Schuldig’s eyes flickered open. He felt as weak as a kitten but at least the burning agony in his chest was gone now leaving behind just a dull ache that he could easily live with.
He was angry. How had he been so foolish as to let that blond bastard get close enough to shoot him? Next time they met it would be the blond that got shot. In fact he would die.
He attempted to sit up, half a mind to go looking right now, but found he was too weak to do more than lift his head very slightly.
“Rest, Schuldig. You’ve got time for revenge, but you need to heal first,” Crawford said as he helped the German sit up and moved the pillows so the man would be able stay upright.
Speaking aloud was too much like hard work at the moment so he conversed with thought. *How long?* he wanted to know.
*Four days. But you’ll be on your feet soon,* the oracle replied silently as he held a cup of nutritional drink to the German’s mouth. *Drink, Schu. It will help.*
Schuldig obediently took a sip then more as he discovered just how thirsty he was. *Did I dream Heinrich was here?* He gazed up at Crawford, blue eyes full of concern. *If he was, you took a terrible risk.*
*Yes, it was a risk. But for you I would take any risk, and you know that.*
*Will he keep his mouth shut do you think? If he doesn’t I’ll make scrambled egg of his brain.*
*He’ll stay quiet,* Brad replied as he sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed gently at the younger man’s hair to move it out of his eyes. *And the only thing I want from you is a promise you’ll rest.*
*I can’t do much else right now. I’m as weak as fuck. So yeah, I’ll rest, just not sure how long for.* He smirked up at his lover before becoming serious again. *How good is this new team?*
Brad’s face darkened, anger rising to the surface immediately. *Too fucking good. They tagged two of the Weiss, Balinese and Bombay. Could probably have taken Siberian and Fujimiya down if the kid hadn’t darted the blond.*
*Unlike Weiss to be that careless.* A frown crossed his face. *Makes you wonder why the new kids on the block left Weiss alive though if they had the drop on them.*
*They’ve gotten sloppy. They’re used to being the most dangerous dogs on the block, and suddenly they aren’t anymore.
*As far as the new people go, they aren’t willing to risk their own people, I’d guess. The Weiss would have taken out the blond bastard if they were. I saw most of it, but not enough to figure out the exact details of what went on.* Brad refilled the cup from a can of drink and held it for Schuldig so the German could get more food-- such as it was-- into him.
*What I do know is that the Weiss are fools. They turned my offer down, and because of that they are going to be between the devil and the deep blue sea. Esset is already after them, they just don’t know it yet.*
He sighed, *We’ll be okay without their help, but it’s going to mean running from Esset for a while again. I’d hoped to avoid that but,* he shrugged, *we’ll manage.*
*Ack, of course we will. We can run faster without those stupid Weiss idiots to slow us down too.*
He drank some more of the liquid before letting his head fall back on the pillow, exhausted for now. *I guess I won’t be running very far or very fast just yet. Sorry Brad.*
*Not your fault, Schuldig. I should have seen it and been able to warn you.* He pulled the covers over the younger man. *Get some rest. We’re all right for the time being. Both Esset and these trouble makers are aimed at the Weiss for the moment.*
He smoothed the red hair down and smiled, “Sleep. I’m here and you’re safe.”
Schuldig just about managed a smile before his eyes closed and he slept. His hand had found Crawford’s at some point and he kept hold of it.
Crawford kissed Schuldig’s hand before he pulled his own free. He had work to do, plane flights to arrange, money to move and stocks and bonds to trade.
After one last, lingering glance at his lover he left the room, closing the door quietly on a sleeping and alive Mastermind.
* * * * * * *
Aya hated motorbikes but, as Yohji had chosen to help Omi scan the web in hopes of finding some clue to the group targeting them, he had no choice. It was Ken’s bike or a twenty-five mile hike into Tokyo. He just wished the brunet would slow down a little for the corners so he wasn’t in danger of scraping both knee and ankle on the road every time the bike leaned. By the time they reached the garage he all but threw the spare helmet at Ken.
“Thank you for half an hour of unmitigated hell,” he said through clenched teeth.
Ken couldn’t quite hide the smirk on his face as he caught the helmet, “You’re welcome,” he replied, using the sweetest voice he could manage and still prevent himself from breaking into a gale of laughter at how rattled the red-head looked.
Send the older man to face an army armed with nothing but a katana and he’d face them and win. Put him on the back of a motorcycle doing 70mph and he turned positively green. It was too amusing, but Ken managed not to laugh outright. He didn’t want to risk really pissing the older man off.
Aya’s eyes narrowed at the smirk and the deceptively sweet voice but he was too relieved to be on solid ground again to be really pissed. Muttering ‘oh yeah, very funny’ he strode over to the mechanics to see if his car was ready.
Ken took his own helmet off and looked around before he followed the red-haired man into the shop.
A soon as Ken was inside a maroon motorcycle rolled to a slow stop across the street. The man wearing black leathers and an equally black helmet held the bike upright, motionless, without even putting a foot to the pavement to keep balance. The visor of the helmet was turned to the shop, watching.
Aya was pleased to find his beloved car was ready to go. It meant they could pack more when they left the cabin, which helped as they had little enough to call their own since leaving the Koneko.
