Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Let's get it on ❯ What would Aya do? ( Chapter 8 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Yoji continued to wait in the truck like a good dog. Aya knows what he's doing, Aya knows what he's doing, Aya knows what he's doing... Yoji repeated it under his breath like a mantra. He was pretty sure it was OK; Aya would certainly have heard the cars too, and nobody could play disappearing ninja like Aya.
 
Then the trucks started arriving. One big, military-looking one. A second big, military-looking one. A large van. People were crawling all over the loading bay.
 
Fucking hell. If that clueless psycho had known what he was doing, he never would have left the truck in the first place.
 
“Maybe I should just stay in the truck anyway,” Yoji thought. He was pretty sure he was safe here, parked in the middle of about 30 identical vehicles at least half a city block from the loading zone. Yoji wasn't even close enough to see any details. Oh, yeah; he should break out the binocular thingy...
 
Right -- as the professionals liked to say, this sucked ass. And not in a good way.
 
There were at least 50 people in there, and they were not milling around haphazardly. They were transferring weapons -- alarming weapons -- from one truck to another. They were having serious discussions. They were patrolling the loading bay in a purposeful manner.
 
“I'll handle it. Just stay in the truck.” Yoji could hear Aya's derogatory tone in his head as clearly as if his teammate were still sitting right next to him. It was especially galling because, even as he started readying himself to disobey that order, he was 98% sure it was the wrong thing to do. Not only had Aya proven many times that he more than knew how to take care of himself, but one man would be more difficult to spot than two. Especially when that one man was already in place, and the second would have to creep past a fucking legion of lawbreakers to get in. What was the technical term -- a murder of mercenaries? A bolus of bad guys? Yoji shook his head to clear it of excess whimsy.
 
The thing was, if by some fluke they *did* find Aya, Yoji needed to be close enough to help. It probably wouldn't do any good, but he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't try. Yoji sighed.
 
The trick , of course, would be getting himself over there and in position. The set-up wasn't ideal, but Yoji's skulking skills were really pretty damned good. Maybe not quite in Aya's league, but still first-rate.
 
Yoji left the truck soundlessly and crept across the parking lot. He'd seen a couple of men fan out to search the back of the building, but he should be able to take them out easily enough if he had to. It would be better to avoid them, though, since someone would notice if they didn't return.
 
He found an employee's entrance that looked like it didn't lead directly into the bay and which had an absurdly simple lock to boot. Yoji was inside in just a few moments, undetected. He was standing in a small office area, completely screened from the action. He slipped into the room in front of him and found himself in a small, dark office with an enormous window looking out over the loading dock. Not bad, Yoji thought, considering he'd had no advance information. He gave himself several minutes to catalogue the contents and structure of the bay.
 
And now it was time for a little game he enjoyed playing now and again to amuse himself. He called it “What Would Aya Do?” Pretending to be Aya, Yoji stood up straighter, jutted out his jaw, and slipped into the shadows near the window so he wouldn't be betrayed by the light reflecting off his hair. One with the darkness, Aya would calmly assess each and every threat, Yoji decided, and then do something theatrical and dangerous. Yoji looked again at the scene before him and searched for the bold, crazy way to approach the situation.
 
And there it was, a wide beam running across the bay about two floors up, maybe a third of the way across the floor. It was only accessible by about 40 feet of I-beam that a tall man could just about grab if he first climbed a huge stack of crates at the very back of the bay. The area was dark and shadowy and reasonably far away from what he wanted to stay far away from. And the main beam was wide enough to more or less obscure a crouching figure if anyone on the ground were to look up.
 
Yoji allowed himself a tight, predatory smile as he melted out of the office and along the back wall of the bay. Playing Aya was fun. Did Aya have this much fun being Aya? Sure didn't look like it.
 
Quickly and quietly scaling the mountain of boxes, Yoji caught hold of the I-beam, but only by standing on his tip-toes. Which meant Aya would have had to jump for it. Yoji refused to acknowledge the slight surge of nausea engendered by that thought, or to look down and contemplate just how much of a fall it would be -- that would violate the rules of WWAD. Aya would simply do what needed to be done, smoothly and efficiently, the thought of cracking his skull open on the floor far beneath and dying as bad guys pointed and laughed never entering his head.
 
Yoji took a deep breath and pulled himself up as close to the beam as he could; then he swung his legs up and scrabbled on top, holding on for dear life. Not exactly the graceful flip he'd seen Aya execute under similar circumstances, but they couldn't all be closet gymnasts.
 
Now for the hard part. Yoji carefully, oh so carefully, stood up and concentrated on balancing. He just needed to walk across to the main beam, and he'd be set. For the moment. It hadn't looked like such a great distance, from down below. Aya, of course, would simply stride right out there. Yoji started walking, thinking that being Aya was actually a hell of a mental and physical workout.
 
He couldn't stifle a distinctly un-Aya-like sigh of intense relief when he stepped off the I-beam. The main beam was about two feet across, which still felt a bit cramped at that height, but it was positively spacious in comparison with Yoji's previous accommodations. Now, where the hell was Aya?
 
