Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3108713.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Weiß_Kreuz
  Relationship:
      Naoe_Nagi/Tsukiyono_Omi, Kudou_Yohji/Tsukiyono_Omi, Schuldig/Tsukiyono
      Omi, Naoe_Nagi/Schuldig, Kudou_Yohji/Schuldig, Brad_Crawford/Schuldig,
      Fujimiya_Aya_(Ran)/Hidaka_Ken, Kudou_Yohji/Naoe_Nagi
  Character:
      Tsukiyono_Omi_|_Takatori_Mamoru, Hidaka_Ken, Fujimiya_Aya_(Ran), Kudou
      Yohji, Schuldig_(Weiß_Kreuz), Brad_Crawford, Naoe_Nagi
  Series:
      Part 10 of Sinners_&_Saints
  Stats:
      Published: 2003-10-01 Completed: 2004-03-01 Chapters: 14/14 Words: 56218
****** Redemption ******
by Miko_no_da_(Miko)
Summary
     Schwartz is torn apart by a monster from the past, and it's up to
     Weiss to bring them back together again.
     (Posting OLD fics from my defunct website)
***** Chapter 1 *****
Nagi stumbled along, one hand pressed to the walls of the buildings lining the
street to help him stay upright. The other arm hung uselessly at his side,
dislocated. A trail of blood splashes marked his path, but he was oblivious to
the pain of his injuries. He couldn't remember where he was... or why he was
there... or where he was going... but he knew it was very important that he
keep moving, that he reach his destination, wherever it was.
One step. Another. Hitched breath as he put his weight down on an ankle that
was probably broken. Ignore it... it wasn't important. Just keep walking, one
step after another, and he'd get there eventually.
The area he was in was mostly day-time shops, with residences over them. It was
well after midnight, and the streets were deserted, only an occasional light
shining in a window to show that someone was still awake. There was nobody to
see him, nobody to stop him or help him. Just as well... if he stopped moving
he was sure he'd fall over, and then he might never get up again.
The half-familiar perfume of exotic flowers made him look up. It had been a
warm, muggy day, and scents lingered in the air long after the flower displays
had been brought inside for the night. Nagi stared at the store in front of him
for a long moment before finally recognizing it... the Koneko no Sumu.
Of course! The Koneko... Weiss... he turned into the alley and limped to the
side door, all but leaning on the doorbell. He might have passed out for a
moment, because the next thing was aware of, the solid wall supporting him
turned into a door and opened away from him, and he tumbled over into
somebody's arms.
There was a surprised exclamation above him, and he looked up to catch a flash
of red. Red... red hair... Schuldig? "Schu..."
No... no that couldn't be right... this was where Weiss lived, not Schwartz.
Schuldig wouldn't be here because... because he was...
"Nagi! Gods, what happened to you!?" A familiar voice exclaimed. "Aya-kun,
bring him to the chair... gently..."
He turned his head to one side and saw worried blue eyes surrounded by a
familiar face. "Omi..." he croaked, reaching out towards his friend. Omi was
here, Omi would help him, he was safe, he could rest now...
The room faded and went black around him as he slid away into oblivion.
 
===============================================================================
Aya grunted in surprise as the telekinetic went limp his arms, and set the boy
down in the chair a little more gently than he'd actually intended to. It was
hard not to be gentle, despite his all consuming hatred of Schwartz... the
psychic looked like he'd been beaten to death, and dragged himself back out of
hell only with a supreme effort of will. It had obviously taken everything he
had to make it this far... the question was, why was he HERE?
"What the hell could do THAT to HIM?" Ken exclaimed, moving up beside Aya. The
swordsman had to agree with his lover's assessment... Nagi was by far the most
powerful member of Schwartz, and that was saying something. For him to be this
badly injured... either he'd been caught by surprise, or run up against
something stronger than he was. And that, in and of itself, was a frightening
thought.
"Aya-kun, help him stay upright," Omi ordered unecessarily. The youngest Weiss
knelt down and chafed his Schwartz counterpart's wrists to try to wake him. Aya
gave the boy a quick visual examination while Omi worked, Ken and Youji
hovering behind him.
Nagi's left eye was swollen shut, and the entire left side of his face looked
like it had been slammed into something unyielding repeatedly. Dried blood
trailed down from a cut at his hairline, staining his face a rusty brown
colour. There was more dried blood on his uniform, indicating further injuries
beneath the concealing clothes. Here and there spots of fresh crimson were
soaking into the fabric, indicating that the telekinetic had started some of
the wounds bleeding again recently.
"He looks like he was lying somewhere for a while... long enough for the blood
to dry... then got up and walked here," Aya concluded aloud. Omi nodded, his
face grim.
"Yeah, that's what it looks like. The question is, who did this... and why? And
where are his teammates?"
"And why did he come HERE?" Ken added, mystified. Omi and Youji traded brief,
obscure looks, and Aya narrowed his eyes. "He seemed like he was looking for
you, Omi," Ken continued, oblivious to the quick interchange.
"He probably was," Omi admitted reluctantly. He was about to say more, but at
that moment Nagi regained consciousness with a gasp, flailing out at Omi and
Aya. Omi caught his hands again deftly, and Aya simply stepped to one side to
avoid the blow, keeping his hands on the telekinetic's shoulders to help him
stay upright. Without the help, it was very likely he'd have fallen off the
chair, from what Aya could see.
"Nagi, it's okay!" Omi said hastily, holding tight to the boy's hands. "You're
safe. You're okay. Wake up, please..."
"O-omi?" Nagi stuttered after a moment as his eyes finally focused on the room.
"Oh gods... Omi..." he all but threw himself forward into Omi's arms, sobbing
helplessly on the older youth's shoulder. Omi looked surprised, but held the
smaller boy automatically, patting an unbloody spot on his back gently. Aya
stood watching with Ken and Youji, eyes still narrowed as he watched the
interplay between the two teens.
"Nagi, what happened? Where's Schuldig?" Omi asked when Nagi's sobs started to
quiet.
"Th-they took him," Nagi whimpered, face still buried in Omi's shoulder. "They
t-took him, and C-crawford... I think they k-killed Farfarello..."
"Who took him?" Youji broke in. "Nagi, who attacked you?"
Nagi turned to look up at him, dark blue eyes filled with tears that slowly
spilled over onto his cheeks. They mixed with the flakes of dried blood already
there, turning pink and making it look eerily like he was crying blood. "I
don't know," he said, voice hoarse. "I didn't recognize them. I think Crawford
did, but he didn't get a chance to say anything before they knocked him out."
"Why didn't Crawford see it coming?" Omi asked. "Why didn't you just blast
them?"
The telekinetic shook his head miserably. "I couldn't. They were blocking me
somehow... blocking all of us. They were psychics." He started to shake. "I
woke up... and Farfarello was just lying there... and S-Schuldig and C-crawford
were gone... I... I didn't know what to DO..."
Aya's eyebrows raised. This sounded nothing like the calm, confident young
assassin he was used to seeing in battles. Nagi sounded like a small child... a
small, distressed, injured child who was lost without an adult to guide him.
Omi was rocking him now, still patting his back.
"It's okay, Nagi... you did the right thing," the leader of Weiss murmured
softly, reassuringly. He glanced up at his teammates, looking nervous, but his
tone of voice didn't change. "You made the right decision to come to us."
"I was s-so s-s-scared," the telekinetic sobbed, burying his face in Omi's
shoulder again.
Omi held him soothingly, but his expression was grim as he looked up at the
others. "Aya-kun, I want you and Youji to go out there and take a look around,
see if you can find any sign of who these people were. Double-check to make
sure Farfarello is actually dead... the last thing we need is him running
around loose in the city. Ken-kun, you help me get Nagi upstairs to my room,
and we'll see what we can do about his injuries."
"We're going to help them?" Ken blurted out, eyes wide. He looked down at the
shivering boy in Omi's arms, and flushed. "I mean, yeah, we'll get him patched
up and all. He was always the best of the bunch of them, I guess. But why are
we going looking for clues?"
Omi shook his head. "For now, just operate on the assumption that anyone who
could do THIS to Schwartz," he nodded at Nagi, "may be a danger to us as well.
If this is a bunch of former Estet agents who've come to get revenge on the
people who killed the leaders... they'll be looking for Weiss as well as
Schwartz."
"That's... logical," Ken admitted, albeit reluctantly.
"I'm not buying it," Aya growled. "That doesn't explain why he came HERE for
help... or why you two aren't surprised that he did," he added, including Youji
in his glare. Youji just looked back at him with a level, shuttered gaze, but
Omi sighed and shook his head.
"I'll explain everything AFTER we get this sorted out," the youngest Weiss
said. "I promise. But right now we have more important things to do... the
explanation can wait. Ken-kun, help me get him upstairs, please?"
"Yeah, sure," Ken agreed belatedly. He slid his arms around the telekinetic's
shoulders. "You get his legs, okay?" he said as he started to lift. Omi nodded
and supported the boy's lower body weight as they moved carefully towards the
stairs. Aya watched them go, eyes still narrowed, trying to figure out just
what piece he was missing to complete this puzzle.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Youji asked as the younger men made it through
the door to the stairs. "If Farfarello isn't dead, every minute we stand around
here is another minute to help him get away. Let's go."
 
===============================================================================
They managed to get Nagi up the stairs without doing much more damage to him,
though the boy did pass out on the way up. That was actually something of a
blessing, since it meant they didn't have to listen to his tiny, pained
whimpers any more. Those small sounds stabbed straight through to Ken's heart,
making him feel guilty for not really wanting to help the youth. But hell,
injured or not, teenager or not, the boy they were carrying was their ENEMY,
and a very dangerous enemy at that. Ken couldn't help but think that it
wouldn't have been a totally bad thing if Nagi had just died before making it
to them. And that was a whole other issue... Aya was right, there was something
more going on here. Why HAD Nagi come to them for help? Come to Omi,
specifically?
"Explanations later," Omi said sternly as they laid the telekinetic down on the
bed and Ken started to ask the questions preying on his mind. "Get his clothes
off - cut them off if you have to. I'm going to get the first aid kit." His
hand lingered gently on Nagi's for a moment, before he turned and left his
bedroom. If Ken hadn't known better, he'd have said that gesture was an
affectionate one - the touch of a worried friend... or lover.
The ex-soccer player shook his head, dismissing THAT thought before it could
get any further. The idea that Omi was secretly friends with Nagi was
stretching probability, but potentially believable. The idea that Omi was
secretly sleeping with Nagi was simply beyond belief... after all, Omi was
quite firmly attached to Youji, and Youji was rather possessive of his young
lover.
He made one abortive attempt to get Nagi's clothes off the usual way, but
realized quickly that it just wasn't going to work. He had no idea where Omi
kept his knives or scissors... but hadn't he been wearing these pants today
earlier in the shop? He checked his pockets, and found the folding knife he
often carried with him at work. Snapping it open, he carefully cut through the
tough fabric of the telekinetic's school uniform tunic, careful not to jostle
the boy too badly.
Each piece of fabric that he peeled away revealed new injuries... and old
scars. Ken's eyes got wider and wider as he worked. Nagi was literally covered
in scars, and almost all of them were several years old. Some of them looked
like he'd had them from early childhood - they had stretched out as the boy had
grown. What on earth could have marked a young child like that? Repeatedly
marked him? Had Nagi come from an abusive family of some kind? Hell, no wonder
he seemed so uncaring of what happened to other people... probably figured the
world had never done anything for him, so why should he do anything for the
world.
Not that it excused his actions... just explained them. Ken shook his head and
kept working. He slid the knife carefully under the tight collar and pulled
upwards, and the tough fibres gave way beneath the sharp edge. He peeled the
tunic collar away from Nagi's throat, and paused. Nagi was wearing a choker
that had been hidden by the high neck of the tunic. A plain leather band with a
small pendant attached. Ken frowned and leaned in for a closer look. He'd seen
a collar like this once before... but where?
He reached out to unfasten it, figuring the boy would be able to breath easier
without it around his throat. "Don't!" Omi exclaimed from behind him, making
him jump. He looked around to see his friend in the doorway, carrying a basket
full of the medical supplies they all kept handy. "Don't take it off," Omi
continued as he entered the room and set the basket down beside the bed. "He'll
be frantic if it's gone when he wakes up. The last thing we need now is for him
to be more panicked than he already is."
Looking at Omi, the connection clicked in Ken's mind. "Omi, that's a bondage
collar," he accused, gesturing at Nagi.
Omi nodded, not meeting his eyes as he moved to get Nagi's pants off. "Yes, it
is," he agreed shortly. "Now either help me finish undressing him, or get out
of my way, please."
Ken moved to help Omi get the bloody pants off, his body working on autopilot
as his mind raced. Nagi was wearing a bondage collar. Nagi was a sub. Nagi was
wearing a bondage collar with a pendant that looked an AWFUL lot like the one
Omi had worn on that mission... though admittedly with all the fancy
scrollwork, it was hard to tell. But weren't those things supposed to be easily
recognizable? So didn't that mean all the scrollwork must mean they WERE the
same? But that would imply...
Ken's mind shied away from that thought, and he let it for now. Questions
later, he reminded himself grimly as Omi started taking inventory of Nagi's
injuries. For now, they had a badly injured boy to try to help.
"His shoulder's dislocated," Omi noted, scanning the telekinetic. "Looks like
his ankle might be broken as well. That bruising on the ribs looks nasty... I
wouldn't be surprised if he's broken or cracked them. The cuts all look like
the skin just broke open after being bashed against something, not as if he was
slashed with something..." he paused and tilted his head. "You know, he looks
an awful lot like *I* did after facing him, only worse. At a guess, I'd say a
telekinetic did all this."
"Yeah, you're probably right," Ken agreed after looking at the injuries again.
"Slammed him against something on his left side, repeatedly. Jesus. And they
were able to BLOCK Schwartz somehow? This is starting to look seriously scary."
Nagi whimpered and stirred, his eyes slitting open. "Omi?" he croaked, reaching
out. Omi caught his hand.
"I'm here, Liebe," he murmured softly. "It's okay. We're just treating your
injuries, okay? I need you to lie still for me, but don't tense up."
Nagi nodded, and visibly relaxed every muscle in his body. Ken blinked,
surprised... given the amount of pain the boy had to be in, he wouldn't have
thought it would be possible for him to just voluntarily relax like that. Omi
looked at his teammate. "Ken, can you get his arm back into place? You're
better with dislocations than I am."
"Yeah, sure," Ken agreed, moving to grasp Nagi's arm in one hand and his
shoulder in the other. "On the count of three, okay? One... two..."
He wrenched sharply at the telekinetic's arm, twisting it back into place with
an audible crunch. Nagi cried out, and a sharp blow hit Ken in the chest,
sending him tumbling off the bed and onto the floor, gasping for air. When he
finally managed to draw breath again, he turned his head to see that Omi was
lying beside him, likewise winded.
"Should... should have expected that," Omi finally wheezed, looking chagrined.
"I didn't think he had the energy left, though."
"I'm sorry," Nagi sobbed from where he was now huddled on the bed. "I'm
sorry... I didn't mean to... please don't be angry, I didn't mean to..."
"We're not angry," Ken said automatically, and then realized it was true. Hell,
he'd taken worse shoves from people he was resetting dislocated joints on. But
this utter wretched misery... Nagi seemed genuinely terrified that they would
be angry with him for hitting them. "Calm down, kid, we're not going to hurt
you."
Omi scrambled back up to his feet and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching
out to hug Nagi carefully, mindful of his possibly broken ribs. "It's okay,
Liebe, it's all right. You're safe, nobody is going to hurt you. Trust me, all
right?"
Nagi nodded against Omi's shoulder, but didn't seem entire convinced. Ken got
to his feet as well. 'Liebe'? he mouthed at Omi, but the younger Weiss just
gave him a warning look and shook his head. Ken sighed and raked his hair back
out of his eyes. The puzzle pieces were piling up, and he was really starting
to dislike the picture they were showing.
With Omi holding the boy soothingly, Ken managed to tape up his ribs without
too much further difficulty. His ankle turned out to be sprained, not broken,
so he wrapped it tightly and applied a chemical cold pack to it. Nagi bore the
pain stoically, never making a sound louder than a whimper, though his face was
twisted with agony. Omi helped Ken clean out the cuts and abrasions, and they
patched up the worst of them.
At last Ken stood back and surveyed their work. "Okay, I think he's good now.
So long as he stays off that foot, the brace will hold his ankle until it heals
a bit. How do you feel, kid?"
Nagi was still curled up against Omi, face tucked in the older boy's shoulder
and clinging to his shirt like a lifeline. He shook his head slightly, but
didn't say anything. Omi sighed. "Right. Well... there's nothing more we can do
until Aya-kun and Youji get back, and you need rest more than anything, I
think." He shifted slowly out from under Nagi, guiding the youth to lie back
against the pillows. "Ken-kun, I've got some instant soup in my kitchen...
could you go make some for him while I put the medical supplies away, please?"
"Sure," Ken agreed, heading for the door to the rest of Omi's apartment. When
he reached it he glanced back once at the pale, slender form in Omi's bed; then
he shook his head and kept moving. Omi was going to have a hell of a lot of
questions to answer when this was over.
 
===============================================================================
Youji insisted on taking his car, knowing that Aya became a rather reckless
driver when he was angry. And there was absolutely no doubt that the redhead
was furious, as he sat fuming in the passenger seat of Youji's car. Youji
figured silence was the better part of valour in this case, and kept his mouth
shut. With any luck, he'd be able to delay the final confrontation until they
were back at the Koneko, and he could find out just how much Omi was planning
to reveal.
"I don't suppose you'd like to tell me how you know where you're going," Aya
said coldly after Youji made another turn without hesitating. Youji's eyes
widened, and he cursed silently.
"Uh, no, not really," Youji muttered. He glanced over and caught a glimpse of
violet eyes darkened with rage, and sighed. "Look, like Omi said, explanations
can wait until later. We've got a job to do, let's focus on that for now, all
right?"
As he'd hoped, appealing to Aya's sense of duty helped to stave off the
questions for a little while longer. But Youji knew very well it was only a
temporary stop-gap; once the swordsman latched onto something that irritated
him, he never let go until he'd solved the mystery by any means necessary.
He pulled into the underground lot of the condominium building that Schuldig
and Nagi lived in. He had no idea if the fight - or whatever it was - had
happened here; given that Crawford and Farfarello had also been involved, it
might very well have occurred at Crawford's apartment. But Youji didn't know
where the precognitive lived, and he also didn't have a key to the door. Given
Nagi's abilities with electronics, he didn't fancy trying to break into any
place any member of Schwartz spent a significant amount of time in.
He got out of the car, then looked over at Aya. "Listen... if Farfarello did
live through that attack, he's probably healed himself by now. If you're more
focused on being irritated with me than on watching my back, you can stay HERE
instead of risking both our lives. Understand?"
Aya stared at him, but nodded slowly after a moment. "I'm coming with you," he
said shortly, picking up his katana and fixing the sheath to his belt. "But I
want answers after this is over, and they'd better be damn GOOD answers."
Pulling out a length of his wire to test the release, Youji nodded. "You'll get
your explanation, once we're all in one place again. For one thing, it's not
really my place to tell you anything." He let the wire snap back with a
satisfying whir, and headed for the elevator.
There was no question that Schwartz made a hell of a lot more money than Weiss
ever had. Even the elevator was posh, and required a keycard to be inserted
into a slot before any level but the lobby could be activated. Youji fished his
card out of his pocket and slid it into place, then hit the button. The
elevator moved so smoothly he was hardly even aware of the ascent.
Aya's brows had drawn together in a scowl again when he saw the keycard, but he
kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on the door. After a moment the scowl
changed to a frown. "Look... there's blood on the doors," he said, stepping
closer. Youji leaned in as well.
"Yeah, looks like it," he agreed. He glanced down, but the bright red of the
plush carpet made it hard to spot any more blood there. "If that's Nagi's, then
we're at the right place." The elevator dinged discreetly, and the doors slid
open to reveal a hallway decorated in the same luxurious style as the elevator.
There was more blood on the walls, staining the gold and cream wallpaper a
rusty brown colour. Youji frowned as he saw at least one clear handprint, too
small to belong to an adult. "That's Nagi, all right... he must have been
holding himself up by leaning on the wall." He followed the trail back to the
right door, not that he needed the indicator. The door was ajar, showing an
inch or two of the vestibule.
"I'll go first," Aya murmured, barely loud enough to be heard. Youji nodded -
his was a long range weapon, and it made sense for the more effective close
quarters fighter to go in first. Of course, Aya was going to be hampered by the
narrow hallway - there wasn't room to swing his katana properly. Youji readied
his wire, in case Farfarello was waiting to ambush them.
The moment they stepped inside, the smell of blood hit them full in the face.
Youji breathed shallowly through his mouth as he had learned to do - Weiss
often faced this after killing their targets, though he had only occasionally
walked in on someone else's mess. It was much worse when it was slightly stale,
he discovered.
The hallway branched not far past the door. Youji caught Aya's eye, and
motioned to the right. 'Bedrooms', he mouthed, and then 'living room' while
pointing to the left. Aya's eyes narrowed again, but he just nodded and jerked
his head to the left, indicating that he would take that direction.
They split up, and Youji made his way down the hall on catfeet. The bathroom
door was open, and a quick glance inside revealed nothing out of place. There
was no blood on the walls here, and it wasn't likely that Schuldig would have
been entertaining Crawford and Farfarello in the bedroom, so he wasn't likely
to find any bodies in this direction. But if Farfarello hadn't been dead and
had recovered, and was waiting for them, it would make sense for the Irishman
to hide in the bedroom and then attack them from behind when they went into the
living room to investigate.
And, frankly, he'd rather Aya didn't get a look at the bedroom and its...
accoutrements. That would just raise far too many questions he wasn't sure he
wanted to answer, now or ever. Admitting to fraternizing with the enemy would
be bad enough... Aya and Ken really didn't need to know all the gory details.
"Youji!" Aya called, just as Youji opened the bedroom door and glanced inside.
"I found him."
Youji did a quick check of the bedroom just in case, but there was nothing out
of place here, either. He shut the door again and jogged back down the hall to
the living room.
The smell of blood got stronger as he headed towards the living room. He
stopped in the doorway and looked around. The carpets in here were a light
beige colour, so the puddle of mostly dried blood by one wall stood out
clearly. There were bloody indents in the wall just above it - presumably where
Nagi had been slammed into the wall, then left lying in his own blood. The
furniture was all tipped over, and Farfarello's knife was lying in another,
smaller puddle of blood near the door Youji was standing in. The Irishman
himself was sprawled out over the floor, his body partially concealed by the
overturned couch. Aya was kneeling next to him, checking his vital signs.
"Is he actually dead?" Youji asked, moving forward. He couldn't see a visible
wound on the psychic, even when he rounded the couch and could see the man's
entire body.
Aya looked up and nodded. "He's dead. No heartbeat, no respiration... I've been
checking for the last five minutes, just to be sure. It wouldn't surprise me if
he could slow his heartbeat and breathing enough to fool someone into thinking
he was dead."
Youji nodded and knelt on Farfarello's other side. "No offense," he said as he
leaned forward and checked for himself. "Not that I don't trust you or
something... I just won't be able to shake the feeling that he's about to leap
up and slice us to ribbons until I see for myself."
Aya raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "I have to say, I'm not quite willing to
turn my back on him, either."
There was indeed no sign of life in the man's body. His single golden eye was
wide open, and a trail of blood had welled up from it and trickled down over
his cheek. More blood trails led from his nose, mouth, and ears, but other than
that there was no sign of injury. "What the hell killed him?" Youji wanted to
know. "It looks like he was... pressurized, or something. Or his brain
exploded."
"Maybe it did," Aya replied grimly. "If we're dealing with psychics, there's no
telling what they're capable of. I'd believe that Schuldig or Nagi would be
capable of something like this."
Youji shuddered. Despite himself, he reached out to close Farfarello's eye -
more to escape that golden stare than out of any form of respect. "Yeah,
probably," he agreed. "Well... that's one burden off our backs, anyway. Let's
start looking for any sign of who the hell did this."
He stood and surveyed the room again, and shook his head. "I have a nasty
feeling we haven't seen the last of these people."
***** Chapter 2 *****
Brad awoke with a vague sense of unease, and what was possibly the worst
reaction migraine of his life. Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he groped to
the side where his nightable should be. He'd learned from experience to keep
some VERY strong painkillers handy - sometimes when a particularly vivid vision
hit him in the night, he awoke with a blinding headache. This one was the
strongest he'd ever had, though... and oddly, he couldn't remember the vision
for the life of him. He couldn't seem to find the nightstand, either. He was
just debating risking a mental call for help to Schuldig when his groping hand
encountered something cold and metal.
At about that point he realized that the surface he was lying on didn't
resemble his soft feather mattress in the least. He'd slept in plenty of
strange beds over the years, but this felt like a concrete floor. He was rather
fussy about his bedding, and he couldn't remember taking a job that would have
required him to sleep on a floor of any kind, much less a concrete one.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced his eyes open, shielding them
from the harsh lightsource as best he could with his hand. The room swam before
him, refusing to come into focus, and he finally realized that he wasn't
wearing his glasses. Squinting, he forced his vision to focus, and froze when
he realized what he was looking at.
Dark bars slashed across his view, cutting the light sharply. He was indeed
lying on a concrete floor, in what amounted to a very small cell. It looked
like a prison cell of some kind... there was an empty bunk bed behind him and a
small sink and toilet to one side, and those were definitely iron bars across
the front of the room. Still reeling from pain, he sat up slowly and strained
to see outside his cell.
More iron bars, lined up in rows upon rows... definitely some kind of prison.
It was quiet though, much too quiet to be a working prison. He held his breath
and listened carefully, and thought he could make out tiny whimpers of pain.
There was someone else in here with him...
"Who's there?" he called out, his voice hoarse with pain. The whimpers stopped,
and he heard rustling and a groan.
"Crawford? Is that you?" Schuldig's unmistakeable nasal voice came back. He
sounded more than a little panicked. "I can't Hear you!"
It took Brad a moment to realize that the telepath meant he couldn't hear him
mentally, rather than physically. The moment he realized that, he checked his
powers to see what the immediate future held - and, as he'd feared, came up
with nothing at all. "Something is blocking us," he said aloud, grimacing. "I
can't See anything either. Do you remember what happened?"
"I... yeah, kinda..." Schuldig replied slowly. His voice was coming directly
from the left, so he must have been in the next cell over. "We were having a
meeting, you and Farf came over... uh... I think we ordered out for food, and
then when the buzzer rang, Nagi went to get it. Everything is kind of fuzzy
after that..."
His voice changed abruptly. "Oh, Gott. Nagi? Liebe, are you here? Answer me,
Liebe..."
They both remained silent for a long moment, waiting for the reply. There was
nothing, only the sound of their own breathing. "He might still be
unconscious," Brad finally offered, knowing Schuldig was probably thinking the
worst. The telepath had never been mentally separated from his sub since the
first day they'd met - they both relied on the contact far more than either was
consciously aware of. "Or he might even have gotten away. Nagi is stronger than
most people give him credit for - including us."
"Yeah... yeah, you're probably right," Schuldig said, but he didn't sound like
he was sure he agreed. "If he got away, and can't find me, hopefully he'll home
in on the nearest people he trusts - Omi and Youji. Weiss will protect him,
even if it does end up blowing Omi's secret."
Unfortunately, as Brad knew very well, Nagi was all but helpless without
direction from his Master, especially when he was in a very stressful
situation. Assuming the telekinetic had survived at all - which he was
beginning to doubt as more of his memories of the fight returned to him - Nagi
was far more likely to simply huddle in a corner until the police discovered
him, rather than take the initiative enough to go looking for Weiss.
He leaned against the wall between him and Schuldig, and tried to marshal his
thoughts into some form of order. He remembered the meeting. They had been
meeting because... because...
Because his powers hadn't been functioning correctly recently. He'd been
experiencing grey spots and a general lack of clarity when using his powers,
and he'd wanted to see if the others were having similar problems. He
remembered Nagi going to open the door, and being picked up and flung backwards
by an invisible force. He remembered his shields going down... small wonder he
was so confused, if he'd lost all of his shielding all at once. He remembered
Schuldig screaming, probably as his shields were torn down as well. After
that...
After that... vague, hazy memories of Nagi being beaten bloody... of Farfarello
charging the door, throwing his knife, and then stopping dead in his tracks...
and a face, several faces that he recognized from the distant past...
"Was it Estet?" Schuldig asked, interupting his thought process. "You think
they're trying for revenge because we killed the Elders?"
"No," Brad whispered, feeling sick to his stomach with the realization. "No,
it's something much worse than that. It's the Institute... they've tracked us
down."
 
===============================================================================
Omi stowed the last of the medical supplies back under his bathroom sink where
they belonged. Over the years they'd all learned to keep such things handy, and
to treat their own wounds, up to a point. Kritiker frowned on them going to
doctors for anything but emergencies, as it meant a lot of trouble covering up
the paper trail and making sure nobody questioned where the injuries had come
from.
Nagi was in bad shape, but he would make it. He was young and resilient, and
frankly, he'd lived through worse already. Omi knew the stories behind most of
his friend's scars, and none of them were anything but gruesome and horrifying.
Omi was far more worried about his mental state. Nagi had improved greatly from
his early days as a pet, but he still relied on Schuldig for most of his
stability. Worse yet, it was entirely possible - seemed likely, given his
behaviour - that he'd regressed, losing a lot of that progress, in the face of
this overwhelming stress.
Omi had tried repeatedly to contact his former Master via telepathy, but
Schuldig either wasn't listening or wasn't answering. It was possible that he
was simply out of range... his range was unbelievable, but it wasn't infinite.
But one way or another, he was out of contact. Omi knew Nagi's bond with the
German went much deeper and was much stronger than his own, so he could only
hope that the telekinetic would still be able to reach the telepath. If not...
they had bigger problems on their hands.
He made his way back to his bedroom, and walked right into a wave of tension.
He paused in the doorway, and took in the scene. Ken was perched on the edge of
the bed, an angry expression on his face, holding a mug of ramen. Nagi was
curled up in the corner, as far as he could get from Ken without moving off the
bed, knees tucked up against his chest and his arms wrapped around him. "What
happened?" Omi asked, keeping his voice soft and steady to avoid startling
Nagi.
"He won't eat it," Ken said, gesturing angrily with his free hand. Nagi
flinched away from the gesture, huddling further into the wall and burying his
face in his knees. His shoulders were shaking - from silent sobs or from fear,
Omi wasn't sure.
He padded over to the bed and settled on the edge, reaching out to touch Nagi's
hand gently. His heart sank when the telekinetic flinched away again, unwilling
to sustain even that small contact. "Liebe," he said softly. "Liebchen, look at
me."
Even though he was a submissive himself, he was still a leader in his everyday
life, and that had given him the ability to imbue his voice with quiet
authority. As he'd hoped, Nagi responded to that authority, looking up at him
with redrimmed eyes. "Liebe, tell me why you won't eat," Omi said, remembering
to make it an order and not a question at the last moment.
Nagi tried twice to speak before he could force anything out. "I tried," he
whispered, hardly loud enough to be heard. "I tried, I DID... I c-can't.
Gebieter... d-didn't say... I could..."
Omi bit his lip to keep from groaning out loud. Nagi had regressed more than
he'd even feared - he hadn't needed explicit permission from Schuldig to eat
since LONG before Omi had come into his life. Frantic, he wracked his brain.
Obviously the psychic wasn't in mental contact with his Master, or the problem
wouldn't have come up. That meant they had to find another way around it. Nagi
would sometimes respond to orders from another Dom if they didn't conflict with
Schuldig's orders... but the nearest Dom Omi knew of was Youji, and he might
not be back for hours. Nagi needed the warmth and sustenance NOW, not later.
Suddenly he was struck by inspiration. "Liebe, remember the day we went to the
park?" he said, and Nagi nodded slowly. "Gebieter told you to obey my orders,
in case we ran into trouble without him. Remember? Did he ever rescind that
order?"
Omi could feel Ken's eyes burning holes into him as he waited anxiously for
Nagi's response. There was absolutely no way he was going to get out of telling
the entire story now... but if it meant Nagi would eat, he'd spill his secrets
and do it gratefully.
"N-no," the younger boy finally murmured. Omi kept his sigh of relief silent.
"Good. Then, I'm ordering you to eat," Omi said immediately. Nagi reached out
and took the cup from Ken and lifted it to his lips, drinking obediently.
"Good!" Omi said, pleased and thankful. "Very good, Liebchen. Gebieter would be
proud of you."
When he'd drained the cup, Nagi lowered it and looked back at him uncertainly.
Smiling to encourage him, Omi reached out and took the mug from him, handing it
to Ken, who was watching everything with narrowed eyes. Ignoring his best
friend for the moment, Omi gestured for Nagi to lie down, then tucked the
smaller boy into the covers. "Now, I want you to rest. Try to sleep if you can,
but if you can't, just rest here," he ordered. "I will be right outside in the
other room. If you need something or have any trouble, I want you to come and
get me, do you understand?" Nagi nodded. "Good. Now, rest, Liebe." Omi leaned
over and kissed the telekinetic gently on the forehead. "It'll be okay," he
whispered in the boy's ear. "We'll get him back for you, I swear it."