He paid the bill and checked the car. All appeared to be in order, the brake line replaced and the rest of the car looking good. He nodded his thanks to Ken and climbed into the car, settling back in the seat and just enjoying having it back.
Ken dropped some coins into the vending machine inside the shop’s customer lobby and punched a button for one of the sports drinks inside. He pulled it out of the machine and turned, screwing the cap off as he looked out of the window.
His eyes fell on the bike across the street. It was a beauty. Polished and well kept from the look of it.
And the guy on it... was sitting motionless and neither of his feet were on the ground. Ken stared, a blizzard of frozen ants racing along his back.
“Aya...”
Aya climbed out of the car and joined him at the window. He froze when he saw the figure on the bike. There was only one way they could know which garage had towed the Porsche.
“Ken, check your bike for tracking devices.” It was way too late for that now but, if they could lose this bastard they might not lead him back to the cabin. He strode over to the Porsche and checked it out thoroughly. What he was looking for was in the wheel arch.
Mentally berating himself for not thinking about it before he pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Come on, Kudoh, pick up.”
The phone rang six times without being answered then it went to voice mail.
“Can’t come to the phone right now. So, babe, you’ll just have to leave a message and I’ll just have to call your lovely self back.”
Aya glared at the phone as if it had just bitten him. Then he left a message. “If you want to reach old age….babe…I suggest you check that heap of scrap you drive for bugs. Get Omi to go over his bike while you’re at it.”
He switched off the phone and gazed at Ken. “Different ways back,” he said. “Unless the bastard’s brought his friends with him.”
“I don’t like it,” Ken bit out. “Splitting up might be what they want.”
Aya’s phone rang.
“Now, I wonder who that might be?” Ken asked sarcastically.
Aya shook his head and raised the phone to his ear. “Yes?”
“Check your phone too,” Yohji stated. “Ours were rigged with GPS tracking courtesy of our employers.”
Aya sighed. “Fuck,” he said, “of course. We need to retire, we’ve become amateurish. And because of that one of them is sitting outside waiting for us.”
“Yeah well we’re going to be retired permanently if we don’t get our edge back,” Yohji stated, his tone showing just how disgusted he was with their poor performance.
Ken took a drink and considered their next course of action. He was certain the man waiting for them was the red-haired man from last night. The leathers looked the same, of course that didn’t mean much.
“Tell me about it. If we don’t make it back, you and Omi get your asses out of the cabin.”
“Aya I....” there was a pause, then Yohji continued in a gentler voice, “be careful, please?”
“I’ll do my best. Give us no more than an hour to get there if we can.” He shut the phone thoughtfully then deliberately dropped it and ground his heel into it.
“Decision time, Hidaka, alone or in convoy?”
“Together, we can split up later if necessary.” Ken offered Aya the drink, “I wonder how good he is on that thing when it’s moving.”
Aya took a gulp of the drink, part of him wondering if it would be the last thing he ever tasted.
“You would be more likely to know that than I,” he said. “But we can try and give him a run for his money at least.”
Something was nagging at him but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Then it hit him. The man on the bike could easily have killed all four of them and still retrieved his friend last night and yet he hadn’t. The blonde had deliberately shown himself at the station and now the man on the bike was making no attempt to hide himself. These were not the actions of a team that was determined to kill them, at least not yet.
“They’re toying with us,” he said. “I wonder why, when they shot the German bastard outright.”
“Think about it Aya. Have any of us ever murdered priests, nuns or half grown kids?”
“Well I might murder Naoe if I ever got the chance but he’s not half grown anymore. And if they don’t intend to kill us what the fuck are they doing?”
“Good question,” Ken remarked and headed for the door as he added, “I’ll just go ask him.”
Aya stood speechless for all of half a second before he followed Ken.
The brunet darted across the road and approached the leather clad motorcyclist, the featureless visor regarding him.
“What do you want?” Ken asked bluntly.
The other man shrugged, “What does anyone want out of life?”
The ex-soccer player frowned. “You know what I mean.”
The helmeted head tilted upward a bit, “No, sorry I don’t.”
Aya frowned slightly as he realized he’d been right and they were being toyed with. “You’re wasting your time, Hidaka,” he said. “He’s not going to tell us anything.” He glowered at the man on the bike. “I suppose it’s too late to tell you that we’ve left Kritiker’s employ and turned down an offer from Schwarz.”
At least his sister was safely out of this mess. If he died today he’d achieved that much.
“If that’s true then you’ve nothing to lose by agreeing to meet with us, do you?” the man asked.
“Meeting with you? Where and when?” To say Aya was surprised was an understatement but, if it meant he could save his team he’d meet with the devil himself.
“The park where Ouka was killed. I’m sure you know it.” The man revved the engine of this motorcycle letting them know he was done talking.
“Don’t bother to try to follow me.” He looked directly at Ken, “You aren’t good enough.”
“You didn’t say when,” Aya said. And how the hell did he know Ouka’s name?
Mellow laughter came from beneath the helmet, “I see you have to have even the clichés of the trade explained,” he remarked with a mocking shake of the head. “Midnight, when else?”
Ken leaned in close to the man, “What is it the Christians say about pride going before a fall?” he asked, a sneer on his lips. He leaned one hand on the seat of the man’s bike. “Don’t be so damned sure I couldn’t beat you!”
