Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction / Noir Fan Fiction ❯ There Can Be Only Two ❯ Morning Meetings ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: If there is anyone out there actually believing in me trying to get money out of writing this or even me owning those characters he is hopefully locked away securely and far away from any lawyer that might try to sue me for this piece of fan fiction. I don't even really like Weiß Kreuz.

 

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There Can Be Only Two

A Weiß Kreuz/Noir crossover Fanfiction by the one known as the SilentHypoCrit

(at least around the 28nd of October 2005)

 

Also hosted at the moment under the same nick at:

www.animexx.de

www.fanfiction.net

www.mediaminer.org

 

A FanArt for Chapter Two can be found at:

 

http://animexx.4players.de/fanarts/output/?fa=562314

 

 

(#) foot notes - see end of chapter

 

 

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Chapter 1 - Morning Meetings

 

 

Later that morning a irritated Schuldig was hammering against the door of Brad Crawford's room:

"Verdammte Scheiße. Crawford, open the damn door and get you damn ass to the phone. I don't care if you are naked or whatever. They only will speak to", continuing in a high pitched office lady like voice, sneering at the silliness of the formal Japanese: "the most honored legal guardian of Naoe Nagi-kun: 'kurofoludo-sama.'" Falling back to his normal tone, but still banging against the door he continued: "You old bastard probably already know what's going on, but I want to know as damn well, why Nagi's damn school is calling, why the hell they seem totally freaked out, and why they won't even tell Brad Crawford's chief secretary what the fuck is going on."

 

He gave the door a dissatisfying kick and turned around. He hated it not to know what was going on, he hated his inability not to read minds over the phone, he hated Brad Crawford for not being Brad Crawford during the last two days, he hated it even more that he was worried at all about Nagi, but most of all he hated it to play Crawford's secretary on that phone line.

 

'Bread and Berry Imports: Schwarz' That company name Crawford had chosen practically screamed "cover" or "fake" and he was waiting for the day their enemies got bright enough to look them up in the telephone book of Tokyo. They sure had quite a few of them and one would expect that at least one of those enemies should have found out by now. The biggest joke of all was, that this cover company was actually a quite successful venture and needed neither creative book tweaking, nor any business intervention by the means, that most people would expect from a company run by one Brad Crawford and his secretary one Mr. S. Huldig. Not to mention the 17 year old kid they employed as an accountant and their slightly borderline head of security.

 

Behind him the door finally opened and Crawford stepped outside in rather wrinkled white pants and with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up.

"No! I don't really know what's going on, but I fear the worst.", were his only words, before he headed towards the office. Strangely disenchanted words, more a whisper than real speech, making Schuldig wonder if - whatever was going on - lesser man would have fallen a long time ago, had they been in Crawford's place.

 

Not knowing what else to do or say he followed Crawford back into the office and listened to him talking on the phone.

 

"...yes I have completely understood..... no Madam I have no idea.....I will come over right now........good bye." He put down the handset and turned to Schuldig, who noticed a strange glint in Crawford's eyes. Something that for some reason reminded the red head of their Irish team member currently not present.

 

"Prepare the car and get Farfarello while I get changed. We are leaving." giving Schuldig no chance to ask any further question he turned around and headed for his room.

 

***

 

The sky over Tokyo had not changed since morning, but rain had begun to drench the town. The members of Schwarz drove in silence through the slow traffic of Tokyo's outer wards. Schuldig would have loved to go faster, but it was just not possible during day time - anywhere in the Kanto area. He knew why he loved working at night. He also would have loved to know what was going on. Crawford still had not told them anything since they had gotten into the car and set off for Nagi's school. Briefly he had considered trying to look into the mind of the tall American on the passengers seat, but there were lines within Schwarz not even he would dare to cross. So he decided for a more conventional way:

 

"Ok Crawford. Enough of this crap. What is going on? Why are we going to Nagi's school in the middle of the day? Why did they call us at all? Tell me here and now!" he suddenly shouted angrily.

 

Not surprised at all Crawford turned his head and complied with Schuldig's demand: "Nagi is dead. Shot about one hour ago by an unknown person. Head shot. He had no chance at all. They closed his school and are investigating. The police will be expecting us." he quickly said without any audible emotion. For the next moment only the monotonous squeaking of the wipers was the only noise in the car.

 

"What the fuck?!", was the only thing that came to Schuldig's mind. Perhaps it was the same with the other passenger in the car, but if it came to the mind of Farfarello it stayed there, hidden deep, hidden away even from Shuldig's mind-eye had he sat out to find it. And maybe it was better that way.

 

"Whoever did it was a professional." continued Crawford. "They knew how to find him. They knew the grounds. They got in an out unseen, and shot the most powerful telekinetic that we know of directly in the face. There were no other students present and no one else was targeted. They wanted him and they got him. And we are going to be next."