Standing, he gestured to the door and waited until Ken had left. Nagi had
already obediently closed his eyes and evened out his breathing, just as Omi
had hoped he would. One advantage of Nagi's pathological need to follow orders
was that you COULD get him to rest, even when he was too stressed to want to.
He turned out the lights and shut the door, leaving it open a crack so he'd
hopefully be able to hear it if Nagi had a nightmare.
He entered the living room, and nearly flinched at the look on Ken's face. His
best friend was looking at him as if he'd suddenly turned into something both
horrifying and fascinating all at once. "Wait until Aya-kun gets back," Omi
said, hoping to head his friend off at the pass. "Please? I only want to go
through this once."
Ken gave him a hard look. "I'm not sure I really need you to tell me anything
at this point," he said, voice low and dangerous. "Your Master, the one you had
before Youji... Nagi belongs to him, too, doesn't he?" Omi sighed and nodded,
giving in to the inevitable. "Who is it? Crawford?"
"Schuldig," Omi replied, sprawling down across one of the chairs. Ken took the
other, still watching him closely. "It's a very long, complicated story. I
promise I WILL tell you everything when the others get back."
"Schuldig?" Ken repeated, and understanding dawned on his face. "He screwed
with your head, didn't he? THAT'S why..."
"That's NOT why," Omi cut in. He'd been afraid Ken would come to this
conclusion... it was, after all, the logical conclusion to come to. "He didn't
do anything to my mind. And yes," he cut off the next objection before Ken
could say it, "I know that of course I'd say that if he HAD done it. You're
just going to have to trust me on this, Ken-kun... trust me, and trust Youji."
"I just... don't believe this is happening," Ken said, shaking his head. "I
mean... it was weird when I found out you were a sub, but I adjusted. But
THIS... Omi, how could you? They're our enemies!"
"And I love them," Omi responded quietly. That shut Ken up in mid-rant, the
older man's jaw hanging open as he stared at the youngest Weiss. "They saved
me, they protected me, and they gave me hope. I'd have been lost without them.
Youji is the be-all and end-all of my world... but I will never stop loving
Schuldig and Nagi for what they did for me."
Ken visibly groped for something to say in response to that, apparently in
vain. Finally he just sat back and shut his mouth. "This is insane," he
muttered, covering his eyes with one arm. "I'm having a nightmare, that's all.
WAY too much pizza before I went to bed."
Omi's mouth twitched, but he was far too wound up to actually laugh. If Ken's
reaction was bad, he knew Aya's was going to be horrid. Of all of them, the
redhead was still carrying the biggest grudge against Schwartz, and Omi really
couldn't blame him.
They sat in silence for a good half hour before they heard the sound of Youji's
car coming up the alley behind the shop. Omi went over and opened the window,
leaning out. "Youji!" he called, and his lover looked up. "Come up here when
you get in - Aya-kun too. I told Nagi I'd be here if he needed anything, so I
don't want to leave."
He ducked back inside before they could do anything more than nod their assent.
The cold, set look on Aya's face did not bode well for his reaction. Omi hadn't
seen the swordsman THAT angry since Estet had fallen and he'd gotten his sister
back. He wondered how much Youji had been forced into revealing already.
Moments later the front door opened, and Youji and Aya entered, still dressed
in their mission clothes. They both kicked their boots off at the door, and Omi
noted flakes of brown on the soles. "I take it you found where the fight took
place?"
Youji nodded, coming in and slinging himself down on the sofa. Omi joined him,
leaving the extra chair for Aya rather than having Aya and Youji sitting
together. Not only did he want to avoid the potential problems that seating
arrangement might incur, but he desperately wanted to feel Youji's solid warmth
at his side while he told this story. This was not going to be easy for him.
"We found it, all right. Schu's place. The livingroom looked like a battlezone.
Farfarello is dead," Youji added, and Omi and Ken both sighed in relief.
"You're SURE?" Ken asked, anxious. "I mean... he's come back from the 'dead'
before..."
"He's dead," Aya confirmed. "We're not sure what killed him... there wasn't a
mark on him, but he was bleeding from the mouth, nose, eyes and ears. No
heartbeat, no respiration, and we checked for a good fifteen minutes straight."
"Thank God," Ken said, relaxing slightly in his chair. "That would have been
just one thing too many to worry about."
"Did you find any sign of Schuldig or Crawford?" Omi asked. "Or the people who
took them?"
"Before we go any further," Aya cut in, glaring at him, "I think Ken and I
deserve that explanation you promised. I for one want to know why the HELL
Youji has a key to Schuldig's apartment." Ken stared at Youji in surprise.
Omi drew a deep breath, and felt Youji squeeze his shoulder. He cast a grateful
glance at his lover, and began the painful story. "You all know by know that
I'm a submissive, and have been for some time. Ken-kun now knows, and I'm sure
you've started to guess, Aya-kun... that my Master was Schuldig."
Aya's eyes narrowed, but he didn't react otherwise. Omi wasn't sure whether he
was grateful that the redhead wasn't going to interrupt every three seconds, or
worried that Aya was storing up everything to blast him with at the end.
"When I first got involved in the scene, I was... in a really, really bad place
mentally and emotionally," Omi said, lowering his eyes to stare at the carpet.
He just couldn't bring himself to look at his teammates. "I'd... had a lot of
things wearing away at me. Remembering my past, discovering who I really was,
losing Ouka, turning against Hirofumi... It all ate at my sense of SELF, at my
knowledge of who and what I was inside. Then..."
He glanced at Youji, who just smiled at him sadly. "Then I had a fight with
Youji," he continued after a moment. "I offered myself to him... asked him to
be my first... and..."
"And I turned him down in just about the worst way possible," Youji finished
when Omi was clearly having trouble. "Told him I didn't want anything to do
with him, that he wasn't worth my time, essentially. Biggest damn mistake I
ever made, and I've regretted it every day since."
Something clicked for Ken. "That was... when you were drinking all the time,
wasn't it?" he asked, looking at Youji. The older man nodded, and pulled Omi a
little closer to him.
"It destroyed me," Omi picked up the thread of the story, having composed
himself a little. His voice shook slightly and his hands were trembling, but he
knew he just had to get it out and get it over with. "I was already fragile,
and it broke me almost past mending. I became convinced that I was worthless...
that no one would ever really want me."
He took another deep breath. "So I did something monumentally stupid. I went
online, found a BDSM club that would let people in without interviewing them
first, and went. Alone, and without any weapons."
Ken looked horrified, and even Aya made a bit-off sound of shock. Omi nodded.
"I'm sure you can guess what happened. The only clubs that let people in
without checking them out first are the ones who don't care what kind of person
is there. The only thing the Doms there were interested in was hurting their
subs to gain power over them, to make themselves feel stronger and more
important." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But I... didn't think I deserved
anything better."
"How could you think that?" Ken burst out, obviously unable to stay silent any
more. "Omi, how could you ever think that? Why didn't you come to me, if you
were hurting so much?" He sounded hurt. "Aren't we best friends?"
Omi gave him a watery smile. "You know how bad I am about letting other people
see that I'm upset. I didn't want to burden any of you with my problems... I
figured you all had enough of your own. And by the time it got really bad, I
was so convinced I didn't deserve help, that I couldn't bring myself to ask for
it."
Once again, Ken was left speechless. Omi steeled himself and continued. "I was
incredibly lucky that night. I was rescued before they did much more than scare
the hell out of me. Schuldig claimed me so that nobody else would be able to
touch me, and then he got me the hell out of there." He raised a hand to touch
his throat, where the German's pendant had hung for so long. It wasn't there
now, of course... his collar was safely tucked away in a drawer in his bedroom,
but the gesture had become habitual. None of his teammates missed the movement,
but nobody said anything.
"He lectured me for being stupid enough to get into the situation in the first
place," Omi continued. "Then when he realized how bad I was... that I had every
intention of coming back the moment his back was turned..." He closed his eyes.
"He told me that if I was going to go, I had to go with HIM, because otherwise
he'd lose status and would have to fight to protect Nagi from people who
thought Schuldig had gotten weak." He looked up at them again. "He never harmed
me. He worked HARD to convince me that I was worth something again... and then
he went out of his way to help me fix things with Youji. And THEN he helped us
with that mission - without him and Nagi, I'd probably have died then."
"Whoah, hang on," Ken interjected, frowning. "Omi, you hated Schuldig worse
than any of us. And then suddenly you were willing to put your life in his
hands, just because he rescued you once? And it really doesn't seem to you like
his powers just MIGHT have had something to do with that decision?"
Youji shrugged. "You have no reason to believe us, of course... but if there's
one thing I've come to respect about Schuldig, it's that he doesn't fuck around
when it comes to sex. For one thing, as Omi pointed out to me when I first
found out about all this, he's a touch-based telepath. If he's touching you
skin to skin, then he feels EXACTLY what you are feeling, just as if it was
happening to him. So rape in any form really just isn't an option for him."
"And he couldn't just make me think that I liked it," Omi headed off the next
obvious objection. "Not without a hell of a lot of effort, time, and prolonged
continuous contact with me. I was never with him for more than 24 hours at one
stretch, and that's not even close to long enough to rearrange something that
deepseated."
"None of this can be proved, one way or another," Aya growled, unconvinced.
"You might both be under his control, you might not be. If you are, we need to
put a stop to it. If you're not... then you've betrayed us knowingly and
willingly."
It was four in the morning, and Omi had just had an incredibly stressful night.
He did something he rarely did - he lost his temper. "Listen to me, and pay
close attention," he snapped. "I'm not asking you to like or forgive Schwartz.
But don't you DARE accuse either Youji or me of betraying Weiss in any way. If
anything, we've given them good reason NOT to kill us all off as an annoyance.
Because that's all we ever were to them... annoyances, and pawns," Omi
asserted. "Nagi alone could have killed all four of us with nothing more than a
moment's thought."
"And the fact that someone or something took them down... someone that might
very well be coming after US next... really ought to be our only real concern
here, guys," Youji added. "We've also got an injured, incredibly dangerous kid
under our roof, who is going to go seriously unstable if we don't find Schuldig
soon. You can decide to try to kill us both as traitors later... right now we
have work to do."
Ken sighed. "Yeah, fair enough. This is just... a lot to take in, guys. I mean,
Christ."
"Don't think this will be the end of it," Aya warned them. "I have no intention
of dropping this issue for longer than it takes us to track down what happened
to Schuldig and Crawford."
"Fine," Omi said, weary beyond belief. Telling that story had been draining and
painful, and right now all he really wanted to do was go curl up somewhere safe
and quiet - preferably with Youji to hold him. Having Schuldig and Nagi there
as well would have been a bonus. But Youji was right... they had work to do.
"We'll argue about it later. For now, tell me what you've got."
***** Chapter 3 *****
Schuldig wasn't sure how much time had passed. There was no source of light
except the harsh neon lights in the ceiling outside the cells. Normally if he
couldn't get hold of a clock and wanted to know what time it was, he just
peeked in a couple of minds until he found someone who knew. The minutes seemed
to drag, until he was convinced several days had passed since he'd woken up. He
knew it hadn't been more than a couple of hours, though... he was only starting
to get hungry, and he'd only had to piss once.
He couldn't help probing at his telepathy, like a kid poking at a loose tooth.
He couldn't remember anything ever being so quiet; there was nothing in his
mind but his own thoughts. He'd wished for just this feeling so many times he'd
lost count over the years; now that he had it at last, he found he desperately
wanted his powers back. The feeling of being completely alone in the world was
overwhelming - it was hard to convince himself that anyone else was actually
out there, even when Crawford was speaking to him from the other cell.
"Am I imagining you?" he asked Crawford idly, tired of staring at the walls and
picking at the blank spot in his own mind.
"I beg your pardon?" Crawford responded after a moment. He sounded startled,
and Schuldig smirked. That wasn't a sound he got to hear in the precognitive's
voice very often. Then he remembered WHY he'd been able to startle the other
psychic, and his smirk faded.
"I asked if I was imagining you," he repeated. "I can't see you. I can't feel
your mind. Maybe I'm really the only person left in the world, and I'm just
imagining you to keep myself company."
"Schuldig," Crawford's voice held a warning note. "I know you're just trying to
amuse yourself, but I want you to stay away from thoughts like that. You and I
are both very powerful, and we're used to having our abilities as a constant
presence. It will be far too easy for us to start to lose our grip on reality
without them."
"Yeah, yeah," Schuldig brushed it off, but he found that he was actually scared
of the thought. "Do you... d'you think we've lost them for good? Gone totally
headblind?" The mere idea was terrifying... spend the rest of his life alone
like this? Unable to truly touch another human being ever again? How the hell
did normal people live like this, anyway?
"I don't know," Crawford replied after a moment. There was something in his
voice that Schuldig had never heard before - fear. The precognitive was afraid,
and THAT scared Schuldig more than anything else ever had in his life. Crawford
was always the unflappable one, the one that could be counted on to remain calm
no matter what happened. For the first time Schuldig tore his mind away from
his own inability to sense anything beyond himself, and considered what this
situation must be like for Crawford. Schuldig felt like he'd gone deaf...
Crawford probably felt like he'd gone deaf AND blind all at once.
"We'll get out of this," Schuldig said suddenly, fiercely. He imbued his voice
with every bit of conviction that he could muster. "When has Schwartz ever
faced something we couldn't overcome? We beat the Elders at their own damn
game. Nagi is out there somewhere, and when he finds us, there won't be enough
of this building left intact to shelter a flea."
He refused to consider the idea that Nagi might be dead. It just... wasn't
possible, and he flatly refused to think about it. The thought of life without
his Liebchen was unbearable.
In the next cell, Crawford sighed and shifted. "It's entirely likely that we
are only being blocked, not that we've lost our powers completely. The
Institute does have people capable of burning out a psychic's powers... but
I've never heard of it being done without also destroying the victim's mind,
and we seem to be perfectly intact other than the loss of our abilities."
"Who are these guys, anyway?" Schuldig wanted to know. "You sure seem to know a
lot about them."
There was a long pause, and he almost thought Crawford wasn't going to answer
him. At last the American spoke, obviously choosing his words carefully. "The
Institute is an organization not entirely unlike Estet. They have been
gathering and training psychics for decades, perhaps centuries. Unlike Estet,
they employed ONLY psychics, and so it was necessarily a smaller organization."
"So if they're collecting psychics, why take us and not Nagi or Farfarello?"
Schuldig wanted to know. "I'd think Nagi would be MORE appealing to them...
he's young enough that they'd have more luck conditioning him."
"They're not recruiting us, Schuldig," Crawford replied quietly. "They're
hunting us down. I was trained by the Institute, and I was a field agent for
them before Estet approached me to join them. If not for Estet's systematic
decimation of the Institute's agents, I never would have been able to escape
them. Rogue agents were extremely rare due to the level of brainwashing they
employ... and they are always hunted down quickly and destroyed."
"But you escaped them... and STAYED away... that must have pissed them off
pretty badly," Schuldig agreed slowly. There was something deep in his mind
that was telling him he REALLY didn't want to persue this train of thought...
but damn it, he had a right to know. "That explains why they took you. Why'd
they take me?"
"Did you really think I would ever truly let you go?" a new voice echoed from
down the hall. Schuldig whirled, straining to be able to look past the iron
bars and see who was speaking. The voice was deep and oddly familiar - it
started a sick feeling of dread building in the pit of his stomach.
Footsteps echoed through the hall as the unknown man approached. No, two sets
of footsteps, Schuldig realized... one light and quick, and one heavy and slow.
An adult and a child?
"Who the fuck are you?" the German demanded, cursing the loss of his powers.
Give him FIVE minutes with his powers and this fucker, and he and Crawford
would have been out of here in no time.
The man came into sight, smiling nastily at Schuldig through the bars as he
paused in front of the cell. Behind him was a slender youth of no more than
twelve, who had a vacant expression and unfocused eyes. The man was swarthy and
dark - Mediterranean background, Schuldig thought. Italian, or maybe Greek.
"It's so good to see you again," the man rumbled, a lustful light in his eyes
as he stared at Schuldig. That look made the telepath shiver, and he had to
fight not to rub at his arms in a defensive gesture. "My most prized student.
The years have been kind to you... you are even more beautiful now than you
were as a teenager." He looked at Schuldig admiringly. "Perhaps we are wrong to
insist on such military hair cuts among our students... that style suits you
perfectly."
"Who. The FUCK. Are. You?" Schuldig bit out again, standing so that the man
wasn't towering over him. Sitting before him made the German feel like a child
being punished by a stern authority figure, and he didn't like the sensation at
all. The only authority he recognized was Crawford, and that only because the
precognitive had EARNED it.
Their captor looked surprised. "Don't tell me you don't remember me," he said.
"I refuse to believe you have erased my mark on you so easily. No, I think you
are bluffing."
"He's not bluffing - Emmanuel, isn't it?" Crawford said from the next cell.
Schuldig could tell by the sound of his voice that he'd stood, as well. "He
doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember anything about the Institute. He is
not the person you think you know."
A massive headache was building behind Schuldig's eyes, and he struggled to
fight it off. There was something... that he'd forgotten, and it was very
important, but damn it, he didn't WANT to remember... Crawford's words reminded
him of what had happened between them the day they'd met. Crawford had known
him, had called him by another name, had been surprised that Schuldig hadn't
recognized him. Schuldig had never wanted to know what it was the Crawford knew
about him. He'd never asked, and the precognitive had never told, and
eventually the telepath had all but forgotten that Crawford had known him from
before he'd lost his memory. And now... this man also apparently knew him from
his youth.
"You are not serious." Emmanuel made it a statement, rather than a question. He
glanced over at Crawford's cell, and frowned. "You are telling the truth... or
believe you are." He looked back at Schuldig, and suddenly the German was
reeling back from the vice-grip on his brain. The man was a telepath, a strong
one... and obviously whatever was blocking Crawford and Schuldig wasn't
affecting him. Without his shields, Schuldig was helpless before the invasion,
red hot knives raking across his mind and picking out bits of information.
"Amnesia," the other telepath said at last, as the crushing pressure faded and
Schuldig fell to his knees, gasping for air. "Amazing. I would not have thought
it possible. He truly does not remember anything. Do you know what caused it?"
His tone was nothing but polite inquiry, but there was a veiled threat in his
eyes as he looked at Crawford once more. Schuldig wasn't capable of doing
anything more than trying to collect his scattered brain cells, so he stayed
silent and just listened.
"Some form of trauma... a memory his mind is hiding from," Crawford replied
reluctantly. "I could have forced him to remember, but every time I thought
about it I got visions of him, me, or both of us dying."
"Fascinating," Emmanuel said. Schuldig had finally gotten his breath back, and
he raised his head to snarl at the older telepath. "So he didn't knowingly
betray us... perhaps I will be able to convince the council to reinstate him."
"If you think I'm gonna do anything for you other than slit your throat, you've
got another think coming," Schuldig growled, eyes narrowed. He staggered up to
his feet again. "I don't care who you are, or who *I* was... I'm not going to
just roll over and beg like a puppy dog. You can bite my ass, frankly."
The other man seemed unfazed by his acid comments. "I must say I do not prefer
this personality to your old one. I shall simply have to see about fixing
that."
"Weren't you listening?" Crawford snapped, and Schuldig heard him move to the
front of the cell. "If you force his mind to remember whatever it is that he's
running from, he will lose control and kill everything in the vicinity."
A sharp stabbing pain spiked into Schuldig's mind, and for a moment he thought
it was Emmanuel again. Then he realized it was just the same headache he always
got on the rare occasions when he tried to remember anything from his past. But
he hadn't been trying to remember anything... was it this man's presence that
was causing memories to try to surface? Or Crawford's words?
He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, willing the pain to subside.
When he released it, he looked up to see Emmanual looking back at him once
more.
"If I cannot force his mind to remember, then I shall simply have to work
around it," the older telepath said, shrugging. His eyes narrowed in
concentration, and suddenly the only thing Schuldig was aware of was the
agonizing fire in his brain. It was like a wash of acid against raw nerve ends,
eating away at his mind, at his memories.
He screamed, falling to the floor and clutching his head, and he didn't stop
screaming for a very long time.
 
===============================================================================
In the end, Omi reflected, it was just another mission. The people who had
taken Crawford and Schuldig were much better at hiding their tracks than most
of the targets Weiss took on, but they weren't perfect.
The attackers had disable the building's security systems, including the
cameras, before showing up at Schuldig's apartment. However, they apparently
hadn't been aware of the secondary, MUCH more sophisticated security system
that Nagi had set up around the apartment. Youji had retrieved the computer
hard drive the security system was hooked up to, and brought it back for Omi
and Nagi to sift through.
When Nagi had - with much stuttering and hesitation - asked to help in the
efforts to find his Master, Omi hadn't been about to turn him down, despite his
conviction that the telekinetic wasn't up to much. The fact that the
telekinetic had asked for anything at all, no matter how desperately he wanted
it, was a good sign. He'd wound up compromising by letting Nagi sit propped up
on pillows in the bed with a laptop, while Omi worked at the desk computer. It
had ended up working better than he'd feared... thanks to his powers, Nagi
could type without having to move his injured shoulder or strain his ribs.
With a sigh, Omi leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out behind
him. "I've found a couple of shots of your attackers, but nothing clear," he
told the telekinetic. "Almost always from behind, too, as if they knew where
the cameras were."
Nagi shook his head, not looking up from his own work. "If they'd known about
the cameras, they'd have disabled them, too. They knew where cameras WOULD
logically be, if there was another security system, and they acted
accordingly."
Silently, Omi cheered his friend for disagreeing with him. Alone with Omi, with
a computer-oriented task to occupy him, Nagi was able to display some measure
of his usual behaviour. But the moment anybody else entered the picture, even
Youji, the boy clammed up again and refused to do anything at all without a
direct order. If Omi hadn't known how badly Nagi really was broken, he'd have
said the former pet was being stubborn about it, but he knew that wasn't the
case.
He thought about what Nagi had said, and then turned to run the shots of the
attack again. This time he paid more attention to the way the attackers worked,
rather than straining to get a good look at their faces. Once more he saw the
door burst open, saw Nagi picked up and flung backwards by an invisible force,
knocking over half the furniture in the room on his way to the far wall.
Farfarello had leapt up from his chair and thrown one of his knives, which
ended up buried in the shoulder of one attacker. From the angle of the camera
it was impossible to tell whether it had been a heart shot or not, but knowing
what Farfarello was capable of, Omi was willing to bet that his target was now
very dead.
Farfarello stopped and stood dead still in the centre of the room for a moment,
then clutched at his head and collapsed. He wound up sprawled exactly where
Youji and Aya had found him, halfway behind the overturned couch. By this time
Crawford and Schuldig had stood and drawn their guns, but as one they dropped
the guns and reeled, as if they'd suddenly become extremely dizzy. Although
there was no sound recorded, Omi knew Schuldig was screaming by the look on the
telepath's face. Crawford collapsed, then Schuldig, dropping where they stood.
All that time Nagi had been fighting the telekinetic force holding him,
struggling to get loose or use his own powers. He had been slammed against the
wall repeatedly, until finally he slumped over and stopped moving. The
invisible force let him hover for a moment, then dropped him to the floor where
he lay limp and twisted.
Then the assailants moved into the room, picked up Schuldig, Crawford, and
their own injured companion, and they left without giving Nagi or Farfarello so
much as a second glance. There had been three of them - the two remaining
carried the bodies out using telekinesis.
Omi checked the clock on the playback. "Less than five minutes from start to
finish," he noted. "They moved like clockwork. And you're right, they're acting
like they're assuming there are elements they don't know about, and adjusting
accordingly." He frowned. "These are professionals. Very highly trained
professionals. I'd think somebody had taken out a contract on you, except that
they're also obviously psychics."
"Estet didn't go in for that kind of training," Nagi said thoughtfully. "Not
that I know of - they never trained us. And except for Schwartz and the Elders,
I don't think there were a lot of powerful psychics in Estet."
Omi nodded, running the video file back again to the moment the door opened,
and slowing it down. "Crawford recognizes them... but Schuldig doesn't," he
said after a moment. "So... maybe they were from a part of Estet that most
members didn't know about, but Crawford knew them for some reason? Maybe he'd
seen them in a vision?" He paused. "Which reminds me, why didn't he see this
coming? I'd say this qualifies as a significant event!"
"He was having trouble with his powers," the telekinetic replied. "That's why
we were meeting... he wanted to tell us about it, and find out if any of us
were having trouble as well. He'd only just started to explain when... when the
door buzzed."
Leaning back, the Weiss hacker started ticking points off on his fingers.
"Crawford starts having trouble with his powers, and shortly thereafter a group
of psychics who can block you and Schuldig shows up. I don't think that's any
kind of coincidence... the trouble Crawford was having must have been a result
of whatever was blocking you." Nagi nodded silently, and Omi continued. "They
were well trained and used to working together. They were powerful, on a level
with Schwartz. You don't know of anyone else in Estet who was that powerful,
but that may not mean anything - I doubt you would have been told everything
about the organization. And besides," he smiled wryly. "How many psychic
paramilitary organizations can there BE out there? They must have been from
Estet."
"Unfortunately, that won't help us find them," Nagi said, shoulders slumping.
"Estet had safehouses and bolt holes all over the world. They could be
anywhere." Omi heard the tears trembling just beneath his friend's voice.
He stood and crossed to the bed, sitting beside Nagi and wrapping a comforting
arm around the smaller boy's shoulders. "Everybody screws up eventually," he
said softly. "Sooner or later they'll leave something for us to find, and we'll
track them down."
"But what if it's already too late?" Nagi whispered back, anguished. "What if
they've already k-killed Crawford and... a-and..."
Omi hushed him by kissing him gently. "Don't think about it, Liebe. If they'd
wanted them dead, they wouldn't have bothered to kidnap them. So they'll
probably keep them alive for a good long time yet."
Nagi nodded, and turned back to his laptop. Omi stood, debating whether he
wanted to return to his own work, or make them both some dinner. They'd already
been at this all day - for once Youji had covered Omi's shift in the shop
without complaint.
"I found something!" Nagi exclaimed abruptly from behind him. "Omi, I found
something!"
Startled, the white hunter turned and knelt on the bed again, so he could see
the laptop screen. "What? Where?" he demanded.
"The parking lot... I've got a camera down there, just in case," Nagi said. He
started the video file moving again, and they both watched as several shadowy
forms appeared on the left side of the frame. Two men, three limp bodies
trailing along behind them like an eerie parade, and one new addition - a
child, perhaps ten or twelve. Omi frowned. The shots of the attackers here were
even worse than the ones in the apartment. He was just about to ask what Nagi
had meant when he saw it.
"The liscence plate!" he shouted as the figures piled into a van and drove
away. "We can run it through the database and see what comes up."
He scrambled back to his own computer and logged into the Kritiker network,
accessing the police databases. He started the search going on the plate
numbers. "Don't get too excited," he said as the search crawled along. He
wasn't sure whether he was cautioning himself, or Nagi, or both. "It's entirely
likely they stole the car, or switched the plates."
"We've got the make and model of the van, too," Nagi pointed out. "Though it's
too dark to see the colour."
"Mm, right," Omi nodded, pulling up a different database and entering the
information on the van. "If it was stolen, or if they dumped it somewhere and
it's been found, it'll show up here."
"It has to tell us something... it HAS to," Nagi said quietly, fervently. Omi
knew how he felt... if this turned out to be a useless lead, then they really
had nowhere else to look. These people were very good at covering their tracks,
and as Nagi had pointed out, they had world-wide resources, whereas Weiss only
had resources within Japan. Silently he willed the computer search to find
something.
When his computer beeped a few minutes later, he was almost afraid to look at
the results. If he didn't look, then he could just keep believing that it would
give them the answer...
"Well?" Nagi demanded after a moment, impatience overcoming his usual reticence
entirely. "What does it SAY?"
Omi finally looked up, and nearly whooped with relief when he saw information
on the screen. It still might not lead them anywhere useful, but at least it
was a place to START. "The liscence plates are for a sedan, not a van," he
said, scanning the information quickly. "They must have switched the plates."
Hastily he scribbled down the address of the registered owner of the plates.
"We'll talk to the owner, see what he knows. A van with a description that
matches the one on the video was reported stolen this morning... after the
attack, but I'll bet the owner just didn't realize it was gone until he went
outside to go to work today." He wrote that address down, too.
"If it's stolen, they'll probably ditch it quickly and change vehicles," Nagi
pointed out, eyes shining with excitement. "When the van is found, that will
tell us which direction they were heading in."
"Right!" Omi agreed. He tore off the notepaper he'd written the address on and
jumped up. "You stay here, and keep an eye on the police databases. I'm going
to go out and talk to these people, see if they can give us any more clues." He
stopped at Nagi's side and dropped a spontaneous kiss on the younger boy's
cheek. "Good work, Liebe. If you need anything, just go down to the flowershop
and ask Youji, okay? I won't be gone too long."
Nagi flushed at the praise, and nodded. "I'll be okay," he replied quietly.
"You go find them."
Omi grabbed his helmet and the keys to his bike, and left the room. Trotting
down the stairs, he entered the flowershop and looked around. Aya was working
on an ikebana arrangement at the table, and Ken was watering some of the
flowers. Youji was nowhere to be seen.
"Did Youji skip out?" Omi asked, surprised. Not that Youji didn't worm his way
out of his shifts more often than not, but his lover had promised him that he
would cover for Omi for as long as it took for the hacker to track down
Schwartz's assailants.
"No, he's doing deliveries," Ken replied. "Man, I swear, I've never seen him
this diligent. He volunteered to do the deliveries, and he hates doing them.
It's kind of a nice change."
"No kidding," Omi replied drily. "We've found a possible lead... I'm going to
go check it out. Nagi's upstairs watching for any more information, but I told
him to come down if he needed anything. Be nice," he added sternly, glaring in
Aya's direction. "He's fragile right now."
"I'll make sure he's okay," Ken offered. "I'll go up and check on him every so
often, just in case."
Omi smiled at his best friend. "Thank you, Ken-kun. I shouldn't be gone too
long. If Nagi does find something, call me on my cell." With a last wave he
headed out the back door, into the alley where they kept their vehicles.
Pulling on his helmet, he started his bike and headed out, determined to
squeeze every possible bit of information he could out of these leads. He had
to find Schuldig, and soon... Nagi simply wouldn't be able to survive for long
without the telepath.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Brad cursed his inability to tell how much time had passed. Their captors had
searched them thoroughly, and taken anything that might conceivably be or be
used as a weapon in any way - and that included anything metal, like watches.
Not that it would have helped him to know how much time had passed, but at
least it would be one less thing to fret over. He was a man who liked to have
control and order in his life; as Schuldig frequently complained, he tended to
micromanage everything around him. This was partly because of his need to
minimize variables in order to use his powers more efficiently, but it was also
partly just a facet of his personality.
Right now he was in control of almost nothing, and any order in his life had
been established by someone else, not him. Although he had tried to train
himself to use his powers as a check and a last resort, rather than as his
primary planning tool, he was realizing now that he relied on them far more
than he'd realized. He'd felt awkward and sluggish since waking up in this
cell, and at first he'd thought it was a reaction to being knocked out. As time
passed and the feeling persisted, however, he came to understand that his
precognition actually had him contstantly living a split second ahead of time.
It was such a subtle effect, and was so consistent, that he had never before
recognized that aspect of his abilities until now when it was missing.
What worried him more, however, was the total silence from the cell on his
left. Schuldig had continued to scream for a very long time as Emmanuel
rearranged his mind, and nothing Brad had been able to say or do had deterred
the older telepath. Emmanuel had continued to stand before them, half in
trance, for quite some time after Schuldig had finally passed out.
Brad had tried to subvert the child accompanying the Instructor while the man's
attention was elsewhere, but he'd had no luck. The youth didn't respond to
anything Brad said, simply staring blankly into space. Finally he'd given up,
and simply stood there with his hands clenched around the bars, seething with
hatred and glaring at Emmanuel.
Now, however, he was fairly certain that several hours had passed since the
telepath had left them, taking the child with him. Brad had paced the length of
his cell for quite some time, trying to vent his frustration at being so
helpless. Eventually he'd flung himself down on the cot and just stared at the
wall separating him from Schuldig, as if he could see through it if he just
looked hard enough.
Normally the calmest, most unflappable member of Schwartz, the American now
felt distinctly on edge. He despised this feeling of helplessness, of not
knowing what was going to happen next. He couldn't imagine how ordinary people
could live with this constant, total uncertainty. Events sometimes managed to
sneak up and surprise him, if he wasn't using his powers assiduously enough,
but it only happened rarely. Between that and his worry for Schuldig, he was
barely able to contain himself.