“Nice try, Hidaka. But not very subtle,” the leather clad man replied coolly as he reached back and removed the small tracking device that Ken had slipped beneath the back edge of the motorcycle’s seat.
He flicked the tiny bug at the brunet and hit the accelerator so that the men had to move or be hit.
When the bike had roared away Aya glanced at Ken. “Smug bastard isn’t he, but then with our recent track record he has cause to be. Let’s get back and tell the others.” He turned towards his car then thought of something. “I’ll need to call at a phone shop on the way,” he said. “I think you can go on safely without me.”
Ken smiled at Aya, “Sure thing. You go get a new phone, I’ll just follow our smug bastard,” he agreed as he headed for his bike. “He noticed the bug I planted on his bike because I didn’t want him to notice the one I dropped in his jacket pocket.” By the time the ex-jock was done taking he was grinning.
“If you do follow him, be careful,” Aya said but his mouth twitched up into a smile. “Well done, Ken.”
“We’re not total schleps, at least,” Ken remarked as he put his helmet on and reached under the seat for the tracker. “I’ll follow at a safe distance. Meet you back at the cabin.”
He hopped onto the bike, started it up, waved to Aya and raced off.
Aya climbed into the Porsche and drove to a shop that sold cell phones before heading back to the cabin. He wasn’t exactly driving at a sedate pace but he felt a lot safer than he had on the back of Ken’s bike. He trusted Ken to stay a safe distance from the man he was following.
There was a pile of rocks that had come down off a hillside, the stones blocking the road to the cabin. A bulldozer and a road crew were working to clear the slide but it looked as if it had just happened recently so little progress had been made.
Aya cursed softly and flipped open the new phone. He punched in Yohji’s number, hoping he didn’t get that damned stupid message again. If he did he’d gut the blonde as soon as he could get past this fucking roadblock.
He’d just finished dialing the last number when a man in the coverall of a highway repair crewman approached the Porsche from behind. Aya could see the man in the side mirror as he came toward the car.
The man was wearing a hard hat and dark glasses, not unusual considering. But he had one hand down at his side, slightly behind his back. There was a second man coming up toward the car from the front.
Aya slammed the car into reverse causing the man behind to jump out of the way. He backed down the road trying to find somewhere to turn.
A boom up the hillside was followed by a rock fall that cut the assassin off.
And that answered that question. The first rock fall had been as deliberate as the second, which meant that one of this team was an explosives expert. He did some mental arithmetic. Five definitely at the shop though he thought that might have been six as there had been a darker shadow further down the alleyway. And there might easily be more.
He sighed. If they meant to kill him why arrange a meeting? He opened the door and stepped out of the car. He supposed he should be grateful that they hadn’t done it any real damage. He wasn’t though.
The man he’d nearly hit with the car was now openly showing the high powered pistol in his hand. But he made no effort to aim it at the Weiss as he approached.
Aya’s brows rose. “Why this?” he asked. “We’ve already agreed to a meeting.”
The man shrugged and glanced at another person who was approaching, “Ask her. I just work here.”
Aya turned to find the woman from the shop staring at him, a slight smile playing round her mouth. Behind her was one of the men from the same night, he of the blue hair.
“Well?” he asked.
“We wanted to be sure you would listen,” the woman said. “And we wanted to talk to you alone.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Well, apart from recent aberrations, Abyssinian, you’re a damned good assassin. One we could use if you were willing.”
“Don’t call me that. I have no further ties to…Esset.” He spat the word out.
“I’m glad to hear it as, believe me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we thought you were.”
“I’m not prepared to consider any offers that don’t include the rest of my team,” Aya said coldly.
The man who’d first spoken to him gave a cold smile, “I told him this was a waste of time.”
“Then why bother wasting everyone’s time?” Aya said and turned to glare at him. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Last time I saw you weren’t you flat on your face in an alley?”
“Insults and threats are school yard games. This isn’t a school yard, and you’d be dead if that was what we wanted,” the man replied, no trace of any emotion in his voice.
“I neither insulted nor threatened you but let it pass,” Aya said equally impassive. “I even give you some credit for fighting off three of us. I just wanted to be certain of who I was talking to.”
He turned his head to look at the woman. “I take it the man on the motorbike, the one with red in his hair, is your leader. If so he’s already spoken to me and arranged a meeting. So I ask again, why this?”
The man gave a twitch of his shoulder, “Man tells us to talk to you, so we talk,” the blond replied. “Besides, do you honestly think we can arrange a meeting that isn’t going to be crashed by uninvited guests?”
“If Crawford picks it up in one of his damned visions, I’d say the chances were pretty slim,” Aya agreed his eyes still on the woman. She was just Kudoh’s type and he was glad she was out here and not at the cabin.
“Are you offering the same deal to the others?” he asked. He noticeably didn’t refer to them as Weiss anymore.
“It’s possible,” the woman said. “I believe some of our associates may be at your cabin about now. Your other friend will probably get his chance too. You cannot beat us, Fujimiya. Not only that you’ll have Esset and Rosenkreuz on your tails by now.”
“And those bastards play by a very deadly set of rules,” the blond replied. He went still, head tipped to one side as if he were listening to something.
“Speaking of which, we’re going to have some company. Time to depart.”
