and anxious, Omi traded glances with Aya. At least, Youji thought, there was no blood…

It had been a man, a man in a worn jeans and a heavy jacket, disheveled but clean-shaven and not much older than Youji was. He lay on his front on the mottled floor, head canted unnaturally to one side and bruises circling his throat. His eyes were wide and milky, his lips parted: he looked confused. It had been fast, at least. Youji stared at him; he forced himself to look away. To look at the battered rucksack stood in the shadows in one corner of the cabin and the tarpaulin tacked carefully up over one window, the thin futon with its neatly-folded pile of moldering blankets, the stack of newspapers and empty bottles. The dead man had called this place home, and he'd died for the presumption.

Omi crept cautiously into the cabin to crouch by the dead man's side and went through the motions of checking for a pulse they all knew he would never find, drawing off one glove and pressing his fingers to the vagrant's cooling throat. He shook his head.

"An hour," he said softly. "Maybe two. No more."
You didn't argue with Omi when it came to things like that. "Any chance," Youji said, because someone had to and Ken was too busy looking quietly freaked to contribute, "whoever did this has already cleared out?"
"Unlikely," Aya said. And, "Keep your eyes open."

Nobody needed to be told that, either.

"Told you they'd go for it."

She didn't belong there. Stood in the shadow of a pillar just inside the shell of the main building's top floor, the girl would have looked less out of place in a nightclub than roaming Rinkai-cho waiting for trouble to find her. Dressed in red and black, in a cropped jacket and a silly, fussy little skirt, she looked like a dancer in a pop video or (more likely) a character in one of those violent cartoons they watched over here: she simply didn't look right. As if this was all a joke, a game… Nobody had thought to ask if he minded and he was professional enough to know to keep his mouth shut but Christ, if he had to work with a kid at all, what was wrong with a crop-haired nineteen-year-old with an SA80?

A smile on her face, her dark curls caught and tumbled by the night breeze, Komachi Segawa was carefree as a child on a climbing frame. The girl was playing.

Well. High time she stopped. "They did not," Winters said; Komachi blinked her too-pale, too-bright eyes and bristled, as if he had spoken simply to annoy her. Why've you always got to rain on the parade, Winters? "They are all too wary. Besides even if they were not warned when they arrived, they certainly will be watching now. I told you that you were only to silence him."
"The tramp?" The girl laughed. It wasn't a schoolgirl's giggle. "Come on. The President said no witnesses. And anyway, who's going to miss him?"
"The man would have been no witness. He did not trouble us."
"You think he wouldn't have heard something?" Komachi retorted, catching at her curls and pulling them back into a high ponytail. "I've saved us the time. And who cares if they're on their guard, it's more fun this way."

Fun. Yes, this was a damned game all right.

Oh, but she was trouble, was this one. More trouble than she was worth. Pretty, sweet-faced, primly respectable little Komachi Segawa, the psychopath next door. If it hadn't been this it would only have been something else, sooner or later – infanticide maybe, or one of those Angel of Death nurses. The cops and the services sure as Hell wouldn't have touched her. How had Yamanouchi gotten hold of her, anyway? God only knew where you went to find girls like this, mad little bitches who didn't belong anywhere except for prison or the morgue…

Winters narrowed his eyes, gazed down across the muddy yard at the figures clustered about the dilapidated cabin: four of them, all male, all – even from here he knew it for sure – all of them kids, all well on the wrong side of twenty-five. The enemy, already watchful, already half-fearful and on their guard, moving with a desperate, hopeless stealth and who'd send these four to do a man's job? The smallest, little more than a boy, slipped back through the door and closed it silently behind him; the rangy blonde from Andou's laboratory looked around and up, in entirely the wrong direction, then falling into step behind the kid. Moving out.

(They didn't look right there, either.)

"Hey, grandpa? Cat got your tongue?"
He didn't reply. Winters simply keyed the comm. he wore in one ear and muttered, "And we're go."
"Sir," Komachi said, "yes sir."

And she grinned, and swung herself onto the web of scaffolding that cocooned the building, and vanished.

But Ken saw other things, too. He noticed movement, noticed shadows falling where no shade should have been. He saw patterns, saw the breaks in them: you put up with the dumb shit he said – or at least you did if you had any sense – because sure, nine times out of ten he wasn't telling you anything you hadn't picked up on, but what happened when he was? Annoying though wide-eyed comments about empty rooms being, in fact, empty were, Ken didn't only state the obvious. He stopped short, he tensed so suddenly that Youji almost walked into him, and very nearly ended up with a face full of metal for his pains.

"Christ dammit Youji!"

Ken hadn't shouted, but he'd wanted to. The boy shoved him away, took an angry pace backward, raised his head. He was thinking about something else. Ken was staring, to Youji's eyes, in entirely the wrong direction and that (oh, crap) that meant they'd all missed something. That—

"Ken? What's the holdup?"
"Ssh," Ken hissed. "Shut up!"

—that meant Ken had seen something, and that could only mean trouble.

The plastic, Youji decided, was a bad joke. Wind-plump, billowing like the torn sails of a ghost ship, if Ken figured he'd caught something under all that Christ alone knew what it was. There's nothing there, Ken, he wanted to say – just the stark, truncated form of the building trapped in its web of scaffolding, and the ragged sheets of plastic flapping listlessly in the breeze. Nothing out of place, nothing even remotely sinister, this side of the set dressing but since when had Ken been so jumpy that set dressing alone would put the wind up him?

There had to be something there, someone. Someone, Youji knew, had broken into this site and killed the tramp in the cabin, someone who knew they were coming and didn't want any witnesses to… to what? Someone who was still out there somewhere – and all he could see was shadows and the leftover light of the city, all he could hear was the swish of cars on the expressway and the snap and rustle of the plastic. No movement. No flickering shadows, no crunch of footsteps on gravel. Nothing…

But a dead man lay on his back in a rotting cabin, and Ken stared fixedly at nothing at all, muscles tensed, barely daring to breathe. You couldn't tell Ken he hadn't seen anything, pretend this wasn't the set-up it so obviously was, but did that mean the trap had to spring now?

