Mirage Of Blaze Fan Fiction / Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Chasing Twilight ❯ Chapter Twelve: Your Loyal Dog ( Chapter 12 )

A/N: I took a slightly unusual approach to Kosaka in this chapter. I hope I pulled it off the way I meant to…

 

Chasing Twilight

By: Banshee Puppet

Chapter 12: Your Loyal Dog

 

~ “Forget God. God is Shit. This has nothing to do with God.”-Kosaka~

 

The dwellers were in the yard engaging in some target practice. Maybe it was their way of soothing the soul, preparing for something they knew they could never be forgiven for. Kosaka watched them idly from the upper level window. He wanted to tell them: forget about forgiveness. If you want to sin, then sin.

 

`I've lived for centuries—a never ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth—body after body after body—if there was a God or a Devil, don't you think I would have met them by now? No, all I meet up with over each cycle that has any power over me is Lord Shingen, and maybe, in his way, he is both of those things for me. The man who saved my life and turned me into his loyal dog, Shingen is now and will always be…a benevolent demon. Using Minako's spirit like this though…isn't that a little cruel even by your standards, my Lord?' He sighed to himself. No one was here to hear him anyway and that suited him fine. He didn't have to be anything special when he was alone. “Then again, family has never meant much to the lords of the feudal underworld, excepting Kenshin, of course, but he's always been strange. …or was it for Nagahide's sake that you chose to return to the waking world? No, `like father, like son'…that sort of thinking would make it all far too simple, wouldn't it? Still, you're so preoccupied these days, I can't help but wonder how you intend to stop me from turning this girl into a sacrifice to Lord Shingen's will. Will you come to rely on Kagetora once again? Isn't that even more cruel than what my lord has done to me?” He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, touched the gold choker he never removed with gentle fingertips. “So like a collar,” he mused, smiling at the bitter irony of it all.

 

`Nobotsuna Naoe. To be honest, I envy you your defiance,' he thought. `We've both been beaten into submission. It may have turned you into a timid little wolf, but the only loyal dog here, is me.'

*~*~*

 

You could set a watch by Schuldich's trigger finger. It was always like this when he was trying not to thing. Bang! One. Bang! Two. Bang! Three. Six shots, plus eight seconds to load a new round, then six more shots, and repeat.

 

Beside him, a much more random pattern of attack sounded off as Farfarello threw knives at a plank of wood like little ducklings lining up in a perfect row.

 

“This isn't just another way of humoring your obsession with pissing off God, right?” Schuldich asked after a stretch of this broken sort of silence.

 

Farfarello yanked one of his knives from the plank and cheated it, looking pensively off into the distance with a narrowed gaze. “I want to be useful to him,” he said, sounding more lucid than Schuldich had ever heard him sound before. “This thing in here,” he touched his chest. “This…feeling…I want to see it through to the end.”

 

“We've both become sort of pathetic,” Schuldich laughed a bit. “But I guess it can't be helped.

 

Bang! Four. Bang! Five. Bang! Six.

 

Back at the hospital like some sort of over-eager caravan—they couldn't really seem to leave well enough alone with Chiaki still comatose. Omi opened the door to peek in on Yuzuru and his unconscious friend to find that the situation had reversed itself, with Yuzuru curled up in Chiaki's arms and Chiaki looking half-asleep, but conscious, as he opened his eyes and lifted his head at the sound of the door, putting his finger to his lips in a `shh' gesture.

 

Takaya moved so he could see past Omi's shoulder and chuckled to himself. Chiaki must feel like damn near the luckiest man in the world right about now. He pulled the door shut, nudging Omi out of the way and turned to Naoe to complain.

 

“Honestly, Nobotsuna, you had me worried. Things are under control here, so let's go home,” he said. He hadn't forgotten his promise to help Chiaki out, and Yuzuru sleeping in his arms definitely seemed like a step in the right direction. He also didn't fail to notice that Saori was pestering Ran, probably to distract herself that whatever slim chance she had with her long-time crush was pretty much dust in the wind, as they say. He saw the pair enter the lobby and thought that this might actually be the best thing for everyone, as Saori tugged the frowning redhead along by the wrist.

 

“Ack! Get off!” the young man complained as she let go of Ran to tackle him into a hug.

 

“You're okay!” she said cheerfully, pressing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt after letting go. “I was worried!”

 

“I'm find. Be quiet would you? Yuzuru is sleeping,” Takaya complained.

 

That was enough to get Saori peeking through the glass in time to see a still somewhat battered Chiaki running his fingers through the other's hair before resting his head against the pillows and getting some rest himself. `I'm not sad,' she thought. `Most importantly, if all of my friends can be happy, I'll be happy. That will be enough. Besides, they look adorable like that!'

 

“I think we all need some rest,” she said finally. “We can meet up tomorrow at…hm…how about the Koneko?”

 

“Not too early,” Yohji complained.

 

“You always say not too early, Yohji,” Omi scolded before sighing. It was a little late. “Well, how about one, around lunchtime.”

 

“That will be fine,” Naoe replied, already finding that a certain teen in a certain letterman jacket was pulling him away. That was sort of a strange role reversal, but you would hear no complaints out of Naoe.

 

“Are you coming or not?” Ran barked at Nagi, who blinked a bit. It was true that he wanted to see Aya, but he didn't really expect…

 

“Aya is worried about you,” Ran stated, then gave the teen the patented `Ran glare of impending doom' and added, “but don't get the wrong idea. You'll be sleeping on the couch.”

 

Ken and Yohji laughed. Big brother's word is law,” Ken teased, to which ran replied with his famous (and still patented ) `I detest you' glare.

 

Nagi was about to go, but stopped. “Ah, Brad. Are you going to…”

 

“I'll drive him home,” Haruie interrupted. “Maybe he'll call me an angel again,” she joked.

 

Crawford blanched. “I did what?!”

 

The woman chuckled. “I'll tell you all about it on the ride, Sparky.”

 

“Can you possibly refrain from calling me that?”

 

“Aw, how come? I think it's cute.”

 

Crawford heaved a mental sigh. He had a feeling it was going to be a long drive.

 

*~*~*

 

A/N: Well, it's a short chapter where nothing happens, really, but I wanted to set myself up for the next chapter. Things have been so dramatic, I think it's time for a little bit of playtime before really delving back into the meaty parts of the story, so the next chapter will have some amusing things in it. (And some pervy things too! I have to up the rating when I post it…but I have to finish typing it first…it's a really long chapter!) A lot of stuff has come together all at the same time, which I wasn't really expecting, though I'm not disappointed I suppose.

 

This chapter did some digging around in Kosaka's thoughts, which may be a bit weird, but I thought it was necessary to figure out what he's thinking a little or working out my intended pairing with Farfie is going to be difficult. It was kind of fun to look at him a little differently and try to imagine what might be going through his head, because you know, he's not really a nice guy, but I've never watched MoB (as many times as I've watched it by now…) and thought `this guy is evil', so I hope no one sees his sequence at the beginning of this chapter to be vastly ooc. I think Kosaka is probably a pretty complex guy, so I wanted to play with that idea a bit.