Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ In The Shadows, In The Light ❯ Interlude 10 ( Chapter 21 )

Author's Notes: All Weiss Kreutz stuff/characters are not owned by me and all rights apply to the lucky bastards who do own them. I make absolutely nothing off this except gratification of my own sick and twisted desires.

 

Thanks goes to my beta on this. It's greatly appreciated.

 

~ indicates character POV

** indicates internal conversation.

 

 

Interlude 10

 

~Brad~

 

The news that Yohji could indeed boost the members of Schwartz was more welcome than anyone knew. Time was starting to become a problem. I'd had another vision. The Cleaners were now on the horizon. I just didn't have a time frame of when.

 

Something was… wrong with the vision.

 

Instead of being mildly confusing, the vision was distorted. It was disjointed and made even less sense than normal. The vision remade itself several times within just that initial burst of images. I never had a false vision. Never. But this vision, the outcome changed several times as if even Fate didn't know what was going to happen. I'd never had that happen to me before.

 

My only explanation was that because I'd pushed my team on Weiss and made the deal to try and boost us to defeat the Cleaners; too many things were changing in the future to be shown to me as a definitive outcome. Yohji was a wild card that I was trying to play to our advantage. That was screwing up the things Fate had planned for us all.

 

I know I smiled evilly at that thought.

 

Omi and Ken trailed me to the TV room. Aya, Yohji and Schuldig were already seated and waiting for us although Aya was studiously ignoring Schuldig's touches. Considering what Schuldig had done, I was surprised that Fujimiya limited himself to simply ignoring the man. Then again, snubbing Schuldig was guaranteed to piss him off. I always knew Abyssinian was a smart man. Nagi preceded me into the room and took up a seat where he could watch the room. The only one missing was Farfarello but he was drugged to the gills and wouldn't wake up for a long while yet.

 

“While you were both gone, there was an incident. Yohji managed to boost Farfarello. I'm not sure by how much but the fact that he did do it is very encouraging,” I began.

 

Ken asked as he stared at his teammate in surprise. “Why pick that crazy bastard to boost, Yohji?”

 

“I didn't do it on purpose,” Yohji protested.

 

I held up my hand for silence, mildly surprised when I actually got it.

 

“It was an accident but I believe it may be the key for us to make this work as quickly as possible. Crunch time is coming. I've had another vision. One about the Cleaners this time but it's distorted and not clear.”

 

“You said it starts with a kiss. What kind of bullshit is that?” Ken asked with a scowl.

 

“Yohji kissed Farfarello and boosted him,” Nagi said in a matter of fact voice.

 

Both Ken and Omi gaped at their team mate. Yohji blushed and tried to stammer out a defence. Schuldig snickered at the shocked expressions and Aya remained stoic but his hand crept over Yohji's and gave it a squeeze. Aya continued to pointedly ignore Schuldig.

 

“Apparently, Farfarello literally ran into Yohji after he was returning from a little… tryst with Aya and Schuldig. They fell to the floor and somehow wound up touching their lips together. The theory right now is that because Yohji had some excess energy and was dazed from the collision, he unconsciously boosted Farfarello. Farfarello's Talent has now been boosted but I'm not sure by how much or if it's temporary or a more permanent thing. We'll know when he wakes up.”

 

“Wakes up? Was the… er… power Yohji gave Farfarello strong enough to knock him out?” Omi asked with more than a little curiosity.

 

“Farf has Talent? You're not serious.” Schuldig snorted. “Is that why he was babbling? He's never shown so much as a psychic twitch and I've been in his head. I'd know if he had Talent.”

 

“He represses it hard, Schuldig. The babbling, as you call it, is actually Gaelic. In times of extreme stress, Farfarello tends to revert to the language he spoke as a child. I believe a good number of his psychotic episodes are driven by his Talent. It wasn't useful at the time to Esset, so no mention was ever made of it. We generally wouldn't use it on mission either, so I saw no need to tell you about it.”

 

“So what is his Talent, Brad? And why does he wear an eye patch if he still has an eye?” Schuldig asked.

 

“Farfarello sees what most people don't and wouldn't want to. He sees the dead. He hears them too. But not only that, Farfarello also sees demons and angels. The real deal as far as Esset was able to tell. As long as his grey eye is covered, he can't see or hear spirit beings. I don't know why it works that way, it just does. But with the boost from Yohji, he apparently hears them now even when his eye is closed or covered.”

 

“You have got to be shitting us,” Ken scoffed.

 

“I'm afraid not. The Cleaners will come and as long as Nagi, Schuldig and I are boosted, we'll be able to mop up the floor with them. I know that for certain. The problem is, that won't be the end of it. Schwartz isn't strong enough as is to take out a team of Cleaners unaided. People higher up the food chain know this. Teams are designed that way so the Cleaners can operate without problems.”

 

“They'll send the other things, darker things, after us when the Cleaners fail, won't they?” Nagi asked quietly, fear putting a faint tremor in his voice.

 

Heads whipped around to stare at Nagi.

 

~Nagi~

 

As soon as Brad explained about Farfarello's Talent and how teams were designed to not be able to stand up to the Cleaners, I knew what would happen when we managed to kill the Cleaners sent after us. The other things I'd read about in confidential files would come for us. It was those other things that were the reason Brad wanted us all boosted but Farfarello most of all.

 

Psionics wasn't the only field of interest Rosencrantz had. They dabbled in many different areas of the occult. According to the files I'd read, they experimented for years to create a foot soldier that would keep functioning despite serious damage. The other things they would send out after us were the fruits of those labours.

 

Meat puppets were the best terms to use although zombie wouldn't be too far off the mark.

 

The people Rosencrantz recruited who failed to meet standards became these meat puppets. Medically terminated and brought back to life with only the barest brain function to drive a body forward and run the basic bodily functions. Other, specially trained Talents pulled the strings of these creatures to do the bidding of our masters. A telepath would be of no use on one of these meat puppets. There had to be a functioning mind for them to work their Talent on.

 

But someone who had a connection with the dead….

 

“Can Farfarello control the dead? That is what you intend him to do, right?” I asked.

 

“I'm hoping like hell he can. I know that before the boost he could get the dead to give information to him. He could send them to do simple tasks for him. He could even control the newly dead for a brief period of time. I think with a boost, he may be able to control them for long periods of time, maybe even permanently. Like a voodun priestess controls any zombies she raises. I don't know if it'll work that way, though. We might lose him to insanity first but it's the only thing I can think of that might save our collective asses,” Brad said.

 

The room went quiet as we all tried to digest the information that Farfarello might be the one to save us. I know I wasn't the only one in the room who was uncomfortable with placing his fate in the hands of a mad man. But, given what I knew about these meat puppets, I was willing to take that chance. I was sure that once Brad fully explained about the meat puppets, Weiss was going to be all for boosting everybody as much as possible.