Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Love On A Leash ❯ Fortunes And Misfortunes ( Chapter 20 )

Love On A Leash

By: Atsureki

Disclaimers: If they were mine you wouldn't have to wait for ages for me to update, you could just watch the next episode…

Paring: Ran/Ken, Yoji/Omi

Warnings: AU, Shounen-ai, OCC, Angst, Slavery and some other stuff.

Notes: Stuff written in Italic are thoughts.

Please don't hate me for being so God damned slow. /whines/ My muse hates me enough to go around! Thankfully I found my notes from when I started this fic so I got some help there. /phew/ Now read, enjoy and savour because with my bloody luck it'll take months and months before I get the next chapter out. /sighs in defeat/

Chapter 20. Fortunes And Misfortunes

"Where are you taking me?" Yoji glanced over his shoulder. The young boy was pressing himself against the car door and looked like he thought they were going to eat him alive.

"We won't hurt you," Omi said softly and smiled. "I'm Omi-kun and that's Yoji-kun, but you can call him Yotan. What's your name?" The boy watched them suspiciously, fear still clouding his features.

"Hiko," he finally answered shyly.

"Well welcome to our family Hiko-kun," the small blonde smiled warmly and took off the heavy collar he had been wearing. "I don't know how Ken-kun stands this," he grumbled and tossed the offending ring of leather on the floor.

"We'll have to get Hiko one like yours," Yoji nodded and lit a cigarette. "I have his tag somewhere around here." Absently he dug through his pockets and eventually found the ID-tag. He handed it to Omi for safekeeping. His thoughts lingered on the scared kid and on Ken's fate. That kid had had no training so it was obvious he wasn't really a slave, at least he hadn't been before that auction.

"Ne Yotan," Omi said quietly and glanced at his lover. "What about Ken-kun?" Yoji filled his lungs with smoke and held his breath until they screamed in objection.

"We'll give him a few days, if we don't see any signs from him by then…" Omi nodded and fiddled with his shirt.

"Where's my mother?" They both looked at Hiko. The boy had tears in his eyes and his lower lip trembled.

"I don't know chibi," the tall blonde sighed sadly. "But we'll take care of you." Hiko sniffled and wiped at the tears.

"Dad told me to be a man but… but…" Omi climbed into the back seat and pulled the sobbing boy into his arms.

//

Ran glared at a huge black haired man and lit a smoke. He had already been forced to break a nose and one or two ribs to keep his ass safe, literary. His eyes were shooting death glares at anyone who tried to approach him and for the moment he was left alone.

Yoji's short visit the previous day was bothering the redhead. His cousin still hadn't heard a word from the slave and the auction had been two weeks ago. If something had gone wrong Ran didn't know how the hell they were suppose to fix it because a sale was a sale. At the moment Ken could very well be the property of some sicko, not that Kase wasn't a sicko.

Aya inhaled another load of smoke and paced the gravelled ground impatiently. Ken had to be all right! If he only could get out, then he could at least check up on the brunette by himself. The change in Ken's person was great but Ran wasn't sure how far it would take him and it didn't exactly help that the slave was doing this for him. There were too many 'ifs' running around in his head and he absolutely hated feeling so fucking helpless!

Growling to himself Ran kicked the ground. If things went as Ken had planned them the redhead was going to kiss the slave breathless and then shred Kase into tiny little pieces. Great another 'if', just what he needed at the moment. The problem wasn't just that Yoji couldn't find Ken, he couldn't seem to find Kase either. Kase had disappeared and Ran was sure he was going to stay away until the trial.

During that time any number of things could happen to Ken, if the brunette was even with Kase. Well wouldn't you know, another 'if'. The redhead snarled to himself and stomped his half smoked cigarette into the ground.

Nakamura was doing everything he could, searching high and low for a way to get Ran out. Omi was helping too since he was good with computers but so far both of them had come up empty handed.

//

Hiko had settled in nicely and was well on his way to being spoiled rotten by Yoji's housekeeper. Omi smiled at the boy whose forehead was wrinkled in concentration as he worked on the computer. They had explained the situation with Aya and Ken since the boy had asked and Omi had been surprised when he wanted to help.

For the first couple of days Hiko had been very quiet and scared but he was young and not as unaware of how lucky he had been as they had first thought. He missed his mother a lot but he seemed to have accepted that the two blondes were his new family, along with the very motherly Nippy.

"What does RS mean?" Hiko suddenly asked and his young face was turned into a frown.

"RS?" Omi mumbled and looked at the screen. He blinked in surprise. Somehow Hiko had managed to enter the database that kept track of all slaves.

"Mm," the boy confirmed and pointed. "See this list is of slaves filed as RS, like that one." He pointed at a registration number. "Slave number 12763, RS-99/03, RTO-99/04, NA/NC." Omi took a closer look and used the mouse to scroll to the top of the page.

"I've never seen this before," the small blonde admitted and frowned. "Oh here we go. RS stands for Reported Stolen."

"What about the rest?" Omi clicked on a link and read.

"Ah. It means that that slave was reported stolen in March of 99 and returned to his, or her, owner in April the same year. NA/NC stands for No Arrest/No Conviction. How did you… Doesn't matter how on second thought. But why did you access this?" Hiko clicked back a few times before the answered.

"See this is Ken-kun's file, ne?" Omi nodded after checking the registration number. "At the bottom of the page there's this hidden link," Hiko explained and moved across the seemingly empty page until the mouse's pointer turned into a hand. He clicked the invisible link and accessed a totally different file. "See? Slave number 179344 RS." The small blonde frowned again and read the information.