“Think about it, Fujimiya,” the woman said. “You can always buy a new car…”
The blond man turned and walked away, “I’ll clear the road enough for him to get by. That was why we brought the dozer anyway,” he stated. “Might want to let boom boy know another of his toys would be useful to keep them off our asses. They’re no one we want to play with. Not right now they aren’t.”
Aya shook his head, a slightly amused glint in his eyes. And his team thought he was cold.
The woman shrugged and turned to the third member of their little party. “See what you can do please.”
The smaller of the men nodded, giggled like a kid with a new toy, and hurried off.
So that was the explosives expert, Aya was thinking. Suddenly the other team seemed a little smaller than he’d originally imagined. Whether they were people that he and his could work with was another matter. But he was beginning to wonder if they had any choice if they wanted to survive.
The bulldozer started up with a roar, the tracked vehicle clattering and groaning forward, shoving huge chunks of rock aside as the blond drove it.
The woman motioned towards the Porsche. “Shall we?”
Aya nodded, unhappy but resigned. The thing that worried him the most was that today’s events had actually given him some hope for the future and that was not a good thing for an assassin to have.
The road was quickly cleared of enough debris to allow the car to get past the rockslide.
Aya opened the door of the car and gazed at the woman. “Let’s just say I’m interested.”
She smiled. “You’re just lucky that the man is.”
The blue haired man-- he was just about Omi’s height-- came running from the bushes along the side of the road. “All set!”
“Then let’s get out of here,” the woman said.
The blue-haired man nodded and hurried to where their bikes were, just visible beyond the pile of rocks.
They could hear a car coming up the road, and from the sound it was moving fast.
The blond jumped down from the dozer, “You go ahead, get down the road and wait for me. I’m going to see if I can’t make sure they die. If you aren’t here, I’ll be fine.”
“No heroics, this time. You know what the man said.” She turned to Aya. “Get moving. We’ll deal with your visitors. Call it a gift.”
He climbed behind the wheel and drove through the small gap the dozer had made while the woman and the blue-haired man ran for their bikes.
The blond on the dozer watched him drive past, then sent the heavy construction vehicle lurching down the road.
He felt a prickling down his spine as he drove past the blond, a feeling of butterflies in his gut that he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager. He frowned at his reaction. He’d nearly killed the man just a few nights before.
What Aya didn’t see was the blond turning in his seat to watch the Porsche as it vanished around the rocks.
* * * * * * *
Omi did a web search on j-rock and came up with hundreds of sites. He ignored those devoted to Gackt, Dir en Grey, L’arc en Ciel and Hide as he knew all of them. Instead he went to a generic site and scrolled through the names, none of them right until he got to the bands beginning with S.
“Yohji-kun, I think I’ve found some of them.”
The blond yawned and put his magazine aside. He’d been unsuccessful finding any of the men he’d seen in the pages of any of the glossy rock zines he’d been scanning.
“What have you got, chibi?” he asked as he joined the boy, bending down to look over the teen’s shoulder.
Omi indicated the promotional shots of a band called Shadow Soul. Although their intruder and the woman weren’t there the man with the red-streaked hair was unmistakable.
“Damn, that’s him for sure,” Yohji agreed. “No mistaking that face.”
He turned and rummaged through the magazines until he found one with a picture of Dir en Grey on the cover. He quickly flipped pages until he found what he was looking for then handed it to Omi.
It was a special feature poster of all four members of Shadow Soul but they were in heavy makeup, two of the men in full drag. “I was at one of their fucking concerts last year,” he snarled, obviously disgusted with himself for not remembering them sooner.
He pointed to the smallest member of the band, one dressed as a woman with rich blue hair. “That’s the one from the car yesterday, and I’d bet this one,” he pointed to a man with long violet hair, “is the one who Ken saw with the woman.”
Omi nodded. “Well we know what their cover is,” he said, “not that it helps us very much.” He read some of their official page but it was the usual fan-oriented blurb and gave absolutely no insight into the real people behind the stage personas. Sighing in defeat he switched the laptop off.
“It’s actually a better cover than ours was,” he said sadly. “Nobody would suspect a visual kei band to live a double life. And the make-up makes them look different.”
“Yeah, but look at the red-head’s eyes. Cold. Like Aya’s. I never forget eyes like that.” He pointed to the crisp picture in the magazine, “They’re so beautiful who’d ever believe they were assassins?”
The blond smacked himself in the head. “Shit, being in a band gives them an excuse to move around. Something we as florists never had unless we took a ‘vacation’ and went away to do a mission.”
Yohji frowned. “That’s a sobering thought too, because it might mean they’re doing more than playing music on their tours. To have that much reach they’d have to be working for a much bigger organization than Kritiker was prior to their involvement with Esset.”
His jade eyes narrowed in thought, “So we’re targets for two big groups now. We’re really up the shit creek, Omi.”
“Yeah, and with not a paddle between you,” said an amused voice from the doorway.
Omi spun in his chair but the young man had deliberately positioned himself so that Yohji was between them so even if he’d had a dart it would have done him no good.
He was joined by the violet-haired man from the photo who was carrying a pistol that was trained unerringly on Yohji.
The first young man spoke again. He was pretty, with blue-black hair and black eyes that were twinkling merrily. “Yet knowing all this neither of you was keeping watch.”
