Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 5 ( Chapter 5 )

5

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed...

"Schuldig, you will not throw that tape out the window. Put the window up now and calm down."

"Scheiße, Brad! Gottverdammt japanisch Musik!" I threw the tape onto the floorboards at Farfarello's feet and gripped the wheel tightly. My hands were shaking. "I need something to keep sane, Brad! There's no CD player in here, and my discs are in the trunk anyway. The radio is all crap, and those stupid drunk kids listened to total shit."

Farfarello slowly turned his head and stared at me, not blinking. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he seemed to be trembling. "Oh, fuck, Crawford, he's seizing!" All my concentration went into driving and keeping Farf out of my head then. There was no good place to pull over, and it was all I could do to keep random motorists from noticing the two gaijin in the front seat of the blue sedan trying desperately to get to the poor side of town.

Crawford reached around the seat and wrapped his arms around the Irishman, pulling him back into the car seat and holding him tightly. In a few moments the drama was over: Farf sagged limply against the seat restraints.

My head throbbed. The combined violence of Farfarello's waking thoughts and his disordered seizures left me shaking. Sweat trickled down my face. Without my bandanna to hold it back, my hair kept plastering itself to my forehead no matter how many times I pushed it back. Sweaty hair was becoming a fact of my life.

Crawford sighed and leaned back in his seat. His ribs still hurt, I could tell. "Schu, we may have to leave him. If this continues, it'll tear through your shields until nothing is left. And I can't care for Nagi alone. You understand this, right?"

"Yes, Brad. I know." Even unconscious, the Irishman had a constant stream of words pouring from his psyche. They came in random sentences like the ministry of a mad evangelist, Biblical prophecy and speculation all rolled into one. "He's fixating again. Revelations, I think. You know, the one about the head wound?"

"I thought as much. He keeps asking me if he should have died from his injury. I figured that was where he was going with it."

"Do you See anything?"

"Other than our current destination? No, nothing I can share at this time."

I tried to will my shoulders to relax a little. At least we had a destination, right? Could be worse, we could be cruising around on the run with life-threatening injuries in a stolen car and no destination.

"Schu, you're projecting again." Brad rested his hand on my shoulder, his touch strong and warm. "Do you need me to drive for a while?"

"No," I answered immediately, "you rest and watch over Nagi. I can do this. It's not too much farther, is it?"

"About an hour."

An hour. Sixty minutes of concentrating on my shields and the minds of nearby motorists. Three hundred and sixty seconds of hell. With no decent music to help me. I reached down to the radio and hit the scan button, over and over, searching for anything.

Wait, was that...a voice singing in English? I went back to the last clear station and turned up the volume. I wasn't much for the band, though I did know the song. It was an annoying pop ditty that should have been a soft drink commercial in my opinion, but at least it was something to focus on.

The station faded out about forty minutes later, but by then I had a firmer grasp on my shields and Farf had lapsed into a silent slumber. Brad started navigating a few minutes later, directing me through streets I knew he had never visited before. The buildings looked old and ill-used, in bad need of paint and repair or just simple demolition; I couldn't decide which would be better.

"Here, Schu. Park in back."

I looked at the three-dimensional urban decay in front of the car. "You're joking, right?" The sign indicated a noodle restaurant; I was willing to bet everything would taste like dogmeat.

But Brad Crawford had Seen this place, and had given the order, so I pulled around to the back and parked, though not yet killing the engine. The alleyway looked like the perfect place to dispose of murder victims. "Brad, are you sure?"

"Go ahead and shut it down, Schu. This is the place." Brad let himself out of the car. "Lock those two in and come with me."

I hated leaving them alone, I hated leaving them together, I hated this place just on principle. "Brad..."

"Trust me."

I turned off the engine and got out, carefully locking the doors and pocketing the keys. Brad stood beside a narrow door next to a delivery bay. Why they had one of those back here was beyond me, as the idea of jockeying a truck around in the alley seemed a feat worthy of a Las Vegas magic show.

Brad knocked at the door.

A gaunt Japanese man of about thirty opened the door and looked at us with some suspicion but no surprise. Brad spoke to him in low tones for a few moments, then handed him a wad of money. It looked like quite a lot.