"Shit," Ken muttered, and turned to run.

Yeah, that really had been too optimistic by half. Youji – now just wait a goddamned minute, kid! – reached out to catch Ken by the shoulder, to stop him short and demand he tell him what he'd seen: his fingers closed briefly on the worn leather of Ken's jacket, and then on nothing at all as the boy pushed past him, pulled away.

"Ken-kun?" Omi, eyes wide, peered past Aya in simple confusion. "Are you all ri…"
Ken turned briefly, locking eyes with Omi over one shoulder. "Company!"

And he was gone, scrambling up and over a pile of debris and down the other side in a sharp, harsh skitter of sliding gravel, feet scraping slightly as he lost his footing, then breaking back into a run—

"Well," Youji said in his normal voice, because why bother whispering now? "that answers that question. Now what, O genius leader?"
Split up, that much was obvious (thanks for everything, Hidaka), but define that, if you please. Omi might have sighed; he certainly looked like he wanted to. Well, building a Ken Is A Dumbass Exemption Clause into every single plan he came up with had to be getting old. "Someone's got to go after him," Omi said. "I mean, we have no idea how many people are out there, do we?"
And knowing Ken he'd run into at least half of them. "True," Youji said. "You want me to…"
"No, Youji-kun," Omi said. "I think I'd better go."
Well, he shouldn't have wanted to in the first place. "Suit yourself. Watch your back, hey, kid?"

Omi nodded, of course he would; he gave Youji a small smile and good luck returning that one. Youji gave it his best shot anyway, but the smile felt tight and strange on his face. Good job this wasn't a proper mission, or it'd already be a total fuckup… he stood and watched as Omi walked away, clambering carefully up and over the pile of debris and vanishing down the other side.

And then there were two. Youji pushed back his sleeve, resting one hand atop his watch. Heads up, Kudou: right now you're the closest thing to an early-warning system we've got… He turned to Aya, wondering what the Hell he was supposed to say to him— not that it mattered when Aya was too busy staring at the smaller of the buildings, his jaw set and his eyes burning. The guy wasn't listening anyway.

For a moment Youji couldn't work out what Aya thought he was looking at either – and, when all of a sudden he could, he could hardly have accounted it any real blessing. A nothing of a movement as something in the darkness gave a twitch and then he was staring straight at a dead man.

(Well, you were wondering what else could possibly go wrong.)

Red hair. Green coat. A figure framed in a second-storey window with one hand raised as if in a friendly salute: maybe he couldn't have seen the grin but Youji knew full well it must have been right in place. Christ! He'd have known that bastard a mile off! You're dead, he thought— so why wasn't it any kind of surprise to find Schwarz mixed up in all this? This entire pointless charade had their fingerprints all over it. Youji's fingers tautened about his watch, and he wished he were drawing his wire about the maniac's throat again and pulling, pulling. Damn, and it was only dumb luck had stopped him finishing the job last time… You're dead, Schuldig, he thought: then, wearily, but that didn't stop us either.

"Oh, great," Youji muttered. "Was that…"
"Schwarz," Aya spat, as if that said it all. Pity he was right.
"Aya," Youji said, "you do realize he wanted you seeing that?"
Aya shot him an impatient look. "That's not important."

Better hope you're right there, Aya. The redhead slipped away, too, drawing his sword and stealing soft as shadow toward the building, all his attention on the figure in the window – as if he feared that, should he look away for even a moment, Schuldig would slip back into the darkness and lose himself there, vanish as suddenly as he had appeared. I haven't finished with you, Schwarz. Don't you even think of running…

Like Schuldig would do a dumb-ass thing like that. Why flee from your own trap?

"Aya!"

He's got us right where he wants us, Fujimiya. You do know that, right?

Maybe that wasn't important either. If Schwarz had set the bait, Aya would swallow it gladly. Anything for the chance to avenge his family, his sister, and who cared that the girl was safe and whole and living in Nerima? Schwarz had tried to hurt her, to use her for their own ends: the bit where they'd failed, to Aya, was just another one of those unimportant little details. They'd wanted to, that was all that mattered. Duty and common sense could go hang.

His teammates, too. Youji sighed and buried his face in his palm, muttering darkly to himself – this bloody mission! Do I even want to know what else is going to go wrong? – and then he pulled himself together and got over it. Sorry, Aya, we're a team. I got your back, buddy, whether you like it or not.

It was too dark. Down in the shadow of the building, even the leftover light of the city couldn't gain much purchase on the gloom. Skidding to a stop on a bare patch of ground that, in the fantasies of whoever designed this half-finished wreck, had probably been intended to be a forecourt, Omi glanced about himself, squinting into the darkness: nothing. Even to his trained eyes, there was nothing to see but the carcass of the building in its prison of scaffolding and flapping polythene and, more distant, the battered old hut, with the door Ken hadn't quite managed to close behind him swinging back and forth, back and forth in the quickening wind. Too quiet – he hated himself even for thinking it – but that didn't get him any closer to knowing how, when the silence finally broke, it would happen.

It was too dark, and Ken moved too quickly. Ken couldn't have had more than two or three seconds on him, but that had been more than enough time for his friend to lose himself completely. Scrambling over the pile of debris, Omi had put a sight on him for a second or two: by the time Omi's sneakers had touched the dirt on the other side of the heap, Ken had rounded a corner or slipped into a doorway – done something, at any rate – and vanished.

The world held its breath. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen soon.

