Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction / Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Circle of Blood ❯ Interlude 1 - Points of view in black and white ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, Hellsing and/or their characters do not belong to me, I just wish they would. Whatever they might end up doing in this... thing I've written are just a consequences of my highly twisted thinking. If you have problems with that... flame me all you want, it's cold in here where I live. ^_^

"..." Speech
//...// Thoughts
:: ... :: Telepathy

Warnings: Nothing really bad in this one I guess, mild sexual innuendos and bad/twisted attempts of humor aside. Well yaoi of course but you might expect that if you've read this far, don't you think? ^_^;

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Circl e of Blood - Interlude 1 (Points of view in black and white)
By: Azrael's Wing

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It was a Saturday morning at flower shop Koneko's, the home and base of the vigilante group known as Weiss. The fact that it was also known as bishonen central for the local school girls and beyond was something that the boys in question would have been happy to forget.

Unfortunately it could not be done as it was 9 o'clock in the morning, only one hour of peace left for the men living in there, after that... squeal and giggle time. The Koneko's would open at ten, bringing the giggling Mongol... correction, the schoolgirl horde to their door, easily preventing any further sleep. Therefore, in a perfect world the florist/assassin quartet would already be up and preparing against this invasion of cuteness. Then again, there isn't such a thing as perfect world and as it was, the only one up was the nominal leader of the group, Aya Fujimiya.

His mood at the moment was quite irritated, facing a possibility of having to face the horde all alone was not a pleasant one after all. In fact, it was at the same time annoying and puzzling situation for the redheaded assassin. It would be nothing new for Yohji or Ken to oversleep, for different reasons one could only hope, but for Omi not to be up in time, that would require something out of ordinary. Even if suffering a hangover, Omi would none the less be amongst the first up, a fact that would partly explain the puzzlement Aya felt right now.

He was after all likely the only other one aware of Omi's nightly activities, something Omi himself was probably aware of as well. Neither of then had mentioned anything to other about it, but there seemed to a kind of silent understanding between them. That aside, Aya suspected there to be even more hidden aspects within Omi, under the skin of the genki teenager they thought they knew.

He didn't pry though, he respected Omi's privacy as he wanted his own to be respected. In a way perhaps, under their different masks they perhaps were most alike of the group, a thought that would have shocked the other two if they only had known to think it...

As the clock on the wall ticked and time passed, none of the others seemed to be getting up. A fact to forced Aya to resort more drastic measures, something of a necessity when waking up Ken... and really needed for getting Yohji up on time. He went to pick up the necessary equipment from a closet and fridge, then walked up the stairs to the second floor, armed and ready for his mission.

In there, behind the first door would be Ken, perhaps the easiest to wake but an annoying chore none the less. After banging the door almost in half, Aya had to resort to far more drastic measures, something he had resigned to anyways. Using a lockpick, he opened the door to reveal the sight he expected: drooling Ken Hidaka slumped in front of his portable TV, sleeping in a position clearly not intended for humans. It was indeed a clear example of the dangers of an all-the-night marathon of regional football.

Aya just groaned at this annoying sight as he stepped in to the room, his hands itching to do the job he came in for. Putting down the other piece of equipment, he opened the bottle he had with him and poured nearly a liter of ice water on Ken, drenching him with it...

Its effect was nearly instantaneous, causing Ken to scream loud enough to wake the dead and make him almost jump through the ceiling.

After few moments of disorientation and shivering, annoyed Ken turned to face Aya. "Aya! What the did you do that for," Ken whined at him, giving Aya a annoyed look, somewhat ruined by the pout on his face however.

Aya just glared back at him furiously for a while before answering. "Isn't it obvious Hidaka? I'm not going to face those girls while you and the others are sleeping," He finished shortly, managing to sound quite pissed off. In fact, pissed enough to make Ken happy that Aya didn't have his katana with him at the moment, else he might have gotten a split personality.