The German hadn't made a single sound since he'd stopped screaming. Brad
couldn't even hear him breathing, though he was fairly certain Schuldig wasn't
dead. Emmanuel had seemed pleased when he'd left, and Brad had gotten the
distinct impression that Emmanuel very much wanted Schuldig alive and well.
Whatever the older man had done, it hadn't triggered the wave of destruction
that Brad had so often seen in his visions whenever he contemplated trying to
bring Schuldig's memories back. It occured to the precog that he hadn't
considered that particular possibility in a very long time - not since he'd
given up on ever having Lukas return, and had arranged Schuldig's happiness
with Nagi. It was possible that the years had dulled whatever memory it was
that Schuldig was hiding from, enabeling him to be reminded of who he had once
been.
Brad was shocked to discover that he honestly wasn't sure whether that thought
appealed to him or not. On the one hand, he'd longed for the companionship of
his former best friend for so long, it was a constant part of who he was. On
the other, he had truly let go of his love for his friend, releasing Lukas in
his mind, wanting only for him to be happy with Nagi. If Schuldig regained his
memories now, after so long... how would that effect their partnership in
Schwartz? Would it tear them apart, or bring them closer together? Would Nagi
be able to adjust to such an abrupt change?
Once more he cursed the loss of his powers as he automatically reached to see
the future possibilities and ran into a blank wall. He was afraid that if this
continued, he really might begin to lose his grasp on reality, creating
hallucinatory visions sheerly out of desperation to KNOW what would happen.
Just as Schuldig had already begun to question the reality of people around
him, now that he couldn't sense them any more.
A soft moan cut into his wandering thoughts, followed by quiet but heartfelt
swearing in German. "Schuldig?" he said, standing quickly and making his way to
the corner of his cell. "Are you awake?"
There was a startled silence, and then Schuldig replied in English. "Brad? My
God, is that you?" His voice was soft, and he sounded as if Brad's voice was
the last thing on earth he'd expected to hear.
As always the sound of his name said in Schuldig's voice made Brad
uncomfortable, especially given his earlier thoughts about the past. But he
decided that now was not the time to berate the German for using his proper
name... he was too relieved that Schuldig was conscious and coherent once
again. "Yes," he answered in the same language. "How do you feel?"
"Like a piece of shit that just had a Mack truck run over it," the German said
drily. Brad's lips twitched.
"Sounds like you're just fine," he replied, voice equally dry. "What did he do
to you, can you tell?"
"What did WHO do to me?" He heard the telepath rustling about in his cell, then
footsteps approached the corner nearest Brad. "Where the hell are we?"
"Don't you remember? We were captured," Brad told him, growing concerned. "They
did something to you... one of the telepaths was trying to rearrange your
mind."
"Well... I feel fine," Schuldig answered slowly, "But I sure as hell don't
remember being captured. What the fuck is going on?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Brad asked, mind racing over the
possibilities. Perhaps Emmanuel had caused some blackouts in Schuldig's memory,
either on purpose or as a side effect of whatever else he was trying to do.
Either way, they needed to figure out how much the German had lost.
There was a pause, presumably as Schuldig tried to arrange his thoughts. "The
last thing I remember... fuck, it's hard to think. Like the neurons are
swimming through tar, or something." He made a frustrated noise. "There's some
stuff I can't really remember... feels like a nightmare or something, all dull
and fuzzy and vague. Nothing definite, just impressions, you know? Terror,
pain, desperation." His voice shook slightly. "The last thing I can remember
clearly is... uh... shit."
"Don't force it," Brad advised, eyes narrowed. Presumably the 'nightmare' was
what Schuldig's already vague memories of the attack on Schwartz had become.
"Just relax and tell me the easiest thing for you to remember."
He heard the telepath take a deep breath and hold it for a count of ten before
blowing it out again. "I remember... talking to somebody... uh... Dekane, I
think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Everybody was strung out and nervous... the
Instructors were all going nuts. He told me I was being assigned to the field
early, that my plane was leaving soon and I had to go pack." The younger man
paused, then shook his head. "That's it, that's the last thing I can remember
clearly."
Brad was absolutely certain that he'd just had a telekinetic blast to the
chest. He couldn't breath, and he was positive his heart had stopped. He
clutched at the bars of the cell for support. "My God... Lukas?"
 
===============================================================================
Ken finished ringing up the order, and smiled cheerfully at the customer as he
handed her the receipt. "Thank you," he said, and she smiled back at him and
gathered up her new potted fern. "Please come back soon!"
The bell over the door jangled as she left, and then blessed silence descended.
The schoolgirl rush had been worse than usual, and with only Ken and Aya there
to handle it, it had seemed to last for hours. The last of the girls had
finally left for dinner, leaving the two of them alone in the shop.
He stretched his arms above his head, feeling the vertebrae in his neck and
mid-back pop back into place. "Damn, I think this has been one of the longest
days of my entire life!" he exclaimed wearily. "Youji sure is taking a long
time with those deliveries."
"Probably why he volunteered in the first place," Aya noted drily, sweeping up
the leaves and petals littering the floor. "So he could get out and avoid the
rush."
"True," Ken grimaced. Sighing, he glanced toward the door up to the apartments.
"I feel bad, I told Omi I'd check on Nagi every so often, and I haven't had a
chance... hey!" he said in surprise, seeing a small form standing mostly hidden
in the shadows behind the door. "Nagi? Is that you? C'mon in, we won't bite
you."
Slowly, the dark-haired boy edged his way into the shop, eyes wide and flitting
nervously between Ken and Aya. He was walking oddly, a strange gliding limp,
and Ken realized after a moment that he must have been using his telekinesis to
allow him to walk without putting weight on his bad ankle. Wryly, the ex-soccer
player thought of a few times in his life where he'd have paid his weight in
gold to have that ability.
The telekinetic swallowed, and hesitantly said one word. "Y-youji?" he asked,
voice wavering.
"He's not here," Aya said harshly, eyes narrowed at the boy. His tone was
distinctly unwelcoming, and while Ken understood his lover's feelings, he
couldn't help but feel that Aya was being just a little too tough on the boy.
Nagi was obviously scared and uncertain, and probably feeling rather trapped,
surrounded by his enemies as he was.
"He went out to do deliveries," Ken added, trying to soothe the frightened
teen. "He should be back soon. Omi ought to be back soon, too. I told him I'd
help you while they were out. Did you need something?"
Nagi shook his head, and edged a little closer, holding out a piece of paper
towards Ken. "I f-found something else," he whispered, eyes lowered and fixed
on the floor at his feet. "The police found the v-van dumped outside the city."
"Hey, all right!" Ken said, taking the paper and glancing at the address.
"That'll give us another point to check out. I'll go call Omi and let him know.
Good work, Nagi."
The boy brightened somewhat at the praise, and Ken reflected that he was rather
like an abused puppy, expecting blows rather than encouragement. The thought
made him absolutely sick... given Nagi's situation, the only people HE could
think of who would have brought about that kind of abused look in the boy's
eyes were Crawford or Schuldig. Given that he knew for a fact that Nagi was
Schuldig's sub, it didn't take him long to decide where his money lay.
Which meant it was possible - likely, even - that the German had done the same
thing to Omi, or started to. The idea of seeing Omi edging around like this,
too frightened to raise his voice above a whisper or look anybody in the eyes,
had Ken trembling on the edge of rage.
"I'll be right back," he said, and went into the back room quickly before he
could get really angry and blow up at nothing. Once out of sight, he took a
couple of deep breaths and forced some control over his temper. On the spot, he
decided that if he had anything to say about it, Omi was damn well never going
to be put back into that bastard's hands - and neither was Nagi. And he was
going to make damn sure he HAD something to say about it.
He messed with the seedlings for a few minutes, trying to calm himself down
before calling Omi. If he didn't, he'd probably end up saying something he'd
regret later... or causing Omi to suspect that he was planning to interfere.
Ken knew how stubborn his best friend could be... sometimes you just had to do
things for his own good.
When he thought he was calm enough, he grabbed the shop phone and dialed Omi's
cell. It rang a few times before the boy picked up, and Ken could hear the
sound of traffic in the background. "Hey," he greeted his friend.
"Ken-kun! Is everything okay?" Omi asked, sounding concerned.
"Yeah, we're fine," Ken answered, leaning back against the counter. "Nagi found
some new information... the police have located the van."
"Oh, good!" Omi exclaimed. "Where is it? Have they hauled it away yet?"
Ken relayed the address Nagi had given him. "I'm not sure if they've taken it
yet. If they haven't, they might still be in the area, looking around... make
sure they don't see you."
"Teach me to do my job," Omi teased him. "I'll check it out - that's not too
far from where I am now. How's Nagi doing?"
"He seems a little skittish," Ken noted, reminding himself not to get angry
again. "Is he always like that?"
"Not usually this bad," Omi replied. "But yeah, he's generally a little touchy,
especially around people he doesn't know. Youji's still not back? Figures. Take
care of Nagi for me, Ken-kun."
"Sure thing, buddy," Ken agreed. "I'll see you when you get back." He hung up,
and sighed. Omi had sounded very glad to have the new lead, and Ken hoped that
meant the white hunter wasn't having any luck. As far as he was concerned, it
would be best for all of them if Schuldig and Crawford just disappeared into
the void.
At last he drew a deep breath and headed back out into the main room. He was
brought up short in the doorway by the sight of his lover, who had backed a
cowering Nagi into a corner. Aya was snarling something too low for Ken to
catch most of it, but he heard 'Aya-chan' and knew this was trouble.
"Aya!" He exclaimed, rushing over. He reached them just as Aya drew his fist
back, and caught the older man's hand. "Aya, enough! What the hell are you
doing?"
The look on his lover's face was beyond rage - it was the same all-consuming
hatred he had once held for Takatori. "He has the nerve to come to US for
help... to rescue the people who tried to use my sister to summon a demon...
and now we find out they've subverted Omi and Youji as well?"
Ken took one look at the absolutely terrified look on Nagi's face, and the way
the youth was plastered back into the corner to try to get away from the
enraged assassin, and hauled Aya back away from him. The redhead turned on him,
intending to chew him out no doubt, but Ken was more than familiar with his
lover's mercurial moods, and beat him to the punch.
"Aya, forget about being angry for a second and THINK, will you?" Ken commanded
in a harsh whisper. "I'll be the first one to join you in hating Schuldig,
Crawford, and Farfarello, okay? As far as I'm concerned, I hope they're already
well on their way to Hell. But for God's sake, take another look at that kid,
will you? We've seen enough abuse victims in our work... you KNOW they way they
react. Flinching away from every little gesture, afraid to draw attention to
themselves... that boy is literally COVERED in scars. Every damn inch of him,
just about. We already know he's a sub... Christ, Aya, he was afraid to EAT
without explicit permission from Schuldig."
Aya had remained steely through most of that diatribe, but Ken saw his eyes
starting to soften near the end. Knowing he was finally getting through to the
other man, he sighed and softened his voice. "Just LOOK at the kid, will you?
He..." he glanced over to prove his point, and Nagi was nowhere to be seen.
"Hey, where'd he go?" he finished in surprise.
Glancing over, Aya blinked and looked startled. "He was there a second ago..."
They both turned to look around the shop. There was no sign of the telekinetic,
and neither of them had heard him leave. "He can't have gone far with his ankle
as bad as it is," Aya finished, but he didn't sound quite certain.
"I wouldn't bet on that," Ken replied. "He was using his powers to help him
walk when he came down here - I don't think he was putting any weight on the
foot at all." He sighed and scrubbed at his face. "He's probably hiding under
Omi's bed, or something. I'll go look for him in a minute. I want to finish
this, first. What happened? What set you off?"
Aya had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I... lost my temper," he admitted.
"I asked him to give me one good reason why we should even be looking for
Crawford and Schuldig... except possibly to make sure they were finished off."
"And he... what? Argued with you?" Ken asked, doubting it.
"No... he just... stood there." Aya shook his head. "Looking at the floor. I
thought he was admitting that he had no good reasons, and it pissed me off."
"I think he was probably just too scared to answer you," Ken pointed out. "You
come off as pretty overbearing sometimes, lover. He's really skittish - having
you back him into a corner probably didn't help, either. Out of curiosity, do
you have any self-preservation instinct at all? Remember what he did to the
Schreient mansion? Backing him into a corner and snarling at him wasn't the
smartest thing you've ever done, regardless of his attitude."
"You're probably right," Aya admitted, sinking down into one of the chairs with
a sigh. "Looking back on it, he does act like an abuse victim. A really badly
abused one. I was just too angry to see straight."
Ken couldn't help but smile a bit at that. "Well, at least you're willing to
admit it. That's a hell of a step up from your total obsession with Takatori."
The redhead nodded. "You think Crawford or Schuldig did this to him?"
"Yeah, that's what I figure," Ken agreed darkly. "My bet is Schuldig, but
Crawford couldn't have NOT known about it, so even if he wasn't directly
responsible, he was still letting it go on. What worries ME..." he paused
significantly, "is what we know now about Omi's relationship with him. If he
was abusing Nagi badly enough to make him act like he hasn't got a thought of
his own, do you really think he wouldn't have done something similar to Omi?"
"I'm certainly not buying their insistence that they're with him of their own
free will," Aya noted. "He's done something to them... like he did with Sakura-
chan, forcing her to fire that gun at me."
"If we're right, then Nagi is every bit as much of a victim as anybody else
Schwartz ever hurt or killed," Ken pointed out. "Christ, remember what they did
to Tot? I don't think he had a hell of a lot of choice about following his
orders. So go easy on him, okay?"
After a long moment, Aya nodded. "I'll try," he said. "I've hated them all for
so long, I can't promise to change overnight. But I'll try."
Ken grinned, injecting a note of lightness into his voice. "And hey, just
think... if we can convert him, get him to agree to join us... Christ, there
won't be ANYTHING Weiss can't do!" He shrugged out of his apron and hung it on
its hook. "I'm gonna run up and check on him, make sure he doesn't die of sheer
fright or something."
He trotted up the stairs, heading for his own apartment first. Digging through
his drawers, he found the door key Omi had given him some time ago. He let
himself into Omi's apartment, kicking off his shoes at the door automatically.
"Nagi?" he called, heading for the bedroom, figuring he'd probably find the boy
there. "Nagi? Hey, don't be scared... Aya gets pissy sometimes, you just learn
to ignore it after a while. He's not mad at you anymore." He opened the door to
the bedroom, and frowned when he didn't see Nagi. "You in here, kid?"
He stood in the doorway for a moment, listening intently. He didn't hear
anything but the soft whir of Omi's computer, but that didn't mean anything.
Nagi had obviously been scared out of his mind down in the shop - he might very
well have hidden somewhere in an attempt to keep himself safe.
"All right... if I was a terrified telekinetic, where would I hide?" Ken
muttered to himself as he started poking around the room. He checked under the
bed first, and found only a scattering of electronics, floppy disks, and CDs.
Chuckling softly to himself at Omi, he moved on to check the closet. He went
right inside, pushing past the hanging clothes to check into both corners.
There was no sign of the missing psychic.
Crawling out again, Ken dusted off his hands and stood in the center of the
room, looking around. Where else might someone conceivably hide? Dredging up
distant memories of hide-and-seek games he'd played as a child, he checked
every possible hiding place, and even some that were unlikely, like the clothes
hamper.
"Well, shit," he finally concluded when he was in the living room again and
still hadn't found any clues to the telekinetic's whereabouts. "Maybe he didn't
come up here after all..."
He checked his own apartment when it occurred to him that a deadbolt probably
wouldn't be much of a deterrent to someone like Nagi. Then he checked Aya's,
just in case. He didn't have a key to Youji's apartment, and he wasn't any good
at picking locks, so he left that until the playboy returned.
Heading back down the stairs, he entered the shop with a frown on his face. Aya
looked up, and raised an eyebrow at his expression. "He causing trouble?" the
redhead asked.
"Only indirectly," Ken replied. "I can't find him. He's definitely not in Omi's
apartment, mine, or yours. I can't get into Youji's. D'you think he might have
hidden somewhere down here?"
As one, they looked at the corner where Aya had backed Nagi against the wall.
"The door to the back room is a lot closer than the door to the apartments,"
Ken noted thoughtfully. "The front door is all the way across the shop, and
he'd have had to cross our line of vision to get there. So he's either in
Youji's apartment, or he went into the back."
"I've been in the back a couple times since you left," Aya told him, "but if he
was hiding I might not have seen him."
"I'll check," Ken offerred, making his way to the back room. He poked around,
checking all the storage areas, looking in the cupboards and even into the
refrigerator where they kept fresh blooms. Now getting seriously worried, he
went down to the mission room and checked there, but there was still no sign of
the boy.
Alarmed, he went back up the stairs and looked around the back room. There were
only three doors leading from it - the one to the shop, the one to the mission
room, and the one to the back alley where they kept their vehicles, and where
the trash from the store was dumped. His heart sinking, Ken went out the latter
door, scanning the alley.
He almost missed it - in the gravel near the door was a single footprint, too
small to belong to any of them. It was pointed in the direction of the street,
and was blurred around the edges as if something other than just the shoe had
put pressure there.
"Fucking hell," Ken swore, eyes wide as he ran back into the shop. "Aya...
we've got a BIG problem!"
***** Chapter 5 *****
Nagi ran, blinded by the tears he couldn't shed, heedless of the sight he must
have presented to passersby. The sun was setting, hovering on the edge of the
wester horizon; he ran away from it, following his shadow in an odd game of
follow-the-leader.
He couldn't hear the shouts of the people he shoved past, or the blaring horns
of the cars that almost hit him whenever he crossed a road. He couldn't even
hear his own gasping breaths - all of it was drowned out by Aya's accusations
ringing in his ears.
Worthless... should never have come here... how dare you... what makes you
think you deserve... why should we even care?
The swordsman was absolutely right, Nagi realized miserably now. He never
should have come to Weiss for help. This was what came of trying to make his
own decisions... now Omi and Youji were in trouble, their teammates were
furious with them, Schuldig and Crawford were probably dead, and it was all for
nothing. With all the trouble he'd caused for them, Omi and Youji were probably
regreting the day they'd ever met him. And without Schuldig, he would only
become more of a burden as time went on... they would feel guilty and obligated
to help him, even to take him on as a sub to protect him, and that would only
cause even more problems.
Aya was right... he was worthless, and he didn't deserve their help. He hadn't
been able to save Schuldig or Crawford... hadn't even been able to save
himself. Then he had brought more problems to the only other people in the
world who had ever cared about him.
He collapsed into the dirt of an alleyway, unable to run any further. His
broken ribs were sending sharp stabs of agony through him with every breath he
took, but he welcomed the pain. He hoped he had punctured a lung... he was
better off dead. With all his heart he wished that he'd died during the attack,
rather than living to make more trouble for the people he loved.
A new pain shot through his chest, his heart spasming as his telekinesis
clamped down on it, responding to his desperate desire for death. He gasped for
breath, vision going grey as his heart struggled to beat and was held
motionless by the power of his own mind. He clutched at his chest, the tears
finally welling up and spilling over his cheeks to trickle into the grime of
the alley. He hadn't realized it would hurt so much to die... but at least
after this one last pain, it would all be over. And if there was any kind of
merciful god in the universe, perhaps he would be reunited with his Gebieter on
the other side.
But what if he's not dead? his subconsious whispered insistently. Omi said if
they had intended to kill Schuldig and Crawford, they probably wouldn't have
taken them in the first place. They'd have left them like they did you and
Farfarello. What if he's not dead?
He tried to convince himself that it didn't matter. When it came right down to
it, he'd always been a burden to Schuldig. The German had tried so hard to
teach him to think for himself, and although he had improved, this last day
proved beyond a doubt that he was still far too dependent on his Master.
Without him, Schuldig would be able to move on, to find someone who could be
the partner he'd always wanted.
Unless he's waiting for you to rescue him, that horrid voice whispered again.
It was fading now, along with his vision, as the blood slowed in his veins and
oxygen starvation started to set in. You're the only member of Schwartz still
alive and free. Weiss obviously isn't going to rescue them. What if he's out
there somewhere, clinging to the hope that you'll remember everything he's
taught you, and that you'll be able to rescue him?
Nagi felt the last gasp of life slipping away from him, and at that moment
something deep inside him rebelled. No, he said, though there was no breath
left in his lungs to shape the word. No, I will not die. I will not give up.
Schuldig needs me. He always believed that I could rise above myself some day,
and I WILL NOT PROVE HIM WRONG!
Deliberately he released his control on his powers, feeling them swell and
break within him. The massive jolt to his system restarted his heart as they
burst out of him, smashing into every solid object in his vicinity with all the
destructive force of a hurricane gone mad. He gasped for air, clinging to
consciousness with the tenacity of a terrier, forcing his battered body to
function.
His lungs drew breath, and he expelled it again immediately in an agonized
scream. Every nerve was on fire as his telekinesis poured through him, trying
to wash him out of his own body. It was worse than when he'd lost control over
Tot's death, much, much worse - his abilities had gotten a lot stronger since
then. He was vaguely aware of the walls around him crumbling beneath the
onslaught, carried up and around in a whirlwind of destruction centering on
him. Half hysterical, he realized that the method he'd used to save his own
life might very well be the death of him - if the outburst of power didn't kill
him, the fall of the debris when his telekinesis was finally exhausted just
might.
 
===============================================================================
Omi sped through the rapidly darkening streets, straining his eyes for any sign
of Nagi. When Ken had called him to tell him about Nagi's disappearance, he
hadn't believe it at first. The idea that Nagi would have just taken off like
that was inconceivable; even beyond the fact that it just wasn't like the pet
to make a decision like that for himself, where would he GO? Omi was his best
hope of finding the rest of Schwartz... even if Schuldig had suddenly regained
contact with Nagi, Omi couldn't believe that the German wouldn't have contacted
him as well.
But Ken had insisted, relating his search and the footprint he'd discovered
outside the door, facing AWAY from the shop, and Omi had been forced to believe
him. He'd contacted Youji as well, and now all four of them were out scouring
the streets for any sign of the psychic. It had already been over an hour since
Nagi had vanished - he could have been almost anywhere by now.
Omi had assigned the other three Weiss members wedge-shaped grid sections of
the city to search, while he started at the Koneko and spiraled outwards. Nagi
had broken ribs and a sprained ankle, but Omi was willing to bet that wouldn't
slow the telekinetic down for a good long time.
As it continued to darken, he flipped his visor up and slowed the bike. He
didn't want to turn the headlight on, because then his nightvision would be
spoiled and he wouldn't be able to make out anything outside the headlight's
arc. If he didn't find anything soon, he was going to go back to the Koneko and
get his nightvision goggles to help him search.
His cellphone rang, and he pulled over to the side of the road and answered it.
"Omi," he said shortly, praying it would be one of the others with news that
Nagi had been found. He didn't like to think of his friend alone outside after
dark; Nagi was incapable of saying 'no' to anyone who came off as dominant, and
that could get him into a hell of a lot of trouble if he ended up in one of
Tokyo's many seedier areas.
"Omi," Ken's voice came over the phone. "There's been a report of a massive
explosion in one of the industrial areas. They're tentatively labelling it as a
wharehouse accident... but I thought, if Nagi had gotten into trouble..."
"He might cause something like that if he got scared enough," Omi agreed
grimly. "Where is it?" Ken reeled off the address, and Omi quickly placed it on
his mental map. He whistled. "That's a lot farther from the Koneko than I
thought he'd get... but it's not an impossible distance. I should be closest to
that area... I'll check it out. Keep looking - this might be a dead end."
"I will," Ken agreed, and hung up. Omi shoved the phone into his jacket and
gunned the bike, spinning around and heading back to the last major
intersection he'd crossed. He flipped his visor down again, hunching over the
handlebars to give him better aerodynamics and more control over the bike. If
this explosion HAD been caused by Nagi, then the boy was probably in trouble,
possibly a lot of it. It had already occured to him that whoever had attacked
Schwartz might just take this opportunity to finish the job they'd botched by
killing Nagi while he was alone, without protection.
It wasn't hard to find the site of the explosion - long before he got near it,
he could hear the sirens. A column of smoke rose into the darkness of the
night, lit eerily red from below by the flames that fed it. Omi skidded his
bike to a halt just outside the ring of curious onlookers and rubberneckers,
joining them in craning to see into the centre of the blast zone.
One look told Omi that the cause of the explosion was almost certainly a
telekinetic, if not Nagi himself. Not only had debris been blasted outwards,
but it had been picked up and smashed around repeatedly, forming a spiral blast
pattern that couldn't be achieved by any chemical explosive.
He swore quietly under his breath as paramedics carried a stretcher to the
waiting ambulance, and he made out Nagi's huddled form. There were police cars
and firetrucks everywhere - Omi wasn't going to be able to get him out of there
without raising a hell of a lot of questions. The last thing they needed was to
have attention drawn to them. If the psychics who had attacked Schwartz hadn't
realized before this that Nagi had lived, they would certainly know it when
they saw footage of this explosion. Right now it was possible they didn't know
about any connection between Schwartz and Weiss... If Omi went in publicly to
claim Nagi, it would be simple for the assailants to track down where Nagi had
ended up.
He pulled out his cell again as the ambulance drove away, sirens wailing.
Punching a number on the speedial, he waited as it rang twice before being
picked up. "Manx," he said immediately, not even waiting for the woman to
answer. "It's Bombay. I need a favour."
"Omi?" Manx replied, sounding surprised. He could hear the sounds of many
conversations behind her - it sounded like she was at a restaurant or theatre.
"What's going on? You don't have any work right now." Her oblique references
told Omi with certainty that she was in public, and he cursed his bad luck.
"This is a personal emergency," Omi replied grimly. "And before you tell me
that personal problems don't get solved using Kritiker resources, let me just
say that if this problem gets much bigger, it's going to become a problem for
ALL of us."
There was a long pause, and Omi agonized as the ambulance got further away -
and closer to whatever hospital it was headed towards. "All right," Manx said
at last. "I trust you to know your priorities. But I want a full report first
thing in the morning."
He winced; he'd been afraid she'd ask for something like that. There was no
point in even trying to write a report that left anything out - when Manx said
full, she meant full. "You'll get it," he promised, watching his career with
Kritiker wash down the drain. There'd be no salvaging it after this. "So you'll
help me?"
"Just a moment," she said, and he heard the sound of the talking in the
background cut off abruptly. "All right, I'm in private. What do you need?"
"I need you to divert an ambulance before it reaches the hospital," he said,
rattling off the number of the ambulance. "I don't care what it takes, it MUST
NOT reach the hospital. I can knock the paramedics out long enough to retreive
the passenger."
"Has once of Weiss been injured?" Manx's voice sharpened. "There's no need for
you to retreive them, I can just have the ambulance diverted to the police
hospital, as usual..."
"It's not one of Weiss," he cut her off. Drawing a deep breath, he figured as
long as he was sacrificing himself for Nagi's sake, he might as well go all the
way. "It's Prodigy. From Schwartz. And if he wakes up alone in a hospital,
there probably won't be a hospital left a few minutes later."
Another long pause, while he counted the heartbeats, praying she wouldn't
refuse to help him. At last she answered him, her voice very dry. "This had
better be a VERY good report, Bombay," she told him crisply. "Give me a few
minutes - I'll call you back when I've got the location." She hung up without
giving him a chance to acknowledge.
Hanging on to the phone with one hand, he cruised slowly in the direction the
ambulance had gone. There were only two hospitals nearby in that direction, and
only one of them had an emergency room, so it wasn't hard to figure out where
they were probably headed. He did some quick calculations in his head - it was
fifteen, maybe twenty minutes from here to the hospital, and it had taken him
at least ten to convince Manx to help. If they reached the hospital, there
would be nothing Kritiker could do to make Nagi disappear without any records,
at least not without a lot more effort than Manx would probably be willing to
go to for someone who wasn't even an agent, let alone someone who was an ex-
enemy.
At last his phone rang, and he snapped it open before it had finished the first
ring. "Bombay," he said.
"We've diverted it," Manx told him, and he sighed audibly with relief. She gave
him the address, and he sped up, cutting across two lanes of traffic to make an
abrupt left hand turn to get to the location. "I'll expect that report in my
email first thing in the morning, shall I?"
"You'll have it," Omi swore. "Assuming we're not all dead by then, of course.
Thank you, Manx. I owe you big time."
"You certainly do," she replied, making him wince again at her tone of voice.
"Good luck, Bombay, and hurry... I wasn't able to delay it for more than a few
minutes."
He hung up without acknowledging, stuffing it into his pocket and pouring on
the speed. He zipped recklessly through traffic, uncaring of the laws he was
breaking or the danger he was putting other people in. The only thing that
mattered now was reaching Nagi before the ambulance took off again, or before
the telekinetic woke up.
He saw the flashing lights ahead, and pushed his bike just a little faster. The
ambulance had taken a side street that was a shortcut towards the hospital, and
had been brought up short by an accident that sprawled over the entire street.
It had attempted to back out, only to be stopped by a dumptruck that had backed
into the street and stalled. The truck driver and the paramedics were currently
in the middle of a shouting match, gesturing and swearing at each other.
He slid to a stop just behind the truck, and caught the driver's eye, giving a
hand signal that identified him as a Kritiker agent. The man nodded slightly
and gave the correct counter sign, as did the drivers of the two cars that had
blocked the road ahead with their accident.
He grabbed two of the tranquilizer darts that he always carried with him in
case of emergency, and seconds later both paramedics were slumped on the
ground, sound asleep. After that it was a moment's work to open the doors, and
the medic who had been riding in the back with Nagi was unconscious as well.
Omi climbed up inside, noting the equipment hooked up to his friend and
sometime lover. There were defribbrilator burns on Nagi's chest, and the medic
had been holding the paddles ready - the telekinetic's heart must have stopped
at least once. That made Omi nervous about taking him away from proper medical
help, but the readouts said he was stable enough now, and he really didn't
think leaving Nagi in the hands of strangers was a good idea.
Now the only problem would be getting him home - there was no way he could
transport the unconscious telekinetic on his bike. Omi glanced around, cursing
himself for not contacting Youji before he'd arrived. There was no telling how
far away the playboy was, or how long it would take him to get here. If the
ambulance didn't reach the hospital soon, people would start looking for it -
they couldn't afford to wait.
"Bombay, isn't it?" one of the car drivers involved in the 'accident' appeared
at the door. Omi blinked and nodded, surprised the man knew his codename.
"Queen told us you might need transportation... neither of the cars is actually
damaged, you can take either. We'll get your bike back to Kritiker, and they'll
return it to you."
"Thank you!" Omi replied, grateful that somebody at least had been thinking
ahead. "I appreciate it. Can you help me get him out of here?"
Working together, they slid the stretcher out of the ambulance and got it
wheeled over to one of the cars. A boy about Nagi's age climbed out of the
backseat of one and held the door open, smiling at them both as they lifted the
telekinetic inside. "Here," the other driver said, tossing Omi the keys. "Take
good care of her, she's an old friend."
For a moment Omi was confused, and then he realized the man meant the car. "I
will," he promised. "So long as you take good care of my bike!"
The blond man who had first addressed him laughed and clapped him on the back.
"We'll treat it like it was our own firstborn child," he replied. "You'd better
get going. Oh, and tell Ran that Crashers send their regards."
 
===============================================================================
"My God... Lukas?"
Leaning against the bars of his cage, Lukas blinked at the stunned tone in
Brad's voice. The older man sounded like he'd just taken the recoil of a fully
automatic weapon dead center in his chest. "Yeah?" he responded, concerned.
"You okay, Brad? You sound like you're having a heart attack or something over
there..."
"I think I am," Brad replied wryly, voice shaking. "I never thought I would
ever talk to you again."
THAT confused the hell out of Lukas. "You were talking to me just fine before
you asked me what I remembered," he pointed out. "Who the hell did you think
you were talking to?"
"Lukas... take a moment, and take stock of yourself," the other psychic told
him. "Don't argue," he added as Lukas opened his mouth to do just that. "Just
do it."
Lukas sighed and closed his eyes, beginning the self-check they'd all been
taught as a method of keeping their powers under better control. Immediately
his eyes flew open again. Where the buzzing of every thought in the area should
have been, there was only silence in his mind. "My telepathy!" he exclaimed,
panicked. "And the empathy too! My powers, they're gone!"
"They're being blocked," Brad responded, sounding a bit calmer now. "I don't
think they're truly gone, I think they're just blocking us somehow. But that's
not what I meant. Look again."
Frowning, Lukas raised his hands to his temples to help centre himself. His
frown turned to a look of startled surprise when his fingers tangled in
something long and silky. "What the... fuck?" he said, examining it. It was
hair - carrot orange hair, long enough to probably nearly reach his waist. It
was definitely his - one sharp tug proved that. He stared at the fistful of
hair, eyes wide.
"Brad... what the FUCK... how much have I forgotten?" he asked, and now it was
his turn to have his voice shake.
"Years," Brad replied, voice grim. "I'm not sure how he did it... but that
bastard seems to have FLIPPED your amnesia."