So it was a game, then? Omi nodded. All right then, there were worse things in the world than an enemy who figured he had the freedom to play. That spoke of overconfidence, and the overconfident get sloppy. Yes, Omi figured he could live with a games-player very well indeed. He drew a sedative-tipped dart from the case inside his jacket and, holding it poised between two slender fingers, started to walk toward the shell of the building, past a half-finished covered entryway. All right, then. A game it is…

And someone called Aya's name. Youji.

Aya. Omi stopped short, head snapping up: no, he counseled himself, Youji hadn't (had he?) sounded afraid. No, that was anger. Youji-kun's got this, he told himself. Aya… probably he just saw something and thought he had to deal with it alone. Youji-kun's got this. And you? You need to find Ken, before someone else can find him first.

Omi hadn't considered that anyone might be after him. Distracted by Youji's cry, he almost missed the soft skitter behind him. Someone's there.

He didn't think about it. He pivoted, the dart flying from his fingers toward the figure behind him—

Watched, wide-eyed, as they caught it in one black-gloved hand.

"You?"

It was a girl. A girl in black and red, with her tumbled black curls pulled back in a high ponytail and a confident, almost cocky smile on her pretty, pallid face, a smile far too calculated for a girl barely older than he was. Her eyes – pale, pale blue, but too much so – practically sparkled with mirth. So that's Player One…

It was her all right. The same girl who had reminded him of Ouka, the girl who'd cross-examined him over a bouquet of carnations (hey, Omi, why do we never meet anyone normal?) but whatever resemblance Omi had seen, or fancied he had, to his dead sister it was nothing but a memory now. She was trouble. She was a target. She was – he knew it without having to ask – this girl was with Verwandlung.

"Me," she said. "So, Mr. Shopkeeper. Is this what you'd call stock taking, then?" And, still smiling, she cast the dart to the ground.
"This isn't a game." Omi reached for another dart. "You're protecting Nishida, aren't you?"
The girl's smile didn't so much as waver. "What a nasty mind you've got," she said airily. "Perhaps I was just passing through."
"Where is she?"
"Not here," the girl said. "But then you'd guessed that already. Hadn't you?"

And now you see it – sudden and neat as a conjuring trick, there was a knife in the girl's hand. A black-handled stiletto switchblade, the point snapping into place with an audible click. For a moment she simply held it to the light as if to show it to him, smiling – then she sprang, running at him with a banshee scream. She moved too soon. The second dart whistled just shy of one shoulder and a miss, in this game, was as good as a mile: Omi snatched for another, but before he could find his range the girl was upon him and it was all he could do to bring the thing up fast enough to parry the stiletto's first, wild thrust.

She was fast. Very fast. She moved like a dancer and she struck like a wildcat: dammit, who taught this girl to move? She was good, very good – so much for overconfident! – and too damned close for him to find the advantage! Omi parried, launched a clumsy offensive, gripping the dart like a knife: the girl drew back, she laughed in his face, the stiletto describing a parabola though the air as she struck again, fast and deadly as any scorpion. She was trying to kill him—! Heaven only knew how but Omi blocked it, catching the blade on the point of the dart.

"You're good!"

Omi said nothing. He simply came for her again, wild and desperate: she darted back, the point of the dart catching her across one shoulder. The girl flinched, she reached up to wipe at the blood – she still smiled. Why the Hell was the woman smiling?! Omi stared wildly at her, feeling something inside him give a sick twist. She was enjoying this.

"I like you!" The girl laughed. "And there I was thinking you'd be a letdown!"
It shouldn't have stung. It shouldn't have mattered what a girl like this thought of him. "You shouldn't!" Omi cried – he gasped as the girl made another series of quick, darting lunges with the knife, searching for an opening. Desperately parrying, hissing in shock and sudden agony as the stiletto laid open the flesh of his left arm, Omi jumped back and clear, setting his teeth against the pain. No. Later. You can think about that later. "We haven't even begun!"

—no, he'd definitely seen someone. They just hadn't gone inside, that was all, or hadn't stayed there. One or the other.

It wasn't until he actually reached the skeleton of the main building that Ken began to have second thoughts, and even that was mainly because the place looked about as welcoming as a parking garage, and would have been a deathtrap even without the dark beasts. Hesitating by a hole wide enough for a pair of double doors – now this was the kind of place you found a body – he peered into the concrete shell and wondered if he could get away with passing on this one. Pools of burnished, leftover light spilled from the empty window frames, puddles of filthy water glistened on the rutted concrete floor: all he was thinking was oh, come on. How dumb did these guys think he was?

Like he'd needed any more confirmation Nishida was nowhere near this place. Even a woman who'd happily hung out in Andou's excuse for a laboratory for – well, for however long she'd been in there would have drawn the line at a dump like this.

Someone was, though.

Well, not like it's gonna get any nicer in there. Glancing quickly about himself (damn but it was quiet out there, so much so he could almost imagine he'd imagined seeing anything at all), Ken slipped through the gaping entryway and into nothing at all. Nothing but a echoing, cavernous space stinking of damp and rot. His footsteps echoed off the naked walls; dirty water seeped into his shoes and spattered the cuffs of his jeans.

Someone'd had ambitions for this place, this vast, empty, pointless nothing, haunted by shadows and falling to decay. They were there in the gaping, almost floor-length cavities opening out on the muddy yards, crying out for sheets of plate glass and something, anything to face onto; there in the sweep of shallow steps leading up to a second level, to a damp plaster wall speckled with mold, a pair of grim black portals opening onto nothing at all. They were there in the corridors leading off into perfect darkness, into the bowels of this crumbling wreck of a building…

Which was all very well and creepy, but it wasn't simply the atmosphere that was working on him.

(Just tell me one thing. Who's hunting who?)

He wasn't alone in here. Ken knew that as surely as he knew that even to move was to betray himself. The silence was too heavy, the shadows too thick and he, Christ damn it, couldn't see for looking! He knew it, though. He could feel the weight of a stranger's eyes; could sense, in the very deliberateness of the silence, someone else's waiting presence.