 

Schuldig overcame his inability to speak: "You are fucking kidding me! You were on the phone for only two minuets, why do you know so much? Why haven't you said something. Didn't you see anything? Scheiße, Scheiße, Scheiße." Angrily he hit the steering wheel repeatedly.

 

"I only saw what the police will find out, and nothing beyond that. I have not seen who did it, nor why." replied Crawford's cool strong voice, overpowering Schuldig's rage. Hesitantly he added:

"To be honest, I did indeed see him die, I have seen us all die during that last days."

 

"And you haven't told us, you asshole?! Crawford what is wrong on with you?!" came the instant reply from the German, heated and accusing in tone.

 

"It is kind of pointless to tell you that you died three years ago, or that you were shot last month, don't you think?." answered Crawford without loosing his cool. As if telling there was going to be no milk today, nothing more outrageous. "You must also agree that it is also very hard to decided which way anyone is going to die exactly, when you have seen him die in about twenty-three different ways, non of those at any point in the future but in the past... in addition to other specters of times long gone. Not to mention the mild irritation you experience from seeing not only people close to you, but yourself, too, die in gruesome ways. After about two nights of very fine detail, and futile efforts to find out what the meaning behind all that is, and thus trying to see further, trying to get more information, you, too, probably would not know what to tell anyone besides to be careful and wish him good bye"

 

Now a slightest trace of irritation had found its way into Crawford's speech. Something only someone close to the American would have noticed. Something like the slightly clenched fist or the absent of a confident smile on his face.

 

"So you tell me that your time thingy is broken or something?" Schuldig asked disbelieving.

 

"Yes! That pretty much sums it up." agreed Crawford, and with that Schuldig knew that all talking was done. What Crawford had just told them seemed to be a reasonable explanation for what had been going on during the last two days. It was absurd enough, and it was probably the closest that Crawford had ever come to spilling his heart out.

 

It explained somewhat how something like this could have happened at all. It also let to a whole new set of other questions that Schuldig did not like on bit. He did not like any of it at all. The alternative to what he just had heard was that Crawford had decided to dissolve Schwarz, and had chosen a really sick and twisted way to do it - but there were not many things in the world Schuldig doubted more than Brad Crawford going insanely mad.

 

In the backseat Farfarello began playing with one of his knives, keeping his one eye closed and listening to the sounds the blade made against his skin as the black sedan drove on through the rain. Eventually Schuldig switch on the radio and soft sounds filled the car. Sounds of a song that people at another place and another time would have identified as 'Silent Pain' by an Artist named Yuki Kajiura.

 

***

 

Some long and exhausting hours later the three bereaved members of Schwarz had returned home. The talking with the police and the school authorities had been.... well, like talking to the police and school authorities when you are a group of business men with mostly non legal business transactions, who has just lost one of its members - an under aged boy not to mention - in a school shooting, and has now to convince the various officials of several facts.

 

Those being:

 

- That the three foreigners showing up at a crime scene are in fact 'Legal Aliens' and honorable businessman, and are not connected to any suspect in no way - which actually can be really hard considering that we are talking about normal Japanese police officers here; and one in your group has scars all over his body, your sense of fashion and/or hairstyle is not very mainstream, and you are not used to play anything by rules in general.

 

- Also that it is perfectly normal, and in no way suspicious and worth investigation, that one of the three 'Gaijin-san' happened to be the legal guardian of the clearly Japanese victim in a Japanese school shooting - with no other living relatives or history known.

 

 

- And, of course, that you are deeply hit by the tragedy, and that you have no idea what has happened or why. And you really do not want to talk about it all, because you are so struck with grief - which is not too hard, that being mostly the truth, at least in your own, maybe somewhat strange, way.

 

After you have done so much convincing, the act of getting permission to see the crime scene, touch the victim as you like, going through all his personal belongings, and even taking away some unimportant personal stuff like the backpack or the wallet or any other object that could be connected to you in any way, is mere child's play.

 

Schuldig sighted. It really had been an exhausting day so far, and it was only three in the afternoon. Normally he would have been up for only a few hours, but thanks to that phone call.... He really was glad that Crawford had sent Nagi to one of those really expensive and rather exclusive private schools, the advantage now being, that neither the parents of the other students, nor the school board were very interested in the incident making it to the headline or any news at all. They also had the influence to prevent it.

 

'Convincing' a busload of journalists moping around in front of the import company's buildings was the last thing he wanted to do now. What he wanted to do right now was to beat the hell out of something or someone, anyone just to get the frustration out of his systems. They were Schwarz, verdammte Scheiße, they were the guys who went out to kill people, they were not prey themselves.

