Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Neutral Territory ❯ A New Mission for Weiss ( Chapter 4 )

Title: Neutral Territory [part 4/?]

Author: Enigma

Written: begun October, 2001

Rating: R

Pairings: (Omi + Nagi) (Yohji + Ken) (Brad + Schu)

Category: Shonen ai/Yaoi Angst Friendship Romance Action Violence. AU-OOC. Giftfic.

Archive: fanfiction.net & mediaminer.org [author: "E-sama the Llama"] plus Wuffie.net [author: "Enigma"]

Warnings: shonen ai/yaoi, angst, masculine friendship in many forms, various levels of romance, action, coarse language, whiffs of citrus but nothing detailed, possibly graphic violence, bloodshed, tiny bits of humor, fluff, and sap; more warnings will be added as necessary. AU-OOC. Giftfic for Rubious.

Spoilers: Aya's sister's condition and a few other small things, nothing major.

Disclaimer: "Weiss Kreuz" is the property of Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiss. All original characters featured herein (including but not limited to: Glocksten, Charon, etc.) are © Enigma, 2003, and are not to be used without permission. This unauthorized work of fanfiction is intended for entertainment only; kindly do not sue me.

Notes: Omi's first trip to the public library results in an unexpected meeting when Nagi saves his life without being aware of the Weiss archer's identity. Can two lonely teens overcome the limits of their dark purpose in life to find friendship and possibly love in the midst of "neutral territory"?

//thoughts//

{{mental speech}}

*****

Monday evening. Weiss mission headquarters.

*****

A few minutes later, the atmosphere of the basement living room-cum-operations center of the Koneko no Sumu Ie was understandably tense.

Aya leaned against a wall, arms crossed over his orange turtleneck and doing his best to look disinterested as Omi and Ken sat on the couch patiently waiting while Yohji turned down the lights and Manx slid the videotape into the player.

"Before I start the message from Persia, let me mention something," the flame-haired woman commented casually. "This mission seems far more complicated than it really is."

An elegant red eyebrow rose in response to this, but Aya refrained from commenting. He wondered why a warning of this sort was needed, but after the nightmarish assignment the team had finished the week before--identifying the source of falsified visas that had allowed a flood of foreign criminals to enter Japan had been far more difficult than anticipated--he realized it might be appropriate. The effort of tracking down the bastards involved had left their tactician almost incapacitated and could've ended much worse for everyone than it did.

On a dark night in a decaying neighborhood, Yohji had been given point once the four assassins were inside the broken down office building that had been used to produce the illegal documents. For once there was no small army of guards awaiting them yet there was no way to be certain their luck would hold after the two lowly underlings they'd initially encountered were dispatched. The four teammates stayed on edge even as the former detective took his position and stood guard to protect the others as the mission objectives were fulfilled.

Both Aya and Ken had then been free to accompany the youngest member of Weiss to the surprisingly secure data core that they needed to access fully and download for Kritiker's analysts to deal with later. The two older assassins were careful to watch over the exhausted boy while he worked feverishly, gathering the required information and then destroying the entire system including the printing presses.

On the way back to their vehicles after the mission, Omi had collapsed into Ken's arms, so deeply asleep that the brunette had at first feared he was unconscious. Luckily, after nearly twenty-four hours of solid rest, the blue-eyed teen had been able to recover enough to complain about being "mothered" by his teammates and he had only returned to full strength the day before the unexpected meeting with Nagi.

After letting the men contemplate her words, Manx glanced at them each one at a time and added in a more gentle yet equally serious tone, "If we'd had a chance to let this assignment wait, we would have. But the main target is apparently considering relocating his operation to Osaka, and while sending you four there isn't out of the question, it is certainly not optimal."

"So, who *is* the target this time, Manx?" Ken asked in his usual blunt fashion, not willing to wait for the briefing to get underway properly. Catching a glare of rebuke from the redheaded woman, he amended, "Or rather, how much time do we get before the rat in question jumps ship?"

