Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections ❯ Found? ( Chapter 4 )

Reflections: Found?

Chapter Four

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by L.A. Mason.

Standard disclaimer applies: No copyright infringement intended. No profit being made or sought.

Okay, Ken would have to be the first to admit to himself that he was having a bad thought: at that moment, more than anything else, he wished that Aya was wearing a strait-jacket instead of a hospital gown, because the man had to be certifiable. Much though he wanted to ask the redhead where that declaration, `I won't let you kill him. Enemy or not, killing is wrong' had come from, now was not the time or the place. The intruders would be clear of the bottleneck presented by the stairs in a matter of seconds; he had to act now or risk losing the chance that could save their lives. He growled, "Aya. Back off."

Weaving with exhaustion, Aya's determination was unshakable. Obstinate, he glared, eyes sparking fire, until they abruptly rolled up inside his skull and he folded in ungainly unconsciousness to the tiled floor. Ken let him fall, shoving away the uncharitable thought of Serves you right! in favor of a headlong dive for an abandoned semi-automatic lying in the gore. Tucked, he hit on his shoulder, coming perilously close to skidding into the base of the massive Vulcan stove. Its solid, brushed steel front rang like a gong as one of the enemy's bullets struck it a glancing blow. With both hands, Ken swept the gun up and fired blindly.

A body tumbled limply down the final few steps to sprawl on the kitchen floor. It came to rest half on top of Aya's, blood leaving livid streaks across the white tiles. The remaining assailant fired a parting shot that put a four-inch hole into the front of a defenseless cabinet door and retreated back up the stairs, leaving Weiss in possession of the wrecked kitchen.

With Aya down for the count, the soccer player turned to Omi and Yohji. At least that situation had resolved itself without intervention; the frazzled teen was kneeling with the older man huddled against him, crying softly, face buried against his chest. Without a doubt, the kid was looking the worse for wear, too, with a collection of nasty bruises blooming across his exposed skin, and blood splattered everywhere. To be honest, they were all getting kind of shabby. But at least being unconscious had knocked the fight out of Aya. Ken shook his head slightly. To paraphrase, the man's spirit was pretty damned stubborn, but the body was weak. A good thing, because the athlete didn't think he could have stopped the man if he had made up his mind to stick with his asinine `no kill' thing. Instinct said that there was no point in pursuing the enemy that had got away, because he wasn't alone. They had at most a couple minutes before the reinforcements hit. They needed to leave before the outsiders could come back and finish them off. Then, and only then, would Ken allow himself to think about his partner's bizarre behavior. Forcing briskness into his voice, he demanded, "So what's the matter with Kudou, anyway?"

Omi shook his head. "It's hard to say. It looks like he took a major hit to the head. Plus, he keeps saying that he killed Asuka… I guess one of the bodies looks like hers. Or something."

"Great. Just… great." The soccer player bit back the f-word, striving for the control he normally used when dealing with the mob of kids that he coached. Later. Later, he was going to beat the tar out of Aya for his stupid stunt, and maybe wipe the floor with Yohji, too. He scowled fiercely at Omi, just waiting for the youngest member of his team to contribute so that he could plan on a clean sweep. The boy blanched beneath the dirt and blood plastered across his face, and held up a hand in self-defense.

"Not going there." he said fervently. "I'm good. Honest."

"Yeah." Ken snorted. He nodded toward the solid door that led down to the garage. "Move it, Bombay."

Omi hustled to his feet, drawing Yohji up along with him, and steering the staggering man toward the door. Ken rifled through the clothing of the nearest couple of the intruders, not surprisingly finding nothing of use. All of them carried clips of ammo tucked inside a web belt strung with small pouches, together with an assortment of other goodies: small ready-made plastique charges, lock-picks, a mini-Mag flashlight… But no ID, no convenient post-it notes with the address and phone number of their secret hide-out. Nothing that would tell him who they were and how they had gotten to the safe house, or what they had in mind to do now that they were there. Beyond killing Aya and his teammates. The athlete suppressed the urge to kick the head of the last corpse like a soccer ball.

A solid whump from somewhere above in the house made Ken stuff the handful of loot into his jeans pocket and grab Aya under the armpits. It took some serious effort to haul the tall man's dead weight up off the floor and back into place over his shoulder. Ken staggered a little, off-balance from the surprising weight of the lean swordsman, and handicapped by needing a hand to hold onto Aya's beloved katana. Omi was waiting with a blatantly anxious expression at the open door to the stairs that would take them another level down.

"You're leaving footprints…" Omi commented. Damn. The bloody tracks meant that the enemy wouldn't waste any time exploring the other doors that led off the kitchen to storerooms and the staff apartments. Well, it couldn't be helped; acrid smoke was rolling down the stairs to the kitchen. The fact that it wasn't rising with heat the way smoke from a fire would made it abundantly clear that this was not something that they would want to hang around to breathe. Omi yanked the heavy panel shut behind them, and shot the bolts through into the floor and ceiling. Nothing short of heavy equipment was going to be opening that door. Or the explosive charges that the invaders had on them.

"Hey," Ken gasped, jerking Aya's dead weight a little higher onto his shoulder. "They'll blow the door."