 

With a need of action in his heart he stood up and made his way out of the kitchen. Absently noting, that no one had done the dishes so far. A fact that again reminded him that it was Nagi who had been shot since it had always been Nagi who had done the dishes[1]. Letting his mind go astray he walked down the hallway to their conference room where Crawford was busy roaming through Nagi's belongings they had liberated at the school.

 

Seeing Farfarello rapidly typing at the room's computer terminal though was a slight surprise. Ignoring the American for the moment he went over to the blond Irish and looked on the monitor, only to find his attempt to understand what exactly the other man was doing futile, as numbers and figures changed rapidly and given commands made no sense to him. It was no normal netsurfing or other mundane activity Farfarello was doing, so much Schuldig could tell.

 

"Yo Farf! I was not even sure you could read at all. So what exactly are you doing?" he dryly asked.

 

"Don't disturb him. He is doing research on our 'customers'." Crawford interrupted, stressing the last word, making it pretty obvious that it was no everyday business activity Farfarello was doing. His concentrated and cold façade, yet showing inner tension, emphasized that and proofed to Schuldig, that he was not the only one that was a little ticked out by the events of the day.

 

"Customers? What do you mean?". Wordlessly Crawford handed him a piece of paper which turned out to be an ordinary ordering form for their bread and berry import business.

 

"And?" Schuldig turned a questioning gaze towards their leader.

 

"I found it in Nagi's bag. The delivery address is an abandoned construction site somewhere out in Kanagawa. Actually a place where multiple dead Yakuzas and obviously criminal foreigners were found a few months ago. The day of delivery is the day after tomorrow. Two o'clock in the morning."

 

"So what do you want to tell me? We don't do deliveries that early, and that's the job of the normal staff anyway."

 

"Take a look at what exactly has been ordered to be delivered, late at night, to an abandoned building in a secluded area!" came Crawfords reply heavy with sarcasm.

 

Complying Schuldig scanned the list of ordered items carefully marked on the form with blue ink:

"One leaf of Irish Soda Bread?" he slowly started to read the list aloud item by item his face slowly betraying his growing rage. "One leaf of German Rye Bread? One Glass of American blackberries? You got to be kidding me! For this I will make sure they, whoever they are, will die; very, very painfully." he snarled crumbling the small thin sheet of cheap paper in his fist. "They are mocking us. And I hate being mocked! And I really, really hate bad humor!". He would have continued his ramblings had Crawford not interrupted him.

 

"Stop it Schuldig. In the first place this proofs that whoever did this is to be taken seriously. To make this kind of obvious invitation to a duel they not only must be very confident in their abilities, but they also must have done a really good job at gathering information about us. In addition to that, I cannot really foretell anything right at the moment, as I told you, and I must presume they posses that knowledge also."

 

Processing the given information Schuldig visibly cooled down and regained a posture of relaxed coolness:

"So what do you suggest are we going to do? Just go there tomorrow and see how creative these guys got designing a trap? That would be so not our style now, wouldn't it?" he asked with a sly grin returning to his face.

 

"Nope. I did not really plan on that. Though it is a last option. But I hope to get to know our new fans a little better before the great show." Crawford replied also showing an invidious smile: "There are not that many people out there that are that good in the fist place. Farfarello's research has already ruled out some possibilities, and he is making progress. Though so far he has not found any clue for the biggest question."

 

"And that would be: Why? Why someone is daring to hunt down Schwarz?"

 

"Exactly. The most important thing we have discovered so far is that it is NOT Eszett."

 

"Not Eszett? Well good to know that they haven't a grudge against us anymore."

 

"Oh I seriously doubt that they do not want to see us dead anymore. But I checked almost anyone of importance there and within the next forty-eight hours non of them will be anywhere near us."

 

"Okaayy." Not really satisfied with that answer but knowing that Crawford would tell him anything of importance if he knew something: "So what now?"

 

"That is pretty simple!" Crawford replied: "We try to gather as much as we can from here. If we find one or more leads that need to be investigated on scene, we move out and eliminated anything that could even remotely be a threat. If, by any chance, we do not find anything at all, we might as well go out and practice eliminating something, but we will have to wait for the party tomorrow to show 'them', that they have chosen the wrong people to mess with."

 

"You know Crawford, that is the single best thing you have said today. You know how I just love these simple plans, and I haven't had a good night on the town in a long time, anyway." Schuldig's wide Cashmere cat grin promised no fun to anyone but himself. But a lot of fun nevertheless.

 

 

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[1] Well. "had had to do the dishes" would be more accurate. Schwarz was not a democratic organization and no one would even dare to imagine Crawford in an apron at the sink. Some people might imagine Schuldig doing so, but they were few and usually quickly forgot that image. Of course Farfarello could have done them, but...let's say he just did not do them.

 

 

Author's notes: As any author I would be pleased to receive your opinion about this work be it good or bad, or to be read as widespread as possible. So pleas review or flame with content.