"Amnesia?" Lukas felt like he was turning into a parrot. His mind was too
stunned to come up with anything much more coherent. "What do you mean,
amnesia?"
He heard Brad sigh, and could picture the man pushing his glasses up on his
nose with that habitual gesture of his. "When I found you again, you had no
memory of the Institute, or anything else," the precognitive told him. "Your
mind was hiding from a traumatic experience, and I couldn't reverse the effect,
not without killing you and possibly myself as well. In all this time you've
never shown any signs of remembering anything from our time together at the
Institute... I had given up hope of it ever happening."
There was a raw pain hidden beneath the calm surface of the other psychic's
words. Only someone who had known him as well, and as intimately, as Lukas had,
would have been able to catch it. It was an old pain, worn at the edges with
time, but it was still sharp at the centre. Lukas frowned as he realized he was
more than hearing it - he was sensing it.
"Brad... give me your hand," he said, reaching out through the bars. Something
in his voice must have told the precognitive not to argue, because the older
man reached out as well, and they clasped hands between their cells.
Lukas felt the differences in their grasp instantly. His hand had still been
much smaller than Brad's the last time they had done this. Now they were nearly
a match; though Brad's palm was still a bit wider than his, now Lukas's fingers
were longer than Brad's. It was the grip of two adults, not a boy barely into
his teens with a man barely out of them.
The feeling of pain intensified - barely, but the difference was perceptible.
Closing his eyes, Lukas concentrated on the feeling of building an impenetrable
shield, the kind he had created to allow them to talk without the Instructors
overHearing them in the past. He couldn't feel what he was doing, as far as he
could tell there was no real outward effect... except for a gradual increase in
his awareness of Brad's emotions.
He sent an experimental charge down the connection, and Brad's grip tightened
on his almost painfully. "You..." the precognitive started, and Lukas squeezed
his hand back.
"Don't," he said, projecting a sense of danger. *Can you hear me?* he
projected, trying to tag the thought on top of the empathic connection he'd
already established.
*Yes,* Brad replied. His Voice was distant and difficult to make out, but it
was there. *What are you doing?*
*I think they aren't blocking my empathy,* Lukas replied. *Either because they
don't know about it, or because it got lost among my telepathy as usual. And
it's a weakness in whatever is blocking my telepathy, as well.*
He continued to weave shields around shields around shields, creating the
tightest wall he'd ever dreamt of, and then piling more shields on top of that.
It was a strain, especially since he couldn't quite feel what he was doing, but
it was also helping - their connection was getting clearer by the moment.
*Are you shielding us?* Brad asked after a long moment, sounding startled
again. *Whatever you're doing, don't stop... it's working. I'm starting to get
flashes again... we may yet be able to get out of this mess in one piece. Don't
push yourself past your limits... but keep it up as long as you can. If I can
just get a good enough look at the future, I'll be able to see how to get us
the hell out of here.*
Grimly Lukas tightened his grip on the other man's hand, and kept weaving more
shields into the pile.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Youji had never been more grateful for anything in his life than he had been to
get the phone call that Nagi was safely in Omi's possession. He was a little
worried by the tone of his lover's voice, but there wasn't much he could say or
do over the phone. Comforting would have to wait until they were all back in
one place.
He made tracks back to the Koneko, making much better time than he had been
because he wasn't searching for signs of the telekinetic any more. There was a
strange car in the alley when he got there; he hesitated for a moment, and then
saw Omi climb out of the driver's seat. THAT worried him quite a bit - for Omi
to ditch his bike and steal a car, Nagi would have to be in very bad shape
indeed. He pulled in behind the strange car, and Aya pulled up beside them a
moment later, followed closely by Ken.
"Is he okay?" Youji asked the moment he was within earshot of Omi. His lover
looked torn between fury and distress, and shook his head.
"He completely totalled the area he was in," the Weiss leader said as Aya and
Ken joined them. "It was even worse than what he did to the Schreient mansion.
They were already taking him to the hospital when I got there - I had to call
Manx and ask her to divert it so I could get him out." Youji winced at that;
Manx was sure to want a full explanation for that kind of favour.
"That's Bishop's car," Aya said, sounding startled. Omi glanced at him, and
gave him a tiny smile.
"If Bishop is one of Crashers, then yes. The blond one said to give you their
regards. Youji, help me get Nagi out of the backseat? I think he's still
unconscious. They had to restart his heart at least once, and I'm worried about
him."
Ken looked stricken when he heard that. "Oh, Christ... what the hell happened
to him?"
"That's what I'd like to know," Omi said dangerously as Youji opened the back
door of the car and crawled halfway inside, careful not to jostle the
unconscious telekinetic. "There is no way in hell that I will believe he just
'took off' on his own. You have no idea..."
"Omi," Youji interrupted him, withdrawing from the car with Nagi cradled in his
arms. His lover broke off, startled, and looked at him. "Take Nagi upstairs and
get him settled. Don't come back down. I'll join you in a bit."
Frowning, Omi started to argue with him. "Youji, I..."
"That's an order," Youji added quietly. His voice was firm, and the look in his
eyes was hard. Omi gaped at him for a moment, stunned, and Youji knew he was
going to hear about this later. He and Omi had an agreement - when Omi was
wearing his collar, then Youji was Dom and no questions were asked. The rest of
the time, Omi was free to do as he wished, and as leader of Weiss was actually
in authority over the rest of them. Youji had just invoked his status as Omi's
Dom outside of that agreement, when Omi wasn't wearing his collar, and he was
going to pay for it eventually. But right now it had exactly the effect he'd
hoped for; Omi lowered his eyes to the ground and nodded stiffly, coming
forward to take Nagi's limp form.
Youji waited until Omi and Nagi were safely inside the building before rounding
on the other two. Ken was gaping at him much as Omi had just a moment ago; not
surprising, neither Aya nor Ken had ever witnessed this side of his
relationship with Omi. "Now the two of you are going to come inside with me,
down to the mission room, and you're going to tell me EXACTLY what you said or
did to Nagi to make him run off like that," he continued dangerously. "Because
Omi is right, there is no way that Nagi did this on his own without
provocation. If we're going to fix this, we need to know precisely what you
said to him, word for word."
"Youji, what the FUCK was that all about?" Ken exploded. "Now I KNOW there's
something going on here! Schuldig is conditioning Omi the same way he did to
Nagi, isn't he? Omi's not the kind of person to just meekly follow somebody's
orders like that!"
"YOU do not know as much about Omi as you think you do," Youji bit back.
"Inside. Now. Unless you want the whole damn neighbourhood to hear about all of
our secrets?"
That shut Ken up, at least for a moment. Aya had said nothing this entire time,
but the expression on his face said he was torn between fury and guilt. Good...
guilt meant he realized he'd done something wrong, and that was definitely a
step in the right direction. Youji marched them inside and down the stairs to
the mission room, refusing to say a word before they were safely inside.
"Now," he began, cutting off Ken's attempt to start another diatribe. "First of
all, I think it's time we cleared up a few misconceptions. What exactly do you
think Schuldig did to Nagi and Omi?"
"It's obvious!" Ken burst out, eyes narrowed. "The way Nagi slinks around,
flinching away from every gesture that was even vaguely in his direction,
afraid to raise his voice or draw attention to himself! Schuldig is abusing
him, and he's done the same thing to Omi, hasn't he?"
Youji pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache he could
feel forming. "I'm not even sure where to start with that. First of all, the
only 'conditioning' Schuldig has done to Omi is convincing him that he was
worth something." He shook his head when Ken started to object. "Oh no, you
don't get to talk again until I'm through. Omi is a submissive, Ken. He likes
it, he enjoys giving up control that way. It's a tension release; he's damn
young for all the responsibility that he has to shoulder. You've never seen
that side of him because he works damn hard to suppress it most of the time -
and because for him it's a sometimes-thing, not an all-the-time lifestyle like
Nagi lives. I'm not really all that comfortable as a Dom, that's why Omi still
wears Schuldig's collar instead of mine. But when it comes right down to it,
yes, I am his Dom, and when I give him an order I expect it to be obeyed
without question."
He sighed and looked at both of them. "Now, for the rest of it... Nagi was
broken long before Schuldig and Crawford found him. He was a pet; totally
incapable of making his own decisions. He needed a Dom to tell him to eat, to
sleep, hell, he practically needed permission to BREATHE."
"How do you know that?" Aya demanded, speaking at last. "How do you know he was
worse before he joined them?"
"If you mean, did I see it for myself, the answer is no," Youji answered him.
"I have to take Schuldig's word for it. Don't object yet! I've also seen the
way he treats Nagi, and let me tell you... if there is ONE thing in the world
that Schuldig truly cares about more than himself, it's Nagi. He likes me well
enough, and he loves Omi, but Nagi is the only thing more important to him than
anything else. He wouldn't harm that kid if his life depended on it. He's done
everything he can to coax Nagi into living his own life; praised him every time
he made the least little decision for himself, forced him into situations where
he didn't have any guidance and had to choose on his own, encouraged him to
argue and disagree with people. Nagi has visibly improved just in the time that
I've known them."
"THIS is improved?" Ken asked incredulously. "He couldn't even eat without Omi
ordering him to, Youji!"
The playboy grimaced. "Yeah, well, he's regressed a lot," he admitted. "I've
NEVER seen him this bad. I suspect it's the stress of the attack, feeling like
he failed Schuldig by not being able to prevent or stop the kidnapping, and now
being totally adrift without his Master to give him orders. He's scared, and
uncertain, and he's reacting to it by wanting somebody to tell him what to do
so he doesn't have to think, and so that he's not responsible for any decisions
that turn out to be wrong."
"Now," he continued, rounding on Aya. "Given the conclusions Ken has jumped to,
knowing what a soft heart he has, and knowing how bad YOUR temper can be, I'm
going to take a wild guess that you're the one who drove Nagi off." Guilt crept
back into Aya's expression, and Youji nodded grimly. "Let's get one thing
straight right now. Nagi was born a slave, and he's been a pet all his life. He
wasn't 'conditioned' into this state... he just never learned to think for
himself in the first place. He will obey, to the LETTER, anything even vaguely
resembling an order from someone more dominant than he is - which is to say,
just about everybody in the fucking world. And when he's as bad as he is now,
he also takes everything literally. If you told him to jump off a cliff, he'd
run and find the nearest one and do exactly that, no questions asked. So if he
ran off, it's because something YOU said made him think you wanted him gone.
What did you say to him, Aya?"
"I... asked him what right he thought he had to come to us for help," Aya
replied reluctantly. "I don't remember exactly what I said... I was too angry
to think straight."
"Great," Youji said, sighing and leaning against the wall, crossing his arms.
"That means we have no idea what 'orders' he thinks you gave him." He glared at
the swordsman. "The moment he wakes up, you'd better be up there apologizing to
him and telling him that you've changed your mind and you DON'T want him to pay
attention to what you said before. Otherwise he'll just do this again, more
than likely." "Can't you just order him not to listen to Aya?" Ken asked,
startled. Youji shook his head.
"Nagi's had enough experience with me to know that I'm pretty laid back;
frankly, other than the fact that I'm definitely NOT a submissive, I don't come
across as much of a Dom, either. Aya comes off as a lot more dominant than I
do, especially when he's pissed off. Nagi follows Omi's orders because he loves
him, and he'll follow my orders mostly because he respects me; he'll follow
Aya's 'orders' because he's terrified of the consequences for disobeying."
"All those scars," Ken said, clueing in. "Those were... punishments for
disobedience?" The soccer player looked sick.
"Not from Schuldig," Youji said quietly. "He hasn't been punished that way
since Crawford first rescued him. But yes, those are the results of his
previous Masters' handiwork. Some of the people who had him as a child make the
worst of our targets look like innocent school kids." He turned to Aya again.
"Whatever grudges you carry for Schwartz, however much you feel betrayed by Omi
and I right now... do NOT take it out on Nagi. He's no more responsible for his
actions than if he'd had a gun held to his head the entire time. He literally
cannot say 'no' to an order. In some ways, he's an innocent in the truest sense
of the word."
Aya nodded grudgingly. "I already promised Ken that I would try not to blame
him," he said. "If what you're saying is true, and I'm starting to believe you,
then you're right. None of this is his fault." He sighed, and the customary
cold harshness dropped away from his expression, leaving behind weariness and
more guilt. "I'll apologize to him as soon as he wakes up, if you think it will
help and not hurt more."
Youji nodded, a bit surprised by the sudden transformation. Ken moved to take
the redhead's hand, squeezing it lightly, and Aya gave him a small smile in
return. So this is what Aya's like without the masks, Youji realized. Maybe I
can understand what Ken sees in him after all.
"I'm going upstairs to check on them," he said. "I'll call your cell as soon as
he wakes up, so leave it on."
Aya and Ken both nodded, and Youji turned to walk up the spiral staircase. He
glanced back once, just as he reached the top, and saw Ken reach out and pull
an unresisting Aya into a tight embrace. Sighing, he closed the door behind him
and went to seek out his own boyfriend and their sometimes-lover, hoping to
offer and receive the same comfort and reassurance that everything would turn
out all right in the end.
 
===============================================================================
Ken sighed, leaning his head against Aya's shoulder. In the end, there was
nothing that could ever compare to being held in the arms of his lover. "God,
we really fucked up, didn't we?" he said ruefully after they'd stood in silence
for a long moment.
"Apparently," Aya agreed reluctantly. "I was angry... I suppose I DID intend to
drive him away... but I didn't intend for it to happen this way."
"Omi said his heart had stopped at least once," Ken pointed out unhappily. "If
the reports are to believed, the explosion he caused was MASSIVE... I wonder
what set him off? He really did a number, on himself and everything around him,
apparently."
"For all we know he was attacked again," Aya said, but he didn't sound
convinced of his own words. After a moment he sighed. "No, he probably wasn't.
They would have blocked his powers again. This is all my doing."
"I'm as much to blame as you are, Aya," Ken chided him. "I jumped to
conclusions about him... and then instead of telling you, I went off to the
back to try to cool down. I know your temper, and your obsession with hating
anyone involved in hurting your sister - I never should have left you alone
with him. Especially after what I'd realized about how fragile he was."
Aya held him a little tighter, leaning down to bury his face in Ken's hair.
"This has been a lot to take in, for both of us. I'm still not sure how I feel
about all of this... but I know I no longer truly believe Nagi is to blame for
any of it."
"Well, then you're about in the same place I am," Ken observed wryly. "This
whole mess makes me edgy. I really don't like the way Youji ordered Omi like
that... and Omi just lowered his head and obeyed him. I mean, Omi's our
leader... how can we trust in his authority if Youji can control him that much?
Christ, how much influence can Schuldig exert on him, if he's the one whose
collar it is that Omi wears?" Ken shook his head. "And this submissive
behaviour really just doesn't seem like Omi, no matter what they say."
Aya stroked his shoulders with one hand. "There's nothing we can do for now.
And if you keep ranting," he added sardonically, "you're going to get us both
worked up again. The last thing we need to do right now is work ourselves into
a frenzy and barge into Omi's room demanding more explanations. It can wait
until morning, at least for now."
"Yeah, you're right." Ken sighed and blew his bangs out of his eyes. "I just
can't stop thinking about it. It's driving me nuts. I love Omi like a little
brother, I can't stand to think of him getting hurt like that."
Aya shifted against him, and lowered his head further, until his lips were
brushing Ken's ear. "I guess I'll just have to find a way to distract you," he
murmured, making Ken shiver.
"Mmm... God, Ran..." Ken groaned. The redhead knew his weak points far too
well. "I love you," he breathed out as Aya went for his neck. "No matter what
else happens, at least we'll always have each other."
"Always," the swordsman echoed against Ken's skin. "I love you too, Ken. Come
on... let's go find our own bed."
 
===============================================================================
Lukas was starting to feel lightheaded and dizzy. They'd both sank down to sit
on the floor of the cells some time ago, but they were still holding hands
through the bars. He'd put everything he had into the shields; he'd never held
such an incredibly dense shield for so long before. Whatever else had happened
to him during the years he was missing, his powers had gotten a lot stronger -
which was frightening in and of itself.
He was gasping for air, sweat streaming down his face as he clutched at his old
friend's hand. *Brad... I can't... hold this much longer...* he warned his
friend. He felt dismay and resignation from the other man.
*Don't push yourself too far,* Brad commanded him. *But damn it... I've
narrowed it down to two possible futures - one gets us free, and one gets us
recaptured and killed. I need to find the key difference!
Gritting his teeth, Lukas renewed his resolve. *I can manage another couple
minutes,* he said, *But not much more than that. Not and still be conscious or
coherent any time within the next week or two.*
*I'm looking as fast as I can... everything is still moving sluggishly... there
it is!* Brad's mental Voice suddenly sharpened as he focused on the vision.
*Nagi... the difference is Nagi's participation!*
*Somebody else I'm supposed to know?* Lukas asked. He felt shock and chagrin
from the other man.
*Yes, rather,* Brad answered. *He's one of our teammates - I wasn't sure if
he'd survived or not until now. He's out there somewhere, and I think he went
to Weiss for help, just as we'd hoped he would.* Lukas could sense that Brad
was hiding something from him, something about the connection between him and
this 'Nagi', but he didn't have the power to spare to go hunting for what it
was. *If we can use your connection to him to reach past this damnable shield
and contact him, that will give him an idea of where we are. That will make the
difference between our escape and recapture.*
*I can't contact somebody I don't know!* Lukas pointed out desperately, feeling
the last of his powers sliding away from him. It was going to be now or
never... *I have no idea what his mind feels like, so I won't be able to find
him!*
*Your connection to him is strong enough that you should be able to follow it
back to him regardless,* Brad said. Lukas was shocked; the only way he could
have formed a connection as deep as the one Brad was talking about was if he'd
spent a LOT of time alone in this person's presence, willingly opened his mind
to create the merge... or both. He couldn't even begin to imagine trusting
anybody that much, except possible Brad himself.
He looked deep inside his mind, searching down into the subconscious level
where such a link would be formed. He found it, a wire-thin thread stretching
from his mind into the distance. He touched it hesitantly, tried to follow it
back, and found that he couldn't harmonize with the resonance of it.
*I found it... but I can't USE it,* he said helplessly. *The way I think right
now is too different from the way I thought when I created it... maybe if I
knew the person it links to, I'd be able to follow it anyway, but I don't.*
*I do,* Brad said after a moment of agonized deliberation that Lukas could
sense. *Do you trust me enough to let me that deep into your mind? It will mean
creating a similar connection between the two of us - we won't be able to close
it once it's opened, you know that.*
Now it was Lukas' turn to debate with himself. If Brad had asked him that
question four years ago - or however the hell long ago it was that Lukas had
been fourteen - he wouldn't have hesitated. But now... a connection that close
meant that, once this blocking field was gone, Brad would have access to his
mind no matter how hard he shielded his thoughts. The precognitive was a strong
enough telepath to find the memories Lukas would rather die than have him know
about... the memories of what Emmanuel had done to him, of what he had become
under the influence of the older telepath.
But if it was their only way out of this mess... Lukas didn't particularly want
to be somebody's captive pet telepath, either. They might never get another
chance at this; their captors would almost certainly realize what he'd done to
get around their block, and then there would be no hope for it.
*All right,* he said at last. *I trust you. Just... please, Brad, don't hate me
for what I've become.*
Before the precognitive could ask what he'd meant by that, he threw open his
mind to the other man, drawing him inside, merging their thoughts until it was
difficult to tell where any given thought had originated. For the moment Lukas
was still able to keep his dirty secret hidden; they had precious little time,
and Brad was focused on accomplishing their objective. He led the other man to
the link, burning a new path in his mind as he went, filling the gap with
Brad's essence. They were tied now in a way that was unbreakable, beyond
conscious control, and they would never be able to escape each other again.
*There,* he said, mental Voice wavering as he began to lose control. He let go
of some of the outermost shields, sacrificing clarity for time. *Hurry!*
Brad touched the link, and through his connection to Lukas he was able to
utelize it. He too resonated against the link's 'frequency', but he knew the
person on the other end of it well enough to match thoughts regardless. *NAGI!*
the precognitive sent with all the strength of mind he could muster. They
didn't know where they were, or how far away Nagi might be - Lukas' range was
wide, but not infinite. *NAGI! CAN YOU HEAR ME?*
 
===============================================================================
Omi was sitting back against the wall on his bed, Nagi cradled against his
chest, when the telekinetic's eyes suddenly flew open and he bolted upright.
"Schuldig!" the boy cried. "CRAWFORD!"
***** Chapter 7 *****
"Schuldig! CRAWFORD!"
Omi nearly had a heart attack when Nagi suddenly bolted upright and screamed
out his teammates' names. "Nagi! What is it? Are you okay?"
Nagi's eyes had gone wide, and for a moment Omi thought he was trapped in a
nightmare... but then he recognized the 'listening'looke people often got when
they were communicating telepathically. Schu? he tried projecting as loudly as
he could. Schuldig, can you hear me? Are you okay?
He listened hard, trying to keep the thoughts in his mind quiet, but there was
no reply. Nagi was still listening intently, and Omi knew from past experience
that the younger boy was storing everything that was being said to him in his
near-perfect memory. He all but held his breath, not wanting to do anything
that might cause Nagi to lose the connection. With any luck, having this chance
to talk to his Master would stabilize the boy somewhat.
Finally Nagi slumped back against him again, blue eyes dazed. "What did Schu
say?" Omi asked him gently. Nagi shook his head.
"It wasn't Schuldig," he croaked, his voice hoarse as if he'd been screaming
for a long time. "I mean... it WAS, but it was Crawford talking to me, using
Schuldig as a boosting point."
Omi frowned. If Schuldig was capable of reaching Nagi, why hadn't he talked to
the telekinetic himself? Why have Crawford do it through him? "Maybe it was
taking all his concentration just to reach you," he finally offered. Nagi
brightened slightly; as Omi had suspected, the telekinetic had been afraid that
his Master hadn't spoken to him because he'd done something to displease the
telepath. "Or maybe they didn't have much time, and Crawford needed to relay
the instructions to you directly. What did he tell you?"
Nagi tried to sit up again, but went very white and fell back again, clutching
at his chest. Frightened, Omi supported him, remembering what he'd concluded
about Nagi's condition. "Nagi? Are you okay, Liebe?"
"I... I'll be... okay..." the boy gasped after a moment, though he still looked
horribly pale. "I s-stopped my heart... then I used my powers to jumpstart it,
but I lost control, and the overload stopped it again, I think. I don't
remember."
"You STOPPED your HEART?" Omi repeated, incredulous, just as Youji walked
through the door. "Nagi, why on earth would you do that?"
"Is it because of what Aya said to you?" Youji asked, and Omi looked up, eyes
narrowed. Nagi hesitated, then nodded slowly. "He didn't mean it," Youji said,
coming to sit next to Omi on the bed. He shifted Nagi so the boy was cradled
between them, and Nagi settled in with a sigh. "You have to remember that not
everybody knows you take things literally, Liebchen. He's sorry, and he wants
to apologize. I'll call him to let him know you're awake..."
"Not yet," Omi interjected before Youji could hunt down his phone. "Nagi just
got contact from Brad and Schuldig... I want to get the information now, in
case he forgets any of it." He knew that wasn't likely, but with the way this
week had been going so far, this would be the one time that Nagi actually
forgot something.
The colour had started to seep back into Nagi's cheeks. Omi realized that the
boy's hands were cold, and curled up a little tighter, sandwiching Nagi between
him and Youji and pulling the blankets up over all of them. Within moments his
bed was a coccoon of warmth, and the subtle shivering that had been present in
Nagi's body since he'd awoken faded away. "Tell me what they said," Omi
commanded when he was sure the telekinetic was going to be okay.
"Crawford said they were still being blocked, but they'd managed to find away
around it for a few minutes," Nagi recited dutifully. "He said it had something
to do with Schuldig's empathy, but he didn't bother to explain it because they
didn't have much time before Schuldig would be completely exhausted." He sighed
and turned his head to rest on Omi's shoulder. "He said the people who attacked
us are NOT from Estet - they're from another group, called the Institute. These
are the people who trained him, before he left them to join Estet, and they
want revenge on him for betraying them."
"That explains why they just left you and Farfarello to die," Youji observed,
and Omi nodded. "But why take Schuldig, if that's the case?"
Nagi shook his head, but Omi closed his eyes, trying to remember something.
"Didn't Schu once say that he thought Crawford might have known him from before
he had amnesia?" he said slowly. "And didn't he say something about how it
seemed like he'd been trained to fight when he first woke up - that if he just
relaxed and didn't think about it, his body did the work for him?"
"That's right," Nagi agreed, startled. "He doesn't talk about it much - he says
he doesn't like to think about that time."
"So is it possible that Schuldig was also originally trained by these people,
left, and then got amnesia?" Omi persisted. "That would explain why they took
both of them."
"Sounds reasonable," Youji agreed. "The question is, what are we going to do
about it? If they're not from Estet, that means they have no reason to go after
US; which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means we don't have to worry
about being attacked out of nowhere, but it also means Ken and Aya aren't going
to have as much motivation to help us."
Omi looked grim. "They're going to help us if I have to tie them up and drag
them along behind us. Especially after this afternoon."
"I'm sorry," Nagi whispered, shoulders shaking again. "I didn't mean to cause
trouble. I should never have come here..."
Omi and Youji both dropped kisses on his head. "Of course you should have,"
Youji said firmly. "It was absolutely the right decision to make. One of the
hardest lessons in life, kiddo, is that sometimes even the right decision has
negative consequences."
"I'd much rather have you here safe, and us helping to look for Schuldig, than
to have you wandering around out there on your own," Omi agreed. "We love you,
Nagi, and we WANT to help you, even if it makes trouble for us sometimes.
That's what friendship and love is all about, Liebe."
"I love you, too," Nagi replied almost inaudibly. "But I don't want to stay
here... I want to go home!" Both white hunters knew very well that 'home' to
Nagi meant anywhere that Schuldig was, rather than a physical location. They
hugged him tight.
"We'll get you home," Omi promised. "Now we know they're both alive, and not
even too far away. I was worried that they might have been taken out of the
country; but so long as they're anywhere in Japan, we WILL find them
eventually."
"Did Crawford say anything else?" Youji asked. "Anything about their location?"
Nagi thought hard. "He said he didn't know where they were being held. But... I
got a visual impression, from Schuldig, I think. Bars on a cage..."
"A cage?" Omi repeated. "They're keeping them caged? That seems... odd..."
"Was there anything in the cage with them?" Youji prodded. "Don't try to force
the memory, just close your eyes and remember what it looked like."
"They weren't together," Nagi said after a long moment. "They were reaching
through the bars to hold hands so they could link... they couldn't see each
other. Um... because there were walls on three sides. And... a bed, I think,
and a basin. And... there were lots more bars outside..."
"That sounds like a prison of some kind," Omi said. He stretched out his leg,
straining with his toes, and at last hooked the strap of his laptop off the
floor. He dragged it towards him, and positioned it so they could all see the
screen while he typed one handed. "From what I found today, the attackers both
came from and left Tokyo to the northwest," he said, struggling to bring up a
map of the area while one hand was tucked around Nagi.
His laptop beeped, then screens started to fly past. He hovered his hand over
the keyboard for a moment, shocked, before realizing that Nagi was using his
powers to control it. "You can use your powers again already?" he said, amazed.
"I thought you told me that after you exhaust yourself, you have to rest for a
long time before using them again."
Nagi was pale and sweating again, but there was a determined look on his face.
"Gebieter can't wait for me to take time to recover," he said firmly. "I'll be
okay. Look, here... there's an abandoned prison complex a couple of hours
outside the city. That would be right on the edge of Schuldig's range, but he
COULD project back here to me if he tried hard enough."
Omi and Youji traded surprised looks over Nagi's head. This was the most
forceful either of them had ever heard the boy, and it was a radical turnaround
from his earlier increased dependence. Omi would have thought that this newest
traumatic experience would have driven the pet further into his shell, but
apparently it had created just the opposite effect. "That would explain why he
didn't talk to you, and why he didn't bring me into the connection," Omi
agreed. He would worry about the reasons behind Nagi's sudden turnaround later.
For now, they needed his help, quite frankly. "It was taking everything he had
just to reach you."
Youji frowned. "I would have thought that relaying Crawford would take MORE
effort than just talking to you himself," he said, and Omi glared at him as
Nagi looked crestfallen again.
"We're not telepaths... how should we know what is and isn't more difficult?"
Omi sallied back, rubbing Nagi's shoulders soothingly. "Maybe it takes more
effort, but less concentration, who knows? Whatever the reason, we're now a
HELL of a lot closer to finding them than we were an hour ago." He nodded at
the computer screen. "Given what Nagi sensed, and what I discovered, they're
almost certainly being kept at that old prison complex."
"Let's go," Nagi said excitedly, starting to worm his way off the bed. "They're
waiting for us!"
"Whoah, hold on there," Youji said, catching his arm gently. "First of all,
you're in no shape to be going anywhere. Second of all, the four of us are
exhausted from looking for YOU all night. If we go out there now, without
resting and planning first, we might as well just hand ourselves over to these
guys."
"Youji is right," Omi agreed reluctantly. "Believe me, Liebe, I want to rescue
him nearly as much as you do, but if we go off half-cocked we won't be helping
anybody. They'll still be there in the morning, and we'll have a much better
chance of rescuing them after we've recovered."
Nagi looked torn, but finally he nodded. "Okay," he said softly, settling in
again. The lights went out abruptly, and Omi's laptop shut off. "Then we should
go to sleep now, so we'll be recovered faster," he insisted when Omi and Youji
made startled noises.
Youji chuckled, and tugged both the boys into a tight hug as he slid down to
snuggle into the narrow bed. There was barely enough room for the three of them
- a tight squeeze, but in some ways that made it more comforting. "I'll sleep
to that," the playboy said. "Sleep well, you two... tomorrow we've got some
ass-kicking to do."
 
===============================================================================
Nagi woke slowly, his body loudly protesting his return to consciousness.
Everything hurt, and his head was pounding with the worst headache he'd ever
had in his life. Morosely, he reflected that maybe he should have just waited
for Omi to slowly type everything into the laptop after all; using his powers
that way right after exhausting them might not have been the smartest thing
he'd ever done. But he was so desperate to find Schuldig, any delay seemed
unbearable.
Mentally he thanked whatever hitherto unknown stubborn part of him had kept him
from committing suicide yesterday. Schuldig was ALIVE... alive and well, and he
needed Nagi to rescue him.
He... needs me, the telekinetic thought to himself wonderingly, turning the
thought over in his mind. Oh, the German had said often enough that he 'needed'
Nagi, but that had been in terms of 'I need you in order to be happy.' Now it
was a case of 'I need you in order to survive.'
Schuldig needs me. Crawford needs me. Only I can do this. Nagi knew that was
true. He needed the help of Weiss, because he couldn't do it on his own; but
neither could they face such powerful psychics without help from another
powerful psychic. Granted that these people had been able to block Nagi once
before, but they had caught him by surprise then. Hopefully this time he would
be catching them by surprise. And even if they DID manage to block him, he knew
the common weak points of psychic powers, and how to defeat them. Weiss just
didn't have that kind of knowledge, despite their experience with Estet.
Schuldig needs me. Crawford needs me. Weiss needs me. It was an oddly
empowering knowledge... that they needed him, that they were depending on
him... it meant he couldn't afford to fail. More than that, he couldn't afford
to hesitate. If he was going to do this, then he had to DO it... no questions
asked, no waiting for orders, or it might be too late. It had taken Schuldig
and Crawford a long time to train him to be able to handle himself in a fight
without needing direct orders for every move he made, but even now he still
clung to the outline they gave him before any battle. Crawford's precognition
had allowed him to give Nagi detailed enough guildelines to get through the
fights in one piece. Weiss didn't have that ability... if they had to guide
him, he would only be a liability to them, and they couldn't afford that.
I have to do this... on my own, he realized. The thought sent spasms of terror
through him, making him want to bury himself in a deep dark hole and never come
out again. What if he screwed up? What if he made the wrong decision? What if
he made the RIGHT decision, and it still turned out wrong, like Youji had said
last night? Worse, what if he got out there, and THEN froze, unable to think
for himself at the critical moment? He might get them all killed, or worse.
But if he didn't try, then Weiss would be all but guaranteed to fail. Schuldig
and Crawford would remain captive, would probably be moved, and he would never
see his Master again. Of the two options - having to make his own decisions, or
never again feeling Schuldig's loving prescence in his mind - Nagi knew which
one frightened him more.
"Then I just have to do it," he said aloud, opening his eyes. He was alone in
Omi's bed - the pillow on the left side of him was still faintly warm, but the
right side was cold. Judging by the sunlight streaming in through the window,
it was late in the morning; Omi had probably gotten up early to plan, and Youji
most likely had lazed in bed for a few more hours before getting up to join
him. Probably the bedroom door closing behind Youji was what had drawn Nagi
from his sleep in the first place.