Yoji heard the quietest of thumps behind him and turned to see Aya, crouching, having jumped down from somewhere above. While impressed, Yoji had to roll his eyes. He would never win at WWAD because Aya was a fucking maniac.
 
Leaning carefully against Yoji and whispering, barely audibly, into his ear, Aya hissed, “What the *fuck* are you doing here?” He looked extravagantly angry.
 
“I came to help you,” Yoji whispered back.
 
“*I* don't *need* any help.”
 
“You will if they notice you.”
 
“Unless you make them, they aren't *going* to notice me.”
 
Yoji looked up into the darkness from whence Aya had sprung and decided the man might have a point. “Well, when I saw the size of the force, I figured...”
 
“Oh, I know what you figured,” Aya cut him off. “Well, we can't stay here. It's below the line of lights -- they could see us from the right angle. You're going to have to climb.”
 
Yoji felt that Aya was exaggerating the danger, but when playing WWAD, it was probably best to defer to the master. Yoji reluctantly followed him back out onto the I-beam. When they got close to the wall, though, Aya seemed to disappear. What the...? Yoji looked around, leaning against the wall for support.
 
Aya's upside-down head appeared about a foot above him, looking as if it were just suspended in darkness. Yoji's well-honed reflexes allowed him to avoid falling to his immediate death, but he was fairly sure the episode had shortened his life by several years.
 
“There's a grating you can climb about six inches to your left. It'll bring you to a catwalk about four feet up,” whispered Aya's eerie disembodied head. Then it disappeared.
 
Yoji shuddered, then looked around some more. Ah -- there was always a reasonable explanation. Aya had chosen to provide directions while hanging upside down by his knees off a catwalk about 30 feet in the air. Yoji nodded to himself. Yup; clearly he had a long way to go before he'd be able to play WWAD with real flair.
 
Yoji felt for the grating and found it, cursing its flimsiness and his own generous nature for having given a damn if anything happened to Aya in the first place. He climbed to the top of the insubstantial thing and looked for the catwalk. Where was it? Surely Aya didn't mean that tiny strip of metal that looked like it was held up by erector-set parts?
 
“Come *on*,” Aya hissed.
 
Apparently he did. Yoji grabbed for it, none too pleased by the way it swayed, and pulled himself up, his hatred for Aya keeping him focused. He crouched on the catwalk, holding tightly to the slender support rails, and swore softly until his heart rate slowed. Aya was crouching next to him, looking nonchalant. Well, irritated and capable of unspeakable violence at any moment -- Aya's version of nonchalant. And the bastard wasn't even touching the railing, Yoji noticed. He fought an urge to stick out his tongue.
 
Aya leaned against him and whispered, “You should have stayed in the truck.”
 
“I'm beginning to think so myself. But it's a little late for that, so let's just move on, OK?”
 
“it's a good thing I came in. I got a lot of information I'd have missed if I'd stayed outside.”
 
“Oh, when you get emotional and deviate from the plan, it's a stroke of genius, but when I do it, I should have stayed in the truck. Do you think I'm a complete fuck-up? Is that what you think?”
 
“That isn't what I said, Yoji.”
 
“Well, you sure as hell implied it.”
 
“Yoji, stop bitching and let's concentrate on getting out of here alive, OK?”
 
“*Bitching*? Well, excuse me for not being sufficiently steely and stoic. No wonder you got so pissed off back in the truck. I know what you're thinking: Having a physical weakness for a loser like me is bad enough; it's too much to bear if the loser actually cares about you, huh?”
 
“You don't know what I'm thinking. You don't know anything but what I tell you.”
 
“You don't know how much you tell me.”
 
“Yoji, now is not the time for this. Remember all that perceived danger you ran in here to save me from? Still there. If we keep arguing like fishwives, they're going to find us.”
 
“Yes, Aya, I realize that. The problem is that no time is the time for this.” Yoji raised his voice slightly. “Talk to me, Aya.”
 
Aya's eyes widened. “Are you *threatening* me? Are you threatening to expose us if I won't discuss our relationship with you? In the middle of a mission?”
 
Yoji smiled slowly. “So, Aya, how much don't you want to talk about it?”
 
Aya looked flabbergasted -- which, Yoji decided, made all this idiocy worthwhile. “So what's it gonna be, Aya? Yes or no?” Yoji was pretty sure he saw a glimmer of respect flicker deep in Aya's eyes before he closed them and took a deep breath. “Yoji, I...” He trailed off and shrugged, that one-sided shrug reminding Yoji that Aya was still healing from a gunshot wound and shouldn't really be doing this at all -- which is why they'd only been on a fucking surveillance mission in the first place.
 
“I want you. You know that,” Aya finally said. “I just... wish I didn't.”
 
Well, Yoji had asked. Why did he keep asking?
 
“Any chance you could elaborate on that?” Yoji barely remembered to keep his voice down.
 
Aya shook his head slowly. “No. Not here.” Yoji recognized that stubborn look and realized he'd gotten as much as he was getting out of Aya for the moment.
 
Yoji sighed. “All right. But if you get yourself killed just to avoid talking about this, I'm going to be pissed off.”
 
Aya smiled slightly.
 
Yoji looked down and saw the beam he'd been standing on earlier. Aya had *jumped* down there? He really was out of his God-damned mind.