Yeah, I get it. The hunter hunted, with you. What absolute bullshit! Ken kept moving, headed for the steps because he had to go somewhere, and all hugging the shadows would do was prolong the game he was already tired of playing. Screw the mind games, let's just get this over with and get out of here— so he made for the stairs, walking that one bit too fast. Well, you know what they say about moving targets. Just keep moving and keep your eyes open, and hope like Hell whoever's out there hasn't heard it too.

And nothing happened. Ken stopped. He turned, gazing back into the gloom, hands hanging loose by his sides. "All right," he said, because he had to say something. "I'm waiting—"

A single shot.

Ken dropped. He dived for the floor as soon as he saw the muzzle flash, dropping and rolling as the bullet whipped harmlessly overhead and buried itself in one of the walls. Too high, fuck it! Too high to be anything but a warning shot. Fuck, we are playing! His ears ringing, damp seeping into his clothes, Ken mentally ran through a litany of obscenity, locker-room curses and soldier's slang, all meaning nothing but God I've been dumb. A gun. Of course the bastard had a fucking gun, why hadn't he realized that?! Cover, he was thinking frantically, where the Hell's the goddamn cover, Christ but Youji's gonna have a field day with this one!

He scrambled up, because it beat lying there and letting the bastard pick him off. He ran for the shadows – another shot; Ken ducked, he spat a curse, he ran for it; had that gone wide or had he just gotten lucky? – pressing himself back against the wall and baring the claws on his bugnuks for all the good it would fucking do him. Couldn't even see the bastard! and if he'd gotten his angles wrong the guy could probably pick him off where he stood… now what the fuck was he supposed to do!?

Should have thought about that before, Hidaka. Bit late to start now!

"Ken-kun!"

Omi's head snapped up, his eyes wide and horrified; the girl was all but forgotten as he turned to stare frantically at the building's half-finished shell, the breath catching in his throat. Oh, no… Ken didn't carry a gun. What was going on in there? He's all right, he told himself, he's got to be all right: hope, just hope, and a forlorn hope at that. Ken-kun, please stay safe: it wasn't a mission and it wasn't worth dying for and for a single breathless moment nothing could have mattered, nothing at all, more than getting to him.

He might even have broken away, run right after him, but a flash of movement and a sudden shout had him whipping back round, arms raised—

"Go to Hell!"

After you!

He turned and Komachi was upon him. Contorted features, flying hair, a blur of red-and-black and light flashing on a blade: Omi yelped, more in surprise than fear; he threw himself sideways as the stiletto tore down again, lunging for the exposed flesh of his throat. The blade – he screamed – the blade had missed its mark by inches, scoring a shallow gash along the side of his throat, scything through fabric and flesh to lay open one shoulder. Later. Carried forward by her own momentum, the girl stumbled. She lost her footing, half-collapsing against his chest with a cry of alarm and Omi, giddy with shock and drunk on his own adrenalin, drove one elbow hard into her diaphragm.

The breath forced from her, Komachi reeled backward, arms cradled across her chest; she caught her heel on a pothole and then she was falling. She recovered well, turning the fall into a clumsy backward roll and scrambling back up, the knife still gripped tight in one gloved hand. Her bangs falling into her face, her eyes burning, she grimaced as she straightened, one hand pressed protectively to her aching ribs. The smile was gone.

She looked furious, and he was glad of it. No distractions, no more games. Sorry, Ken-kun, but you're on your own…

"Lucky little bastard!"
Omi, his bloodied fingers held tight to the torn flesh of his neck, met her eyes; he reached for another dart. "We'll see."

Of course Aya didn't give a damn if Youji was backing him up or not; too bad Youji didn't give a damn about that. An Aya letting his heart rule his head was a loose cannon in every sense of the word and every bit as liable to blow up in your face as he was in anybody else's and while that still might not, to borrow a phrase, have frightened a guy like Schuldig, it sure scared the Hell out of Youji. An angry Aya was not an Aya at his best, and if he was going to tangle with Schwarz he was going to have to be better even than that…

So Youji followed him. He shadowed the redhead to the second, smaller building – past piles of debris not worth the time to salvage or to steal, past propped-up rolls of filthy fiberglass, a skip filled near to overflowing with refuse, a sagging sawhorse with one leg sheared clean away – pushing open the double doors, and stepping inside.

A few months back, or however long ago it had been before the site was abandoned, the building must have been nearly ready for use. Now the carpet tiles that covered the entrance hall were lifting at the edges and the white-painted walls were mottled with the first bloom of encroaching mold while bundles of wires, no doubt intended for light fittings, sprouted from the ceilings like clumps of matted hair. If Schwarz were really hanging out in a place like this (and damn the evidence of his own lying eyes, Youji would have been happier to know there was nothing there and he should probably talk to a neurologist) it sure wouldn't be to soak in the ambiance.

"Aya," Youji murmured to Aya's turned back, "you sure you wanna go through with this?"
"You don't have to come," was all Aya said: well, what do you know, he's deigned to answer. Could be worse, Youji told himself, at least he remembers you're there.

Not that he bothered to look back. Aya crossed the lobby in a few long strides, pushing open a door and slipping into a long, dark corridor smelling of stale air and damp plaster and, with Youji sticking close as a shadow, from there into an echoing stairwell illuminated by a series of smeared windows. Youji. The door to the hallway swung silently to behind them as they climbed, their slow, deliberate footsteps, for all their caution, seeming to sound perilously loud. Damn it all, it's still too quiet!

So much for surprise, but Schwarz had to have known they were coming even before they did. The best Youji dared hope for was not to be blindsided himself. You've walked into a trap, Kudou. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to walk out again…

(And if we're very, very lucky, we all will – but really now, how likely is that?)