He sat up, the blankets sliding off him into a heap on the floor beside the
bed. His head still hurt almost too much to think. He glanced around. Omi was a
hacker, and Nagi knew for a fact that the older boy spent long hours at his
computer. Nagi also knew from experience that staring at the screen for hours
at a time brought on plenty of headaches. So... if Omi sat THERE, where would
he probably keep his painkillers?
He found the two most likely drawers, and hesitated before opening them. Omi
had told him to 'make himself at home'... but hadn't specifically said that he
could touch anything...
"Are you going to do this or not?" he asked himself crossly. Reaching out
before he could think too hard about it, he opened one of the drawers. He
started to reach inside, then realized how badly his hand was shaking and sat
down at the desk instead, gasping for breath. What if Omi was angry with him
for touching the other boy's things? What if he got into trouble?
Rescuing Schuldig is more important than making sure Omi is pleased with me, he
realized after a moment's thought. I can't help Schuldig while suffering from a
reaction headache. So I need painkillers more than I need to please Omi.
Really, when it came right down to it, it was all about priorities. Nagi was
amazed at himself. Schuldig had talked to him before about situations where the
'ends justified the means', but he hadn't understood what the telepath had
meant at the time. Now he did... the 'end' of rescuing Schuldig justified the
'means' of possibly upsetting Omi... even of breaking any orders that prevented
him from doing what needed to be done to help the German telepath.
Everyone had always told him that he needed to make more decisions for himself.
But it wasn't really about the decisions, Nagi saw now. It was about figuring
out what was important to you. After that, the answers to the decisions were
obvious... and it didn't MATTER what the consequences were, because you did
what you had to do in order to achieve your priorities.
Could it really be that simple? Was this how ordinary people lived their lives?
No wonder decisions were so easy to them. Now, if Nagi could just hold to this,
remember the way he felt right now, then maybe he would be okay after all.
"I can do this," he said to himself, wondering. "I can really do this." He
looked into the drawer, and as he'd suspected he found a couple of bottles of
varying strengths of painkillers. He picked up the bottle that had the
strongest kind that wouldn't also knock him out, and swallowed a couple of them
dry. His hand was still shaking, but his resolve had firmed.
He put the bottle away and closed the drawer, standing and padding to the
bedroom doorway. It was time to go out and find out what the plans were, and
make sure he was included in them. He wavered a bit at the idea of actually
telling someone ELSE that he wasn't going to listen to their orders, but kept
an image of Schuldig at the forefront of his mind to remind him why he was
doing this.
He opened the door and moved down the hallway, but paused just before he came
in sight of the living room. Omi and Youji were out there talking - no, they
were arguing, Nagi realized, eyes wide. He plastered himself against the wall,
trying to decide whether he should go back into the bedroom. Making his own
decisions was one thing. Walking into the middle of someone else's fight was
another matter entirely.
"Give me one good reason why I should fogive what you did," Omi demanded
angrily. Nagi couldn't remember ever hearing the older boy so furious. "We had
an agreement, Youji, and you broke that. Unless somehow I just MISSED the fact
that I was actually wearing my collar last night."
"You weren't and you know it," Youji replied, sounding defensive. Nagi's eyes
widened further; listening to them, if he hadn't known better, he'd have
thought that OMI was the Dom and Youji was his sub, not the other way around.
"Yes, I broke our agreement, all right? Will you stop yelling at me long enough
to LET me explain?"
"I'm not yelling," Omi bit back, which was true. Neither of them had raised
their voices, though the intensity imbued in the words made it SEEM like they
were being shouted. Presumably they hadn't wanted to wake Nagi up. "And yes,
you can explain. But this had better be good, Youji."
Youji sighed. "You were about to lose your temper and blow up and Ken and Aya.
You're too close to Nagi - too emotionally involved to think straight about the
issue. YES, they needed to be chewed out, but if you'd done what I know you
were planning to, we'd have a hell of a lot bigger problems now. You're our
leader, you're supposed to stay unbiased, remember? We have enough issues with
the fact that I'm your lover."
"And how do you think it affected my authority for them to see me give way to
you like that?" Omi retaliated. "What's to stop them from thinking that you
don't do that ALL the time - that you're actually leading Weiss, and I'm just a
puppet, and they never knew it? For gods' sakes, Youji, they're already nervous
about the whole thing. Now we're going to have to convince them all over again
that Schuldig hasn't 'conditioned' me into being completely submissive, all the
time."
"We'll deal with it when it comes up," Youji replied. "Look, I'm sorry, all
right? But it was the only way I could think of to get you out of there without
getting into exactly the argument I was trying to avoid."
"And you're telling me that you didn't chew them out after I left?"
"Of course I did!" Youji said. "But I didn't blow up at them, and I'm not in
any kind of authority over them. That kind of thing is easier to take from a
teammate than a leader sometimes, Omi. I managed to talk some sense into both
of them, and they'll realize pretty quickly that I'm not secretly controlling
you. If you had yelled at them the way you wanted to, they'd just have gotten
defensive, especially Aya... and it would have ended with them refusing to help
us any further."
There was a long pause, and finally Omi sighed. "Maybe you're right," he agreed
reluctantly. "But damn it, Youji, if you EVER do something like that again,
it's over. Understand me?" Youji made a startled exclamation. There was the
sound of soft footsteps, then rustling fabric. "I love you, always. I'm not
talking about breaking up with you. But if I can't trust you to stick to your
agreements when I HAVE a choice to refuse, how can I trust you when I'm
helpless?"
"It won't happen again, I promise," Youji replied. His voice was oddly muffled,
and Nagi peeked cautiously around the corner to see why. Omi was curled up on
Youji's lap, and the taller man had buried his face in Omi's neck as they
embraced. "You're right, I shouldn't have done it that way. I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," Omi said softly. "And no harm done... this time. Now...
much as I hate to wake Nagi, we need to get moving and I don't want him to wake
up alone."
"I'm awake," Nagi said, making both of them jump. He stood hesitantly in the
doorway. "I'm sorry... I didn't want to interrupt."
"Nagi!" Omi exclaimed, jumping up and crossing the room to his side. "You
shouldn't be out of bed... you had a major shock to your system yesterday,
Liebe. You could have just called for us."
Nagi shook his head. "We need to go rescue Schuldig and Crawford. I want to
come with you."
"No, Nagi," Omi replied softly but firmly. "You're in no shape for a mission. I
want you to stay here and rest... we'll bring Schuldig back to you, I PROMISE."
He almost broke... given an order that clear, it was hard to bring himself to
remember what he'd decided, back in the bedroom. "N-no," he finally forced out,
feeling as if the air in the room weighed several tons. "No, I'm going too. You
need my help."
The two white hunters traded startled looks, and Youji stood. "Liebe, you're
staying here. That's an order. We'll manage without you."
"But we're very, VERY proud of you for sticking to that decision!" Omi added
quickly. "Gebieter will be so pleased when we tell him."
It was easier the second time, Nagi discovered. "No. I'm going. You can't stop
me." They both stared at him in utter shock.
"All right, who are you and what have you done with Naoe Nagi?" Youji finally
asked weakly. Omi shot him a dark look, and the playboy shrugged. "I'm serious.
We know we're up against psychics, Omi... what if they rearranged his mind?"
"I'm s-still me," Nagi insisted. "But I'm going with you. You NEED me...
Gebieter needs me. You don't know how to fight psychics." Seeing that they were
still going to refuse, he added with a reserve of stubborness he hadn't known
he possessed, "If you leave me behind, I'll steal a car and follow you. You
can't keep me here... unless you knock me out, you know you can't force me to
stay anywhere."
Omi continued to gape at him, jaw dropping in shock. "You... I..." he
stammered, clearly stymied. Finally he shook his head helplessly. "All right,"
he agreed.
"Omi!" Youji exclaimed, giving him a disbelieving look.
"What?" Omi replied. "What am I supposed to do? Drug him? Not after the mess
his system went through last night. And he's right, unless we knock him out, we
can't force him to stay. I mean, what are we going to do, lock him in? Tie him
up?"
Youji had to concede the futility of those ideas. He looked at the two of them.
"You sure you want to do this, Liebe? It's going to be a nasty fight, and we
aren't going to have time to take care of you. You'll be on your own for the
most part."
It was clear to Nagi that the playboy was hoping that prospect would prove too
daunting for the former pet. But he shook his head. "No. It's okay, I know
that. I'm going anyway. I'll be okay."
"Nagi... there's one thing I want you to understand," Omi warned him. "In the
field, *I* am the leader, and you will take orders from me. Forget about the
fact that I'm a submissive - my orders are to be obeyed instantly and without
question, understand? If you can't agree to that, if you don't think you can
see me that way, then I WILL drug you to keep you here if I have to."
It only took a moment for Nagi to decide. "Yes. I can do that," he agreed.
"You... you're not... ACTING like a submissive."
"I'm not, not when it comes to missions," Omi said, giving him a small smile.
"All right... Youji, you get the two of you a quick breakfast, then take him
down to the mission room and fit him with the spare transmitter and show him
how to use it. I'll go get Ken-kun and Aya-kun and fill them in on the plan."
His blues eyes glittered with a determination that made Nagi's hopes rise.
"Let's show them what happens when you mess with Weiss and Schwartz."
***** Chapter 8 *****
Brad nearly cried out when he suddenly lost his visions again. Once again he
was wrapped in the stifling blindness caused by whatever was blocking them. The
hand in his went limp, and he knew Lukas had passed out from the strain of
trying to hold the shields.
Lukas... it really was Lukas, not Schuldig. He had changed from the boy Brad
had known; become more jaded and cynical. But then again, considering his life,
that was only to be expected, really. Brad knew there was something Lukas was
trying to hide from him, something that had happened to him since Brad had left
the Institute, but for the moment it wasn't important. They would sort it out
once they were free of this mess, and Brad would reassure Lukas that NOTHING
could cause him to think less of the German telepath.
He still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about what had happened. On the one
hand, this was a chance he had never expected to have... a chance to be with
the man he had loved since they were both children. Lukas remembered him now,
remembered their bond, remembered their promise. He DIDN'T remember the
horrible things Brad had done to drive him together with Nagi...
But there was the crux of the problem. Nagi. The telekinetic was utterly
dependent on Schuldig, and would be devastated without him. Lukas had no
memories of Nagi, or his relationship with the Japanese boy. Never mind the
rest of the telepath's tangled love-life with Weiss; Bombay and Balinese at
least would be able to adjust to the change and move on. It might very well
kill Nagi to lose his beloved Gebieter.
Without his powers, there was no way to KNOW the best path to take. If only
there was a way for his old friend to be both Lukas AND Schuldig, but it didn't
seem to be possible.
Once they had their powers back, there was a chance that he would be able to
reverse what Emmanuel had done. But could he bring himself to do it? Once
before he'd voluntarily given up Lukas, and he'd been suffering alone ever
since, watching his friend's happiness with Nagi. Knowing the pain that was
waiting for him on the other side, could he deliberately erase Lukas from
Schuldig's mind once more?
Did he have a choice? They'd already lost Farfarello, he'd gotten that much
from Nagi. The Irishman wasn't a devastating loss to Schwartz; but losing Nagi
would be. And Brad had come to genuinely care for the telekinetic over the
years, he didn't want to hurt Nagi now. Nagi trusted them to take care of him,
to protect him from harm, and Brad had already failed him once, deliberately.
He didn't think he could do it again.
He didn't realize he was falling asleep until he toppled over onto his side on
the floor, losing his grip on Lukas' hand. The fall woke him, but only
barely... he was drained and exhausted after straining to use his powers, and
then straining again to reach Nagi through Lukas. They would both be useless
until they slept it off.
Reluctantly Brad stood and staggered to the narrow cot, wishing there was some
way he could get Lukas into bed as well. The telepath would be stiff and sore
after sleeping slumped over on the cold concrete floor, but there was nothing
Brad could do about it.
With a last glance at the wall that blocked Lukas from his view, Brad tumbled
into the bed and passed out cold.
If he dreamt, he didn't remember it aftewards, save for vague impressions of
horror and fear. They might have been his own nightmares; they might have been
Lukas', echoing down to him through their new bond. Either way, Brad came awake
abruptly, the sound of menacing footsteps still ringing in his ears.
"Brad!" hissed Lukas from the other cell. "Wake up! They're coming!" The
precognitive realized that the footsteps were real, not a lingering product of
his dreams, and he scrambled to his feet. Their captors were returning...
presumably Emmanuel wanted to see if his efforts had been successful. Brad
moved to the front of the cell, clutching the bars, eyes narrowed behind his
glasses.
The Greek telepath came into view of Brad's cell first; he passed the
precognitive by as if totally unaware of the American's presence. The young
child still followed behind him, with the same blank expression as before. Brad
felt disoriented for a moment, before he got hold of himself. He realized that
the low-level link to Lukas, active despite the fact that the telepath was no
longer shielding, had been cut off. He looked at the child with renewed
interest. Could this be the source of the block? A sort of anti-psychic, as it
were? And the ability got stronger with proximity?
"Lukas," the older telepath purred when he stopped in front of the German's
cell. "I'm glad to see you're awake and well."
"Em-emmanuel..." Lukas stammered, and Brad heard him backing up away from the
bars. The precognitive frowned; he'd expected Lukas to be defiant and brash, or
possibly just subdued by the fact that he was facing his Instructor... but the
German sounded terrified. "Jesus Christ, Brad, you didn't tell me it was the
INSTITUTE that had captured us!"
"Ah, good," Emmanuel said, all but purring like a satisfied cat. "Your memories
have been properly restored. It was quite distressing to discover that you had
forgotten me, Lukas."
"For THAT, I'd pay money to have amnesia," Lukas muttered. "Got away from you,
did I? I bet that must have pissed you off to no end."
Brad frowned. Obviously there was bad blood between student and Instructor; as
the advanced telepath Instructor, Emmanuel would have had quite a bit of
contact with Lukas. What had happened to set them at odds? He hadn't realized
this capture was anything other than simple revenge on two rogue agents.
Emmanuel looked infuriated by the younger telepath's words. "Yes, you escaped
me once, but you won't do so again. You belong to me, Lukas, and soon you'll
owe your life to me as well. I am the only one who can convince the Council to
spare your life."
"I'd rather die than do anything for you, ever again," Lukas spat, enraging
Emmanuel more. Brad kept quiet, eyes wide. Yes, there was unmistakeably
something going on here that he didn't know about, and without his powers he
was afraid to interfere for fear of changing the tenuous future he'd seen in
which they had been rescued by Nagi and Weiss.
"Is that so," the Greek man hissed, eyes narrowed dangerously. "That can be
arranged, you know. But I think I have found something that will persuade you
more effectively." He pulled out a gun, and levelled it - not at Lukas, but at
Brad.
"No!" Lukas shouted as Brad tensed, automatically trying to see into the future
to predict where the bullet would strike him so he could move out of the way.
All he succeeded in doing was giving himself another headache. "No, you fucking
bastard! Don't you fucking touch him, or I swear to God I will kill you
myself!"
"Then obey me, and he'll live a while longer," Emmanuel replied. "You know what
I expect, Lukas. Refuse me, and you will both die as slowly and agonizingly as
is humanly possible - and I will make sure that he goes first, and that the
block is lifted just enough to allow you to feel every moment of his suffering.
Do you understand me?"
Lukas swore in a bastardized mix of English and German. "Don't, Lukas," Brad
cautioned him in a voice that remained steady, despite his nervousness at
facing a gun in the hands of a man who hated him while he was without his
powers to save him. "He's going to kill us both anyway, don't give him what he
wants."
There was a shattering explosion, and for a moment Brad thought he might
actually have gone deaf. He stood there, stunned, as sound finally returned to
him over the ringing in his ears. "...ad, Brad, are you okay? Fucking hell, you
fucking BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?" Lukas was shouting.
"I'm all right, Lukas," Brad replied, and this time his voice DID shake.
Turning slightly, he saw the hole in the wall where the bullet had buried
itself, just an inch to the left of his head. He glanced at Emmanuel, who
looked back at him with the cold eyes of a snake. "I'm fine, he didn't hit me."
"Just a warning shot," the older telepath agreed amicably. "The next one will
be to a non-vital area; something which will hurt a great deal, but not
endanger his life. A kneecap, perhaps, or the groin. You have ten seconds to
decide, Lukas."
"God damn it all to fucking hell!" the German exclaimed. "All right, you win,
God damn you. I'll do what you want. I'm yours. Satisfied?"
"Not yet... but I'm sure I will be shortly," Emmanuel purred. He tucked his gun
into the hands of his little anti-psychic, who stood passively holding it out
of reach of Brad or Lukas. Then he stepped up to Lukas' cell, one hand dropping
to his belt. "Let's see how much skill you still retain, shall we?"
Brad's hands clenched the bars hard nearly hard enough to dent them as he
finally realized what was going on. "If you lay one finger on him," he promised
in a low voice, "I swear that Schwartz will hunt you down and destroy you. We
will make what you're threatening me with look like child's play."
"This assumes you live more than another few hours," Emmanuel sneered back as
he unzipped his fly. Brad couldn't see the details of what was happening, but
he didn't need to. After an initial gagging noise from Lukas, the soft sounds
of sucking told him everything he needed to know.
So THIS was what the telepath had been trying to hide from him, the secret he
had feared would be exposed with the creation of the link between them.
Emmanuel had been abusing him, using his position as an Instructor to force
Lukas to be his sex toy. It disgusted Brad, but not in the way that Emmanuel
had probably convinced Lukas it would; the idea of anybody taking advantage of
someone under their protection in such a way had always disgusted him, and
always would. It was one of the reasons it had been so difficult for him to do
what he'd needed to do to drive Schuldig and Nagi together.
At last Emmanuel's breathing sped up as he came with a cry, and Brad heard
Lukas coughing roughly. He hissed through his teeth, seething with anger but
unable to do anything. At this point all he could do was wait until Emmanuel
had left, and then try to talk it out with Lukas. And when they got out of
here, Brad was going to make sure a special level of hell was reserved for the
molesting asshole - AFTER he had Nagi rip the bastard to shreds pieces by tiny
piece.
The older telepath zipped himself up and sauntered out of reach of the bars
once more. "Now, I must go to convince the Council to spare your life," he said
to Lukas. "It would indeed be a shame to lose such a well-trained toy - I see
you have learned new skills since you left me. I shall have to make sure to
explore them all."
"One of these days I'm going to bite it off," Lukas replied sourly. Emmanuel
laughed.
"Oh yes, please do try. The moment I sense the intention in your mind, I will
burn you out so thoroughly there will be nothing left but a vegetable. A
very... pretty... vegetable," he added suggestively, stretching out a hand to
touch Lukas. The German spat at him, and Brad heard the sound of flesh meeting
flesh as the Greek man reached through the bars and slapped the other telepath.
"Fuck you," Lukas rasped, staggering back from the bars. "You God damn son of a
bitch, go fuck yourself.
"But I'd much rather fuck you," Emmanuel replied softly. "Now, I must be off.
But do not fear, Terri here," he clapped the child on the shoulder, "will still
be in the complex. Do enjoy your last hours, Bradley. Be sure to thank Lukas
for granting you a relatively merciful death."
Brad clenched his teeth to keep from spitting out the reply he wanted to make.
Emmanuel was leaving, probably for quite some time... this was the ideal time
for Weiss to rescue them, and he didn't want to say or do anything to
jeopardize that future.
Emmanuel left, taking the anti-psychic with him, and Lukas and Brad were left
alone once more. Brad tried several times to say something, only to find that
he didn't know what to say - platititudes would have been beyond ridiculous,
and might only have hurt Lukas more.
"Well, now you know the truth," Lukas finally said, his voice dull and
hopeless. "I'm nothing more than his fucking whore."
"If you truly believe that, then you're right," Brad said coolly. If he was
lucky, he would be able to shock Lukas out of his apathy. If he'd guessed
wrong, he might very well convince Lukas that he DID believe the younger
psychic was somehow soiled by what Emmanuel had forced on him. He prayed he
wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life, and once more he cursed the loss
of his powers. With them, he'd have been able to see exactly what words to say
to achieve the best effect; without them he was shooting in the dark. "All I
saw was a man abusing his position and raping someone who had once been in his
care; but if you choose to see it differently, that's your decision."
"Don't fucking kid me," Lukas burst out angrily. "Christ, Brad, don't you
understand? I've been his fuck-toy since I was fourteen! I never fought him, I
never argued... I was too much of a fucking coward! And I..." his voice broke.
"I enjoyed it, God damn him. He made me enjoy it. He made me beg him for it."
"He MADE you, Lukas," Brad replied. "That's the key word there. Rape is rape -
the fact that you're enough of an empath to be forced to share your rapist's
pleasure does not mean that you truly wanted it. Nor does the fact that he
frightened you into obeying him make you a coward. I know how much authority
the Instructors held over us all - they literally had the power of life and
death. What did he threaten you with?"
There was a long pause, and for a moment Brad thought Lukas wasn't going to
answer him. "He said that if I objected or refused, he'd tell the other
Instructors that I had used my powers against him," the telepath whispered at
last. "He said they would burn my mind out. I... I couldn't face that. I
couldn't."
"Of course not," the American said gently. He sat in the corner once more,
reaching through the bars and offering his hand. Now that the anti-psychic was
away from them once more, he could feel a dull throb of pain and despair in the
back of his mind, through the connection to Lukas. "You were fourteen years
old, Lukas. There is a reason that having sex with someone that young is
considered rape even if they agree to it - you were still a child, and he was
not only an adult, he was your Instructor. He probably couldn't have actually
gotten you killed... all the others would have had to do would be to look
inside both your minds, and the truth of the matter would have been known. He
wouldn't even have risked the possibility that they might believe you when you
said you hadn't done it. But how could you have known that?"
"You can't tell me that you're not disgusted, Brad!" Lukas objected. "I can
FEEL it, damn it."
Brad shrugged, though Lukas couldn't see the gesture. "My disgust is aimed
entirely at him, Lukas, not you." Sensing that Lukas still didn't believe him,
he sighed. "Lukas... when I found you again, when you were eighteen, the
situation you were trapped in was far worse than what I've just discovered
about what happened to you at the Institute. Far, far worse. It has never
changed anything about the way that I've thought of you... except perhaps
admiration that you made it through such an experience with your spirit and
sanity intact. I'm not sure I could have done the same. This means nothing to
me... save that THIS man I can kill, slowly, to punish him for what he did to
you, while I was unable to do anything to the people who had you when I found
you."
There was silence for a long time, and Brad could feel many emotions swirling
through their bond. "You really don't care," Lukas finally said, his voice
rough as though he was crying. Wisely, Brad chose not to comment on that.
"That would be a lie," he said instead. "I do care, enough that I intend to
make certain Emmanuel's death is appropriately painful and messy. But it does
not CHANGE how I perceive you, or my feelings for you. You are my friend, you
always have been and you always will be - even when you didn't know it. You are
the only person in the world I have ever trusted completely."
For a long time Lukas said nothing, and Brad sensed that he was struggling.
Finally the telepath reached through the bars and took Brad's offered hand.
With the skin contact came a flood of emotions that left Brad gasping with
their intensity. "Did I imagine it?" Lukas asked, so softly Brad wasn't even
sure it wasn't a telepathic query. "What you said, at the end before you left
me?"
"No," Brad whispered back. "No, you didn't. I said, and I meant it then... and
I mean it now. I love you, Lukas, I always have. Though," he added wryly,
sensing one of the causes of the conflict within the younger psychic, "I assure
you the nature of my feelings has changed a bit since you were thirteen. You
were a good friend, the closest thing I had ever had to family, and I knew that
you would grow to be a very attractive man. I kissed you because I wanted you
to know the possibility was there for the future - for when I saw you again
when you were nineteen."
"Oh," Lukas said in a very small voice. His hand squeezed Brad's. "I... I love
you too. Always have. I w-wanted to wait for you... I wanted you to be my
first. But..."
"It doesn't matter," Brad cut him off. "We'll start again now, from here.
Nothing in the past matters any more." In that moment he knew he would never be
able to give up Lukas again; he wasn't sure what he was going to do about Nagi,
but for the first time in a very long time, Brad Crawford had decided that he
was damn well going to be selfish.
***** Chapter 9 *****
They stopped the cars when they were still quite some distance from the prison
complex, not knowing what kind of advanced security the place might have. They
pulled Aya's sports car and Youji's convertible over off the road, hiding them
among the trees and brush with the ease of long practice.
"All right, last communications check," Omi said as they climbed out of the
cars. They each toggled their mikes in turn, checking to make sure that
everybody could hear everyone else. "Good," Omi said when he was satisfied that
everything was in working order. "Now here's the plan.
"Originally I'd intended this to be a reconnaisance mission, but as Nagi has
pointed out, if we're spotted, these people will probably move out, and FAST.
If that happens, we'll never get another shot at rescuing Schuldig and
Crawford," Omi said. "So instead we're going to give it our best shot on the
first try."
"Are you sure he should be here?" Ken asked uncertainly, nodding at Nagi.
They'd already been through this argument once, back at the Koneko, but
obviously neither Ken nor Aya was quite satisfied with the results.
"YOU try getting him to stay behind," Omi replied, laughter in his voice. Ken
raised an eyebrow and turned to Nagi. The telekinetic started to shrink back
under that critical gaze, but then remembered his newfound determination. He
bit his lip and stared back at the other man.
Something in his eyes must have convinced the white hunter, because Ken
shrugged. "Okay. But what are we going to do if his powers cut out on him
again? He's not exactly a front-line fighter type."
Omi nodded. "He's going to be staying in the back with me. If we're lucky,
we'll have his powers to help us get in there. If we're not, we'll still have
his knowledge of the weaknesses of psychic powers. Siberian, Abyssinian, you're
on point. Prodigy and I will take the middle, and Balinese will cover from
behind. We need to get in as quickly as possible; our only advantage in this
fight will be the element of surprise."
"This is assuming they don't have a precognitive of their own," Aya pointed
out.
"If they do, we're screwed anyway, so we may as well not worry about it," Omi
replied with a shrug. "Once we're inside, we're probably going to have to split
up to search the place effectively. If you run into a psychic you can't handle,
call back to me and Prodigy will tell you how to deal with it." He looked at
Ken and Aya in turn. "It's not going to be easy. This is going to be about as
brutal as going up against the Estet Elders was." He swallowed. "I know there's
no love lost between you and Schwartz. I want to thank you now for helping us
anyway. We'll owe you, big time."
"Let's just get this over with," Aya growled. "We'll decide whether or not we
believe your stories when we see Schuldig and Crawford for ourselves."
Youji rolled his eyes. "Right. Good to know you're giving us the benefit of the
doubt. You heard the man, you're on point. Lead the way."
"Prodigy," Omi said as they headed for the prison, "if your powers cut out, I
want you to get the HELL out of there, understand? You can come back and try
another day; I don't want you dying because you wouldn't run when you should
have."
Nagi nodded reluctantly after a moment of thought. "All right," he agreed, and
Omi sighed with relief. The telekinetic didn't HAVE any other skills that would
be useful in a combat situation; without his powers, he was nothing more than a
moving target. Since Nagi had suddenly begun insisting on being included in
this mission, Omi had been having nightmare visions of the telekinetic being
killed just moments before they rescued Schuldig. He would never be able to
live with himself if Nagi was hurt on a mission HE had organized and led.
They were used to covering ground quickly as a unit; the addition of Nagi
slowed them somewhat due to the boy's varied injuries, but they reached the
prison relatively quickly. It had been a high security facility, surrounded by
tall barbed wire fences and guard posts. Omi squinted at the guard towers, and
made out a flash of sunlight off of metal. "We've got guards up there," he
said, unslinging his crossbow from where it was strapped across his back.
"Balinese, can your wire make it up that high?"
Youji held up a hand to visually measure the distance. "I'll have to be
practically right under it, but yeah, it should. As long as there's not more
than one guard per tower."
"The towers are too small for more than one person," Ken noted, flexing his
fist to check that his claws were moving smoothly. "They'd be squished up
against each other. Besides, this is a PRISON... it was designed to keep people
in, not to guard on all sides."
"True enough," Youji conceded. Omi nodded.
"All right. Balinese, you take the tower on the right, its got cover closer to
the base. I'll take the left tower. On my signal." He hefted the crossbow and
loaded a bolt, then made his way through the underbrush to a spot that gave him
a decent shot at the guard.
"Bombay, I'm in position," Youji's voice came over the communicator.
"On my mark, then," Omi replied quietly, taking careful aim at the base of the
guard's throat. "Try to make sure he can't call out or scream. Three... two...
mark!"
He fired the bolt, pulled another from the thigh sheath, set it against the
string and jerked his arm back, cocking the bow again. He raised it back to his
shoulder and sighted on the guard, just in time to see the man collapse below
the level of the tower railing. Satisfied, he glanced over at the other tower,
and could just barely make out the shine of the sun off a slender wire running
straight up from the ground to the tower.
"Bombay, target down," Omi said into the mike. A moment later the wire snapped
back down towards the ground, and Youji echoed him.
Omi made his way back to the others, and surveyed the main gates. "Getting
through there is going to be difficult, even with the guards down," he noted.
He looked around, but none of the trees were high enough for the trick they'd
used to get into Masafumi's mansion. "Damn it. I could probably rewire the
security system from the outside, but it'll take too long... somebody might
notice the guards missing."
"I'll do it," Nagi said. "It's only metal mesh, not solid metal, it's not even
that heavy. I can open it."
Omi bit his lip. Nagi was still exhausted from the day before, and judging from
the pinched look around the boy's eyes, he was probably suffering from a nasty
reaction headache too. And for all he knew, these people had some way of
detecting psychic powers, which would reveal them the moment Nagi used his
telekinesis. But it was also their best chance to get through the gates. "All
right, do it," he finally said. “Everybody be ready to move fast - I want those
gates open for as little time as possible. Prodigy, if you can, arrange it so
they DON'T lock behind us... we might have to leave in a hurry."
Nagi nodded, and moved to a place where he could see the gates in their
entirety. His fists clenched and he narrowed his eyes, and the white hunters
readied themselves. After a moment there was a scraping sound, then one of the
gates swung open just enough to allow a person to squeeze through. "Go!" Omi
commanded, and they ran.
Nagi stopped just inside the gate and waited until the others were through,
then the gate swung closed once more. Omi didn't hear it latch, however, and he
nodded at Nagi. They made their way quickly through the open yard, Omi keeping
a sharp ear out for guard dogs. That would be all they needed. But they made it
to the doors without encountering any problems.
"Seems like there's minimal security," Ken noted as they caught their breath
and examined the doors. "Not much of a lock on the doors, either. You'd think
they'd be more paranoid!"
"They probably think that I'm dead," Nagi pointed out softly. "And they
apparently don't know about our connection to you, so as far as they know, they
don't have to worry about any rescue attempts. They just have to keep Crawford
and Schuldig IN, and blocking their powers will do most of the work for them."
"Right," Omi said, fishing out his lockpicks and kneeling before the door. He
inserted the slender tools and fished around carefully. Ken was right, the lock
on the doors was old and not particularly secure. However, Omi discovered, it
was also rusted, which made picking it somewhat difficult.
Finally there was a grating noise, and the tumblers fell into position. "Let's
go,” Omi said triumphantly, standing and pocketing his picks again. “Stick
together for now, we'll fan out later if we have to. Prodigy, can you feel
ANYthing from Mastermind?" Nagi shook his head, and Omi sighed. "Me, neither.
All right, we'll just have to find them the old fashioned way. Keep an eye out,
there may be more security measures on the inside than on the outside."
They made their way through the hallways, stepping carefully over the
occasional place where plaster on the walls or ceiling had crumbled a bit. The
building hadn't been in use for decades, and it showed. They reached the end of
entrance hall, which opened up into a lobby. Two wings led off in opposite
directions; they could just make out the first of the cells lined up in rows on
both sides. Another hall led away directly across from them... probably to a
cafeteria, workrooms, that sort of thing. Omi glanced around and didn't see
anyone in sight, and signaled a cautious all-clear. Ken and Aya started
forward, and he gestured for them to go to the right, while he, Nagi and Youji
would go to the left. Chances were good the two missing psychics were in the
cellblocks, not the rest of the building.
"You're not supposed to be here," a high-pitched voice echoed through the room
in surprise. Omi stopped, halfway across the room, and looked up. There was a
narrow balcony around the top of the room, presumably for guards to stand on.
He cursed himself for missing it. Standing almost directly above the door Weiss
had just come out of was a child. Omi wasn't certain if it was a boy or a girl,
but the expression on the youth's face was disturbingly empty. "I don't know
who you are. I'm calling the guards."
"No!" Nagi reacted, reaching out towards the child. Plaster dust swirled around
them in the wind kicked up by his powers, but the youth just looked back at him
blankly.
"You shouldn't do that," the child said. "That's very bad. You're a very bad
boy, and you're not allowed to be bad. I'll have to stop you."
The wind died abruptly, the debris it had been carrying falling to the floor in
a shower of dust. Nagi cried out and raised a hand to his head. "My powers!"