Still almost half asleep Ken mumbled back in response, "Sure sure, just give me a minute or two..." but suddenly he was perked up by an evil thought that crossed his mind. "Hey, can I watch when you wake up Yohji, can I?" Ken was now acting like an eager puppy... or a kitty with the malicious thought of Yohji suffering running in his mind, it's not nice to be the only one to suffer after all.

Aya just snorted as he left the room to find his second victim... err, co-worker, Ken following him right on his heels grinning happily.

Repeating his previous efforts on the door of Yohji's room, it gave no better response than the last time, something Aya had dreaded and expected at this point. Using his picks once again, the door opened and the sight revealed behind door number two wasn't a surprise by a long shot, as much as Aya might have hoped it to be one.

In a huge bed in center of the room, surrounded by floor decorated with enough discarded clothing fit to whore house, was a certain blond playboy. Totally unaware of the world and its worries, Yohji was snoring away like a piece of industrial machinery. For those of sadistic inclinations, it was a situation perfectly primed for what followed.

Walking next to slumbering Yohji, Aya put a powerful megaphone to his lips and yelled right into Yohji's ear: "THIS IS THE TPD VICE SQUAD, COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" This enabled Yohji to repeat Ken's previous leaping feat, even managing to top it with several inches.

After few moments of frantic thrashing Yohji finally relaxed, finally noticing that it was Aya standing next to him with slight smirk on his lips, not a member of the Tokyo police department.

"Man, do you have to remind me that? It was only once after all," Yohji complains while trying to deal with his infernal hangover with his nice and pleasant wakeup call. 'That' in question being a certain incident involving Yohji, a-not-so high class brothel, enough booze knock out a herd of elephants on rampage and a Tokyo PD's vice squad. An incident that had ended with Yohji in a cell with all the hookers of the place, police apparently unable to tell them apart.

Ever since the incident, rest of the team had taken a habit of mentioning this to Yohji whenever his habits would get out of hand, something bound to happen almost once a month at least.

Having taken care of the usual suspects, Aya still had Omi to worry about, something that was quite unexpected. Oh sure, Omi could oversleep like anyone human, but to hide his nightly activities he always woke up earlier than the others, apart from Aya that is. That was the main reason he was aware of those activities after all, not even as good actor as Omi could completely hide effects of a hangover, especially just after waking up.

Keeping his worries to himself for now, Aya walked to Omi's door and knocked into it loud enough to make Ken and Yohji wince. He continued this for a while, pointedly ignoring the whimpers and groans he got from those behind him. Seeing that his efforts were giving no results, Aya once again picked the lock, this time though really dreading of what he might see inside.

After taking a quick look inside the room, it was pretty obvious what was wrong in it. The bed there, all right, like everything else normally found in a bedroom. Omi himself though was nowhere to be seen. The bed itself was all nice and tidy but quite empty as well, a fact that that was as surprising as it was shocking to the visitors.

The three members of the Weiss all reacted differently seeing the lack of Omi's existence in the room. While Ken seemed to enjoy walking in a circle and babbling about what could have happened to Omi, Yohji got into detective mode and stepped in to for clues of what might have happened to Omi. Whatever his daily... or nightly habits were you couldn't say that Yohji didn't know his former job, being a detective that is, not a playboy. The latter being his fulltime job without a doubt.

Aya on the other hand observed all this with outwardly cool detachment, thus creating a quite impressive impersonation of a human iceberg. Inside though, he was quite worried about Omi disappearance, something that he really didn't wish to admit to the others.

Things might have gone on like this even longer but fortunately Ken's legs had grown tired with all the running around in circles, forcing him to take a little break... and therefore sit on Omi's bed. Still agitated though, he managed to kick at a box under the bed, making it slide out of there... right under Yohji's nose.

"Hey, watch it with those legs Ken! Do you want to face Omi's wrath when he finds out that you've wrecked his room? Chibi can be pretty scary when he wants to, you know..." Yohji said, smirking at panicking Ken as he started to push the box back where it came from.