Second floor and they might as well start there as anywhere. Aya cautiously pushed open the stairwell door; Youji held his breath, waiting for any telltale squeaks or creaks but the door kept their secret, swinging open silently as he could have wished. Stealing after Aya into the gloom of the hallway – carpet here, too; that was good, for all it was peeling and reeked of mold – Youji followed his teammate as he, sure-footed and determined, slipped quiet as a ghost down the corridor and stopped short by an invitingly open door, katana poised.

Youji glanced over at Aya, raised his eyebrows. You reckon we should knock?

Aya simply scowled. Schwarz.

Schwarz. There it is: the bait, the jaws of the trap, poised and ready to spring. You're dead, Youji thought again: too bad nobody'd thought to tell Crawford that. The tall American, arms folded, stood in a pool of light in the center of the empty room, silhouetted against the grimy full-length windows; Schuldig lolled against the rear wall, head tipped back, and when he met Youji's eyes he grinned. Schwarz were waiting and they were game.

"I did think," the foreigner said, "we would be meeting again."

Still tall. Still blonde and pale and sardonic, with eyes as cold and hard as chips of ice, still dressed, from head to foot, in a bodyguard's basic black. David Winters, his smoking pistol held firm in both outstretched hands, padded out into the center of the room. Eyes narrowed, he regarded Ken down the barrel of his gun with the detached, assessing air of a scientist – or of a professional soldier. Every inch the hunter and that, Hidaka, makes you…

Okay, smartass, you made your point.

"That's nice," Ken said. He straightened, stepped from the shadows: why pretend he had anywhere to hide? "You miss me or something?"
"Not fully." Winters's lips twisted at the corners, as if he were trying to smile; his eyes stayed cold. "But you must realize that you are an unusual child."

An unusual what? Ken, coiled-spring tense and poised to strike, met head-on the challenge of Winters's stare; he took a single slow step to the side, and then another and realized, with a sudden onrush of something that felt very like relief, that he was angry. Who are you calling a child, buddy? It would have been nice to kid himself that was a relic of Winters's wonky Japanese. Christ, what kind of a cold hard bastard was he dealing with now? This guy (keep moving, for God's sake keep moving, a moving target's harder to hit) this guy was before he was born.

But if all the foreigner saw when he looked at him was a skinny, narrow-shouldered kid playing grown-up games he didn't quite understand – that was something, wasn't it, he could work with?

"Shut up," Ken said.
Winters quirked a brow. "Shut up?" he said. "You're not much of a one for talking, correct?"
"Fuck talking!"

No choice. I don't have time for this!

It wasn't a plan. There was no time for anything as reasoned as that. Ken simply sprang for the man, swift and silent, suddenly all lethal direction as the claws of his bugnuks snapped back into place. Get the gun, he was thinking: to Hell with better ideas! Just get the goddamned gun—

And Winters narrowed his eyes; he fired. He fired too soon. Ken dropped, lowering his head – the crack of the shot, the bullet singing over one shoulder and ricocheted off the wall, spinning off into nothing at all – barreling into Winters's midsection, knocking the gun from his hands, knocking the man from his feet. Winters fell, Ken on top of him, landing heavily in a puddle and kicking up a foul-smelling spray of still water and mud as the gun clattered to the ground and skittered off to get lost in the shadows.

Winters spat something in English, something which had the shape and weight of a curse: if the meaning was lost on Ken, the right to the jaw wasn't. He followed it up with a knee to the solar plexus and, the breath knocked from his body, pain bursting across his ribs, Ken doubled over, falling backward. He landed heavily on his back, blinking back stars, struggling to draw air into his lungs as Winters scrambled to his feet, eyes darting this way and that as he cast about himself for his missing gun. Ken raised his head just in time to see Winters aim a hard, brutal kick at his ribs and, with a yelp of surprise, he rolled away and scrambled back to his feet, wiping at his mouth, spitting.

He looked back up and Winters was watching him. And the man smiled, and said something in English, and came for him again.

"Son of a bitch!"

Winners strike first. Winters ducked away as Ken threw himself forward, swiping wildly at him with the bugnuks, the claws catching him a glancing blow across the chest: a hiss of indrawn breath through clenched teeth told a tale of hard-repressed pain. Got you—but, recovering well (shit, shit, that could have gone better!) the man surged forward again, aiming a forceful kick for the boy's legs: Ken sprang back, dodging away; he barely had time to find his feet before Winters was aiming another blow for head or neck or chest and he ducked, blocking the blow on one forearm and aiming a clumsy kick at the man's shins—

And Winters kicked him, hard: white flared behind his eyes as pain budded and bloomed in one knee and Ken heard himself screaming, felt himself fall. Fuck. Fuck. Tears sprang to his eyes; he blinked them back, dragging himself up onto his elbows, lashing out blindly with one hand as Winters drew closer. Stay back. Stay back, you sonofabitch – Jesus fuck this man was good! Better than good: he forced his feet back under him, another bolt of agony shooting up his injured leg as he staggered against the wall. Couldn't take many more like that and walk away from this one!

Needed an opening. Needed out of here. You're not going to win this fight, Hidaka: best you can hope for is to walk away. So move it, you stupid bastard. Move…

Too little too late, God damn it! Shouldn't have tangled with this bastard. Should never have been here at all and what the fuck did knowing that help? Footsteps echoed in the corridor, the sound of running feet: Ken turned just in time to see the newcomer launch themselves down the stairs toward him, shrieking fit to wake the dead. Scarred and pale as bone, their single eye bright with mania. Farfarello. Schwarz.

"What the Hell—!"

He didn't look phased. Say what you would about Crawford, Aya had to give him that much at least. The three-foot blade, the look of furious direction on Aya's pale face… all of it, to Crawford, was just so much eyewash. The serene, confident little smile didn't leave his lips as Aya strode toward him: the American didn't so much as blink as the sword plunged toward him, as the redhead struck—

As Schuldig caught the flat of the blade between both hands.