"That kid must be what stopped you all from fighting back," Youji noted,
pulling his wire. He sent it arcing towards the child, and Omi winced; he hated
the idea of killing someone that young, but they didn't seem to have much
choice.
The wire sang through the air, and inches from the youth it too stopped dead,
and fell to the floor. Immediately Omi raised his crossbow and fired, but the
bolt veered off to one side and buried itself harmlessly in the wall. "What the
hell?" Ken exclaimed.
"He's... he's using my powers!" Nagi said. "He's not just blocking me, he's
draining me, and using it against us!"
If that was the case, Omi fervently hoped the child wouldn't decide to turn
Schuldig's powers against them as well. The telepath was strong enough to kill
a man simply by overwhelming his mind, and Omi didn't particularly want to
experience that. "Prodigy, get out of here!" he ordered, loading his crossbow
again. "If you're not here, he can't absorb your powers. Siberian, Abyssinian,
split up to either side... Balinese and I will keep him occupied."
He started to raise the crossbow again, but Nagi stepped in front of him,
ruining his shot. He opened his mouth to warn the boy off, but something in the
telekinetic's face stopped him. A look of enraged determination, like nothing
he'd ever seen Nagi show before. "Get out, all of you," the telekinetic said,
eyes narrowing further. The child cried out in surprise, and the wind picked up
again, blowing back and forth across the room as if it were water sloshing in a
tank.
A moment later Omi realized what was happening. Nagi was fighting back, trying
to overwhelm the child with sheer power. And when one of them finally lost… "Oh
gods... OUT! Everybody out of the room! NOW!" he ordered, scrambling for the
nearest doorway. "They're going to bring it down on top of us!"
Sure enough, the structural supports in the room were already groaning under
the pressure of an internal hurricane they had never been designed to handle.
Both Nagi and the child were sweating, eyes locked as they battled for control
of the telekinetic force. The rest of Weiss had vacated the room, scattering
into the hallways, but Omi could see Youji and Aya standing near the entrances,
watching the battle just as Omi was.
The sound of a scraping noise and the safety clicking off a gun sent Omi
instinctively diving for the floor, without even looking around to see where it
had come from. Gunfire sounded, abrasively loud in the enclosed area, making
his ears ring. He rolled back onto his feet and grabbed three of his poison
darts, spinning to locate the source of the gunfire. There were four guards
behind him, running down the cellblock towards the lobby. Omi threw his darts
and nailed two of them, then he rolled again as the last two started firing
again.
Something stung on his shoulder, and he knew he'd been hit. Shock and adrenalin
masked the pain; he wouldn't know how bad the wound was until he had a moment
to stop and look at it. His arm dropped to his side, unresponsive to his mental
commands. Swearing, he dropped his crossbow and grabbed more darts with his off
hand, sending them spinning into the corridor. His aim wasn't as good with his
left hand; he hit one of the remaining guards squarely, but only nicked the
other.
The man staggered, the poison affecting him even with only a partial dose, but
he weighed at least two hundred pounds and his own body mass slowed the effects
of the lethal poison. He raised his gun and fired again. Omi tried to dodge,
only to realize that he was effectively pinned between the wall, the guard, and
the raging telekinetic force in the lobby - he had nowhere to go.
The poison in the guard's bloodstream was just strong enough to affect his aim;
his bullet drew a line of blood across Omi's left cheek and then shattered the
concrete wall behind him. Chips of concrete flew everywhere, and Omi was
certain that half of them ended up buried in his body, but he was still alive.
He used the last of his darts to drop the guard, and stood panting in the
corridor, praying that no more of them would show up. Out of darts and unable
to use his right arm to draw the crossbow, he was effectively helpless.
A horrid screeching noise echoed through the building, as if the very girders
were protesting the events within. Omi started to turn, and a massive force hit
him in the side, tossing him nearly a hundred feet further into the cellblock.
He hit the ground hard and skidded along the rough floor, crying out in pain as
the jolting aggravated the wound in his shoulder. He finally slid to a halt,
surrounded by a choking cloud of dust that obscured everything more than a few
feet away from him.
He scrambled to his feet, coughing as the dust entered his lungs. He tugged his
sleeve down over his hand and raised his arm to his mouth, using the soft
cotton as a filter so he could breathe. The dust was simply drifting slowly
down to the floor; the only disturbances were where his own breath sent it
swirling in the air. That was VERY bad… it mean he was trapped in an air
pocket, with no influx of air at all. It also meant the end of the hall had
been sealed shut by the collapsing room – and he only had one good arm to move
rubble with.
Sternly telling himself not to panic, he picked his way through the debris
towards the lobby… or more accurately, towards where the lobby had BEEN. The
others had seen which hall he’d ducked into, and they would dig him out. IF
they weren’t trapped themselves. IF they were even still alive. When he
realized his teeth were chattering, Omi made himself stop thinking of ‘if’s.
“Please, kami-sama,” he murmured as scattered rubble turned to a sloped wall of
concrete and steel. “Please, let it be not too thick. Please let them all be
okay.” Gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm, he started to climb.
Nagi kept a tight leash on his powers until he was certain all of Weiss was
safely out of the room - he didn't want them caught in the backlash. He kept
pushing at the child on the catwalk with increasing increments of power, and
each time he would be able to use his powers momentarily before the child
reasserted himself and Nagi's telekinesis seemed to disappear into a void. It
wasn't a void, though... it was the child himself, and he was using that same
telekinetic power against Nagi in return.
It was the same trick that had allowed these people to defeat Schwartz in the
first place; turning their own powers against them. But this time Nagi wasn't
caught by surprise, and he was willing to do anything it took to free his
Master. He knew that what he was planning was essentially suicide - after the
total power expenditure the night before, using his telekinesis so recklessly
now was putting a massive strain on his system. But it would be worth it, if it
saved Schuldig.
As the tension in the room continued to build, Nagi poured everything he had
into his powers, draining himself into the psychic black hole the child had
created. "You're being very BAD!" the child screamed at him as the telekinetic
force stopped whipping back and forth and became a whirlwind instead. The youth
was starting to lose control of his stolen powers, and was forced to expend
them simply to keep his body from overloading. "Very, very BAD, and you're
going to get in trouble!"
Nagi gritted his teeth and clung to consciousness as darkness threatened to
overwhelm his vision. He could feel his heart straining, beating far too fast
in reaction to the energy he was using up. He loosed his control on his powers
entirely, letting the full destructive force of his abilities slam into the
boy. The youth screamed, a scream of pain rather than defiance this time, and
Nagi smiled grimly. Crawford had told him once that he was possibly the most
powerful telekinetic ever born, and he was still continuing to get stronger as
he matured.
It was far too much power for such a young body to handle. The boy tried to
absorb it, then frantically tried to use it up before it could overwhelm him,
but Nagi was feeding it to him faster than he could expend it. He screamed
again, and again, as the power ate him up from the inside out, literally
tearing him apart.
The child wasn't the only thing being torn apart... unable to handle the strain
of the massive amounts of telekinetic force the youth had poured out in an
effort to save himself, the roof and walls of the room finally gave way. Tons
of concrete and steel girders came crashing down on both of them with
unbelievable crushing force. Released suddenly from the psychic void he'd been
trapped in, Nagi threw the last of his powers outward in a desperate attempt to
save himself from being hit by the collapsing building.
Debris showered around the bubble of force he’d formed, piling up on all sides.
Belatedly he realized that he was probably going to seal off the side passages
Weiss had escaped into, trapping them inside. He tried to redirect his powers
to keep those halls clear as well.
He knew he'd gone too far when he felt his heart beat twice in double-time,
pounding against his chest... and then stop, sent into shock by the strain.
Pain spiraled through him as his powers cut out, and the last of the rubble
fell through his shield and pounded into him. The world faded away, seeming to
move in slow motion as he collapsed, gasping helplessly for air. His last
thought was to wonder if he really WOULD die this time... and regret that he
wouldn't be able to see his Master’s reaction to his newfound determination.
***** Chapter 10 *****
The first indication they had that something was going on was the sound of
distant shouting from the left, far down the corridor. A strong breeze wafted
down the hall, swirling in and out of the cells and teasing at Lukas’ hair and
clothes. “What the…” He moved to the front of the cell, trying to peer down to
the end of the row. “What’s going on, can you tell?”
“I can’t see anything,” Brad answered him from the next cell. They both
listened intently for a few minutes, and heard more shouting. There was a sense
of growing pressure in the air, as if all the air in the entire building was
being compressed. Wind - it could no longer truly be called a breeze - whistled
down the hall at irregular intervals, growing in strength with each gust. "It
could be Nagi... winds often manifest as a side effect of his powers. If so, we
need to get ready - this will be our one and only chance to escape this place
alive."
"Great," Lukas muttered, clutching the bars. "How the hell do we 'get ready'?"
The sounds of shouting turned to screaming before Brad could answer him, and
the strongest gust yet blasted through the hall, carrying clouds of dust and
even tiny stones with it. Lukas backed away from the bars, coughing, and heard
Brad doing the same.
"Can you see anything?" Brad called, and Lukas shook his head.
"No, I..."
The world spun and came crashing down, crushing Lukas beneath the weight of it.
The Voices were screaming in his head, louder and stronger - and yet somehow
oddly more distant - than they had ever been before. Brad's mind beside him was
a bright spear point, digging into his brain, burrowing inside him until he
felt sure he would burst. He screamed, and heard Brad echo him as the
precognitive was flooded with a wave of visions, shared with the telepath
through their mental link.
Between the Voices and the visions, Lukas was rapidly heading towards a Fit.
Some distant corner of him was aware that if he passed out now, he would
probably never escape this place, and would be Emmanuel's playtoy for the rest
of his life. The thought gave him strength, and he gathered every last shred of
willpower to wrest a rudimentary shield into place.
The most distant of the Voices were cut out instantly, even by such a thin
barrier. As the ability to think returned to him, Lukas realized that meant
they were VERY far away, despite how clear they had been. There was a cluster
of unfamiliar minds somewhere nearby that were still imposing on him - they
were near whatever had collapsed and sent the debris cloud into the cellblock,
and they were panicking about something. Next to him Brad was still linked to
him, undaunted by the shield, but Lukas had lost the connection to the other
psychic's visions.
Summoning more and better shields, Lukas was slowly able to block out the
panicking minds, and even to damp out most of Brad's projecting. When he was
finally certain that his thoughts were mostly his own, he opened his eyes -
when had he closed them? - and looked around. He found that he was lying on the
floor of his cell, covered by a thick layer of dust while more drifted down out
of the air. He sat up and dusted himself off, straining to hear something with
his physical ears.
There was the sound of soft whimpering from somewhere nearby - Brad, he
realized after a moment. "Brad," he said, voice hoarse with coughing. "Hey,
Brad, come on, snap out of it."
The other psychic was likely trapped by the sudden return of his visions, just
as Lukas had been caught in the minds of everyone around him. The telepath
reached out cautiously along their link, extending his shields as he went,
until they encompassed Brad as well. He had no idea if telepathic shields would
have any effect on precognitive visions, but it was worth a shot.
He was struck again by the flow of visions, a swirl of images too rapid and
varied to make out. Multiple futures all tried to make themselves known at
once, fighting for dominance like unruly children in a playground. Somewhere in
that mess was Brad's consciousness, lost in all the myriad possibilities.
*Here,* he called, still following the link. He projected an image of the cell,
of the rubble, making it as strong and detailed as he could. *Here, Brad, come
to me. This is the present. THIS is now. Follow the threads back to the place
where they all meet.*
He felt a touch, a familiar mind brushing against his, and slowly the visions
faded. Replacing them came thoughts and memories, and he couldn't help but peek
- he'd never been inside Brad's mind before, and he was curious. Especially
about the time he was now blocked from remembering.
*No, Lukas,* Brad cautioned him, pushing him gently out of his mind. That
formidable iron shield slammed down over the precognitive's mind, barring Lukas
from all but the most basic contact once more. *Trust me, my friend... you're
better off not knowing. We've been given a new start, let's not ruin it with
old arguments you don't even remember.*
Lukas let it go, retreating back into his own mind and drawing his shields
tightly around him. He DID trust Brad, and as badly as he wanted to know what
he was missing, if Brad told him he was better off not knowing, then it was
probably true.
Booted footsteps echoed off the walls, approaching them slowly. Lukas gritted
his teeth and stood, fists clenched, waiting to see who came into view. If it
was Emmanuel...
But it wasn't. A young man approached from out of the dust clouds, hardly
visible until he was almost on top of them. He was young, maybe twenty, and had
strongly Asian features despite his blue eyes. He said something in a language
Lukas didn't recognize, and his tone of voice was somewhere between relief and
resentment.
To Lukas' surprise, Brad answered the boy in the same language. Whatever he
said startled the other man, then made him laugh and shake his head. The
stranger pulled out a set of lockpicks and knelt in front of Lukas' cell.
"I take it this is our rescue?" Lukas said dryly to Brad. After the pounding
his mind had just taken, his telepathy was a little too raw for him to want to
casually use it, either to talk to Brad or to read the stranger's mind. "Is
this Nagi?"
Brad coughed, almost as if he was covering a laugh. The boy looked up, blinked,
and then shrugged and went back to work on the lock. "No, this is a former
enemy of ours. Nagi has friends among them, and I suspect he managed to
convince them to help rescue us."
The lock clicked open and the boy stood, bowing ironically to gesture Lukas out
of the cell. "Thanks," he said as he stepped out. Crossing the invisible border
between the cell and the hall immediately made him feel about a hundred times
better about the situation.
The boy muttered something that didn't sound entirely complimentary, and went
to work on Brad's cell. Lukas leaned against the far wall and waited, squinting
down the hall in the direction the boy had come from. "You got any friends out
there?" he asked the youth.
The Asian man looked up at him crossly and said something in that same
language. From the sounds, Lukas was beginning to think it was Japanese - not
that he knew anything about Asian languages. "What's he saying?" he asked Brad
curiously.
Brad chuckled. "Mostly he's telling you off. The last thing he said was asking
you to speak in Japanese."
"But I don't know Japanese!" Lukas protested. "Can't he speak English?"
The American sighed. "Lukas, a few days ago you DID know Japanese. You spoke it
fluently. The fact that you can't even understand it now tells me that Emmanuel
did a VERY thorough job of blocking your memories of your time in this country.
If it was just a normal case of amnesia, you'd still remember the subconscious
skills you had learned."
Lukas felt a chill run along his spine. "How the fuck do you forget a language
that you know fluently? This is insane... I'm not sure even I would be able to
do a block THAT complete on someone I didn't have a link... to..." His eyes
widened and he swore. "Fucking bastard tagged me! All those years ago, he must
have tagged me, and I never even knew it!"
"It would explain how he managed to find us," Brad agreed. "I was quite
thorough about ensuring our tracks were covered." He asked something of the
boy, who shrugged and replied with a few words that sounded like names.
"Siberian says most of Weiss doesn't speak English, though Nagi does,
thankfully. As soon as we're in a secure position, remind me to transfer at
least a basic knowledge of the language to you telepathically. We have a close
enough bond that I should be able to do that."
"Yeah, sure," Lukas agreed gratefully. He didn't like being out of the loop,
and not being able to understand most of the things said around him definitely
counted as 'out of the loop'. The boy said something questioning, and Brad
shook his head. Blue eyes slanted a very puzzled look at Lukas, and then the
youth gave an exclamation and Brad's cell door swung open.
"Let's go," Brad said, gesturing down the hall for the boy's benefit. The
Japanese boy nodded and headed off back the way he'd come, gesturing for them
to follow him.
The two psychics trailed along behind him, picking their way through the rubble
carefully. The last thing either of them needed now was a sprained or broken
ankle to complicate matters. "Lukas," Brad said quietly as they walked. "These
people know you. Some of them hate you. Some of them know you... rather well."
Lukas raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't comment. Hard as it was to imagine
being with anyone other than Brad, he also wasn't naive enough to assume that
he'd been celibate all those years if he HADN'T had Brad.
The American sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Right now I don't dare
check my visions unless I'm in full trance, or they'll overwhelm me again. It's
everything I can do to hold them off. But I don't need to be a precognitive to
know that what's coming will be messy." He hesitated, then added, "Just be
gentle, Lukas. You have a very great deal of influence over several of the
people you're about to meet, and at least one of them will be severely hurt if
you reject him in any way."
They had reached a much larger pile of rubble... large enough that it clogged
the hallway. The Japanese boy was already climbing towards the top, where Lukas
could make out a small gap between the debris and the ceiling. When the youth
reached the gap, he started prying more rocks off the top and tossing them
down.
Lukas sidestepped quickly to avoid a rock that seemed to have been aimed at
him, only to be hit in the shoulder by another one. He glared up at the youth,
who just smirked down at him and said something that sounded quite rude before
he returned to tossing rocks. Lukas responded in kind, in German, making Brad
laugh.
"If you don't want to get hit, climb up and help him," the precognitive
suggested, already suiting actions to words. "Otherwise we're going to be stuck
here for quite some time before that gap is wide enough to fit through."
 
===============================================================================
Aya pried himself out from between the two rocks that had nearly crushed him,
still profoundly shaken by what he'd seen. He'd been present when Nagi had
destroyed Masafumi's mansion after Tot's death, but this had been destruction
on an entirely different scale of magnitude.
He was battered and bruised, but nothing seemed to be broken, which was a minor
miracle in and of itself. Two slabs of concrete had fallen such that they were
leaning against each other above him, just inches from his back. They in turn
had protected him from any other large chunks; the end result was that he
hadn't been hit by anything larger than his fist. He still felt as if he'd been
pummeled by a fierce hailstorm, but he would live.
Assuming that he wasn't now trapped in this hallway - given the amount of
rubble he'd seen crashing down before he'd hit the deck and covered his head,
he wouldn't be surprised if he was blocked in. In fact, he'd be surprised if he
WASN'T. Cautiously he got to his feet and started picking his way forward
through the debris.
After a moment he realized he could feel a slight movement of air against his
face - at least he wasn't completely sealed in. The air current caused the dust
that was hanging in the air to swirl around him in dizzying patterns, making it
even harder to see. The lights were flickering as well - some of the power
lines must have been damaged.
He hadn't been far from the entrance when it all came slamming down, so it
didn't take him very long to reach the rock pile that had once been the
entrance to the lobby. He was extremely relieved to see that while the pile was
high, it didn't fill the hall completely... there was more than enough room for
him to get through at the top. He started climbing, wondering grimly if there
would be anything left to find on the other side.
The movement of the air was much stronger when he neared the top, and he
realized why the moment he crested the peak; the entire ceiling of the lobby
had fallen in, exposing the room to the elements. Wind currents were creating
dust devils out of the lighter debris, and there was concrete, plaster chunks
and steel beams everywhere.
"Aya!" a familiar voice called from across the room. Aya looked up, and saw
Youji just emerging from the hall that led to the main entrance. It too had
been partially blocked, but the playboy had no trouble getting through. "You
okay?"
"I'm fine," Aya replied, sliding down the other side of the pile. "You?"
"I'm going to turn several lovely shades of black and blue, I'm sure, but
otherwise I'm okay," Youji replied wryly. He surveyed the damage, and his half-
humourous expression melted into a concerned frown. "Gods. Nagi must be
somewhere under all this mess. And Omi and Ken bolted into the cellblocks..."
he gestured, and Aya turned to see that the other two hallways had been
completely blocked, rather than only partially filled. "We need to start
digging them out, I guess. Hopefully this took care of the guards for us."
Aya forebore to mention that if it had taken care of the guards, it had likely
taken care of Omi and Ken as well. As far as Nagi went... he doubted the
telekinetic could have survived this, but then again, he'd have said the same
after Nagi had brought down Masafumi's mansion.
"I saw where Nagi was standing just before it all came down," the redhead said,
moving towards the centre of the room. "I'll look for him - you start digging
Omi and Ken out."
As he'd expected, Youji went straight for the hall Omi had bolted into. Aya was
badly worried about his own lover, but at the same time, he didn't think he'd
be able to bear digging through all that rubble and finding Ken's dead body.
The mere thought made his chest ache so badly he couldn't breathe. So instead,
he moved to the approximate area the telekinetic had last been in and started
tossing chunks of debris aside, looking for some sign of the boy's body.
He'd only been digging for a minute when he realized there was something odd
about the pattern of the collapse... there was a circle where the debris was
piled higher than in other places. He scrambled up to the top, nearly sliding
back down again several times on the shifting rocks.
Sure enough, within the circle was an area with much less debris in it. The
wind was playing havoc with the dust, making it difficult to see, but Aya's
sharp eyes spotted Nagi's hand and sleeve lying limp against a rock. He picked
his way down to the bottom, sliding the last foot or so, and quickly began
digging the boy out from under the pile.
It took him only moments to free Nagi's upper torso from the loose debris. He
checked the boy's pulse and breathing, and confirmed what his eyes had already
told him... the telekinetic was dead, either because of the falling ceiling or
the expenditure of his own powers.
He nearly left it at that. A large part of him was urging him to just walk
away... after all, Ken was still trapped, and might be running out of air. And
though he had reluctantly admitted to himself that he couldn't blame Nagi for
what Schwartz had done to his sister, he still wouldn't shed any tears over the
boy's death.
But... he remembered the devastated look on Omi's face when they'd told him the
telekinetic had gone missing the day before. And the way Nagi had flinched from
him, cowering in the corner when he'd snarled at the boy. Nagi had suffered
enough abuse and neglect in his life, and now Aya - supposedly one of the 'good
guys' - was just going to walk away from him without even trying to save him?
His hands were moving before his mind had reached the conscious decision, and
he realized he'd known what he was going to do all along. There really was no
other choice, not if he wanted to be able to live with himself in the future.
He pinched the boy's nose shut and leaned over, sealing his mouth to the
telekinetic's and forcing air into the boy's lungs. After doing that a few
times, he moved to try to restart the youth's heart by pumping on it, hard.
Nagi already had a cracked rib, and Aya wouldn't be surprised if he ended up
with several more after this, but if it saved his life then it was worth it.
He kept at it, moving back and forth between breathing and heart, going at the
task with his usual relentless determination. He wasn't going to give up until
someone pulled him away from the body or Nagi breathed on his own.
He wasn't sure how many cycles he'd been through when Nagi suddenly choked
against his mouth and thrashed weakly. Aya pulled away, supporting the boy as
he gasped painfully for air, breathing in tiny little pants because of the pain
in his ribs. "Prodigy, can you hear me?" he asked.
"Y-yes," Nagi finally managed to respond. He was shaking like a leaf and trying
to huddle in on himself as if for warmth. His skin was cold and clammy to the
touch, and Aya frowned. Pulling his trenchcoat off, he gently draped it around
the boy and started to work on freeing his legs as well.
"Balinese, any luck?" he called to his teammate. The playboy paused in his work
and pushed his hair back from his face - he'd lost his hairtie at some point,
apparently.
"Yeah, he's in there - we can hear each other if we shout," Youji replied,
though he sounded grim. Aya blinked - he'd been so focused he hadn't even heard
Youji shouting. "He's injured and can't dig, gunshot to the shoulder, and he
says there's no air movement in there."
"Right. Give me your trenchcoat, then keep working," Aya ordered. Youji started
to ask why, then saw Aya's trench already wrapped around Nagi. He nodded and
shed his jacket in a single smooth move, tossing it across the rubble to Aya.
The redhead caught it deftly and added it to the one already wrapped around the
boy. "Will you be all right if I leave you for a few minutes?" he asked.
"I'll be f-fine," Nagi whispered, clutching the jackets to him. "I'm just
exhausted. Go help the others."
Aya didn't need to be told twice. He headed for Youji, but the blonde waved him
off. "Check on Siberian," the playboy said. "I've almost reached Bombay, and he
says he's probably got enough air for days, so don't worry about it."
"Thanks," Aya acknowledged briefly. Even that much gratitude made Youji give
him a surprised look, but he hardly saw it as he turned and made his way to the
other side of the room as quickly as he could. He surveyed the blockage of the
corridor Ken had vanished into, and though he saw a small gap up near the top.
Climbing up, he shouted into the hole. "Siberian! Can you hear me?"
"Abyssinian!" Aya had never been more relieved to hear anything than he was to
hear Ken's voice at that moment. "Yeah, I'm in here. I'm okay, and I found
Crawford and Schuldig. They're fine too." His lover sounded torn between relief
and disappointment, and Aya had to admit he felt much the same way. In many
ways, things would have been so much easier if the two older psychics had been
dead, or even if Weiss simply hadn't been able to find them. "Are the others
okay?"
He started scraping away the top layer of debris, widening the gap from his end
as Ken was probably doing on the other side. Hopefully it wasn't too wide, so
they would meet in the middle relatively quickly. "Bombay is trapped the same
way you are, but Balinese is almost through to him, and they're talking." He
hesitated, then added, "Prodigy isn't doing very well, but he's alive, and
that's more than I expected."
Someone on the other side made a concerned noise, and then Crawford asked,
"What's wrong with him? I assume he's responsible for the collapse?"
"Yes," Aya told them, grunting as he shoved a large chunk of steel out of the
way. "He was fighting with the... anti-psychic, or whatever it was. He's
shaking badly, curled up, and his skin is cold and clammy. His eyes are dilated
too - shock, most likely. He wasn't breathing when I found him, I had to
restart his heart."
"Christ," Ken swore. "Same thing that happened yesterday after he totalled
those warehouses."
"He collapsed after using his powers yesterday, and then used them again
today?" Crawford said, sounding amazed. "He shouldn't have been able to MOVE,
let alone bring down a building. Listen, Abyssinian... he's going into reaction
shock. Forget about us, we'll dig our way out of here soon enough. You need to
keep him warm, as warm as possible, or his system might shut down again. If you
have any sort of food or liquid, give it to him right away, force it down his
throat if he won't eat it. And don't let him go to sleep!"
Aya hesitated, but Ken spoke up. "Go on, Abyssinian, we're almost through to
you anyway. I can see you." Leaning down, Aya saw that his lover was indeed no
more than a few feet away. Ken grinned and gave him a thumbs up, then shooed
him off. "Go, take care of Prodigy, or I don't think Balinese will be able to
keep Bombay from going ballistic on us this time."
Snorting at the likely accuracy of that statement, Aya gave his lover a small
smile before sliding back down the pile and heading for Nagi once more. Youji
had broken through on his side, and was now just trying to widen the hole
enough to get Omi through it. The swordsman clambered down into the hollow
where Nagi had been buried, and found the boy curled up on his side, still
shivering.
He hesitated, but remembered Crawford's injunction to keep the boy as warm as
possible. Sitting so that his back was propped against a larger piece of
concrete, he drew the shaking youth into his arms and held him close. Nagi's
eyes were closed, and for a horrible moment Aya thought he might have fallen
unconscious. "Prodigy? Can you answer me?"
He suffered through a long moment of fear, before Nagi finally opened his eyes
and nodded slightly. His eyes were glazed and dilated - he was in shock, as Aya
had guessed. The redhead didn't know what 'reaction shock' was, but it
apparently manifested in much the same way as regular shock. "Talk to me," he
commanded the boy. "Don't fall asleep."
Nagi opened his mouth, clearly struggling to form words. "Wh-what d'you wan' me
t'talk abou'?" he finally managed, his words slurred rather badly.
Aya sighed in relief that the telekinetic could talk at all. "Anything you
like." He had a flash of inspiration. "Tell me about computers - Bombay is
always trying to explain them to us, but it seems like a foreign language to
me."
As he'd hoped, Nagi brightened somewhat and launched into a slurred and
convoluted 'explanation' that Aya couldn't follow a single word of. But he was
talking, and his diction was improving with each passing moment. He wasn't
shaking quite as hard now, and had instinctively curled up against Aya's chest
with his head on the older man's shoulder.
"Prodigy!" Omi's voice came from above, interrupting the incoherent torrent of
words from the boy. Both Aya and Nagi looked up to see Omi sliding down the
pile towards them, followed by Youji. "Are you okay?" the youngest Weiss
demanded anxiously.
" 'M fine," Nagi asserted, lowering his head back to Aya's shoulder. "Tired.
Cold. 'll be okay." He looked up again suddenly, his body tensing in Aya's
arms. "Did you find Schuldig?"
"Siberian found them," Aya replied quickly. "They're both fine, they're digging
their way out to us now."
"Thank all the gods," Youji said, and Omi nodded agreement. "Bombay, you help
Abyssinian keep Prodigy warm... I'll go dig from the other side."
Omi lowered himself carefully to sit beside Aya, and the redhead turned so that
Nagi was caught between them, warmed by body heat from both sides. "Keep
talking," Aya ordered the boy, who showed signs of drowsing now that he was
finally warming up. Nagi took up his narrative once more, prodded occasionally
by questions from Omi that didn't mean anything to Aya, but which apparently
served to send Nagi off on entirely new tangents.
"We've got them!" Youji shouted after an interminable time. Omi let out a whoop
of relief and sat up, helping Nagi to do the same.
"Man, I thought we'd NEVER get out of there," a familiar nasal voice exclaimed
in English. Aya only understood about half of the words, but he certainly
understood the way both Omi's and Nagi's faces lit up at the sound of them.
"Gebieter!" Nagi's voice was too soft to carry far, but he was already trying
to squirm out of their grasp. "Let go!" the boy insisted. "I need to see him,
please!"
"Let him go, Abyssinian, he won't relax again until he's seen for himself that
Schuldig is all right," Omi ordered in an undertone. Aya nodded and released
his hold on the telekinetic. Omi helped his friend over the lip of the rubble,
and the moment they crested it a familiar shock of brilliant orange hair came
into view.
"Master!" Nagi cried in Japanese, pulling free of Omi's grasp and stumbling
forward to throw himself into the German's arms, nearly knocking the startled
man off his feet.
"Schu!" Omi was right behind Nagi, glomping them both and hugging them tightly,
babbling something to Schuldig that Aya couldn't hear from where he was
climbing down the side of the pile.
Something was wrong, though... from all of Omi's and Youji's stories and
insistences that Schuldig loved Nagi more than anything else in the world, Aya
would have expected the man to look happy at being reunited with his lover.
Instead the German looked stunned and dismayed, glancing over at Crawford as if
for help. Aya's suspicion was confirmed - though not in the way he'd expected -
by the telepath's first words.
"Do I know these kids?"
***** Chapter 11 *****
It took a moment for the German's words to register with Omi. When they did, he
pulled back and stared at the older man in horror. "Wh-what did you say?" he
asked in Japanese.
Nagi had pulled back as well, though he hadn't released his hold on his Master.
The redhead was looking at them both uncomprehendingly, then turned a
beseeching look on Crawford.
The American sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is going to be
very complicated," he said in English. "Omi, Nagi... This isn't the Schuldig
you know. His name is Lukas, and he has no idea who any of you are."
Omi stared at the precognitive as if he'd lost his mind. "How could he not...
he has amnesia?" he finished, that being the only possible explanation he could
think of for what Crawford had said.
"Oi, somebody mind translating for the rest of us?" Ken asked plaintively in
Japanese. "What the fuck is going on?"
"When I have a clue, I'll let you know," Omi replied tensely. He was looking
back and forth between Crawford and... and Lukas now, and he didn't like the
expression on either of their faces. Most of all, though, he was worried about
Nagi. The telekinetic had never been strong at the best of times, and he'd been
through a hell of a lot in the past few days.
The youngest member of Schwartz looked like he'd been struck by a live
electrical current. "You... you don't know who I AM?" he said, his voice
breaking on the last word. Omi stepped forward again immediately, putting a
hand on his friend and sometime lover's shoulder.
"Nagi," he started, but the telekinetic shrugged him off violently, releasing
the telepath and backing away, shaking his head.
"No. No, I don't believe it! It c-can't be t-true..." his words were cut off by
a gasp, and he turned a horrible sickly grey colour, his hand rising to his
chest and his eyes going wide.
Crawford and Omi moved at the same moment, catching the boy between them as he
fell. "Shit," Omi swore helplessly. "Oh gods, please tell me his heart hasn't
stopped again..."
"No, he'll be all right," Crawford assured him, though Omi rather thought the
precognitive's voice held an unusual note of worry in it. The American looked
up and around at everyone who was standing there staring at the three of them
in shock. "We need to get out of here and regroup," he said in English, then
repeated himself in Japanese. "Full explanations can wait until we're inside
and Nagi has been properly looked after."
To Omi's surprise, it was Aya who first nodded and stepped back, gesturing at
the door with his sheathed katana. "Your apartment has been breached, and I
imagine it's crawling with police by now," he said in his gruff way. "The
Koneko will do as a meeting place - at least it's familiar to Nagi."
"The less stress he has to deal with right now, the better," Youji agreed, and
Ken nodded. Something that had been tight in Crawford's expression relaxed
slightly.
"Thank you," he said to them formally, standing and cradling Nagi in his arms.
The telekinetic was either asleep or unconscious - Omi was willing to bet on
the latter - and his breathing was not particularly steady. He looked like
hell.