Suddenly though his movement stops as he gets a peak of what's inside the box, his eyes widening at the sight. Not quite beliving his eyes Yohji opens the box fully, thus revealing exactly what is hidden in there.

The contents of this box were not exactly what some members of the Weiss would have normally expected from 'their' Omi. There was a large collection of porn, mostly of qay variety, and another collection of hentai manga. The box of condoms and tube of lube were just the icing on the cake in this nice revelation, guaranteed to shake the foundations of the innocent little Omi image Yohji and Ken might have had in their heads. For Aya, this wasn't really such a shock though he was impressed of the collection none the less.

Rest of the material in there was somewhat harder to classify though. How had Omi got Reiji Takatori's katana, he could only guess, but there it was. Wrapped in a red cloth, it was obviously well kept, and beside it was an empty sheath for a matching tanto. Looking at the similarities in their appearances, it was clearly the sister blade of the katana, and Aya had a pretty good idea where Omi had got that one. From Persia himself.

There was also a folder, holding a collection of articles and pictures from newspapers. Taking a closer look, it soon became clear that they were all related to their past missions, showing bloodier results of their actions and what information had press found about them. For a some reason, Aya couldn't decide should he be worried about this collection or not, its existence was slightly disturbing to him due its hidden nature, making him wonder just why Omi had it.

Now wasn't the time for these questions though, it would be later and preferably from Omi himself when they'd find him. Now they had no idea where Omi would be, a disturbing fact in it self, but they could do nothing about it at the moment. Right now they should take care of more pressing matters such as the business downstairs. This in mind Aya dragged Ken and Yohji out of Omi's room, thus rousing them from the shell shocked stupor the contents of this box had invoked in them.

"Hey, what's the big idea! Shouldn't we think about Omi's..." Yohji complained as he finally managed to make his brain work once again.

"You can think about Omi's sexual preferences while you work, and we really don't have any idea where Omi might be right now, do we? He might as well have overslept at some lover of his as far as we know. So right now we're going down there and face those girls, after we have dealt with them we think about Omi. He obviously does seems to be old enough to handle himself for a while. Understood?" Aya finished with a tone of voice that left no room for arguments, especially since there WAS a katana in the room...

Following behind his hastily moving teammates, Aya tried in his mind convince himself of what he had told the others. That this was nothing else but an accident, that Omi just sleeping off a really bad hangover at some friend of his, but somehow he just couldn't do it. He had a bad feeling that this was only a beginning for something bigger, but for what he had no idea.

And so, these doubts in mind Aya Fujimiya went to face the giggling horde of schoolgirls, hoping that afterwards they would find out that all these worries had been for nothing and that Omi would just appear late at Koneko's apologies ready. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be so simple...

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Elsewhere in Tokyo another group of assassins, or in this case a pair, was also waking up. The other half of the assassin group Schwarz was slowly awakening, in fact quite naked and in the same bed.

It really was a mystery just how had Schuldich and Nagi ended up together, their personalities being so different among other things. Maybe it was just a case of opposites attracting each other, rest of the Schwarz had no idea. Then again, since that other half of the team was 'composed' of a precognic manipulator and raving psychopath it really wasn't a that big deal.

As the things were, the couple was waking up in a cheap hotel room in a not so nice part of the city. A consequence of Brad Crawford wanting to use his bed in the safe house to its traditional purpose. That is to sleep, not to stay awake in the night and listen headboard slam in the wall right next door.

After hearing Crawford muttering about finding new imaginative uses for Farfarello's large knife collection if he'd lose another hour of sleep because of them, the pair had decided to find another place for their 'entertainment'. Losing some yen for a room would be preferable over losing a body part for their irate leader. Especially since there was no knowing just what part it would be...