"Nice try, though!"

Schuldig's grin was mocking, it was maddening, and yet for a moment Aya could do nothing but stare. Already off-balance, already thrown – already (since when did you get so weak?) guiltily thinking better of the whole thing. Where had Schuldig come from, who taught that bastard to move? Crawford simply stood and watched, smile screwed tightly into place, meeting Aya's startled eyes over Schuldig's forest-green shoulder. Like he'd seen it all before…

Only a little bit of the future, he'd told Aya once, but a little was more than enough.

"This," Youji said from somewhere behind him, "is going well."
Ah, wit. Crawford's eyes flickered over to Youji for a moment, then back. "I won't say what a surprise," he said coolly: why shouldn't he smile? He had Weiss exactly where he wanted them and they all knew that, too. "And there I was wondering this might be a shade too obvious for you."
Like he didn't know! "Don't underestimate me," Aya growled. "We've got our reasons—"
"Sure," Schuldig said. "Sure you have. But that's not why you're here. Is it?"

And, letting go of the sword, he aimed a kick at Aya's midsection, darting away as he fell back then moving forward again, landing two three four hard blows to Aya's head and shoulders before the young man had a chance to react. Aya staggered, blinking – yes, this is going well – riding with the pain as Schuldig sprang clear, easily evading the katana's next clumsy swing.

"Aya!"

Youji – Christ, that dumb kid! – Youji simply sounded angry. Instinct had him going for the wire, yanking a cobweb-fine skein from his wristwatch and moving for Schuldig as Aya ducked clear. This is gonna get messy: Crawford stepped up to the plate, undoing his collar button and loosening his immaculately-knotted tie before surging forward and snatching for Youji's wrist. The blonde spat a curse, twisted in his grasp, aimed a savage kick at Crawford's midsection – and then Schuldig was on him again and Youji could have been safe back home for all it mattered. Schuldig smiled at him and Aya moved, but when the sword scythed down the German wasn't even there.

"Damn you," Aya hissed. "Get back here!"
"I don't think so," said Schuldig, and laughed.

(Focus. He's angry, already too angry to think. There's Schuldig, a dead man sprung up, and it's up to him to see the bastard's put down again for good – but she's safe now, they both are: he has no power over you. Focus, something whispers to him in a voice that sounds a lot like Shion's. This isn't the way, Ran. Focus…

(But this man hurt his sister, and Sakura, too: Aya wasn't listening. You think this is a joke, you bastard?)

"Hey," Schuldig said airily, "is it my fault you're amusing?"
Don't rise to it. That's exactly what he's counting on. Aya started, grip tightening about the hilt of his katana—no. Don't rise to it. "Amusing?"
"Amusing," Schuldig repeated. "Take this whole business – whoops, careful where you wave that thing! – all that trouble over your dear sister." Don't rise to it: damn it, Aya thought, he's dancing! Two steps forward then swaying back, hands raised, as Aya came at him again, Schuldig might have been dancing with him as fighting for his life. God almighty, he thinks this is fun? "Nothing to say, Aya? Don't tell me you've forgotten about it already."
Don't rise to it. "Leave her out of this, Schuldig!"
"Oh, but I don't want to. Such a sweet little thing. And so pretty, too. It was a shame to lose her so quickly. Crawford had such high hopes for her…"
"Damn you!"

(No. No. She's safe now. This has nothing to do with her!)

It didn't matter.

Of course Schuldig had seen it coming. Aya swung for him, slashing violently down with the sword; Schuldig jumped nimbly clear and, before Aya could recover, kicked savagely at his bent knee.

Aya fell. Landed face-down in an awkward sprawl, the breath knocked from his lungs, his entire body jarred by the sudden impact. The katana slipped from his grasp, clattered to the floor to lie by his side: instinctively he groped for it, fingers brushing briefly against the hilt before Schuldig brought his heel down on the back of Aya's outstretched hand, trapping it against the floor while he kicked the sword from his reach. Aya winced, bit back a gasp of pain, tried to tug his hand free, and Schuldig simply laughed, and pressed his foot down harder.

"Think about it," he murmured, crouching down to look Aya in the face. "Don't you think she's too old for pigtails? She's not a little girl any more, Aya. But then you'd be the last one to notice that now, wouldn't you."
"Bastard," Aya spat – and all he was thinking was, what does he mean? Not a little… what the Hell's he trying to imply?
Schuldig smiled indulgently. "Oh, you're a bright guy. I'm sure you can work it out—"

A startled cry. The sound of splintering wood.

Schuldig frowned, and pushed himself upward. Aya raised his head. What the Hell…?

Crawford stood by the window, gazing incuriously over one shoulder through the empty frame of one of the full-length windows, the night wind tugging at the ends of his hair, the fabric of his shirt. Utterly composed. Feeling the shock on his own face, Aya simply stared at him; at the gaping hole where, five minutes before, there had been a rattling pane of dusty glass. There was no sign of Youji.

"Funny," Crawford said calmly. "I thought cats landed on their feet."

Oh, God. This is bad.

Ken stumbled forward, forcing himself to ignore the pain that, with every other step, shot up his leg. Metal clashed with metal as he caught the end of Farfarello's sai on the bugnuk claws, kicked out wildly at chest or leg or who cared what, driving the madman back – for now. It wasn't enough. It would have to do. Door. Where the fuck was the fucking door!? He scrambled back and away, falling back against the wall as he cast about himself wildly for – or anything, as long as it was an exit.

And Farfarello drew nearer, a humorless grin twisting his full lips: don't panic. Don't panic. Stop thinking about it and move. Move, Goddamn it, just move, you've got to get out of here, got to do it fast. Farfarello alone was bad enough, Winters alone was – but like this? This was defeat, this was – you're going to die, Ken realized with sudden dreadful clarity. (No. No, that can't be…) Hidaka, you are going to die.

