Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 91 ( Chapter 91 )

91

 

I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter, now I've met you

 

Luckily for Yohji, the omelet was as good as he'd promised, and I'd forgiven him for the whole Gilligan thing by the third bite.

 

“Hey, you're the one who went there,” he said between sips of coffee. “I really did mean the color.”

 

I snickered a little in spite of myself. There were worse people to be named after, though it would take some time to get the images out of my head. “Well, if we do find Far and he gives us any trouble, remind me to tell him about that and we can jump him while he's laughing himself sick. He loved that show. Any of the dorky old comedies, he loved them. Everything but the Three Stooges.” I took another bite, then said, “Of course, that could be because he thought he was living with them.”

 

Yohji laughed and lit a cigarette. “I thought that was my problem.”

 

I finished my breakfast and stuffed the empty carton back into the bag. Funny, I'd gotten so used to eating on the fly that this seemed like luxury in comparison. At least the car was parked, and the location chosen for its scenic beauty rather than any covert value.

 

That realization made me scowl. Here I was, sitting right out in the open, trusting this man beside me to have better luck than Crawford himself. I squinted up at the sun; birds flashed black in silhouette as they flung themselves skyward with a clatter of wings.

 

Yohji gently touched my shoulder. “Where did you go?”

 

I closed my eyes; jagged colors sparked across my lids from the inside. I blinked them open, let them water. “Just worried. So much shit has happened, Yohji. And it's never going to stop.”

 

Green eyes watched me from behind low-perched shades. Blue-gray smoke curled up, caught in his hair, floated away.

 

“We were as good as dead.” I took another sip of coffee, briefly coveted Yohji's smoke, decided against it. “They tricked Brad. Made him think it was safe.” I shook my head, remembering the shock of his reaction, the lingering numbness of it all.

 

“You said Farfarello saved you, something about a dozen men dead? And Crawford had no warning of this?” Yohji frowned, a harsh and critical expression. “I'm sorry, but I find that a little hard to swallow.”

 

“No, it's okay,” I told him, “I had the same idea. I'd come to think of Brad as invincible, and it hurt like hell when I realized he's not. Scared the shit out of me. But he isn't a traitor to the team, either. I checked.” For Yohji's benefit, I tapped my forehead and said, “I made him let me look. It's my duty as his second to watch for shit like that. He wasn't lying. He really was tricked.”

 

“Damn.”

 

“Son of a bitch is on our ass, and he wants to take us alive. Brad won't let that happen.” I let out a harsh laugh and said, “Whatever you do, don't make any personal enemies in Esset. They get a real hard-on for revenge. Bastard taught Brad really well on that count.”

 

“Wait, so this isn't about the Ani Museum thing?” Yohji stared, incredulous. “It's personal?”

 

“Yeah. Schoenberg is determined to bring us back alive, for whatever glory he thinks it'll bring him. Either that, or he just wants to mess Brad up for daring to defy him. He used to be our team liaison officer.”

 

“Oh, shit, no wonder he's pissed! You guys must have made him look like he was in on it.” Yohji shook his head, almost smiled. “I'm impressed. The way things sound, Crawford might have anticipated someone would shoot that guy on principle by now and everything would be over.”

 

I snickered. “Yeah, that was probably the fall-back plan. As it turned out, though… Of course, we have no proof that it's actually him, but Brad's logic is pretty solid. And it's easier to have a scapegoat. We'll just blame everything on Schoenberg and take it from there. Problem is, the way Brad describes him, this guy really knows his stuff, and he's not afraid to improvise.”

 

Yohji sighed, lit a fresh cigarette, watched it burn a few seconds before tasting it. “How much do you want to tell me about this? Remember, I used to be a detective, and…I used to be something else entirely. You know I can't guarantee that it'll stay just between the two of us. If you tell me something that affects a lot of innocent people…”

 

I put my hand on his arm, tilted my head so I could see him over my sunglasses. “It's okay. Like I said before, I don't want us to fall and leave no record of our fight. If you need to hand the information to someone else, just make sure your ass is covered, and don't leave me in the cold. There's more than just my life on the line, you know.”