After few moments of stretching, Nagi Naoe, the telekinetic Prodigy of Schwarz rose from the bed, leaving his semi-comatose lover behind. He tiredly made his way to his discarded cloths and slowly started to put them on, trying to shake the drowsiness from his head. This task finally accomplished, he turned his attention to still sleeping form of Schuldich and ways to wake him up.

"Schuldich, get up already! We're supposed to meet Crawford at 9 o'clock and I don't want to listen his complaints because you didn't have enough stamina. If you don't get up at this moment, I'll have to do something drastic." Nagi yelled at Schuldich but his efforts didn't get but a groggily muttered, "...just another minute. I'll get up in a moment..." which was just followed by Schuldich's continued state of sleepiness.

"Fine, don't say I didn't warn you then," Nagi said with a slight smirk on his face. Having said that, he grabbed the still sleeping form of Schuldich with his telekinetic powers and carried it into the shower. Then he dropped it to the shower floor and used his power to turn the water on, full strength and freezing cold.

The spectacular scream and reaction it invoked from Schuldich were sight behold... and hear, almost making the other residents of the hotel wonder had these two started once again. This was not the case though, as the shivering man raced back to the bedroom, looking for his hopefully warm clothes.

::Fuck, what did you do that for?:: Schuldich grumbled mentally, still trying to stop his shivers while pulling his pants on. ::I wouldn't have pegged you for a sadist, giving this kind of surprises to your lovers.::

"Ok, you could have then explained to Crawford why we would have been late for the briefing." Nagi said in response with a deadpan voice.

Schuldich response to that was quite articulate considering the state he was in, "Shit!" which in fact did sum that probable situation pretty well, considering their leader's anal-retentive tendencies.

"Exactly. So you better dress up and get ready, otherwise we'll have to endure another lecture anyway."

Seeing that Schuldich was finally done, Nagi then dragged his still zombie like partner out of their room. Not really resisting this, Schuldich only chuckled on the way as he commented, "Heh, who would have guessed you to be in charge of two of us..."

"Well Schuu, you do need someone to keep a leash on you. You're completely irresponsible you know," Nagi said rolling his eyes.

"But it's all part of my lovable nature, don't you agree Nagi?" Schuldich said with smirk.

"..."

Silence was his only answer as Nagi had continued walking, leaving smirking Schuldich briefly behind.

"Hey, don't ignore me Nagi... I'm right, aren't I? C'mon, answer me Nagi..." whined Schuldich, running after silently walking Nagi.

Sometime later, after a long trip at subway and an encounter with a pair of early morning muggers, now a pair of cooling corpses, Schuldich and Nagi finally arrived at the Schwarz safe house.

There was something of when they arrived though, things that didn't seem to match up. Like the heavy tracks of a truck in front of it, or like the newspaper still lying in front of the door, especially since Crawford always wakes up early and reads the paper. It was almost as if their sixth sense was giving them an early warning, which wasn't really that improbable since they were psychics after all.

"Schuldich, can you sense anyone?"

First giving the area around the house a light scan, then scanning it more thoroughly, Schuldich finally grimaced as he answered to Nagi. "There isn't anyone there, absolutely no one."

"That's good... Wait a minute! What about Crawford... or Farfie for that matter!" Nagi demanded, hoping that he had misunderstood the telepath's words.

"I meant what I said. There isn't anyone in or near the building besides us. Not Crawford, not Irish, no one. This place is dead..." Schuldich said to Nagi, his apparent irritation betraying his unease at the situation.

"So what are we going to do now? Nagi asked, hoping that Schuldich would have some rational idea of what to do.

"What to do? I for one am going to go inside and see what the hell is going on. There's no one here but I hope they've left some clues, so that we can find out where the bastards have gone," Schuldich said, running to the back door of the building and leaving Nagi behind.

"What! What bastards? Nagi yelled at him, running after the German telepath muttering about impulsive redheads.