No.

"Don't even think it!"

The second blow – cursing, Ken ducked away as the madman's blade sought out his eye – landed just above his head, the point of the sai scraping harsh against the wall as Ken pushed himself away. Hissing in pain, he scrambled out from beneath Farfarello's arm and lunging forward, only for Farfarello to bring his elbow down hard on the back of his neck. Ken stumbled and fell, wrapping his arms about his head: he landed awkwardly on one side, momentarily stunned, caught off-guard by the fact he could feel anything at all. Bastard could have killed you. Holy fuck, he really could have—!

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to collapse forward and wait for the end: he never had done things the easy way. Ken yelped as Farfarello followed him down, rolling away as the sai drove down toward his throat and buried itself harmlessly in the mud by the crook of his shoulder. Shit. Shit. Move!

No time to think about it. Blame it on willpower or sheer-bloody-mindedness: the breath burning in his lungs, his entire body alive with pain, Ken forced himself back to his feet, the entire room seeming to swim about him as he stood – and he's still coming. Holy fuck, the mad bastard was still fucking coming!

"Stay away," Ken said, and it sounded as stupid and panicky and dumb as it always did in the movies. "Stay back!"

Like Farfarello was going to listen to that! Don't panic, don't panic: sure as a nightmare, the madman came for him again and Ken swiped wildly at him with one hand, catching Farfarello across the upper arm and he might not have bothered, damn it! He just kept coming. He swiped the blood away with one pale hand, blinking incuriously at it like it had nothing to do with him, and then he forgot about it. Ken stumbled backward, one arm raised defensively – Christ, just stay back! – as Farfarello prowled towards him, blood coursing down his arm. Oh, God, Ken was thinking. Oh, God, what the Hell do I do now?

Then Winters shot him.

The impact knocked him off his feet. Something slammed into his left shoulder, so sharp and so sudden that for a moment Ken thought Winters must have pushed him over. Too shocked to remember to scream, Ken just about had time to think oh fuck and then he was falling, catching his head a painful blow as his body hit the floor. White flashed behind his eyes, pain bursting in his skull: a split second of exquisite agony, and then nothing but black.

"Don't touch him."

Farfarello got there first, bending to the unconscious boy as if he couldn't quite work out why he should have stopped moving. Winters waved him away with the still-smoking gun – no, you get back – dropping to his knees to press two fingers to the boy's throat: he nodded. Still breathing, at least. Working quickly, Winters stripped the gauntlets from Ken's hands and cast them to the floor, followed by the heavy leather jacket and, after a moment of thought, the boots and absurd orange shirt, then bound his wrists securely behind his back with a pair of plastic handcuffs.

So much for the kid. The weapon was rather more interesting. Picking up one of the gloves, Winters held the thing up to the light, puzzling over the mechanism. Looked like… that would be some kind of pressure pad, wouldn't it? Cautiously he pressed down on it, frowning as, with a soft metal snick, the wicked steel claws slipped free of their housing. Very ingenious: he rubbed absently at his chest, then at his fingers, sticky with his own drying blood. What nasty minds Orientals had. Who on earth would think it was a good idea to arm a teenager with these things?

But that the boy could tell them later. Winters let the glove fall and, getting to his feet, reached for his cellphone.

You couldn't trust an Irishman. Turn your back on the bastards for more than a few seconds… well, God only knew what they'd get up to! The creak of leather, the rustle of fabric on fabric – Winters hadn't even finished dialing the American's number before he turned back to find Farfarello crouched in the dirt at Ken's side, fingers snagged in the unconscious boy's untidy hair as he yanked him bodily to his knees. Absorbed as a child torturing ants, he regarded him for a moment, then placed the point of the sai to Ken's temple. His fingers tensed on the release.

"Stop that! Don't you speak English, you stupid Mick? I said don't touch him!"
And Farfarello looked up, his head canted curiously to one side. "No?" he asked.
"No," Winters said. "No."

And leveled the gun at Farfarello's head.

That the madman understood. Farfarello hissed, dropping Ken to the floor again: the boy pitched bonelessly forward onto his front and lay still.

"And why shouldn't I?" Farfarello asked, sulky as a disappointed child. He gave Winters a flat, hostile glare; he kicked Ken in the ribs – that was childish, too – as if it were somehow all his fault. The boy didn't so much as whimper. "Acts," he hissed. "Chapter twelve, verse twenty-three. And forthwith an angel of the Lord struck him because he had not given the honor to God, and being eaten up by worms he gave up the ghost: there's a precedent."
"Religion," Winters muttered under his breath, shaking his head. Of course. "I'd like to see you try that on the President when you're explaining why we had this one right where we wanted and then you lobotomized him. Don't touch him. We need this boy to talk."

The first dart had merely grazed her: all that was good for was taking the edge off her a bit. The second, though, had caught Komachi square in the thigh – she cursed viciously, yanked the dart from her leg and cast it contemptuously to the ground; and what was that supposed to achieve, kiddo? After that it was only a matter of time…

Still time enough to die. Thirty seconds, maybe forty – the dart hit the ground with a soft ting and Komachi sprang for him again. Omi leapt back, snatching for another dart. His hand snapped out, the dart flew from his fingers and straight toward her. The girl ducked sideways, the dart nicking a tiny triangle of flesh from her ear as it whipped past her cheek: twenty seconds and still she came, barreling straight into him and knocking him from his feet.

Omi hit the ground hard, crying out in shock and in pain as the impact jarred his shoulders, his spine – and still she came, following him down, knocking the air from him as she landed heavily on his chest, pinning him to the floor with one knee pressed hard against his ribs. Omi bit back a curse, he writhed beneath her (ten, no, fifteen seconds: did he have those left?) as, breathing hard, her cheeks flushed with exertion, Komachi scraped the tip of her stiletto slowly across the exposed skin of his throat. She smiled.