"We should all fit in the cars," Omi said, not bothering to repeat himself in
English. He couldn't imagine why Schuldig would suddenly be unable to
understand Japanese - amnesia didn't cause you to lose your knowledge of things
like languages that you knew fluently. But even if that was the case, he wasn't
sure he was really ready to deal with a Schuldig that didn't recognize him just
yet.
"But I think it would be best for Nagi not to be in the same vehicle as Sch....
as Lukas," he amended, flinching slightly as he said it. "Just in case he
wakes."
Crawford looked pained for a moment, then nodded. "I'll stay with Lukas," he
said, and there was something in his voice Omi would almost have called
possessiveness if it had been anyone but Crawford. "He... needs someone to
translate for him," the American added, almost defensively.
"I'll take Nagi," Youji said quietly, stepping forward and taking the small boy
from Crawford's arms. Nagi was small for his age and thinner than was healthy,
because of the amount of energy his powers stole from his body. Omi knew from
experience that the younger boy hardly weighed anything at all.
Somehow they got themselves sorted out after that, and Omi fretted all the way
back to the Koneko, not liking the way Nagi looked or sounded. But Crawford had
said the boy would be all right, he reminded himself sternly. Now that the
anti-psychic was dead, the precognitive's powers should have been functioning
normally.
His living room was tiny, and it was a tight squeeze to get everyone inside it.
It would have made more sense to talk in the mission room, but Omi didn't want
to get too far from the bedroom where he'd laid Nagi down to rest. If the boy
woke alone... well, he'd already gone to several drastic extremes in the last
few days. There was nothing to keep him from doing something else just as
drastic.
He took the time to do a quick bandaging job on the bullet wound in his
shoulder - thankfully the bullet had gone through cleanly and putting pressure
bandages on the entry and exit wounds was enough to stop the blood, at least
for the moment. He rigged a sling, then returned from his bedroom to find Aya,
Ken and Youji arrayed along one wall, watching the two psychics who were seated
on the couch. A glance told Omi that the two were in deep trance - nothing
short of an earthquake was likely to bring them out of it. He looked back at
his teammates. "What are they doing?"
"Crawford said something about 'implanting Japanese' into Schu," Youji
muttered, shrugging. Of the four of them he was the most relaxed at the moment,
but that wasn't saying much. Omi knew his lover well enough to see the subtle
signs of tension in the older man's body. Youji was not pleased about the
situation, he was just hiding his nervousness better than Ken or Aya.
"I don't get it," Ken said, running a hand through his dark hair. "Schuldig
already speaks fluent Japanese. What's the deal?"
"I suspect we need Crawford to tell us that, Ken-kun," Omi replied grimly. "And
trust me, I intend to get as complete an answer from him as is humanly
possible!" That made Ken crack a grin - they were all familiar with Omi's
sometimes painfully intensive mission debriefing procedures. When the Weiss
leader wanted to know something, there was very little that would stop him from
discovering the answer.
A quiet sigh from the other side of the room told him that the two Schwartz
members had come out of trance. Crawford looked exhausted, with a pinched,
pained expression around his eyes and mouth. The German - Omi found it
difficult to think of him as Lukas - was blinking like he was dazed and trying
to sort through an overload of information. Which, actually, he probably was.
"I didn't know you were a telepath," Omi said to Crawford, by way of an opening
gambit. It was as good a place to start as any.
"Only a minor one," the American replied, his voice weary. "Compared to...
Lukas, I might as well not even be rated with the ability." Omi found it
vaguely comforting that Crawford was also hesitating over Schuldig's new name.
"I can only speak to other telepaths, and even then my range is limited. The
only reason I could give Lukas the language is because of my familiarity with
his mind."
That made Omi raise an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you'd care to explain exactly
what happened, and why he doesn't remember us?" he asked in a deceptively mild
voice. He glanced at the telepath. "You don't remember us, right?"
"Not a clue," the German replied in hesitant Japanese, shaking his head. "Never
seen any of you before in my life, except Brad."
'Brad'... that made Omi blink in surprise. Schuldig had once told him that
Schwartz's leader had forbidden him to ever call him by first name, yet at the
moment Crawford didn't seem in any way displeased by hearing his name from the
telepath.
"Sit, all of you," Crawford said with some irritation. "We've both already got
migraines, we don't need to be craning our necks to look up at you. We're not
going to attack you. At the moment, we owe you our lives."
Slowly, Weiss took seats in various places around the room. Youji slung himself
across one chair, Omi took the other, and Aya seated himself on the wide
windowsill, which had a cushion for just that purpose. There was room for one
more person on the couch beside the two psychics, but Ken took one look at them
and shook his head, dropping gracefully to sit at the floor by his lover's feet
instead.
"Now, explain," Omi said, letting his voice get a little cold. "I want every
detail - I think you owe ME that much, if not the rest of us."
Crawford took a deep breath, and seemed to be gathering himself. "I don't know
how much you - any of you - know about Schuldig's past, so I'm going to start
at the beginning. When I found him here in Tokyo several years ago, he was...
in a very nasty situation, with no control over his powers whatsoever." Omi saw
the German give Crawford a very surprised look at that piece of information,
and filed the expression away as one more piece of this whole puzzle.
"I took him in, trained him, introduced him to Estet, and made him my
teammate," the precognitive continued, staring at a fixed point on the wall
rather than looking at any of them. "He had amnesia then - he didn't remember
anything prior to a few months before I found him. I tried several times to
find a way around it, but every time I tried to formulate a plan, I'd receive a
vision of..." he paused, and grimaced. "Well. Let's just say, the results would
have been unpleasant, though there were several variations on the theme. There
was something that had happened to him, something his mind was hiding from, and
which he simply could not face without losing control of himself and his
abilities completely."
Omi winced at the very thought. He had some idea of just how powerful a
telepath Schuldig was, and he'd seen the utter destruction wrought when Nagi
had lost control of his emotions and his powers. He didn't think the results of
a telepathic outburst would be any less destructive than a telekinetic one,
especially in a city with as crowded a population as Tokyo. Crawford nodded at
him, seeing the expression.
"I finally gave up," Crawford picked up the thread of the story again. "That
was about the same time that we picked up Nagi as an addition to our team, and
we began to form a stable, powerful trio. Schuldig knew from my reaction upon
meeting him that I knew something of his past, but he told me flatly that he
didn't want to know any of it. Given the visions I'd had, I thought that was
for the best."
The wheels had been turning in Omi's head during all this, and he thought he
was starting to form an idea of what might have happened. Before he could say
anything, however, Youji jumped in. "His name was Lukas before he forgot
everything, wasn't it?" the former P.I. asked shrewdly. "So, what... he's been
regressed?"
"The telepath who captured us was a former instructor of the psychic Institute
that trained us as teenagers," Crawford replied grimly. "Somehow he managed to
'flip' Lukas' amnesia, so that he now remembers everything PRIOR to the event
he's blocked, but has completely forgotten everything that came after. And I do
mean completely," he added, eyes narrow. "That's why I had to imprint Japanese
on him. Even though he knew it fluently enough to be able to think in the
language, he now doesn't remember a single word of it, except for what I just
gave him."
"And I'd give a lot to know how the fuck he managed it, too, the bastard,"
Lukas added with venom. "He MUST have planted a tag on me when I was a kid,
learning from him. There's no other way he should have been able to get that
deep in my head, shields or no shields."
Omi had an odd expression on his face as he listened to the German speak. It
was more than just the slow and awkward Japanese - there was something about
the way he spoke, about the way he held himself, even about his expression,
that was indefinably different. He'd have found it easier to believe that this
man was Schuldig's long lost twin brother than Schuldig himself. The
differences were subtle, but they were there.
Resolutely, he decided to treat Lukas as exactly that - Schuldig's twin
brother, not his beloved Gebieter. Except that there was one small complication
that prevented that from being the easy solution. "All right," he said, proud
that his voice stayed level. "Lost skills are relearnable, and I'm sure
Crawford is glad that you remember your friendship with him. But we can't leave
things like this."
"Why not?" Lukas asked, shaking his head. "I mean, okay, so I'm gonna have to
get to know all you people again. What's so bad about that? People live with
amnesia all the time, and they get on with their lives."
Omi's lips thinned. "You'll get no arguments from me on that subject," he said
tersely, earning himself a snort from either Ken or Aya, he wasn't sure. It had
come from their direction, anyway. "But most amnesiacs don't have someone
relying on them the way that Nagi relies on you. For you not to remember him
is... unacceptable."
He saw the way Crawford's expression shut down abruptly, and his eyes narrowed
slightly. You don't like that at all, do you, he thought to himself, careful to
keep the thought at a level where the telepath wouldn't be able to pick it up
casually. Nagi is your responsibility almost as much as he's Schuldig's... why
does any mention of his dependence on Schuldig make you shut down like that?
Lukas was looking between him and Crawford uncomprehendingly. "I still don't
get it. What's the big deal? What is this kid to me, anyway? I mean, I'm not
like, his FATHER or something, am I?"
"Not quite," Crawford replied, his lips curling in a humourless smile. "It's
far more complicated than that, and you're not going to like this at all,
Lukas."
Before he could get any further, there was a shuffle at the doorway. With a
sinking feeling, Omi knew what it was even before Nagi spoke. "Gebieter?" the
pet murmured, dark blue eyes huge and liquid with unshed tears. His gaze was
fixed on the telepath, as it generally was if his Master was in the room.
Omi was on his feet before he knew what he was doing. Inwardly he was cursing
Nagi's uncanny ability to walk in on a conversation at the worst possible
moment - he wouldn't have believed the telekinetic would even be capable of
sitting up at the moment, let alone walking! Outwardly, however, he kept his
voice calm and soothing. "Liebe, you need to..."
His voice caught on the words, however, as he got a look a Lukas' horrified
expression. The telepath had gone as pale and wide-eyed as Nagi, and was
staring at the telekinetic like the boy was some kind of deadly disease. "WHAT
did he just call me?" he demanded, his voice shaking. "Brad, please tell me
that was some fucked up Japanese word you didn't teach me that only sounds like
German..."
Crawford was looking pained again, and had laid a restraining - comforting? -
hand on the German's shoulder. "I'd have chosen a better way to break this to
you, but yes, he said what you think he did," he told Lukas as Omi and Youji
both moved forward to support Nagi, who looked like he was thinking about
fainting again. "You are Nagi's Master, in a Dominant/submissive sense, and
that's why it's very bad that you don't remember him."
"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Lukas blurted out, switching back to
English in his agitation. Omi almost wished he'd reverted to German instead -
he wouldn't have been able to understand what was being said then, but neither
would Nagi. The telekinetic huddled into Omi and Youji as Lukas continued,
"There is NO fucking WAY! Not only would I absolutely never sleep with a
fucking KID, but you could not torture me enough to force me into doing that to
anybody!"
The telepath's voice was rising hysterically with each word, though Crawford
was now obviously trying to calm him, without much success. Aya and Ken were
watching wide-eyed from the sidelines, while Omi and Youji did their best to
shelter a whimpering Nagi from something that surely had to be the pet's worst
nightmares come true.
Crawford met Omi's eyes, and jerked his head at the hallway. Omi nodded.
"Youji, get Liebechen out of here," he said softly, fighting to keep his voice
level. "Try to calm him down. Aya-kun, Ken-kun... you go with them." He saw
protest in both of their eyes, and shook his head once, firmly. "NO buts," he
ordered, in the coldest voice either had ever heard him use.
Aya looked like he was still thinking about arguing, but Ken saw something in
Omi's face that made him stand and tug at his lover's hand, forcing the redhead
to his feet. "This is none of our business," Ken murmured, though from the
expression on his face he wanted to stay every bit as much as Aya. "Let them
sort it out." After a moment he was successful in urging the swordsman into the
hall towards Omi's bedroom.
That left Omi facing off against Crawford and Lukas, who was still more than
half hysterical. Omi moved forward until he was close enough for them to see
the utter coldness in his eyes. Then he punched Lukas, hard, in the stomach. If
Crawford saw it coming, he made no move to stop it.
"What the fuck was that for?" Lukas demanded when he finally managed to stop
retching and get his breath back.
"For being a fucking insensitive asshole," Omi replied, voice frozen and eyes
flashing. "You're a fucking telepath, and I know you're enough of an empath to
read someone projecting as strongly as Nagi was. You utter bastard, did it even
occur to you to look for yourself to see what he feels for you?"
"I don't care what the fuck he feels for me," Lukas insisted wildly. "He's
BROKEN, I didn't even have to look to know that much. How... how could I DO
that to someone?"
Omi snarled, and reached out to grab the telepath by the collar. He often
surprised people with just how much strength he had in his arms; he looked
small and weak, but it took a lot of force to draw a bow or cock a crossbow. He
used it now, yanking Lukas towards him easily though he only used one hand. "Do
I seem particularly broken to you?" he demanded. "Newsflash, bastard, I'm your
other sub. YOU didn't break Nagi, a whole lot of other people did. You were
putting him back together, one tiny piece at a time. At least," he released the
man back onto the couch and stepped away. "You WERE fixing him, until you went
and broke him again with that little display. Even if we manage to get him to
accept Youji as an alternate Master now, after THAT, I don't know if we'll ever
be able to fix him."
Crawford had been watching the scene in bemusement. "I must admit, you don't
seem particularly submissive at all, let alone broken," he observed, quirking
an eyebrow. Omi glanced at him.
"When I'm wearing my collar, I'm submissive, and I get to relax and unwind.
When I'm not, I'm the leader of one of the best assassin teams in Tokyo, so no,
I'm not particularly submissive then." His mission outfit's shirt's neck was
low enough that there was no doubt about whether he was or wasn't wearing his
collar at the moment. "For me it's a choice, not a lifestyle. For Nagi, it's
something he doesn't know how to survive without."
Lukas was rubbing the back of his neck, where his collar had bit into him when
Omi yanked him forward. He wouldn't meet Omi's eyes. "I can't," he said, and
something about the quiet, almost desperate tone in his voice made Omi back off
and re-examine the situation. "I can't do it. I don't care how much he needs it
or how good I was for him, I CAN'T, do you understand?"
Omi looked at the older man speculatively, and deep in his green eyes he saw a
spark of fear and self-loathing. Something told him that no amount of pushing
was going to make Lukas accept this situation and take his place as Nagi's
Master.
"That's why we need to fix this," he replied, his voice no longer angry. "We
can't leave things this way. I'm not sure Nagi can survive without you, even if
we can convince him to take Youji as a Master. He loves you, really, truly
loves you. You're the centre of his universe, and losing you would shatter him.
HAS shattered him," he corrected himself grimly.
"It may not be possible to reverse the effect," Crawford warned him. "I'm not
strong enough to do it, and I doubt Lukas could do it himself. The only one we
know for sure can do it is Emannuel, and I doubt we'll be able to convince him
to undo his handiwork, even assuming we can catch him."
"And that doesn't bother you nearly as much as it ought to, does it?" Omi
retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing Crawford flinch. "What's in this
for you, Crawford? I may not be a psychic, but even I can see that you've got
some stake in keeping him Lukas instead of Schuldig. What is it?"
Crawford's mouth thinned, and for a moment Omi thought he wasn't going to
answer. Then he laughed, a bitter sound full of years of pain and suffering. It
made Omi's eyes widen, and he actually took a step back. "I love him," the
American replied simply. "I always have. I waited years for him, only to return
to find that he had no memory of me. I've done everything I could, all this
time, to make him as happy as possible - even lowered myself to tormenting Nagi
so that he would 'rescue' him and cement that relationship." He looked Omi
straight in the eyes, with more expression on his face that Omi had ever seen
the older man display. "Now I have him back, and he loves me again. Forgive me
if I find myself reluctant to return to solitude and torment, regardless of the
cost to Nagi."
Omi stared at him, and wondered what he would have done in Crawford's place. If
it had been Youji... would he have had the strength to give him up to another,
to suffer endlessly in silence, just to see Youji happy? Given the chance to
have Youji after all that, would he have been able to pass it up, even if it
meant that, say, Ken would be shattered by the loss?
He didn't know the answer - or maybe he was just afraid to admit what the
answer really was.
***** Chapter 12 *****
Lukas leaned against the door, watching as Brad slowly stripped off his ruined
suit. He'd never seen the older man in anything other than the semi-military
'uniform' of the Institute they'd grown up in, but he had to admit that the
suit matched his friend's no-nonsense exterior. Or at least, it would have, had
it not been in shreds.
The Japanese kids who'd rescued them had promised to find suitable clothing for
them both - the blond one, Youji or Balinese or whatever his name was, had told
Lukas to raid his closet for clothes since they were the same size, but they
were going to have to go out to buy Brad something. The American was head and
shoulders taller than any of the four 'Weiss' members.
He was still trying to absorb everything he'd learned that night. He simply
could not comprehend the idea of himself as this boy's Dom... regardless of
whether he was 'helping' the boy or not, that sort of situation was
inextricably linked in his mind with what Emmanual had done to him. How could
he have sunk so low? What the hell had happened to him during that time he
couldn't remember, to make him such a sick fucking bastard?
Brad had carefully draped his ruined jacket and shirt over the back of a chair
- Lukas had to suppress a chuckle. Some things would never change, apparently.
Brad had always been anal about organizing everything in his life. Maybe it was
a side effect of being a precognitive, the desire to control as much as you
could in order to affect the future you wanted.
"Brad?" he said, and his voice came out much more fragile sounding than he'd
intended it to. He cursed himself, as Brad turned inquiring amber eyes towards
him. The last thing Brad needed right now was for Lukas to show any kind of
weakness - he needed to know he had a strong teammate at his back, someone he
could depend on.
"Come to bed, Lukas," was all the American said, sounding weary beyond words.
There was a small smile on his face as he held out a hand to Lukas, however.
Willingly the telepath moved forward to take his friend's hand, and he found
himself pulled into a tight embrace.
He returned it without hesitation, burying his face in Brad's neck and holding
the older man as if he was afraid to let go. "I never thought I'd be able to
hold you like this," Brad murmured, his breath ghosting over Lukas' ear and
making him shiver slightly. "All these years I've had to watch you from a
distance..."
"Never again," Lukas swore, tightening his grip slightly. "I won't let anything
separate us again, Brad. We've both waited too long for this. I..." he stumbled
on the words, and was disgusted to realize that he was shy and embarrassed. "I
love you, Brad," he said, finding the words much more difficult to say now that
they were face to face and not just holding hands through prison bars.
"And I, you, my friend," Brad replied, lowering his head to kiss Lukas gently.
Lukas was having none of that - he wasn't breakable, and he'd been waiting far
too long for the taste of Brad's lips on his again. Brad knew his darkest
secret and had accepted him anyway - there was nothing to hold him back, or
restrain him. He went on the offensive, turning the gentle kiss into a fiercely
passionate one.
One or both of them moaned, the sound vibrating between them as they pulled
back slightly. "You are wearing far too much," Brad said, his eyes narrowed.
Lukas laughed softly, and stepped back out of the circle of the older man's
arms. Brad let him go, but not without a predatory look that promised he'd be
chased if he didn't return soon.
It was exactly as he'd dreamed, on those rare occasions when he'd allowed
himself to imagine what his life might have been if Emmannuel hadn't taken him
- no, he decided a moment later, it was better. His own innocent teenaged
imagination and Emmanuel's rough pawing had in no way prepared him for the raw
heat of passion and love in Brad's eyes, lighting them from within like golden
flames.
He'd meant to take his time, to tease his friend with a strip show, but the
moment his hands undid the first button on his shirt he knew they were both too
far gone for that. Teasing was for later, after they'd slaked the lust of years
of frustrated waiting.
Fuck it, he decided with an impish grin. The shirt's a write-off anyway... He
got a firm grip on both side of the shirt and yanked once, sending buttons
flying. The heat in Brad's eyes rose another notch, and he knew he'd made the
right decision.
They met in a desperate kiss once more, the difference in their height forcing
both of them into slightly awkward positions. Hands fumbled with belts and pant
buttons - whose didn't really matter anymore. Somehow they managed to get free
of the last of their clothing, and then they were tumbling onto the bed, limbs
tangled and sweat already breaking out on their bodies.
"I've waited so long for this," Brad murmured as he drew away to worship Lukas'
neck with his mouth. Lukas raised his hands to twine the finger through the
short, crisp black locks of his friend's hair, moaning.
"No more waiting," he promised, his voice low and husky with passion. He opened
the channel between them - skin to skin as they were, his empathic gift kicked
in at full strength, swamping him with the raging desire Brad felt for him at
that moment.
It made him groan and arch his back, grinding his hips up into Brad's as he
fought off the urge to ejaculate then and there. Gritting his teeth he rode out
the initial wave, then gathered up the sensation and projected it right back at
his lover.
Brad gasped and convulsed, his teeth sinking into Lukas' shoulder. Lukas didn't
mind - the painful sensation gave him an anchoring point, something to cling to
that would distract him from losing all control. It was too early to end the
game yet, and they were both exhausted enough that they were probably only
going to get one go at it tonight.
Sensing that Brad was fighting a losing battle with his orgasm as well, he dug
his fingers into the older man's shoulders, providing him with a distraction as
well. Slowly Brad managed to relax his body, though random tremors still raced
through him as one or the other of them would shift, starting the cycle of
shared pleasure all over again.
"Now I know why... rumour had it that... empaths were the best lays to be found
in the world," Brad murmured when he had enough control for an attempt at
speech. Lukas chuckled, the sound breathy and strained.
"They also say that once you've been with an empath, you're ruined for ordinary
sex," he reminded the precognitive gleefully. "You're stuck with me now."
Brad leaned down and kissed him fiercely, and there was something in his
emotions that surprised Lukas. "You've always been the only one," Brad told him
softly, making his eyes widen. "After all," the American's voice took on a
slightly smug tone, "I've never settled for anything less than the best in my
life."
Lukas was in shock, which seemed to be a common state for him that night. This
time it was a pleasant shock, though. Even before he'd lost hope because of
what Emmanuel had done to him, he'd always assumed that Brad would have other
lovers before returning to claim Lukas from the Institute. After finding out
that he'd spent the last however many years being only barely civil to his
childhood best friend, he'd been certain Brad must have sought out other
companionship. But linked together as they were, he couldn't mistake the
American's meaning. Brad had waited for him, all this time? Even though his own
visions had told him there was no hope for them?
*I love you,* he whispered, deepening the kiss and letting his empathy show
Brad just how much he meant the words he said. *I'm yours, forever. I don't
care what happens, I won't leave you alone again. I'm sorry the kid has to
suffer, but I don't love him. I love YOU.*
He caught a swirl of guilt and remorse from Brad - his friend felt responsible
for the kid, and was upset that he'd been put into this situation. For a moment
he was afraid Brad might actually decide to find a way to switch him back to
being this 'Schuldig' person... but then he felt the renewed determination and
desperate need from his lover, and he sighed in relief.
You are mine, Brad projected at him, accompanied by a fierce possessiveness
that made Lukas shiver in awe. If anyone else had projected something like that
at him, he'd have been afraid - but from Brad, he felt only humbled that he
could invoke that kind of reaction from his friend and lover. You are mine, and
I am yours, as well. As it should have been, before everything went to hell.
We've been given a second chance, and be damned if I'll fuck it up.
They moved against each other, bodies sliding together, movements eased by the
lubrication of sweat, the friction making them both moan. They were both
desperate for release, yet neither wanted it to end yet. They'd waited so long
they could hardly stand to wait another moment, but at the same time they
wanted to savour this first experience as long as they physically could.
Something twinged in the back of his mind. It was minor enough at first that he
almost overlooked it, but then he got a sharp stab of hurt and upset from
somewhere deep in his own mind, near where his link with Brad was seated.
*What's wrong?* he asked his lover, but Brad only looked at him in surprise.
Reading the emotions coming off the older man more carefully, Lukas confirmed
that there was no sign of distress, other than the rather urgent needs his body
was pressing on him. But that wasn't what he'd felt.
Brad shifted, rubbing their cocks together and making him groan, and he got
another jab of the same pain as before. This time it was strong enough to make
him gasp and pull away, frowning and rubbing his temple in an automatic
gesture, though he knew it would do no good.
"Lukas, what is it?" Brad asked, his voice gone tense with concern and stiffled
need as he rolled of the telepath and sat beside him in the bed. "Is it an
attack?"
"I dunno, it's DEEP, whatever it is, and it hurts..." Lukas shook his head in
annoyance. "But not like an attack, more like... I dunno, a lover's quarrel or
something. Damn it, I'm shielded, I shouldn't be picking up anything but you!"
Brad started to say something, but Lukas held up a hand to silence him as
something tugged slightly at his consciousness. It was... something pushing at
his shields... no, from just UNDER his shields, nudging at his mind in an odd
sort of telepathic 'knock'. He tried locking onto the sensation, and caught a
strand of thought that had been deliberately projected his way by a nearby non-
telepath.
*What the fuck...* he started to grumble, but the other person cut him off.
While I have, on occasion, appreciated the effect your link can have on my
boyfriend, I'd appreciate it if you restrained yourself at the moment, a biting
tenor snapped at him. After a moment, he managed to associate the 'flavour' of
the mental voice with the blond Weiss, the one whose bed he was currently lying
in. He 'felt' nearby, just on the other side of the wall, maybe. Not only is
Omi in no condition to deal with the arousal you're projecting at him, you're
also breaking his heart. And I don't even want to think about what Nagi would
do if he woke up and felt the same thing, and I have no doubt he would. So get
a fucking grip on your libido, and just go to sleep already!
With that the mental contact snapped closed, as if a shield had come down
between them, though Lukas was certain Balinese didn't have any psychic
abilities. Someone must have taught him how to hide his mind from casual
scanning by a telepath. Come to think of it, although both the redhead and the
blue-eyed kid who'd unlocked their cells had been easy to read, he hadn't been
able to pick up anything from the boy who'd jerked him around earlier, either.
"What the fuck was that all about?" he complained softly, slumping back into
Brad's arms. "None of them are psychic, are they?"
"Not to my knowledge," Brad replied after a startled pause. "Only Nagi, and his
powers strictly affect the physical world. He's got no mind-based powers at
all."
"Then why was one of them bitching at me about projecting at them?" Lukas said,
eyes narrowing as he glared at the wall. "Unless they're empaths, they
shouldn't be able to feel a damn thing. Hell, even if they're empaths, they
shouldn't! I'm shielding, the only one who should be reading me is you, through
the link!"
Understanding dawned on Brad's face, and he sighed, sliding back to lie on the
pillows, pulling Lukas down to rest against his chest. "I know for a fact you
have a link with Nagi," he said softly. "We used it to contact him earlier,
remember? It wouldn't surprise me at all if you have a similar, albeit less
powerful, link with Bombay. And given that there's only a very thin wall
between us and them right now, it's entirely possible you were indeed
projecting at him."
Lukas snarled, and punched his fist into the mattress. His body was throbbing,
and he could sense Brad's need like a stinging spray of needles, grating
against his raw empathy. "So what the fuck are we supposed to do?"
"YOU are going to go take a cold shower," Brad said, twisting in a lithe move
that dumped Lukas out of the bed onto the floor. He hadn't been expecting it,
or he might have been able to counter it - as it was, the move was a shock. He
sat there, blinking up at his lover. "I'm going to stay here and NOT join you,
or that shower won't stay cold very long."
Lukas narrowed his eyes. "I've got a better idea... you go take a cold shower
and I'LL stay here and jerk off," he snapped, irritated. "Or at the very least,
I'll go take a WARM shower and jerk off, it'll have the same result."
"No, it won't, Lukas," Brad corrected him gently, rubbing the bridge of his
nose. "Any sexual activity on your part will probably be picked up by them.
There's no sense in tormenting them with what they can't have." He shook his
head. "You and I can wait until we're in better conditions for our first time -
we've waited this long, after all. And I'm NOT planning to jerk off,
actually... I'm going to trance down and try to sort through some of these
visions. The sexual tension will help me stay anchored in the present while I
do it, and if I don't, my dreams tonight will be nothing but one tangled vision
after another."
Lukas had to admit that made sense, but he didn't have to like it. Grumbling
under his breath, he stood and made his way to the bathroom. He'd have showed
off his assets to make Brad regret what he was missing, but if he knew the
precognitive, the older man had already started the process of entering a deep
trance and his efforts would go to waste. Brad was nothing if not efficient
with his time.
He made the water as cold as he could stand it, and bit his lip to keep from
yelping in an undignified manner when he stepped in. Old wives' tales aside,
cold water didn't help much with arousal this strong, especially since every
time he thought he MIGHT be able to go back out, the knowledge that he'd be
returning to see Brad still naked and very, very attractive would make him hard
again.
He was tempted to say 'fuck it' and just jerk off and get it over with, but
some shrivelled remnant of his conscience stopped him. If those two kids really
were linked to him, there was no way he could shield tightly enough to prevent
his emotions from leaking over onto them at this distance. Nagi had been more
than half dead, and while Lukas had no intention of taking his place as the
boy's 'Master', neither did he want to add to the kid's misery deliberately.
Bombay had been better off, but still looked exhausted and injured, and if the
pain that had underlain his anger earlier was any indication, he really did
love Lukas - well, Schuldig - a lot. Forcing him to feel Lukas' desire for
another man was nothing short of cruel.
Sighing, he finally resorted to some calming exercises he'd learned at the
Institute, trying not to remember the circumstances Emmanuel had used to test
his ability to stay calm under duress. That worked, and he was finally able to
get out of the freezing shower.
He found Brad sitting cross-legged on the bed, uncaring of his nakedness. Lukas
took a moment to lean against the door again, just admiring the sharp planes
and clean lines of his friend and lover's body. Brad was truly stunning, with
the physique of a martial artist who used his skills for survival, not merely
to show off in a dojo. With his eyes closed, the only contrast to his pale skin
was the starkness of his dark hair, lying carelessly against his forehead and
cheeks. Lukas gave in to the urge to step forward and brush it away from the
soft skin, knowing that it wouldn't disturb the precognitive if he was still in
deep trance.
To his surprise, Brad gave a little sigh and opened his eyes, looking up at
Lukas with a soft, welcoming smile. "Everything is still too confusing, though
I think at least I'll be able to sleep now without being overwhelmed," the
precognitive confessed, moving over to make room for Lukas in the bed.
Lukas slid in under the covers, lying down and tugging Brad to lie down with
him. When they were settled, with Lukas comfortably in Brad's arms, he asked,
"Were you at least able to see what to do next?"
"No," Brad replied, sounding frustrated. "The immediate future is split half a
dozen different ways, and there's something important that I either can't find,
or can't affect enough to matter. One thing is clear - Emmanuel will be back in
the country tomorrow, and it won't take him long to find us. I fear your theory
is correct, and he has a tag on you."
"He'll be able to track me no matter where I go, then," Lukas concluded grimly.
"It'll just be a matter of time. Do we have any chance?"
"If we leave here and face him alone, just the two of us, we've got about a
twenty-five percent chance of defeating him," Brad told him. "If he wins,
either of us could die, both of us could die, and either or both of us could be
captured and brought back to the Institute." Lukas shivered - that wasn't a
possibility he wanted to contemplate.
"If we keep Weiss with us, there's a much stronger probability that we'll win,
approaching a hundred percent," Brad continued. "For non-psychics, they've got
a good track record at fighting powerful psychics. They didn't have much luck
against Schwartz, of course," the American's voice was full of arrogant
superiority. "But they did quite well against the Estet Elders, eliminating two
of them and sending the third running for shelter."
"So why are you confused about what to do next?" Lukas asked, blinking.
"Obviously, we stick with them, and we win."
There was a long silence, and his eyes narrowed. "Spit it out," he ordered.
"You see something happening on that branch that you don't like, don't you?"
"If we stay with them, we'll defeat Emmanuel," Brad repeated. "But the method
of defeating him varies. There's a small chance we can simply kill him with
physical weapons, in which case, there's no problem. There's an equally small
chance that Nagi will have recovered enough by the time he finds us to just
crush him, also causing no repercussions, except possibly by setting back his
recovery by a few days or weeks."
"And the most likely probability is?" Lukas prompted, feeling fear clench his
heart, turning his guts to icy water.
"That you'll end up facing off against him," Brad admitted reluctantly. "And
that's the part where I cannot see how to affect the outcome in our favour.
Whatever it is that happens between the two of you then, there's nothing I can
do to sway the results."
"But you said there was nearly a hundred percent possibility of defeating him,"
Lukas reminded him, surprised. "So where's the catch?"
"The 'catch' is that if you face off against him, there's approximately a
seventy-five percent chance that you'll destroy each other," Brad whispered,
his arms tightening around Lukas abruptly. "He'll be dead, but so will you.
With a strong possibility that you'll lose control entirely, and take the rest
of us with you. And I can't for the life of me see how to change it!"
***** Chapter 13 *****
Ken walked along, not making any particular effort to be quiet. It would have
required far too much of his attention - beneath his boots, dry leaves rustled
and twigs snapped with every step. Instead, he concentrated on scanning the
area, looking for anything at all out of place.