"Why don't we let Persia explain it, Siberian?" She accepted his nod and hit the button on the VCR remote. The wide-screen television lit up with the typical fuzzy image of a heavily-shadowed man and his deep voice began to give them the information that they needed.

"Good evening Weiss. We have need of your skills to help end the misery of hundreds of children and their families. This is Karl Glocksten, a 27 year-old native of Munich, Germany, currently in Japan on an extended business visa."

The image on the screen flickered and was replaced by that of an effeminate man, not wholly unattractive, but clearly more in love with himself than anyone else. Golden brown hair hung to his shoulders in loose waves and piercing hazel eyes focused on an unfortunate man whom the camera only caught from behind. There was no sound to accompany the images, but it was clear that Glocksten was displeased with whomever it was he was speaking with.

Negligently, the German twirled a lock of his hair around one finger even as he indicated to a nearby, heavy-set Japanese man to shoot to kill the person in front of them, something that was done without hesitation or question. Glocksten laughed and tossed his hair back, revealing striking onyx earrings which had some strange design carved into them that the camera failed to record dangling from his ears. He and the oriental man then turned and walked away from the corpse without so much as a second glance immediately before the film ended and Persia's image returned to the screen.

"What you have just observed is surveillance footage obtained at great risk and from a vantage point where nothing could be done to prevent the summary execution of the police detective you just saw die. Note that Glocksten's accomplice is known simply as 'Charon', and is your secondary target."

Still photos appeared ever so briefly as Persia's voice finally divulged the nature of the men they were being sent to kill. "Your targets are vile creatures. Glocksten is the ringleader of a child slavery and prostitution ring believed to be responsible for the abduction and disappearance of over 300 children in the Tokyo area alone in the last three years and possibly hundreds more elsewhere. Charon is a cold-blooded contract killer who has destroyed an unknown number of victims, but he is credited with murdering over twenty-five law enforcement officials from several regions of Japan over the last ten years. His elusive behavior in the past protected him, however. Now that he has allied himself with Glocksten, we have an opportunity to destroy him as well.

"All previous attempts to apprehend either of these men have failed and you are our last hope." The shadowed figure on the screen rose to it feet and exhorted, "Hunters of the night, deny these dark beasts their tomorrows!" [1]

Manx flicked the lights back up and glanced around the room to take in the reactions on the four assassin's faces. She was pleased to see that they looked angry and more than ready to get involved in the assignment as she held up a manila envelope, asking, "Who's in on this case? Balinese?"

"As always," Yohji tried to sound casual and then dropped the act, growling as he paced in the back of the room, "but not necessarily in the order that Persia wants. That fucking asshole Charon killed three of my best buddies on the force while I was still a private investigator. I never thought I'd see a day that I might be able to avenge them and you can bet I'm going for blood on this one."

"Fair enough." The woman nodded, then turned and asked unnecessarily, "Siberian?"

"Of course I'm in," Ken snarled angrily from his spot on the couch. Children held a special spot in the former J-league player's heart and whenever they came across a villain that did anything to infringe on them, he was always ready to take his chances and go in claws slashing. "Any time we can put someone like this out of commission you know that I'm 'in', Manx, so don't give it a second thought."

What might have been a smile crossed the woman's lips but it faded immediately as she turned to Omi and asked, "What about you, Bombay? Are you going to be up to an assignment after last week?"

Cerulean eyes rolled in annoyance and didn't look the least bit happy as even the youngest nodded firmly, "I'm not made of glass, Manx, you of all people know that. And, yes, I'll be glad to help out." He rose and walked towards her, hand out in silent request for the small package she still held. [2]

"Good," Manx finally did smile as she handed him the envelope of data and random bits of information that she had scavenged from the various failed investigations into both of the criminals' heinous activities over the past few years.

There wasn't anything there that the other Kritiker agents could piece together, but none of their detectives were of Bombay's caliber when it came to solving puzzles like this one. They knew Glocksten had various contacts in the Tokyo underground and that he had even attended a few public gatherings of his "peers", but there was no information at all on his physical base of operations. It would be up to Omi to sort the tidbits of information, weed out the useless ones and then find the missing data to provide the Weiss team with a firing solution, in other words, a time and a place to assassinate the bastard and hopefully Charon, as well.