The man nodded and gestured at the delivery bay. The door started to rise on surprisingly well-oiled gears.

::Schuldig, do not speak out loud here. Get Nagi; I'll bring Farf.::

::Brad, what the hell is going on?::

::He's a doctor, though not of our accustomed caliber. He doesn't ask questions, so long as we pay in cash.::

I carried Nagi into the building. I had expected a filthy warehouse. What I found was a moderately clean clinic. The scrawny man gestured for me to lay the boy down on an examining table. I did so, then stepped back only as far as I had to.

::Yakuza?::

Brad smiled slightly. ::What else would he be, Schu?::

The doctor held Nagi's eyes open and flashed a beam of light across them, once, twice. Muttering in some local dialect I couldn't easily follow, the doctor scurried over to a large cabinet and started hauling things out of it. Plastic bags, tubing, needles.

Brad came over to stand a little behind me and touched my shoulder. ::Schuldig, give him some room to work. You can sit down, if you want.:: He guided me toward a faded but clean sofa along the wall.

I followed, out of exhaustion and habit more than desire to sit. ::I don't like this, Brad. How can we trust him?::

::Money is how we trust him, Schu. For all he knows, we are drug runners who got involved in a territory war. This is how he feeds his family. You'll see. He takes no samples, and incinerates all possible DNA traces. Doctors like this are the neutral ground in Japan's underworld. I thought you knew that.::

I snorted and leaned back, trying to relax. My head still hurt, though this sparsely populated neighborhood made it a little easier to deal with. ::Does he have any aspirin? Forget that, how about morphine?:: I quipped.

::Don't worry, he'll check you over too.::

::Oh, lovely. Hope he doesn't want me to undress.::

The doctor set up an intravenous drip for Nagi, then moved on to Farfarello. Brad had strapped him to a table before coming over to me, but I was still a little concerned for the doctor's safety. If Farf should wake up...

Soft cursing drifted to my ears. The doctor stared at Farf's injuries and shook his head, mumbling in angry Japanese. Then he strode over and confronted Brad.

They talked fast, too rapidly for me to follow without using telepathy, and I hurt too much to care. Brad hesitated, then pulled out some more money. The other man shoved it into a pocket and indicated for me to follow him. I frowned at Brad.

::He needs you to help move Farf to an X-ray machine. I can't do anymore; it hurts to breathe.:: Brad hugged himself and sat back down, his face ashen.

I wheeled the table over to a small X-ray device. The doctor didn't bother with lead shielding; he simply loaded the film, aimed the camera, and took five pictures of Farfarello's head. He carried the film to another door and knocked.

A very young woman peeked through the door. He handed her the film and she vanished back into the other room.

The doctor turned, then hurried over to the sofa, again muttering angrily.

I looked in that direction.

Brad had passed out.

A/N:

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed...

Ah, here we go. Book of Revelation. Of course Farfarello would wonder about this. He's not a stupid man, and his injuries really should have been the end of him. At least he doesn't know that Ken also survived the fight... How many Beasts does it take to bring about the end of the world? To someone like Farfarello, I suspect the more the merrier, though two is a sort of traditional number. Oh, and Crawford would never just "leave" a member of his team behind. If Farfarello became too dangerous to keep, he would die a quick and easy death.

Translation notes -

"Scheiße, Brad! Gottverdammt japanisch Musik!" is exactly what it looks like: "Shit, Brad! Goddamned Japanese music!"

Gaijin means foreigner.

Yakuza refers to Japanese organized crime.

I have a challenge for those who enjoy the story and have some artistic ability. I would love to see some art for this story. Let me see what you can do. You can send any art to schuldig@hopeforlon.net. If I like them, I may ask to post them on my website. ^__^

Thank you for the reviews! I love to read your comments and criticisms. Let's me know what you like and don't like! ^__^

So far I have about 15 chapters of work in progress…not done, but working on them…so you have much more time to review! ^__^ Oh, and be in for a helluva ride!

I luv you all…you witty, lovely, crazy, fantastic Weiss/Schwarz fans. Oh, and if you have read this far…there is a rumor that I will be (in the future) working on the Weiss counterpart to this story. Mind you…this is just a rumor. ^__~ I won't confirm or deny it. You'll just have to wait and see. ^__^