He passed Youji, going the other way on his own patrol route, and they
exchanged waves and 'all clear' signs. Nagi was still confined to bed, hardly
able to do more than sit up to eat and occasionally stumble to the bathroom and
back, but the rest of them were taking it in turns to patrol the area in pairs.
Crawford had warned them that his visions weren't fully accurate yet, and
couldn't be counted on to predict the exact moment this 'Emmanuel' would
arrive. The best he'd been able to tell them was 'soon'. Omi had made the
decision to move the whole group of them out here to Villa White, to ensure no
innocent neighbours would be caught in the crossfire that might ensue.
Personally, Ken wasn't sure why they were still helping Schwartz at all. Sure,
Crawford had told them that their chances of defeating this guy skyrocketed
with Weiss' help, but he'd also - reluctantly - admitted that there was a
possibility not all of them would live through the experience. Given their way,
Ken and Aya would both have voted to cast Crawford and Lukas off and cut their
loses. This wasn't Weiss' fight.
Except that, in an odd way, it was. There was a tacit understanding in place
that Nagi would be staying with Weiss, no matter what Crawford and Lukas chose
to do, so long as Lukas continued to refuse to take on his role as the boy's
Master. Ken could see the logic of that - even Aya wasn't arguing anymore with
the idea of taking the boy in. He needed SOMEone to look after him, and if it
wasn't Lukas, it might as well be Omi and Youji. At least the kid would be with
people who knew and cared for him.
But hurt as he was, Nagi would still never forgive them if they didn't make a
real effort to help Lukas. For that matter, Ken wasn't sure Omi was capable of
turning away from the telepath, though he'd seen the telltale signs that his
friend had been crying, the night after their initial confrontation with
Crawford and Lukas. It took a lot to make Omi cry - losing Schuldig was
evidently harder on him than Ken would have thought.
So here they were, patrolling the perimeters of the Villa, trying to find some
way to get an advantage over a telepath that even Lukas had admitted he didn't
particularly want to face down in combat.
Their advantage lay in numbers, Crawford had told them. Emmanuel was only
capable of focussing his powers on so many people at one time. The question was
whether he would be stupid and try to spread his powers over all of them, to
stop them - or whether he would be smart and focus on just a few of them,
concentrating his efforts. If it was the latter, then some of them would
probably die before the rest of them could kill the telepath.
That was, of course, assuming Emmanuel came after them alone. They had no
assurances of that, although Crawford had said there was at least a strong
probability that he would. If he had help - well, they'd still win, the
precognitive had said, but some of them would definitely die.
His searching gaze saw the gleam of light through the foliage that was Villa
White. Under other circumstances they might have left the Villa dark, trying to
pretend it was unoccupied, but against a powerful telepath there was little
point. He'd know exactly how many of them there were, and approximate where
they were, by the time he came near the property's borders.
He shoved his glove back and checked his watch, and was surprised to see that
it was earlier than he'd thought. He still had time for another round of the
grounds before Omi and Aya would take over for him and Youji. He stepped out of
the trees long enough to catch Omi's eye where the boy was watching out a
window, and gave the 'all clear'. Omi nodded, and returned to watching the
treeline.
Stepping back into the trees, Ken continued his patrol. He didn't pass Youji
this time - the playboy must have cut around the front of the Villa rather than
the back on his pass through. Just to be sure, though, he reached up and
triggered his comm.
"Siberian to Balinese, location?"
"Just east of the villa - I was about to call you," Youji's voice came quietly
back to him. "No worries, I guess we just missed each other on the crossover."
Ken started to agree, but the word froze in his throat, almost choking him.
What the... He struggled to speak, but it was as if his vocal chords had been
completely paralysed. No, he realized a moment later - his BODY had been
paralysed! Sweating, he struggled to move, but couldn't so much as twitch a
muscle.
"Siberian, did you hear me?" Youji asked, concerned. When Ken still didn't
answer, he heard the snapping hiss and crackle that meant the channel had been
opened to all the comm sets. "Can anybody reach Siberian? He asked me for a
location check but never gave a roger..."
Ken's vision was starting to go grey at the edges from lack of air. He was
still breathing, but being unable to move, the breaths he was able to take were
very shallow, not enough to keep him conscious for long. Dimly he was aware of
first Omi, then Aya trying to reach him. He fought with all his might to say
something, to warn them, but all that came out was a tiny squeak.
Something ghosted across his mind, the sensation similar to the touch of a
butterfly's wings on his skin. *Shit,* he heard Lukas snarl. *That's him! He's
got Siberian trapped in his own mind!* There was something close to panic and
fear in the German's mental voice, which made Ken start to panic too. Crawford
had said that if Emmanuel was given the chance to focus on one or two people,
those people would die... and right now he didn't have any targets except Ken.
Apparently he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines. *Everyone, out to
Siberian's position, now!* Crawford snapped, using Lukas to relay the order
telepathically. *Emmanuel is strictly a line-of-sight psychic, he must be
somewhere within sight of Siberian. We need to break his concentration before
he crushes Siberian's mind!*
"I'm almost there," Youji snarled into the headset, and Ken was vaguely aware
of the sound of someone crashing through the woods nearby. Was it getting
darker? Or just harder to breathe? He could feel his own heartbeat, pounding in
his temples like a jackhammer trying to break through his skull. He'd never
been aware before of just how fragile the skull was, how easily a little
pressure from inside could break through it - it felt as if someone had
inserted the nozzle from an air pump into his brain, and was inflating it until
it threatened to burst.
Then suddenly some of the pressure eased, and he was able to move again. He
wasn't capable of doing much other than collapsing to his knees and gasping for
air, though, his head still throbbing hard enough to make him gasp with pain on
each pulse.
He heard a choking noise, and from somewhere he found the energy to lift his
head enough to see. Youji was slumped against a tree, his wire tangled around
several branches, as if he'd tried to catch something in it and missed. The
playboy didn't look much better than Ken felt, but neither did he seem to be in
danger of passing out in the immediate future - they'd succeeded in splitting
Emmanuel's attention, if nothing else.
There was a familiar sharp sound and then the whiz of a crossbow bolt flying
through the air. The dull 'thunk' as it landed told Ken that it had hit wood,
not flesh, but Omi was already setting up another bolt as he ran up and skidded
to a halt beside Ken. He fired again, then dropped the crossbow and grabbed for
his darts.
Aya flashed by Ken's other side, shouting in fury as he raised his katana to
strike. To Ken's amazement he, too, struck a tree rather than his intended
target, and under other circumstances he might have laughed at the look of
enraged confusion on his lover's face as he tried to tug the katana free of the
tree.
Omi fired his darts, but he was already staggering under the pressure of the
telepath's mind, and they didn't even come close to their target. Ken wasn't
sure where the target WAS, exactly - one moment he was certain he saw a shadowy
human form to his left, and the next he was equally sure he'd caught a glimpse
of pale cloth in the moonlight on his right.
"He's using his telepathy to confuse you," Crawford shouting, already firing
his gun as he charged up behind Weiss. His gun clicked empty, and he ejected
the clip and slammed another one home with a cool efficiency that Ken had to
admire. "He's not where you think he is... just strike at random, Lukas is
going to try to break the effect!"
Ken caught sight of the redheaded telepath leaning against a tree just short of
the line of fire, eyes closed and sweat standing out clearly on his face even
in the dim night time light. That whisper-soft touch brushed over Ken's mind
again, and suddenly it was a little easier to breathe again.
Everyone was moving as if their bodies were immersed in something more
resistant to movement than air, or as if it was taking more than the usual
amount of concentration to get their bodies to cooperate with their mental
commands. They'd lucked out, then... Emmanuel had chosen to try to confuse them
all, rather than targeting one or two of them at a time. Ken was heartened.
That meant there was a damn good chance they were all going to survive this.
He staggered to his feet, clenching his fist to trigger his claw as he looked
around for something to strike at. He was still seeing multiple momentary
shadowy flashes that he now knew were nothing more than phantasms, meant to
make them wear themselves out while leaving Emmanuel untouched. But where was
the real telepath? He'd want to be somewhere safely away from where a chance
shot might strike him, but Crawford had said he needed to be able to see his
targets...
Of course... Ken felt like an idiot for not realizing before. "He's in the
trees!" he shouted, lifting his gaze and scanning wildly. He saw a brief flash
of light off of metal in the highest boughs of the tree, but before he could
point it out to someone with a distance weapon, the weight of the world
abruptly came crashing back in on him.
Oh shit... was all he had time to think before he collapsed, gasping like a
stranded fish. There was no AIR, where had all the air gone? They were out of
doors, there was no way someone could have taken the air away, but he felt as
if there was nothing entering his lungs each time he tried to draw breath. His
heart was beating triple time, and all he could see was blackness. He changed
his tactic, he decided to take us out one at a time after all... looks like I'm
going to be the one to die...
*Oh, no you're not,* an angry nasal voice snapped in the back of his mind. *Not
on MY fucking watch! Take this, you child-fucking bastard! Let's see how you
like being the one who's mind-raped for a change!**
Rage and hatred poured through Ken's mind, the fires of it burning away the
darkness wherever it touched. It hurt like a bitch, and he couldn't help
screaming, but at least his lungs were taking in air again. Lukas' thoughts
were leaking over into Ken's, and somehow he knew that the German was taking
advantage of a hole in Emmanuel's shields created by the link he'd established
to try to crush Ken's mind. A less powerful telepath than Lukas wouldn't have
been able to do this at all, and Emmanuel had never thought to protect himself
against it.
Once he grasped the gist of what Lukas was doing, Ken did his best not to fight
the telepath's presence in his mind. The more energy Lukas needed to spend to
suppress Ken's psyche, the less he had to fight Emmanuel with. But how the hell
did you keep yourself from fighting the invasion of a foreign mind into yours?
*Think of something innocuous,* Lukas told him gruffly. *Something that takes a
lot of your concentration, that will distract you from what I'm doing. Then
just hang on for the ride - I promise I'll do my best not to do any more damage
than I absolutely have to.*
Ken winced at that last statement, but obediently tried to think of something
to occupy his mind with. It didn't take him long... there was one subject that
could always distract him, no matter what situation he was in. Let's see...
highest scoring player in J-League history...
 
===============================================================================
Lukas sensed the boy's mind withdraw and focus on something suitably mind-
numbing - sports stats, he was vaguely aware. He stopped paying attention to
the occupant of the mind he was borrowing, and concentrated on Emmanuel
instead.
The other telepath was frantically trying to pull away from Ken, trying to
close the minor gap in his shields, but it was already too late. Lukas had a
foot in the door, so to speak, and he was more than strong enough to force the
hole wide enough to allow the rest of him in. Emmanuel fought a brief, losing
struggle, before abandoning his outermost defences and retreating behind his
inner shields.
Lukas seized the chance, throwing himself into the breach and leaving Ken's
mind behind entirely. It had served its purpose - now Ken's recovery would be a
matter of the boy's strength of will. He might spend his life as a vegetable,
or he might be just fine - either way, Lukas didn't have the time or luxury to
worry about him right now.
He'd been inside Emmanuel's mind before, far too many times to count. It was a
filthy place, even out here in the fringes, riddled with perverted lusts and
desires. How many times had Emmanuel forced him to open himself to the older
telepath's mind, so that Lukas would be better able to anticipate what Emmanuel
wanted from him during sex? At the time, Lukas had despised every moment. Now
he was almost grateful - the Instructor's formidable inner shields would
probably have stymied a telepath less familiar with Emmanuel's mind.
Lukas knew just where to push, where to tease, to trigger certain reactions in
Emmanuel's body. Arousal was as much a mental condition as a physical one, and
there were ways of stimulating it from within the mind than any telepath worth
his salt could take advantage of. Emmanuel fought him, but the older telepath
had conditioned his own mind into accepting these sorts of touches as
permissible, and a signal to lower his defences enough for his victim to read
further into his desires.
Lukas pounced on the weakness the moment it presented itself, and turned his
mind into a driving blade formed of will and hatred, spearing straight for the
centre of Emmanuel's mind. Now it was a matter of power versus power, and there
was no question which of the two of them was more powerful. Emmanuel had the
experience and the finesse, but no telepath in history had even come close to
Lukas for sheer, raw power.
Once he reached the centre of Emmanuel's mind, he started to 'expand' himself,
pushing outwards and squeezing Emmanuel in the confines of his own brain. He'd
won, he gloated, smirking inwardly. He'd beaten the chances of Brad's
prediction - it was only a matter of moments now until he crushed Emmanuel's
mind beneath the power of his telepathy, and there was nothing the older man
could do to stop him or hurt him.
It wasn't what he'd expected, killing someone telepathically - he'd never done
it before, or at least, he didn't remember ever doing it before. Presumably
he'd have been trained properly in the technique before being released from the
Institute into the field. The harder he pushed against Emmanuel's mind, the
harder it became to keep the border between their minds clearly defined.
To his distress, he found bits and pieces of Emmanuel's psyche leaking over
onto him. He hastily shored up his shields in those areas and pushed harder.
Forget about gloating, now he just wanted to get this over with as quickly as
possible. This... was not a pleasant sensation, not at all.
The barrier wavered again, and he started picking up visions, memories of
physical sensations like sight, sound, even touch or smell or taste. Snarling
he shoved them away, not wanting anything of this man's mind left behind in
his. He got a flash of people screaming, running in a fancy ballroom - not
something he remembered, so it had to be Emmanuel's. He tried to shove it away
with the rest, but it wouldn't go.
He realized his mistake now - by pushing from the inside, he was putting
pressure on himself as well as Emmanuel with every shove. He should have pushed
from the outside in, squeezing him into a little ball - but would that have
been any easier on him? More visions flowed past him as the pressure increased.
Visions, memories... his? Or Emmanuel's?
That same party, so many well-dressed Asian people. Dekane was there... he
could feel the pressure of a mind against his, or was it his mind against
someone else's? Something had gone wrong, he'd tried to pull out, and...
And God, the screaming, the panicking minds, all pushing against his,
threatening to overwhelm him. Somewhere, distantly, he was aware of his
physical body being wracked with tremors, but he wasn't sure if it was
happening now, or in the past. So many people... so many deaths... dragging him
down with them, and oh gods, he didn't want to die...
Who was he? He couldn't remember. There was someone he was supposed to kill...
now? Then? He couldn't remember. All he could remember was the screaming, and
the pain, and the panic, and how bad he'd wanted it all to just shut the fuck
up and leave him alone...
***** Chapter 14 *****
When the shadow illusions had abruptly dissipated, leaving the Greek telepath
clearly visible up in the trees, Omi immediately reached for more darts and
drew his hand back to throw them.
He was hit from behind and the side by a much larger body in a flying tackle,
and he went down in shock. Crawford very nearly got a lethal dose of poison
jabbed into his arm as Omi twisted to defend himself from his attacker -
luckily for the American, Omi recognized him at the last second and dropped the
darts.
"Hold your fire!" the precognitive snapped, loud enough for all of them to
hear. "Lukas has him locked in a mental duel - if you kill one of them right
now, you kill them both!"
Omi glanced over to where Lukas was slumped against a tree, staring sightlessly
ahead, then back up to their enemy. He realized the older telepath was in
exactly the same position, clearly oblivious to the world around him. At that
moment he was just slightly grateful that neither Ken nor Aya had long-distance
weapons of any kind - he wasn't entirely certain he'd put it past them to kill
Emmanuel and claim later that they hadn't understood what Crawford was trying
to say. Having Lukas as a casualty wouldn't matter a great deal to either of
them.
Crawford stood and offered him a hand up - after a moment, Omi accepted it,
dusting himself off and looking around. "Is there anyone else?" he asked the
precognitive.
"No," Crawford shook his head. "All the futures where we faced anyone in
addition to Emmanuel are now closed. He came alone. Now it's up to Lukas."
There was a startled exclamation from one side, then the sound of metal hitting
the ground with a dull thud. "Ken!" Aya exclaimed, dropping to his knees beside
his lover and taking him by the shoulders. "Ken, wake up!"
One look made Omi's heart plunge into his stomach - Ken had the same far-away,
glassy-eyed look as the two telepaths. "Is he still breathing?" he asked
urgently, trotting over to Aya's side. "Abyssinian, is he still alive?"
"He's breathing, his heart is beating, but..." Aya looked at his lover's blank
expression and shuddered. "There's... there's nothing inside..." Omi put a hand
on Aya's shoulder and squeezed gently, and for once the stoic redhead accepted
the tacit offer of comfort. Omi knew this had to be far, far too similar for
Aya to seeing his beloved little sister in a coma, knowing she might never wake
up.
He glanced up, starting to look around for his own lover, but Youji dropped
down on Ken's other side before he could even start to worry. "Is he going to
be okay?" the playboy asked Crawford, and the rest of them turned to see his
expression when he answered.
The American hesitated. "I don't know," he admitted finally. "There are too
many variables in play at the moment. He IS still in there - his mind wasn't
shattered, just driven into hiding. It's a matter of whether it can be coaxed
back out again." He glanced over his shoulder at his partner. "If Lukas
survives this battle, he should be able to bring him back with little trouble.
If not - it depends on how stubborn he is, and how much effort the three of you
put into calling him back."
Omi didn't even need to look at the others to know their answer would be the
same as his - they'd all sit by Ken's bedside for the next ten years, if that
was what it took, so long as they knew there was a chance it would bring their
friend back to them.
But hopefully it wouldn't matter - Omi would put money on Schuldig against any
other telepath anytime, regardless of the state of his memories. But even as he
thought that, there was a choked cry from behind them, then a scream that was
not a sound that any human throat should have been capable of producing.
He turned and stared - Lukas was curled on the ground, tucked up in an almost
foetal position, his hands clamped over his ears as he screamed. "No..."
Crawford breathed, and there was as much pain in his expression in that moment
as there had been in Nagi's the other day. "God, no..."
"What's happening?" he demanded, wincing when his voice came out high and
shrill. He was riding the edge of hysteria, he knew - too much had happened in
too short a time. "What's wrong with him?"
"It triggered the memory his mind has been running from all these years,"
Crawford replied, his voice broken and eyes narrowed. "I was afraid it might be
something connected to a mental battle like this - killing with his powers is
something Schuldig always flatly refused to do, though he himself admitted he
didn't have a good reason for not wanting to. His mind is destroying itself
under the strain. And if we're very unlucky, he might take us with him."
Omi's eyes widened and he held his breath, searching within his mind for the
tug that always signalled the activation of his link with Schuldig. There was
nothing, though - nothing but the empty blankness that had been there since
Schwartz had first been attacked.
"What do we do?" he asked helplessly after a moment. "There must be
SOMEthing..."
"Get Ken out of here and taken care of," Crawford ordered, slowly edging
towards the writhing telepath. "Emmanuel is already dead. I'm going to try to
reach him - the link between us might let me get close enough to touch his
mind. If so, there's a chance I can talk him down."
Omi caught the American's arm, giving him a hard look. "If you link with him,
what happens if he self-destructs?" He knew the answer before he even asked,
from the look on the older man's face. "And what are the chances you'll be able
to bring him back?"
"Slim to none," Crawford admitted, yanking his arm out of Omi's grip and
stepping forward again. "But I have to try." Before Omi could stop him again,
he'd reached Lukas and dropped to his knees beside him, drawing the shaking
telepath against his chest and cradling him like an injured child.
Omi stood there for a moment more, staring at them. Crawford had as much as
admitted he was committing suicide. Would I do differently, if it were Youji's
life at stake? he asked himself. Then another thought blindsided him... Would I
do differently, if it were Schuldig and not Lukas?
"Balinese, Abyssinian, take Siberian back to the Villa and get him comfortable.
Make sure you check him for injuries and signs of shock," Omi ordered, making
his decision. Crawford had kept his voice low enough that he didn't think any
of the others would have heard what he'd said. "I'm going to help Crawford try
to snap Lukas out of this fit before he hurts himself."
He stepped forward. He didn't dare turn around - if he met Youji's eyes, his
lover would be able to tell that he was hiding something, something awful. I'm
sorry, Youji, he mentally begged his lover for forgiveness. I love you with all
my heart... but I love him, too, and I can't let it go like this. If Crawford
has a chance of saving him, maybe the two of us together will have a better
chance.
He wasn't a telepath, or even a psychic. He had no idea how to go about
insinuating himself in a telepathic link. Schuldig had always been the one to
draw him into the link, he hadn't invited himself. He crouched beside Crawford,
who had his eyes closed and was apparently oblivious to the world around him.
Reaching out, he shifted some of the telepath's weight into his grip, closed
his eyes, and took a deep breath. Plunging his consciousness deep inside his
mind as Schuldig had taught him, he searched for that place where part of him
trailed away into the distance, the place where his mind was inextricably
linked with his Master's.
The moment he 'touched' it, he screamed, his entire body wracked with pain,
terror, and a horrible sense of suffocation. If this was what Crawford was
feeling, he had no idea how the precognitive had managed to stay impassive
through the experience.
Then rational thought was lost to him, as he found himself caught in a
screaming stampeded of maddened, terrified people. There were dead bodies
everywhere, and more piling up as the mob crushed themselves to death against
the walls or in the too-narrow doorways. Every death pulled at him, sucked out
a tiny bit of his soul, trying to drag him down with it.
He struggled to pull himself away, to give himself a tiny bit of breathing
room. Something latched onto him by the proverbial scruff of the neck, hauling
him up until he was watching the scene from above, rather than from within.
*You psychotic little idiot, what the hell do you think you're doing?* It
wasn't a 'voice' in the sense that Omi was used to telepathy being clear words
strung on a mental thought - instead it was more of an impression of intent,
anger, and worry, with an overtone that conveyed that general sentiment. After
a moment, he was able to 'see' a vague, shadowy outline of Crawford - except it
was a much younger Crawford, as he might have looked in his late teens or early
twenties.
*You're not the only one who loves him, damn you!* Omi snapped back, the words
a wash of anger/pain and hurt, mixed with anguish and fear and desperation. *I
don't care if he never remembers me, I just want him alive and happy!*
He sensed hesitation from Crawford, then reluctant assent. *You realize we're
both doomed,* the precognitive informed him almost cheerfully, clearly resigned
to his fate. *He's strong enough that we'll never break free of him, and if
there were a way to snap him out of this, I'd have Seen it years ago when I
first tried to find a way to restore his memories.*
*Yeah, and there's no possible way four non-psychics should have been able to
defeat even one of Estet's Elders,* Omi shot back. *Just chalk this down as my
'impossible thing before breakfast' for the day.* That actually startled a
laugh from the American.
*We have to try to reach him,* Crawford said, gesturing down at the centre of
the maelstrom of death and destruction below them. Omi squinted, and could just
make out a teenager, younger than he was, with short-cropped orange hair at the
centre of the mess. The boy's wide green eyes were open, staring blankly into
nothing, and every time he screamed, someone else in the room died.
That's Schuldig? he found himself marvelling, taking a moment to just study the
teen. If someone had asked him to picture the German without his long fall of
red hair, he wouldn't have been able to do it. He certainly never would have
recognized his lover's younger self if Crawford hadn't pointed him out, even
with the clue of the distinctive colouring.
They both plunged back into the mess, fighting against the tide of people
trying to stampede the exits. There seemed to be no end to the people, and
after a moment Omi realized that he was seeing the same people go by again and
again. *It's a memory loop,* Crawford told him, shouting over the cacophony.
*We need to break him out of it before his mind destroys itself to escape!*
Taking a deep breath, though he knew he didn't actually have a physical body to
breathe with here, Omi ducked his head and started squirming between the never-
ending stream of bodies. Once he had the pattern memorized, he was able to make
better progress. A step to the left here, then two paces forward, then a quick
turn to the right...
Finally he was in the clear space around the telepath's shivering body. Well,
clear of live people - there were bodies scattered everywhere, and they all had
the same face. He glanced at Crawford, who had followed him through the crowd.
The American squinted for a moment, then shrugged.
*Dekane. He was the fire arms Instructor for the Institute. From some things
Lukas has said, I think he might have been present on Lukas' first field
assignment. Presumably he died here - that would have affected Lukas very
strongly, they seem to have been close.*
Omi nodded, and stepped over the bodies until he reached the boy. Lukas at this
age was a bit taller than he was, but just as slender in body. They probably
could have worn the same size clothes, he thought with surprise. *Schuldig...
Lukas!* he corrected himself, reaching out to touch the boy's shoulder. *Lukas,
it's all right, this isn't really happening! It's all a memory...*
The moment he touched the telepath, everything changed. With a sickening drop
that nearly cost him his dinner, he found himself in a place of endless...
nothing. Not blackness, because blackness was something. Not vacuum, because
vacuum was something. This place literally held nothing, except for his mental
image of himself, the boy he was holding, and Crawford on the boy's other side.
*Wha...*
*I... don't know,* Crawford admitted, startled. *I've never seen anything like
this. I think... I think he's lost, and so we've become lost with him.*
*How do we find the way out?* Omi asked, looking around. The nothingness was
hurting his eyes, making him want to squeeze them shut. The human brain just
wasn't set up to deal with the concept of true nothingness.
*I don't know,* Crawford repeated, quietly, sounding more than a little lost
himself. Omi looked over at him. He didn't just look younger, he sounded
younger, too. Gone was the imperious, always-in-control, confident leader of
Schwartz. Was this how he thought of himself? Was this how he had looked when
he had been friends with Lukas the first time? He didn't look too much older
than Omi was. Impulsively, Omi held out his free hand.
After a startled moment, Crawford reached out and accepted it. The three of
them floated there, forming a triangle. It was almost appropriate, Omi thought
to himself. Crawford on one side, representing the telepath's past and the side
of him that was Lukas. Omi on the other, to represent the telepath's more
recent history, and the part of him that was Schuldig. The only thing that
would have been more appropriate was if it were Nagi, rather than Omi...
As if the thought had summoned him, there was a brush against his mind, then a
pale, slender hand slid over his own, twining weak fingers around his hand and
Lukas' both. Omi looked up in surprise, to see that Nagi had done the same on
the other side, holding tightly to Crawford's hand on that side. *Nagi! What
are you doing here?*
*Greeneyes brought me,* the pet replied quietly. *He said to tell you that if
you don't get yourself the hell back there in one piece, he'll take it out of
your hide.* That made Omi laugh, weakly. *I think he'd have come himself, but
he doesn't have a link to Gebieter like we do.*
*You're both fools,* Crawford told them irritably, but Omi felt his grip
squeeze a little tighter. *Now all three of us are trapped here.*
*I'd rather die than live without him,*Nagi said, all of the conviction he'd
gained in the past few days strong in his voice. It made Crawford blink and
look at him in surprise. Under different circumstances, Omi might have giggled
at the precognitive's shocked expression. *But I've come this far, I'm not
going to give up now without a fight. Let's wake him.*
*How?* Omi demanded. He nodded at the unconscious boy they were all holding
onto. *He hasn't responded to anything yet. He may be gone already.*
*He's still here,* Nagi assured him. *Or we wouldn't all be connected like
this. His telepathy is locked in a loop - so let's use empathy to break it.*
Crawford looked like he'd been shot. *Empathy, of course! We're all close
enough to him, have strong enough feelings for him that together, we might be
able to break through the loop by projecting at him.*
*And if that doesn't work, we can always try stripping down and screwing,* Omi
suggested, half seriously. *I never did know him to be able to sleep through
someone doing THAT right next to him.*
*Concentrate,* Nagi reminded them all sharply. They all closed their eyes, and
focused hard on the ways in which they each individually loved the man they
were risking their lives to save.
For Omi, the easiest memories to recall were the ones from early in their
relationship. The day Schuldig had first claimed him, saving him from being
gang raped. The first time he'd gone to a club with his new Master willingly,
what he'd learned there about pain and pleasure and the way the two could mix.
More importantly, what he'd felt when Nagi and Schuldig had accepted him into
their relationship without question, without hesitation, and rebuilt his self-
esteem from the ground up.
Nagi had so many memories to chose from it was hard to pick, so he simply let
them all swirl through him in a collage. The time and effort Schuldig had put
into retraining his pet, carefully leading him into being able to make his own
decisions, praising and coaxing him and never, ever punishing him except in
ways they both found enjoyable. With Schuldig, Nagi had learned that life
didn't have to be painful, and that there were good Masters out there as well
as bad.
Brad's contribution was a welter of memories of Lukas as a child - the awkward,
half-finished look of him as a young teenager, the way he would flush and lose
his temper over the least little bit of teasing. The way their friendship had
grown, until Brad had received the vision that told him of the possibility of
winning free of the Institute, with Lukas at his side. The utter devastation
he'd felt when he'd found Lukas again as Schuldig, and realized that any chance
of having his friend back was gone. And finally, the heart-wrenching decision
between keeping Lukas for himself once Emmanuel had restored that part of the
telepath's memories, or giving him up once more for Nagi's sake.
Somewhere the memories and outpouring of feelings met in the middle, swirled
together, and slowly sank into the boy now lying cradled between the three of
them. Green eyes opened slowly, at first staring unseeing at the nothingness,
then turning to each of them in turn.
*Brad?* his mental voice was hesitant, almost shy. *Brad, I... I never knew...
how strongly you felt...*
*Now you do,* the American replied, his own voice not quiet steady. *I have
always loved you, my friend, and I always will.*
Deep inside, Omi felt a sharp pang of disappointment. He'd almost hoped, with
two of them projecting memories of Schuldig rather than Lukas, that it would be
Schuldig who would return to them. But at the same time, he was torn between
sorrow for Nagi and happiness for Brad. Now that he had some idea of just what
the precognitive had been through, waiting for Lukas... how could he deny him a
chance to be happy at last?
The emotion must have drawn the telepath's attention to him, because suddenly
the green eyes were fixed on him. *Katzchen,* the German murmured, his voice
turning the word into a caress, as he always did. *Always putting other before
yourself. You worry about breaking Liebe's heart, or Brad's, but not your own?
I felt what you sent me, Katze. And you know you're always welcome, wherever I
am. I love you, Katzchen.*
Omi stared at him, eyes wide, hardly daring to even think for fear that the
wrong emotion might shatter this dream. He'd said... he'd called him... but
then, did that mean...
The telepath's attention had already turned away from him, and he tugged his
hand free of Omi's. Omi let go, and he raised it to brush the hair out of
Nagi's face. *Liebechen,* the telepath murmured, the love in his voice clear.
*My Liebe. Can you ever forgive me for hurting you, abandoning you? I wouldn't
blame you if you didn't... I broke my promise to you.*
Nagi said nothing for a long moment, just staring in disbelief, much as Omi
imagined he had done. *Gebieter?* he finally managed, his mental voice little
more than a squeak. *It's... it's really you? You don't hate me any more?*
Schuldig... it had to be Schuldig... pulled the telekinetic into the mental
equivalent of a strong hug. *Never,* he swore fiercely. *Not even when I didn't
understand, I never hated you. I'm so proud of you, Liebe. You did so well,
you've been so strong.*
Nagi flung himself more fully into his Master's 'arms', weeping helplessly. Omi
turned to Crawford, who now had a sort of resigned expression on his face as he
tried to pull his hand free of Schuldig's. To Omi's surprise, the telepath
tightened his grip and turned a predatory smile on his leader. *Where do you
think you're going? I waited how many years to get my hands on you again? I'm
not letting you go any time soon, Brad.* He looked at Nagi. *You don't mind
sharing me with Brad, right Liebe?*
Astonished at the very thought, Nagi shook his head, making Schuldig laugh. *So
unless you're going to object to me keeping Liebchen as my sub, I think you're
pretty much stuck with me,* he informed the American almost gleefully.
Now it was Crawford's turn to gape openmouthed at the telepath. *You... which
ARE you, Lukas or Schuldig?*
Green eyes softened. *Both, old friend. Both. The worst has happened, I faced
the memory I was running from, and it broke me. But the three of you, together,
brought me back. I'll bet you never bothered to check and see if there was a
way to get my memories back after Omi came into my life, did you?*
*No,* Crawford admitted thoughtfully. *I'd long since given up by then. It
never occurred to me that having more people with a link to you might make a
difference.*
Schuldig laughed. *Just goes to show you're not the all-seeing omniscient being
you'd like people to think, hmm? Now, I suggest we all get back to our physical
bodies before your teammates start having fits, Katzchen. And if I remember
correctly, I need to pull Hidaka back into his head, don't I? Won't take me
more than five seconds.*
Omi joined Nagi in hugging their lover tightly, tugging on Crawford's hand and
dragging the older man in after him. *Anything you want, Gebieter. After all,
you ARE the Master!*
Glittering green eyes looked sideways at Crawford. The American raised an
eyebrow. *Not in this lifetime,* he said coolly, his mental tone as much
amusement as refusal. *You may keep as many subs as you can handle, but unless
you're willing to consent to be MY sub again, BDSM will not be a part of your
relationship with me.*
*Err, no,* Schuldig rolled his eyes and shook his head. *I think most of us
remember how badly THAT turned out. Besides,* he laughed. *I suppose even I
need some vanilla in my life once in a while!* He sighed, and hugged them
tightly again before releasing them. *C'mon, lovers. Let's go home.*
Home... Omi thought nothing had ever sounded so good in his life.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!