Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ New Rules, New Ruler ❯ Chapter 18

Part Eighteen

Farfarello took a while to regain consciousness after slicing himself to ribbons, but he did eventually. Nagi was kneeling next to him, carefully washing and cleaning the self-inflicted wounds. Farfarello hid the smile he knew would hurt the kid. So maybe that didn't fit with his normal personality, but Nagi was clearly so hated by God it felt right to be nice to him.

"Schuldig's gone out," Nagi informed him in a soft monotone. "We don't know when he'll be back. Crawford is displeased."

"Did ye get that information ye wanted?"

"From the Trojan? Yes. I haven't had the nerve to show it to Crawford yet."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

They sat in silence. Farfarello watched as Nagi used the remains of an old shirt to wipe the crusted blood form his chest, narrow fingers gentle on skin that couldn't feel whether he was or not. There were several areas of brown dried blood spread across the tiled floor, and a pool of congealing liquid clogging a drain in the centre of the room. The padded walls, once off white, were now off red, and even the high ceiling had a few splatters on it.

"It was bad," Nagi sighed, finally finishing Farfarello's milky skin. He leant against the clammy chest and let Farfarello take him in his arms. Nagi would only let him do this, only let him take this little familiarity. Nagi didn't like being touched. But Farfarello was okay, Farfarello was celibate, Farfarello probably couldn't do it if he wanted to, his nerve endings rendered obsolete by the unfelt pain, and therefore unfelt pleasure.

"Yes. Sometimes you can just drive happily for hours, but as soon as you hit fifth gear, bang goes the engine." Nagi flinched at Farfarello's reminder of the unhappy country he came from. He'd almost asked, once, whether Farfarello had ever contemplated joining the IRA, but at the mention of the conflict Farfarello's look had been enough to silence him on that subject forever. "Half an pound of tu'penny rice," Farfarello began to sing in a haunting whisper, "half a pound of treacle, if that's the way the money goes, pop goes the weasel."

Nagi tucked his head under Farfarello's chin, and let the older man stroke his hair as he moved on to another nursery rhyme. Just singing in a minor key was freaky enough, but taking the lyrics in the context Farfarello no doubt meant them… "Boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shi-ine as bright as day, bring your supper and bring your sweets, and come to your playfellows in the streets. Come with a whoop or come with a call, come with a good will or not at all, up the ladder and down the wall, a penny loaf will serve us all. Boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shi-ine as bright as day, bring your supper and bring your sweets, and come to your playfellows in the streets…"

"Farfarello! Nagi!" The commanding voice rang out through the apartment. Nagi sat up in Farfarello's lap, stretching carefully. Farfarello arched his back.

"What do we need with a cat, aye, when we have a Nagi to stroke and play with?" Farfarello made a meagre attempt to cheer Nagi up, seeing the look on the boy's face. It had been barely two days, and already he was extremely attached to the cat.

"Only you, Farf, only you can do that. I'd never let anyone else."

Nagi walked out of the room, the padded cell, and Farfarello pulled on a pair of trousers as he followed, oddly touched.

Crawford was pacing around the main room, arms folded across his chest. Nagi didn't flinch from the cold stare, knowing it was meant more for the absent Schuldig than it was directed at him, but as he saw himself reflected in those fathomless glasses fear was not far from him.

"We are going to do as we are told," Crawford told the brusquely. He didn't sound happy about it. "It's the only way to find out what's going on."

"I… I have found out something," Nagi ventured. "I traced the data that girl was hacking for."

"And what?"

Nagi silently handed him the sheets of paper he'd printed out. It was almost an entire ream. Crawford sighed.

"Summarise."

"They've found away to take away our powers, and to give them to other people. There were plans to convert Weiss, before. They thought Ran would put up less of a fuss if he was converted. They never perfected it.

"Then… do you remember when we were in Germany, and Tash mentioned something about psychics not having children? It turns out we're all sterilised on arrival. The children of psychics tend to be incredibly gifted with only one psychic parent. They'd never found out what happened to children with both parents psychic. It wasn't just a loyalty thing.

"Except, well, we're all exceptionally powerful, right? As are most of the `survivors'. It was what they were afraid of, really powerful psychics. Hence the excessive brainwashing. They thought that we all had at least one psychic parent. It scared them. We were supposed to die when… when…" Nagi trailed off, swallowing hard.

"There's more?" Crawford asked, a hint of gentleness creeping into his otherwise unyielding tone.

"There are a lot of undiscovered's out there. Some have had time to start families. SS only got about 70%, most of the time. And the numbers are multiplying, the statistics seem to indicate." Nagi's speech patterns became more and more irregular as he became distraught and grew more distracted. "It's worldwide, it's a bit thing. Worldwide. Everywhere. It's a mutation. We're freaks!"

"We already knew that," Farfarello observed wryly. Nagi's mouth snapped shut.

"Yes, I guess so. Anyway, that's not the worst. There were a lot of personal files in there, including all of us, Tanya and Tash. The five most powerful psychics left in this world. There's some question as to where our talents come from, they seem to think that at least one of us may have had a psychic parent, but they couldn't back it up at the time. Tanya definitely did… does? Tash… Tash was an experiment, an SS experiment. Tash, she had both parents psychic. She's more than psychic. I… I don't know what you'd call it. SS didn't either. They kept trying to kill her.

"Crawford, Brad… They couldn't. Her power is phenomenal. Apparantly, most Telempath's can't override other people's emotions. It's supposed to be a passive talent! Tanya had one psychic parent, and we all know how powerful she is. So how come she has to take so many precautions to prevent overloading, but Tash can wander around in any city of the world without trouble?"

Nagi stared at Crawford, who was taking this in numbly. "At least there have been no indications of hostile intent," he finally muttered. "And I suppose she finally knows all this?"

"I… I think she may have before. The file hints at SS's attempt to kill her. They weren't particularly subtle. It doesn't go into detail though. There's… gaps."

"You are implying someone got in first? Deleted the relevant information?"

"I think… I think it went out when the ancients did. A lot of stuff disappeared then. They actually had links to some of the most dangerous documents."

"So Tanya's searches are likely to be somewhat fruitless?"

"I don't know. What they considered important and what Tanya does seem to be different things. "

"If we knew what she wanted with SS we could make an estimate at what she's looking for, but we don't. I just wonder… what will Tash do now? She knows she has the power to do whatever she wants."

"She's friendly, really. She's a telempath, Crawford. All she wants is for the people around her to be happy. I don't think she's going to be much of danger, yet, at any rate."

"Hmmm…" Crawford weighed the ream of paper in one hand, an introspective look on his face. "Are the files in here? The personal files?"

"Yessir."

"Thank you, Nagi. Please inform me when Schuldig returns. We will have to be on our guards when we make our way to the Koneko. Tanya intends to join us with Weiss."

Nagi's jaw dropped. Farfarello raised an eyebrow. "That won't go down well," he observed. Crawford just shook his head, whether in disagreement with Farfarello's statement or at the folly of Tanya's plan, Nagi couldn't determine, and walked into his office.

"Our case files?" Farfarello questioned.

"Uh-huh." Nagi slumped against a handy wall.

"Did you read them?"

"Skimmed, a little," Nagi admitted.

"Anything… interesting?" Farfarello's grin was positively feral, and Nagi suddenly felt a cold shiver run like iced water down his spine. He hadn't to think what Farfarello could do with some of the stuff he had found.

"I just skimmed," Nagi insisted, "I didn't intrude."

Farfarello's look said more than his enigmatic statement: "There is a difference between intrusion and trespassing."