“Shit...” was the only thing Yohji could say. They’d been caught totally off their guard and that shocked him more than the young men would ever know, though the flicker of surprise in his jade eyes was probably a clue.
If these guys could just walk in so easily, they deserved to die, they really did.
He just shook his head. “At this point I don’t think we’ve even got a boat,” he replied.
“You didn’t even lock the door,” the young man continued, “even though you’ve got the might of Esset on your tails.” He looked around him, taking in the wooden walls of the building. “Although a locked door wouldn’t do you a lot of good against a pyrokinetic, not in this place. It’s a fucking fire trap.”
“Well thanks for letting us know. We’ll keep that in mind. Now, can we get on with this? Obviously you aren’t here to kill us, or we’d be dead.” At least he hoped that was the case. They’d certainly never taken the time to converse with their targets. Not to this extent anyway.
The last member of their group joined them. Yohji instantly recognized him as one of the j-rockers from Shadow Soul. There was no mistaking the orange streaked hair or the fact he was as good looking as the rest of the men.
If Yohji hadn’t been so worried about their lives, he’d have been thinking other thoughts. Erotic ones involving other hard masculine bodies.
Right now he was thinking about what Aya was gong to say to them about being caught off guard. That was if they didn’t get their heads blown off before then.
Omi was wide-eyed but silent, his mind working overtime but coming up with no answers as to why they’d fled the city only to leave the cabin virtually unguarded. Apart from calling himself forty different kinds of fool that was. He comforted himself with the thought that if these guys were here to kill them they’d be long dead by now.
“What exactly do you want?” he asked.
"We've got an offer," the orange-haired man said, "though considering how easy it was to walk in on the two of you, it's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned."
“I can see why you’d think that.” Omi said fairly. “Although you rattled us enough the other night to move us all the way out here.”
The violet-haired man spoke up for the first time. “There’s nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide,” he said. “Esset know exactly where you are. They’ve even sent a couple of agents to cut off your pretty red-haired friend.”
Yohji glanced at Omi wondering if the boy had caught the fact that Ken hadn't been mentioned in the Esset and Aya equation.
If these people could be believed that would mean that the other pair of assassins had split up for some reason, and considering their earlier conversations about how splitting up would actually be more dangerous for them, it made no good sense.
They were all making mistakes. Ones that were going to quickly become fatal if they didn't get themselves focused.
“You’re sloppy,” the one with the blue-black hair said, “but you did take our friend down the other night and, more importantly, you did it without actually killing him. I think that might just have saved your lives.” His black gaze lighted on Omi. “And you actually bothered to look beyond the surface of your beloved Kritiker for once. Did you like what you found?”
“Not at all,” Omi said. “In fact it was mutually agreed that we quit Kritiker.”
“Gods you guys are rash,” violet-hair muttered. “But not so rash as to take Oracles offer at face value. That’s another point in your favor.”
"You're being given a chance to live," orange-hair replied. "You can join us, or be killed." He smiled, "You've got until midnight to decide. After that, you're on your own."
Yohji frowned.
"And you kill us if we say no, right?"
"Maybe. But it's far more likely that your former masters will put you down before we do. They don't like having their dogs escape. Especially since Schwarz has been such a thorn to them."
“So you don’t work for Esset?” Omi asked.
The dark one laughed out loud at that. “Hardly,” he said. “We’re as much their enemies as you are, maybe even more so.” His amusement disappeared as he stared at Omi. “You only get one chance, Takatori.”
“Don’t call me that! My name’s Tsukiyono.”
“Just as well you believe that.”
The older blond glared at them, "He's never been one of them. He's always been Tsukiyono Omi as long as I've known him, and that's who he is."
"We're giving him the benefit of the doubt, as it were," the orange-haired man said, "but the instant he acts like a Takatori, he's dead."
“Anyway, you have until midnight,” violet-hair said. “No longer.”
“How do we let you know our decision,” Omi asked.
“Your friends will tell you,” the dark-haired one said. “The meeting has been set up. It’s up to you whether or not you turn out for it.”
The trio of assassins backed out, leaving the pair of former Weiss staring at one another.
They still looked dazed and confused when Aya’s car pulled up outside. Omi was the first to recover, packing up his laptop and wondering aloud where Ken might be.
Aya strode in with a face like a bad storm and glared at both of them. “Didn’t either of you think to keep watch?”
Yohji dropped into a chair, pulled out his smokes and lit up. "Why bother, we're pretty much dead men the way things are going."
“Yohji-kun,” Omi admonished. He turned to face Aya. “We’ve had visitors.”
Strangely Aya’s face cleared slightly. “Let me guess, they were making you an offer,” he said. “They trapped me between two rock falls to do the same and Ken and I ran into their leader at the garage.”
Yohji inhaled deeply and let his breath out in a smoky sigh. "Sorry kid, but we aren't doing very well against these guys and it's irking the shit out of me. I always considered us to be good, now…" he glanced up at Aya, "I'm seeing we've overestimated our skills badly."
Aya shrugged as he headed towards the kitchen to make himself some tea. “If it comforts you, Kudoh, Ken managed to get a tracer on their leader. That’s where he is now.” He stopped before he reached his destination, head tipped slightly to one side as he thought of something else.
“And they can’t think we’re that bad if they’re making the offer at all,” he added before continuing on his way.