"Bye-bye, Mr. Shopkeeper," she crooned – and yelped in surprise as Omi rammed the business end of his crossbow under her chin.

Five. Four. Three. Wait for it—

And the girl slumped over, collapsing bonelessly on top of him, her lashes fluttering. The knife slipping from suddenly-unresponsive fingers Komachi groaned as Omi pushed her off him, falling heavily onto her back with her pale eyes half-open. Man – Omi sprang to his feet, another dart poised, just in case, between forefinger and thumb – that really was way too close. Breathing hard, he watched as Komachi rolled onto her front and, from there, forced herself to her hands and knees, slow and deliberate as a drunkard.

"What…" Even her voice sounded sluggish, her tongue thick in her mouth. "Damn it, what the Hell did you do to me?"
"It's not fatal." Omi tucked the dart back in its case. "You'll be all right, but you've probably got about two minutes before you lose consciousness. You should get somewhere safe."
The girl raised her head, teeth gritted. "You little—"
"You really should leave," Omi said. "You're hurt and we're done here. Just call your friends and go."

He stepped back (three shots, or four: he'd lost count) one hand pressed to the sluggishly-bleeding gash on his neck. Two paces, three – the girl groped clumsily for her knife, clumsily she heaved it at him. Hopelessly wide, it landed harmlessly in the dust some six feet from where Omi was standing, and he sighed. I'm sorry, but you're through, and I don't have time for you right now…

"You should go," Omi said again. "I promise I won't follow you."

And turned back to the building, and ran. Hang in there, Ken-kun. I'm coming!

Well, you seem to still be alive.

There should have been stars. Real or imaginary, logic dictated stars and there weren't any. Just a burnished canopy of off-black, a few threads of floating cloud, and the blank face of a building that could have been half the offices in the city. Opening his eyes – there'd been Crawford and the sudden shock of impact, and then everything had gone suddenly upward – Youji gazed at the sky for a moment or two, trying to work out where he was and why he was still around to do it at all. You just fell out a window, he reminded himself. Surely you should be a bit more dead?

His back ached, and his shoulders; he thought he'd done something to one of his legs. On his back in what looked a lot like a skip, Youji was lying on something soft and foul-smelling that yielded sickeningly beneath him when he tried to sit. Looks like there's your answer as to why you're still breathing. And he wanted a shower, which meant he was most likely going to be fine.

"I'm all right," Youji announced to nobody in particular. "I meant to do that…"

And there, right on cue, was Aya.

Aya, all long violet eyes and cool impassivity, leaning over the edge of the skip like he'd expected nothing less from him. Of course you're in a skip, Youji, and I'd pull you out if you didn't seem so at home there – yeah, thanks for that Fujimiya. Whose brilliant idea was this anyway?

"They left," Aya said tightly.
"Nice to see you, too." Grabbing the edge of the skip Youji pulled himself upright, tugging a chunk of filthy fiberglass from his hair. "Thanks for the concern, I'll treasure it always. I suppose a hand out would be too much to ask for?"

Oh, we're pretending we didn't catch that. Right. You got lucky with the skip, Kudou; bit too much to hope that Aya might suddenly have developed an altruistic streak as well. You're still not his sister, right? Ignoring the throbbing ache in his limbs, the bolt of pain that shot up his back, Youji pulled himself up and over the edge of the skip, half-jumping, half-falling to the ground to land in an awkward semi-sprawl. Whoa. Yeah, definitely did something to his leg. Okay, that was a bad idea. Or another one.

Might as well call the skip the fifth member of Weiss at this point. Snatching for a handhold, Youji pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily back against the skip's cool metal side and giving the thing a companionable pat. Thanks, man. I owe you one…

Wasn't gonna be walking out of here, not under his own steam. "Ow. Dammit. Sorry, buddy," he said, giving Aya a wry, pained smile, "you're gonna have to lend me your arm…"

Wordlessly, Aya stepped to him, slung Youji's arm over his shoulder; gratefully, Youji leaned against him, a little more heavily than he'd have liked, testing his weight on his injured foot. No. No, definitely not. He hissed in pain, features briefly contorting into a grimace. God damn it—! yeah, you're definitely going to be helping me out of here. It was, after all that, the least that Aya could do.

"Thanks."

All he could do now was hope they didn't run into any more trouble between here and the car. What would he do, fall over at them?

Aya's arm about his waist, his fingers digging almost painfully into Youji's side, the pair made their slow, graceless way back across the debris-strewn yards. Somewhere just beyond the wire a car door slammed, the engine coughing into life as it slipped slowly from the curbside to lose itself on the expressway; Youji stumbled onward, head hanging forward, concentrating on nothing but placing one foot in front of the other. Damn it, the last time he felt like this he'd been staring, bleary-eyed, at a 25,000 yen bar bill. Not like he'd had fun tonight but this, at least, was a damn sight easier on the wallet.

"Aya-kun!"

Aya's head snapped up. He tried to let go of Youji's hand. Oh no you don't, Fujimiya…!

Omi lurched forward out of the shadows, face stricken. Blood streaming down his neck, a bundle of heavy, dark material clasped tight to his chest. Youji met the boy's eyes, and the look he caught in them chilled him to the bone. Fighting back a wave of dizziness, he glanced about himself, looking for – for what? He didn't know. All he knew was that look meant trouble. Big, serious trouble: Christ, he thought in sudden, horrible shock, where the Hell is Ken?

"Oh, Aya-kun!"
Savagely, Aya tried to twist his hand free. No, we're still not doing that. "What is it?"
"It's Ken-kun."

And Omi's eyes drifted down, down to the tangle of dark material caught in his arms. Youji followed his gaze. Brown, leather: a jacket, ripped and spattered with grim, dark stains that could only have been blood. Oh, no…

"Ken-kun's gone."

- to be continued -