"This doesn't make any sense at all. Ken-kun was reported stolen but it doesn't say when nor is there anything that says he was ever returned and still his file continues like nothing happened. And shouldn't there be two reports? Aya-kun filed one too." He reached for the phone and called Aya's lawyer.

//

Things seemed to have been standing still for ages and then suddenly everything started moving like an avalanche. Nakamura was granted access, legally, to Ken's file and went straight to a judge with the information he found there. He claimed that Ran was wrongly accused since in fact he never had been Ken's rightful owner.

For a while it seemed to have backfired on them when the redhead was charged with buying stolen goods, but Nakamura wouldn't hear it. The charges were dropped like a hot potato when the cunning lawyer pointed out that not only had Ran been dealing in good faith but Ken's files had also been tampered with and Nakamura would be more than willing to find out who had done it and why. Apparently the secret behind that was big enough to make the suits shiver in fear.

After more than three months in jail Ran was free to go and he was fairly certain most people would be thrilled if they never heard his name ever again. Nakamura suspected that Kase was the one who had stolen Ken and that he with the contacts he had gained, working for Takatori, was behind the way it had just been hidden away and ignored, just like the fact that Ran's report had never been filed.

Even more interested was the fact that the law now claimed that the one responsible for Takatori's death, which was still pinned to Ken, was none other than Kase himself. But the police had no more luck in locating the man than Yoji and Omi had had.

Ran didn't return to his own apartment but made camp at his cousin's place, impatiently and worriedly waiting for Ken to surface. He had thanked young Hiko several times, since the boy was the reason he was free again. Hiko had smiled shyly at him and blushed; he did however seem very pleased with being useful.

Being out of jail was great but Ran needed Ken back, desperately. Yoji doubled his efforts, if that was even possible, and Omi spent endless nights glued to his computer. They found nothing though and it didn't make it any easer that the whole sale at the auction seemed to have been messed up, at the moment Ken wasn't owned by anyone. On the database it was clear that Ken had been sold but no new owner was listed.

Worried amethyst eyes looked out over Tokyo as their owner stood frozen in the moonlight.

"Where are you Ken?" No one answered the quiet question. With a sigh Ran returned to bed, knowing that he wouldn't get any sleep tonight either. Earlier that evening he had watched how his cousin carried a sleeping Omi to bed, the tall blonde's eyes shadowed with concern and love.

They couldn't go on like this for much longer. Yoji was about to crash from running around looking for leads and Omi was starting to rapidly lose his cheerfulness, too tired to even try to keep up the act. Ran sighed again and pulled at his ear tails. His head had started to doubt.

What if Ken had been wrong in his conviction that he was so important to Kase? What if Kase had in fact gotten his hands on the slave and simply killed him? What if Ken never even got to Kase in the first place? What if… Ken never came back? The redhead quickly banned those thoughts and shuddered. They had to find Ken! He wouldn't rest until they did!!

//

Blue lights flashed around him, people screamed and ran around like maniacs. They paid him no attention… yet. In due time they would flock around him like vultures around a carcass. He sat on the ground, huddled up in a dark corner, covered in blood from head to toe.

In his hands he gripped an innocent looking brown glove, red slowly dripping from it onto the grass. His left eye was swollen shut, his lips puffy and stinging from the tears he was crying silently. Dressed in nothing but a pair of ripped pants he shuddered in the night's cold breeze and he wanted to curl up tighter, but his body was too sore.

He whimpered slightly and started rocking back and forth. It had been an accident, sort of. It had just hurt too much to go through it again so he had defended himself, really fought back, for the first time in his life. Another sob was heard. He had never intended to kill the man and the glove was just the first thing he had reached.

Now he couldn't even remember how he had managed to pull it on and push the small metal plate that had made four claws shoot out. What he did remember though was the feeling of those razor sharp blades cutting through flesh, drawing blood, finally putting an end to the man who had tormented him for so long, taken so much from him.

"There he is!" someone yelled and he winced, cowering further into the shadows. It didn't help him; they had already found him. "He killed him! Slaughtered him!" A burly man dragged him to his feet, causing him to cry out in pain.

"Get a sample of this blood!" the man barked out and handed him over to another stranger. "And get his prints."

"Yes Sir!" Unkind hands handled him and stopped when they reached his collar. "Sir!"

"What?!"

"He's a slave." The burly man yanked his collar and forced him down on his knees.

"Well wouldn't you know, a slave who murdered his owner," he leered and twisted his hold until he got a scream of pain. "Do you know what we do with slaves who kill their owners?" The slave just whimpered, but he did know, all too well. A cruel laughter was heard and new hands pulled him up and shoved him into a car.

It was all over for him now, there was no way out anymore. The second he had killed his owner he had sealed his own doom. Because a slave guilty of murdering his or her owner was destroyed, executed without exceptions. A low sob escaped his cracked lips and his good eye closed.

"I'm sorry Aya. I'm sorry I couldn't help you…" He started rocking again, tears making more strange patterns through the blood on his face. "I'm so sorry." The car he was in started moving just as a stretcher was wheeled out. A brown eye glanced at it and a flicker of hate flashed in it. "You'll rot in hell Kase and I'll be there to watch!"

~TBC~

Oh dear! Kase is dead and Ken is… going to be?

I just have to say that what Hiko did was actually Omi's work but I couldn't help myself and I wanted Hiko to have a part here too /hugs little Hiko/

And yes this was the way it was supposed to go down with the whole getting Ran out of jail-part. Now let's see if my muse will take pity on me or if I have to beat her with a stick for a few months first /groans/ Ja/Atsureki