"Maybe they're playing with us. Make an offer, tug the rug out from under us then kill us while we're too off balance to fight back. I mean what do we know about them, other than the fact that their cover is better than ours ever was, and that they're probably part of an organization much more far reaching than Kritiker ever was? Oh, and they're also the visual kei band called Shadow Soul."
“You’re right,” Aya called from the kitchen, “it’s a much better cover and it means their organization is probably global. We’re meeting them tonight in the park where Berserker murdered Ouka, by the way. Do you honestly think we’ll go there at that time any way but on our guard?”
There was a short silence during which the pouring of water into a cup could be heard. Aya reappeared with his tea, a slight frown on his face. “Of course, you might not wish to take up the offer. As Weiss no longer exists, I’m no longer your leader and you will make your own decisions.”
“I think mine’s already made,” Omi said, his face wearing the sad expression that came over it whenever his relative was mentioned. “I just hope Ken-kun reaches the same conclusions that I have.”
Yohji got up and looked out of the window. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said, not really talking to his team mates. He was just talking out loud, trying to work out what he was going to do because he really didn't know.
"If we try to walk away we're going to die. Together, or alone it won't matter. The way I see it we've got four options. Go back to Kritiker. Join Schwarz. Stay together and let Esset kill us, or go talk to these people and probably die anyway."
He inhaled smoke, blew it out the window and watched it drift away. "I don't want to just lie down and die, but I don't honestly see us living much longer no matter what we do."
“Don’t you think if these people were going to kill us they’d have done it by now?” Omi asked. “It’s not as if they haven’t had enough opportunities. And I really don’t like any of the other three options. If they want me they can have me.”
He turned apologetic eyes on Aya. “I’m tired, Aya-kun. I think we all are. And I don’t want to kill just for political gain.”
Aya smiled slightly. “What is it you say? ‘Never let the bad ones live’. It’s a good motto, Omi, and one that I’m not sure we’ve been living by just recently.” He took a sip of his tea, violet eyes fixed on Yohji. They were all tired, all just going through the motions, all needing a reason to continue. But the blonde seemed to be at the end of his rope.
“I’m of the same opinion that you are. And from the little I’ve learned I don’t think these guys kill indiscriminately. I might feel less… soul weary if I thought I really was taking out dark beasts.”
Yohji snorted. "Dark beasts. Seems like we've been the very beasts we used to hunt."
He was looking outside, wondering how the world could look so beautiful and bright while his heart felt so dead, as if there were nothing but ashes where it used to beat.
"I think we've all known that was the case. We have gotten sloppy. Subconsciously we know what we've been doing, and we're starting to hate ourselves for it. Makes us self-destructive because we never wanted to be killers, much less ones doing the political dirty work of a man we'd gladly kill for his crimes."
Aya didn’t say anything in reply but he nodded his agreement. He had been almost suicidal recently, so wrapped up in his own self-hatred that he hadn’t noticed it in the others.
Until now.
If this new team had done nothing else, they had opened his eyes to what was going on with the other members of his team under his very nose. He glanced at Omi to see the same feeling of self-loathing in their youngest’s bright blue eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I should have noticed long before this.”
Omi reached across and daringly put a hand over one of Aya’s. “You had your own problems, Aya-kun,” he said soothingly. “None of us blame you for not seeing our pain when you were so lost in your own.”
He thought back to the three men who’d visited them earlier. They seemed bright, ready to enjoy life, even happy and he wanted to be like them.
Yohji tilted his head and listened, focusing on the faint trace of sound. He hadn't been mistaken. "Ken's back. He should be here pretty quick if he doesn't take a curve too fast and wreck again. He sounds like he's got the bike going pretty damned fast for this dirt road."
Aya removed his hand from under Omi’s but he did nod to the young man. Omi smiled back at him but his mind was on the bike and the man riding it.
“I wonder what, if anything, he found out,” he mused.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Aya said before taking another sip of his tea.
Yohji walked into the kitchen with the remains of his cigarette and dropped the butt into an empty beer can before pulling a fresh one out of the fridge and popping the top.
He went out on the porch to watch for Ken, the brunet arriving in a wave of dust stirred up by the passing of his bike.
The ex-soccer player had barely brought the two-wheeler to a stop before he was off of it and removing his helmet.
"Where's Aya?" he asked.
Just the expression on the younger man's face told the blond volumes. "Inside," he stated and followed the younger man inside.
Ken didn't say a word, he just went into the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge-- the younger man drinking was odd enough, but to see him with a beer so early in the day was an even bigger shock.
Yohji raised one blond eyebrow and glanced in Aya's direction. "I take it you're pissed or upset about something."
"Both!" the younger man replied as he downed some of the beer. "That bastard led me right to Midnight Mayhem Recording Studios. And he fucking knew I was following him because he held up the transmitter before he mashed it under his boot."
“Well he is a member of a j-rock band,” Omi said fairly, “so he probably had business there.
Aya’s lips actually twitched as he tried to control his amusement. “Possibly, Omi,” he said, “but he could also think us stupid enough to need another clue. He wasn’t to know you’d already done your research.” He shook his head and snorted in self mocking irony. “And if they really do want us we should be flattered. They’re damned good.”
"What are you so pissed off about?" Yohji asked the brunet. Just being made like that shouldn't have gotten the hot tempered man quite that aggravated.
