Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Discord in the House of Assassins ❯ I am But Mad North Northwest II ( Chapter 12 )

I am But Mad North Northwest II

 

Schuldig scowled. The scowl felt like an intruder on a face usually meant for smirks, leers, false grins and true malicious grins. It felt outnumbered and truly all alone. But much as it wanted to flee, the facial muscles held it down like an elephant sitting on a skinny and unlucky man. Farfello twitched, but then again the man always twitched occasionally and wouldn't have felt properly himself if a day went by without him twitching.

 

“Wotcha thinkin' of guv'nor?”

 

The scowl was terrified to find itself deepening. Schuldig didn't like the fact that the Irishman always called him guv'nor, or if correctly spelled governor, it wasn't as if he was an overly-muscled Austrian expat governing a much-bewildered California. So what if Austrians and Germans sound a bit alike when trying to express themselves in English?

 

“Shut up, Be.”

 

The other man shrugged and returned to his knives, which where now so sharp they could've sliced moonlight. “Shutting up, guv'nor.” Of his comrades, Farfello always thought that the kid was the only one saner than he was. Mind you, the kid was psychologically disturbed in his own way, having a fetish for weird-looking girls with parasols. And also, mind you, Farfello always knew he was insane, but he was properly insane, insane people like him are a dime a dozen since it doesn't take much imagination to be a madman out to kill God. Anyone claiming to be sane have, at one time or another, been ready to spit in the face of God anyway, given any amount of bullshit raining on their sad lives. Difference being, Farfello never repented afterwards. Oh, the knives fetish and being an Irish albino is a notch above the usual god-killing serial killer, but not much. Albinos always seem to be portrayed as insane, and Farfello never really understood why.

 

Now to be truly a man so far gone he's already walking back, that needs practice. Farfello always thought Schuldig is not only so fare gone he's already walking back, he's also gone over the hedge and is already climbing over it the second time around. And Schuldig, he felt, has lots of practice. If anyone's madder than Schuldig, then that'd be the Oracle. You need a special kind of madness for grand schemes of “Making the World a Better Place through Necessary Evil and Bloodshed” and truly meaning every capitalized word. Anyone thinking that the world needs to be righted is someone with a head three screws short. Oh, some people think even this kind of insane is a dime a dozen, and whereas the Farfello kind of insane gets labeled as `serial killers', the Oracle kind of insane gets labeled as “blank the Great” or “dictator” or “general” or some other highly revered title, like “blank the Pacifier” or “President”. Maybe even “blank the Impaler”, or “St. blank the Destroyer of a Thousand Heathens”. But Farfello doesn't really care for that, it's all a matter of perspective, he'll say, and then chuckle, because he doesn't have perspective. Perspective doesn't really figure much in Farfello's mental horizons, it's just him, and then God.

 

But sometimes Schuldig and Crawford can be tied for the first place in being “Madder than Being Mad as a Hatter”, and Farfello felt this was one of those days.

 

Schuldig, scowl still in place, is rocking back and forth, hugging his knees and sweating like hell (the bandana practically a soaked sweatband by this time). He's bitten and sucked at his wrist so often the aforementioned wrist was now a bloody mass of torn skin, but Sculdig was impervious to the pain. He was so impervious, in fact, that he even took to biting on his lower lip. He's currently on the padded floors of Farfello's room, you know, the customized padded cell. Inside Schuldig's mind, though, he was enraged. And somewhere inside Schuldig's mind, was a thought. It didn't come from him, he knew. But it niggled and clamped down on his mind, and the thought was hard to decipher, but it did something to his hindbrain. It commanded him to bite and suck. He never thought he'd come across a parasitic thought, he only ever heard of it as a rumor amongst telepaths, but damn if this one wasn't one of them buggers***.

 

He absentmindedly bit his wrist again, then stopped, stared at his wrist, then spat something out.

 

“Oi, mind you no spitting there guv, the cell's hard to keep white as it is.”

 

“Balinese.”

 

“Wot?'

 

“Balinese.”

 

Farfello smiled. Now this seemed like the old Mastermind. “Wot you want me to do with the little Weiss kitty? There's this dagger, see, never used it before an—“

 

The telepath turned to the eager Irishman. His eyes were red, and started to glaze over.

 

“No.”

 

“C'mon guv, this one's virgin blade! Tell you what; I'll even throw in an axe an' them throwing knives if you like…”

 

“I said… no…” His voice hoarse, Schuldig wasn't really talking to Farfello, but to something in his head. His eyes screwed shut and he clutched at his head, gritting his teeth to stop himself from moaning. Farfello though was too excited about his knives to be bothered to help.

 

Schuldig blinked, stopped rocking, and looked at Farfello in a very funny way, as if he was actually interested in Farfello. The Irishman calmly selected some of his best throwing knives, the ones he always took back from the limp bodies of selected victims, and with a blank face raised his right hand readily aiming three of the knives towards Schuldig. The German telepath moved fast, from a fetal position to a crouch, then blinked again, stood stock still, shook his head, then collapsed faced down. Farfello, seeing that immediate danger cleared off, lowered his right hand but nevertheless still held the three knives, because Mastermind was always the tricky one^.

 

“You all right, guv?”

 

Slowly, Schuldig got up to a sitting position under the scrutiny of Farfello's one good eye. The telepath breathed heavily, and would now and then clutch his head and groan through gritted teeth. When at last whatever was inflicting him subsided, he leaned back to the wall and glared at his wrist. Satisfied, Farfello placed the throwing knives back on the cloth spread before him, and went back to cleaning an axe. The padded door gave no sound as it opened, and neither of the two Assassins bothered to look up at the man silhouetted against the light from the hallway.

 

“He is all right.” Crawford more of stated than asked. Farfello looked up, gave a nonchalant nod, and then went back to sharpening the axe's razor sharp blade. There was a ghost of a smile on Crawford's face as he turned his attention to the seething mass of red hair to his left.

 

“I suppose you'll want revenge?”

 

Schuldig slowly raised his head to meet Crawford's bemused stare.

 

“Oh no Brad-agoccio, I don't want revenge.”

 

His good hand instinctively touched the mangled wrist, and Schuldig barely winced. He snarled.

 

“I want them dead.”

 

 

 

***parasitic thoughts had been something akin to an urban legend amongst the few telepaths in the world. Schuldig already met some of them long enough to kill them. It didn't do good to be a telepath among many, and if only to increase his power's value he made sure to make it as rare as possible. Parasitic thoughts are said to come from ethereal beings or legendary monsters that bank on mind-control. In Schuldig's line of work ethereal beings/monsters aren't really that rare, only none of them ever had enough time in between meeting Schuldig and dying to send him a parasitic thought.

 

^he wouldn't be worthy to be called Mastermind if he wasn't a tricky bugger to kill now would he? The Oracle cannot, so far, be killed, because he'd have already foreseen and sidestepped that, and Prodigy, once you got past the telekinesis and levitating boulders, is fairly easy to kill (he's become so dependent on his powers he never really thought of enhancing his hand to hand combat skills which is like a nerd-slap at best, and besides, he's still young). The thing is no one really gets past the telekinesis and levitating boulders. Then there's Berserker, who can never die because he has no concept of death and if he could, he would rise from the grave as a serial-killing albino Irishman zombie, which would only make things a lot more entertaining for him. He'd prove there's no imaginary Hell, for one thing, but only the real Hell which is having him come after you. Mastermind has none of those, but he does have guile, cunning, deceit and artful at his command, which can lure the best of them into thinking he was down for the count then bang! Instant death for the hero. Schuldig wouldn't be caught dead playing fair.