"Brad and Farfie... or the bastards that have done something to them. Either is fine by me!" was the only answer Nagi got before Schuldich had opened the door and gotten inside. Seeing no other option, Nagi followed right on his heels and stepped into the empty building, dreading of what they might see in there.

At first there didn't seem to be anything out of ordinary, it was dark and silent of course but that was to be expected of the place, being as empty as it was. Suddenly though Nagi heard some heavy German swearing, indicating that Schuldich had indeed found something and whatever it was, it wasn't nice.

Following the sound of Schuldich's swearing, he found himself in a hallway near Farfarello's room, or perhaps cell would be a better word. There he saw Schuldich, staring at the floor in front of it. Taking a closer look at the spot he was staring, he saw that there was a bloodstain on it, already dry due the pass of time.

"It seems that some idiot made a personal contact with our favorite psychopath, leaving little pieces of himself behind." Schuldich commented, an evil smile on his face.

"But where is he then... Farfie I mean, and what about Crawford?" Nagi asked.

"Don't know, I guess we'd better find out," and that said Schuldich followed the bloody trail to Crawfords bedroom, Nagi right behind him.

What they saw there answered to as many questions as it opened new ones. There were signs of fighting, from Farfarello or Crawford, they couldn't tell. There were also some tranquilizer darts littering the floor, giving a hinting that their teammates might still be alive.

"Darts? You don't think..." Nagi started but was soon interrupted by Schuldich.

"...Weiss? Nah, this isn't their style. If they'd been here and survived, we'd just have a pair of corpses... or more."

"Who then... Esset? Kritiker? They're supposed to be down, both of them. Takatori's are dead as well. Who's left?" Nagi wondered, mostly of himself.

"Hell should I know, you're supposed to be the smart one... Prodigy. I'm just a simple assassin." Schuldich commented with a slight smirk on his lips. "As far as I know, it might be someone from Brad's past. Someone we have no idea of..."

"Yeah right, and I'm a happy little schoolboy," Nagi muttered in response to Schuldich's comment. "Anyway, of so humble assassin, try look some clues for what this mystery group might be. Crawford should have seen something beforehand, maybe he wrote up something."

"Yes, oh master," came Schuldich leering response, causing Nagi to blush slightly as he began to search for clues.

Searching the room from top to bottom they didn't find anything, that is until they decided to look through Crawford's thrash bin. On the top of the usual crap, such as empty bottles of painkillers, used pez dispensers and old tabloid magazines was a piece of paper. On it was written, in Crawford's precise handwriting, the words 'OCEAN RED...'. Rest of the paper was filled with random scribbles, clear sign of Crawford's powers causing the man headache. Literally...

"Ocean red? What the hell is that? A person, an organization, his private sex club... what?" Schuldich muttered, his brains working overtime trying to decipher this puzzle.

"I don't know but I think I can find out." Nagi said heading to his room.

"Whatever do you think you can find out in your room? Aren't there better places to search for clues?" Befuddled Schuldich asked, looking after disappearing Nagi.

"Baka, I do have a computer... with a internet connection! Ever heard of that, I am a hacker after all." Nagi shot back, his irritation at his partners outright stupidity in such matters raising beyond the normal levels.

A silent "Oh..." was the only answer Nagi remembered hearing before zoning everything else off and vanishing into the sea of information, franticly hoping to find something to give them a clue of their teammates fates...

TBC... in Chapter 4 (The escape, from the Abyss into the Purgatory)

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Author notes: If you've read this far, you've noticed that this so called 'interlude' is indeed a somewhat more lighthearted piece of work. In a way this was an attempt to see what kind of 'humor' I could write for this fic... and at the same time give a peek to other characters besides Omi and Co. The story does seem to center around him/them otherwise. ^_^

There will be at least still another interlude later. The title will be almost same but with different people, I think you can guess who they are... Reviews and comments wanted!!! Really, I mean it... Please! =^-^=

- Azrael's Wing

"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens."

"Good angels go to heaven. I go everywhere else."
Fallen Archangel