"He blew a kiss at me!"
The blond couldn't help himself, he started to laugh. "Well there's our answer. It's not that we're good, the boss man has the hots for Ken!" It was a joke, but the younger killer's face turned bright red, his hand tightening on the can of beer enough to mash in the sides and send a cascade of foam to the floor.
Omi chuckled and amazingly enough so did Aya, though not for quite so long. Telling the other two to shut up, he bought Ken up to speed with all that had happened to them.
“We were just deciding what we should do when you arrived.”
"How about saying to hell with them all and leaving Japan?" Ken suggested as he accepted a towel from Yohji to clean up the mess he'd made.
“And go where exactly?” Aya asked coolly.
Omi shifted unhappily. “Esset is a global organization Ken-kun. There is nowhere to run to that is safe.”
"And what makes joining up with them any safer?" the brunet asked.
"Numbers," Yohji replied as he popped the top on another can of beer and took a drink. "Plus how would we smuggle our weapons onto a plane, Ken?"
“There are at least seven of them,” Omi continued Yohji’s argument. “Three came here, you chased another and three approached Aya all at around the same time. If we did join up with them that makes us a team of eleven, which means the odds of everyone’s survival is a lot better.”
“We’re all tired and that means we’ve got sloppy,” Aya added as he finished drinking his tea. “We try going it alone and we’re dead meat.”
Yohji was watching Aya, an odd glint in his jade gaze. "So you both think we should join with the rockers. But what I want to know is who -they- are working for. Forgive me if I'm not willing to step from the frying pan into the fire here, but... I'd really like to know what we're getting into with them."
"Me too," Ken agreed.
Aya nodded. “All I can say for sure is they hate Esset every bit as much as we do.” He shrugged and stood up, ready to return his tea cup to the kitchen. He took a couple of steps then stopped and turned to look at each of them in turn. “But I’m too soul weary to lead you anymore.”
Yohji said nothing to that, he just tipped his can of beer up and drank it down before turning away and vanishing into the kitchen.
Ken watched the blond go, his expression going grim. "Aya, there's something really wrong with him," he whispered to the older man.
Aya nodded. “He’s just as tired as the rest of us,” he said. “I can’t make your decisions for you, Hidaka, but my mind’s made up.”
Omi’s blue eyes went from one man to the other and he wondered if he should tell Aya Yohji’s secret. But now was not the time. “I’m going to the meeting, Ken-kun,” he said and waited to see what the man who meant everything to him would say.
"Yeah, okay, I'll go. But I don't like not knowing who they really are. I mean as far as we know they might really be part of Esset."
Yohji came out of the kitchen. "I'm going to go lie down for a while. I'm getting a headache."
“Are you okay, Kudoh?” Aya asked. “Apart from the headache I mean.”
"Yeah," was the curt reply as the blond climbed the stairs to his room.
Aya shrugged and took his cup out to the kitchen. As he washed it up he was thinking hard. Yohji was getting worse, turning more and more to the booze to solve his problems for him. He was literally drinking himself to death and that was a problem.
This team had held out the invitation to them but he guessed it had certain conditions and reasonably good health was a must, especially in their line of work. Yohji was anything but a poster boy for good health. He sighed, at a loss for what he could do.
Ken joined him in the kitchen. "So who leads us now? You damned well know Yohji can't. He's coming unglued."
“He’s not the only one,” Aya snapped. “You’re grown men, Hidaka. You shouldn’t need a fucking babysitter!”
Ken just stood there staring at Aya for a minute. He nodded slowly, "Yeah, you're right. Forget I mentioned it."
He walked out of the kitchen, glanced at Omi then went right out the front door.
Omi sat motionless, like a hare caught in headlights. His family was falling apart right in front of his eyes and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it. Aya was like a ticking bomb, Yohji was coming apart at the seams and Ken’s temper was getting worse and worse. They were none of them…normal but, at the same time they were more abnormal than usual right now.
Ken was standing alone on the porch wondering how to keep the two older men from totally coming apart but he was at a complete loss.
Yohji needed Aya. Both he and Omi knew there was something eating away at the oldest man, and Ken suspected he knew what it was. He'd seen Yohji surreptitiously watching Aya for weeks, always with a pained sort of longing in his eyes.
Ken leaned on the porch rail and sighed. He suspected he knew what Yohji's problem was, and it had no solution because the only one that could help would never offer help or give the older man so much as a thread of a lifeline.
Aya was just too cold and aloof; too wrapped up in his own brooding misery to even notice the pain of anyone else.
"Self-centered bastard," he muttered.
The team was disintegrating. His family was coming apart and he couldn't do anything but watch.
Arms wrapped round him from behind and Omi’s head was rested against his shoulder blade. The blonde sighed quietly. “We all care a great deal about each other,” he said quietly, “but we seem to be totally unable to show it.”
He was thinking about the three men who’d come to the cabin earlier. Two of them had seemed full of good humor and optimism and the third, although quieter, hadn’t looked like he was about to fall apart at the seams. They were apparently in the same line of work yet it didn’t seem to eat at them the same way. He wondered why that was. The difference was obvious and he wished his little family could be like them.
"I'm worried about Yohji. He's drinking so much. And Aya..." Ken gave a loud sigh, "hell I don't know what to do for either of them."