Showing Aya the consideration due him as field leader of the group, Manx simply looked at the swordsman as he leaned against the wall lost in thought. "Well, Abyssinian? I already know your answer just by the look of you, so what's the problem? What's on your mind?"

Eyes like shards of violet ice rose to stare at her and Aya asked, "Does Glocksten have any connections to Takatori? Or this, what did you call him? The shooter?"

"'Charon'. Named after the ferryman for the dead on the river Styx in Greek mythology," Yohji offered in an annoyed tone. "The bastard can't even stick to his own heritage for taking an alias. Another good reason to eliminate him."

Ken bit back an urge to move to comfort his lover even as Yohji dropped gracelessly into a chair and glared at the motionless screen, staring at it as if it still held the face of the man he had every intention of seeing dead as soon as possible. Revenge was within reach if Omi could track the men down and Yohji's temporarily gathered anger only caused him a headache at this point.

Aya, however, was unaware of his friends' various emotional responses as he repeated, "Do either of them have connections to Takatori or not, Manx?"

Manx looked at him with a mixture of apology and vindication. She knew that saying "yes" would put Aya on the case more firmly than he would be otherwise, but it would not be a complete truth. Taking a breath, she explained, "Yes and no, Abyssinian. Glocksten's been know to provide, 'resources' shall we say, to some of his son's more bizarre experiments, in the form of the bodies of the older children, both boys and girls, who couldn't take the pressures of the lifestyle he forced upon them. He's also been seen at various functions that it was later rumored that Takatori had attended in secret, but nothing more specific. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, it does," Aya replied. With an almost eager gleam in his eye, he stated, "In other words, we *might* run into *him* depending on what Bombay can provide for a rendezvous to kill Glocksten. But what about Charon? Anything there?"

"No, nothing at all," Manx frowned. Like Yohji, she, too, had lost people she cared for to the murderer and would've liked nothing more than to whet Aya's appetite for blood regarding him, too, but she wouldn't lie. "In fact, part of the reason he's been so hard to track for so long is that this is the first time he's ever actually entered a partnership of any kind with a notable target that we've been aware of. He's always been independent, taking contracts as they came from the yakuza, angry people whose hatred towards the police made them demand blood, or whomever. Charon really made a mistake this time by linking up with Glocksten, we can only hope he doesn't realize it before you get a chance to nail them both, ne?"

"Right," Ken said firmly, glancing at Omi who was already sorting the slips of paper with data and information into various piles and was lost in thought. "Hey, Omi? Want some help with that or should I escort Manx back to her car?"

Manx snorted in a most unladylike manner and gave him a harsh look, "And since when do you think that *I* need to be walked to my car, Siberian?"

Yohji glanced up, his emerald eyes smiling slightly at his lover as he stated, "Since Kenken realizes that I'm busy being too pissed off over here to act like a gentleman, Manx. Lighten up for once, would ya? Don't act like we haven't got any manners around here."

The tension in the air seemed to bend if not break as she finally laughed a little and nodded, "All right, I'll give you that, Balinese. You do indeed usually offer to walk me back to my car in the alley, but I thought that was so you could grab a cigarette before coming back in."

Clutching at his chest dramatically in response to this statement, Yohji gasped, "You question my noble intentions? You wound me to the very core, woman!"

Then the wire-wielding assassin laughed a little and climbed to his feet, smirking slightly as he took her gently by the arm and guided her towards the spiral staircase back to the ground floor. "Well, that being the case and all, we shouldn't risk ruining our run of good luck by changing a tradition, now should we?" As they went up the stairs, he called over one shoulder, "I'll be back down in a bit, guys."

"No rush, Yohji-kun" Omi answered, turning one slip of paper from side to side and frowning before tossing it into the confidential waste. He saw the strange looks he was getting from his teammates and shrugged, "It read one thing when I held it one way and another entirely different thing when I turned it 180 degrees. It was useless, Ken-kun, Aya-kun."