 

“I know.” Yohji leaned back against the car door, tilting his face up to the sky. “How is the kid, anyway?”

 

Memory rose and cast an image in frost: small, frozen, unstoppable. “Nagi turned the sky to snow,” I whispered, caught anew in the eerie poetry of that moment. “He freaked out, locked down when the trap was sprung. Fucking temperature dropped, just like that. I could see my breath, and then it started snowing.” I caught Yohji's gaze around his own glasses and added, “This happened only a week ago.”

 

“Can you tell me where?” I could tell by his voice that he was hoping I'd say Antarctica or something remotely logical.

 

“Poland. Weather just doesn't do shit like that. It was Nagi.” I couldn't stand it anymore; I asked for one of his smokes. I took a cautious drag, let it out quickly before it could make me cough. “He thought we were going to abandon Farfarello, and he just flipped out. Far was trying to buy us time to escape, he wanted us to go, but Nagi refused to budge. Hell, he rooted himself to the damn spot. He wouldn't leave, and we couldn't leave without the kid.”

 

“Like the time he leveled the Masafumi estate.”

 

I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Like that. He wouldn't move, and he refused to do what we had to do that time. He wouldn't leave a teammate behind. You know I still feel like utter shit over that? We got back as soon as possible, but he'd already woken up and realized he was alone. He still hasn't forgiven us. Found that out the hard way.”

 

Behind his shades, Yohji's eyes were tightly closed as he murmured, “Many things got broken that day. Things that should have been left the hell alone.”

 

“And for Nagi, those wounds got ripped open again in Poland. God damn it.”

 

“Well, you've seen him level a mansion and turn the grounds into a crater,” Yohji observed calmly. “What exactly did he do this time? It sounds like your boy is learning new tricks.”

 

“I don't know what the fuck he did,” I grumbled, “it's like he goosed the atmosphere or something. It went from warm and sunny to windy, cloudy, and snowing within two minutes. And I couldn't physically move him. I tried, and ended up knocking myself on my ass. And through it all, Nagi watched as Farfarello carved a dozen highly-trained operatives into chum.” I paused, sucked some nicotine, sipped some cold coffee. “That was the first time the kid ever saw Farfarello in total war mode. Before, we'd always kept Nagi out of the combat as much as possible. He'd seen quick strikes, single hits, but never a slaughter on this scale. It was a fucking bloodbath. I'm just grateful it was them and not us this time.”

 

“You know, maybe they were right about those restrictions after all,” Yohji mused. “Both times he's done something really off the scale, he's been distraught. That can't be easy to deal with. And I can't even imagine how terrible that fight must have been. Even if you're used to death, there's still a point of shock in something that violent.”

 

I was so tempted to touch his mind and show him, but I restrained myself. That sort of thing was not good for one's sanity, and I really didn't want to re-live it myself, either. “Shock's the word I like for it. I hope we never have to see that again, from either of them.”

 

“Hey.” Yohji leaned toward me, set his hand on my shoulder. “Day's still young. What do you say to cruising around a bit, see if we find anything? Let me think about all this, turn on the detective brain and let it cook a while. You definitely need a break from the stress, and talking about it isn't helping you, is it?”

 

“No, it's not.” I tossed my cigarette away and shifted a little closer to Yohji. “But thanks for listening.”

 

He turned and kissed me quickly on the mouth, transferring his smile to my lips with gentle pressure. “Anytime, babe.”

 

 

 

A/N

I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter, now I've met you

 

“Green Eyes” - Coldplay A Rush of Blood to the Head

 

And now the floodgates are open. Schuldig is entrusting Yohji with some very crucial information, information which wouldn't do much in the hands of Esset but which might mean everything to Kritiker. Is this what Crawford sent him here to do? Does it matter? Love and trust have made Schuldig so much stronger than he otherwise might have been. Maybe that was the intention all along.