“Give them a chance,” Omi said simply, “the chance we don’t have alone. From what Aya said, that group has been protecting us. We don’t have Kritiker’s backing anymore and we want nothing to do with Schwarz or Esset. That only leaves us one option.”
He let go of Ken and moved to the front of him. “I want to see us as happy and well-adjusted as the guys who came to see us. I want to take this chance if it’s real.” He reached out a hand to touch Ken’s face. “We can’t do this alone, Ken-kun.”
"But what I hate more is seeing them both coming apart. I bet if we went upstairs Yohji will be sitting on his bed with an open bottle of booze in one hand and a damned cigarette in the other.
"And if Aya wraps more ice around what passes for his heart now he's going to freeze solid and die.
"Watching the two of them is like watching a train wreck. You can see what's about to happen, but you can't do a damned thing to stop it."
He wrapped his arms around Omi and rested his chin on the younger man's head. "I want to help them both, and... I don't have a fucking clue how or what to do and that leaves me short tempered and frustrated as hell and now we've got this shit with these new guys to deal with.
"Aya's right. We're all tired and we can't keep living like this."
“Exactly,” Omi agreed, snuggling even closer to his lover. “This is why I want to hear what these guys are offering, if anything. I don’t think they want to kill us. Let’s face it, Ken, if they wanted to kill us we’d be dead right now.”
"What worries me is that they might simply want us as decoys or pawns in their own games. I don't think Yohji can take much more. Aya either." He kissed the top of the younger man's head, "And I thank the gods that I've got you. You're all that keeps me sane."
Omi sighed deeply. “They can’t really treat us any worse than my so-called family already has, can they? Be honest, Ken-kun.”
"You mean worse than Aya having a gun held to his head while Birman asks 'Are you my dog?' no, probably not."
Omi shook his head sadly. “There was no necessity for that at all. I felt really bad for Aya-kun and it did nothing to help team dynamics.” He smiled slightly. “Then, neither did you when you fought with Aya-kun. I wanted to bang your heads together.”
Ken shrugged, "I was staking out my territory, I guess," he admitted. "I was worried about him and Kudoh. They're both good looking and... I was afraid you'd want one of them. Of course it was all kind of fucked in the head but it took me a while to admit why I'd done it in the first place." He kissed Omi, "I hit them because I wanted to kiss you and didn't have the nerve."
“Ken-kun…” Omi’s tone was exasperated. “You’re good looking too, you know. And it was always you that I wanted.” He scoffed softly. “I would have been dumb to develop a crush on either of them. They both still see me as little more than a kid.”
"Yeah I guess you're right. Yohji still calls you chibi as if you're a schoolboy."
“Yep,” Omi said cheerfully. “Aya-kun isn’t quite so disrespectful but the idea of him having a relationship with anyone is… well weird. I know he’s attractive but it’s like admiring a statue.”
"He's so cold. Always has been. Not my type at all." He nibbled at Omi's lips, his hands running along the younger teens back until he was cupping Omi's ass in his palms. "Too bad I took the watch so they could rest. We could have eased a bit of tension, ours at least."
Omi chuckled softly and leaned into Ken’s caresses. “Well, we can take some time for ourselves on their watch,” he said. He was quiet for several minutes, simply enjoying Ken’s closeness and breathing in his masculine scent.
“What do you really want to do, Ken-kun?” he asked eventually.
"What I really want is to just walk away from the killing and find a house together. I'd like to coach kid's soccer, and just live my life without adding more blood to stain my hands."
Omi sighed. “I wish that was in the realms of possibility,” he said sadly. “If I could wave a magic wand and make it so, I would. But, because we took Kritiker at face value for too long we’ve made a lot of enemies, many of them that we don’t even recognize. I should have checked things out a lot sooner than I did. I’m sorry.”
"It's not your fault. None of us bothered to look beyond the surface of Kritiker after your father died, and we should have. We all knew better, but it was just easier not to do anything than to think about it."
“Yeah, the ostrich mentality,” Omi agreed. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty isn’t it? And if we’re blaming ourselves think of how much harder it must be for Aya-kun and Yohji-kun. They’ve never had the same trust for Kritiker that we once had.”
"I'd like to think that's what's bothering Yohji, but I don't think it is." Ken leaned back against the rail and pulled Omi even closer. "Has he said anything to you, anything at all?"
“He’s in love with Aya-kun but won’t say anything,” Omi told him as he tried impossibly to get even closer. “He says it’s not what Aya-kun wants to hear. I’m not so sure. Aya-kun is so alone. Surely knowing Yohji-kun cares would help him.”
"I don't know, Omi. I think Aya wants what he's got. At least that's the impression I get." He closed his eyes, rested his chin on Omi's head. "Yohji being in love with Aya explains a lot. It also explains why he won't say anything to him. I'd bet Yohji's afraid to say it. Not the kind of scared for his life sort of thing, but worried if he says anything it will only make things worse for all of us."
“You could be right, Ken-kun, I just wish… No. You’re right; it could make things even worse. It just seems such a shame that they can’t share what we have. I mean there’s nobody else that either of them could trust.”
"Some things in life just aren't meant to be, Omi. If I've learned anything, it's that."
Omi lifted his head and placed a kiss on his lover’s lips. “You’re right,” he said sadly.