"Hn," the redhead grunted and fished the fragment back out of the trash and handed it to Omi purposefully. "Keep it anyway. It might make more sense later and I know that Yohji would never forgive any of us if we missed a chance at Charon."

Chastened, Omi looked away, guilt displayed on his features as he put it into a pocket of his jeans for further consideration in the future, then went back to separating the information he'd been given into the numerous, seemingly random piles he was developing.

Ken sighed and offered, "Why don't I go get us some tea? I know that Yohji's going to want to look over whatever info Kritiker already has on these two. After he does that, though, who knows? We might be going off to look for one of his favorite snitches or something later."

"Don't," Aya cautioned firmly. "If you need to get him to blow off some steam, go hit a club. Let's not do anything to let the targets know that they're being hunted."

"Sure thing, Aya," Ken agreed heading off in search of something for them to drink even as Omi booted up the computer, fingers flying as the password screen came to life displaying an imposing white cross and reminding them all who they really were.

For a fraction of a moment, the image of Omi's guilt-ridden face reappeared in Aya's mind and he considered apologizing for his unnecessarily harsh words to the young archer. But as quickly as it appeared, the thought vanished as his mind turned to the darker realities that they would all face. He asked quietly, "Was there anything in that information that indicates how long Kritiker thinks the targets will stay in the area?"

"Yes," Omi responded, never looking away from the computer as he flashed through screen after screen of information that would've made precious little sense to anyone but himself at the speed he was going. "There was a notation that Glocksten has tickets for a flight out of Narita Airport in ten days. This should give us more than enough time to take care of him as long as he doesn't know we're coming."

"And if he does know," Aya added flatly, "then we're as good as dead anyway. Anyone that can bring Charon over to his side probably has other equally deadly henchmen working for him too, right?"

Omi nodded and glanced over his shoulder darkly. "That's about the size of it. As soon as the others get back, I'll let you know a few physical details on these guys and then I'll get serious about tracking them down."

"Understood," Aya's voice hadn't warmed despite the fact that he would rather that it had. But once in "mission-mode"--as the others called it only half-mockingly--the man with the single lengthy golden earring would be hard pressed to let much of his humanity come forth despite knowing the confrontation with the enemy was days away.

Even as Aya stood behind him and watched data stream past at an outrageous rate, Omi silently acknowledged that this was going to be a difficult task. He was more reasonable about what he expected to achieve with the small amount of information available and knew it would take time and patience to assemble everything they needed to eliminate the two targets who deserved the deaths that they would meet at the hands of Weiss.

Despite his dedication to the mission, though, the young blond was also thinking of his own personal plans for the next day when completing a previously undesirable school assignment would allow him to see a new friend who was actually an old enemy.

Omi couldn't actually recall a time when he'd been looking forward to something the way he did seeing Nagi again and talking more. The Schwarz telekinetic intrigued him and was the only one outside Weiss that he knew would understand some of the darker burdens that he carried. Not that he hoped they'd talk about those types of things, not at all, he just knew that the usually unspoken truths about them would be understood and that could make it one of the most honest friendships he'd had in years.

*****

To be continued.

Author's Notes:

[1] I was sorely tempted to rewrite Persia's infamous "call to arms" so it wouldn't sound so hokey, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so. The wording here is as per the subtitles for episode 10 on the second Media Blasters "Weiss Kreuz" DVD and isn't as bad as some of the other versions I've seen.

[2] Since I don't want to include spoilers that can be avoided, for those of you who have seen the series and are wondering why the secret revealed in episode 7 isn't causing Omi sorrow here, please assume this takes place before that happened.

[Posting Run Dedication for Chapters 3 & 4] This evening's posting run is hereby dedicated to my kitten, Ryoko. Our evil German bishounen is loosely based on a narcissistic ex-boyfriend of hers and I thought it might be nice for her to get to watch the florist/assassins hunt him down and kill him off. As to whether or not Weiss gets to actually do that remains to be seen, though, since the battle scene remains in the vast outline for the uncompleted portions of this story.