Nodding, the kid didn't seem surprised. It was what he would have done. "Down." he ordered. Then Omi slid past the older boy, rattling down the stairs and propping open the next door long enough for them to pass him. Yohji was already in the garage, leaning against the big black car, his face buried in his folded arms. The grate and thump of the bolts being slammed home to secure the lower entrance told Ken exactly where and what their hacker was doing. A bone-deep roar confused him, though, as did the broad smirk on the kid's face as he dashed past to get the backseat door for Aya.

"Collapsed the tunnel." Omi said with a pleased grin. "Let's see how much good their little bitty charges do them now."

Reasonable. The enemy would hopefully waste a few minutes on the now impassible stairs. With a little more luck, they wouldn't have a chance to get into a position that would hem in the car's escape. It was distinctly reassuring to know that the brainy blond was on their side. Ken folded Aya into the back, scrambling in beside him, as Omi pushed and pulled Yohji to the front passenger side seat before running around the vehicle to the driver's door. It ought to bother him that the seventeen-year-old was the one who was going to be driving, but Ken barely felt a twitch. Social conditioning might make him stress about having an underage driver, but his gut knew that Omi was second only to Yohji in his ability to handle a vehicle like the big Town Car. Although, it was sort of funny to watch him wrestle the seat as far forward as it could go to accommodate his shorter stature.

Omi ignored the obvious ramp up to the official garage door, instead driving between two massive support pillars and into a darkened passage that nearly scrapped the sides of the car. He didn't bother turning on the car's headlights, trusting to instinct to shoot him up a steep slope that would have done a ski hill proud. The doors of the back exit slid to the sides, and the glossy black car bounced over a row of low evergreen shrubs, heading for freedom. Flames were leaping behind them, turning the sky and landscape orange and red in a lurid parody of the fading sunset. Omi swerved around a half-seen SUV parked between two trees, and gunned the engine. Shots pinged off the car's body and rear window.

Their route took them bouncing across grass, and between trees that loomed suddenly out of the growing dusk. Before Ken could shout in alarm, Omi finally turned on the headlights, but in a way, that made their careening rush more heart-stopping. The worst part was that Yohji hadn't said a word, just huddled deeper into the embrace of the front seat. That apathy was somewhere between out-of-character, and downright terrifying.

Growling, the kid floored it and flew straight at a section of the fence bordering the estate. The car bounced once more, lurched, and went briefly airborne as they crashed through the chain link mesh. There was frightening moment when the dragged fencing threatened to tangle around the car, but it tore free as they skidded onto a narrow road. The car fishtailed, then settled into a smooth, proper retreat that - hopefully - wouldn't attract them the attention of non-combatants. Within minutes, they merged into the stream of cars flowing toward the distant light of Tokyo.

******************

Ken woke from a light doze with a jerk, and cursed softly. He had intended to stay awake, to take both shotgun and rearguard since neither Yohji nor Aya were up to the task. Irritably rubbing his stiff neck, he met Omi's eyes in the rearview mirror as patches of light from the street lamps alternately illuminated and concealed, and winced as the kid gave him a small smile.

"It's okay, Ken-kun. No one had managed to catch up before we were lost in the traffic on the freeway. We'll be at a drop-point where we can switch cars in a few minutes. And after that, it's only about a half-hour to a new safe house."

Trust the boy to know exactly what he was obsessing about, and to both answer his unasked questions, and to not blame him for falling asleep. It made him wince guiltily, though. Omi had to be every bit as wrung out, now that the adrenaline rush of the fight had worn off. "Hey, you want me to drive for a while?"

"Not right now. Maybe after we switch cars, if you want." Omi checked the adjacent lane, signaled, and slid the big car smoothly over. They were matching the speed of the flow of traffic, hiding in plain sight by being exactly like everyone else, although the black Town Car with its heavily tinted windows was hardly ordinary. Eyes flicking to the mirror again, the younger assassin caught his disgusted look, and grinned. "We need one of those little flags diplomats put on their cars, don't we?"

The thought of how silly that would look surprised a bark of laughter out Ken. "Oh, please! We need to attract less attention, not more."

"Eh… It might work… People see what they want to see. If they see `diplomats,' they won't see `blood-stained guys fleeing assassination attempt.' " Yohji's voice, sounding groggy and strung out, but sane, joined in. The lanky man rolled his head and neck against the plush upholstery, even more miserable than Ken for having slept in the moving vehicle. He continued with unwonted seriousness, "How long was I out for?"

Omi's answer was oblique. "They hit Aya's room right about sunset… say 5:45. It was nearly full dark when we got out of there. Maybe 6:00? I didn't look at the clock until later, after I'd been driving around for a while… but it's coming up on midnight, now."

The former detective responded to the implied request with more contrition than normal, still beating himself up over what he perceived as his failure to hold his own during the assault. "I… ah, I guess it was about the same time. I went down to the kitchen, and was going through the fridge when I felt somebody come up behind me… Never try to garrote a wire man, ya know? I took the first one down, but there were more of them… I got whacked upside the head before I could yell. I think I was still fighting, but…" His voice died away in a soft, choked moan and the man buried his face in his hands.

A chill ran down Ken's spine. Yohji had fought, and apparently done pretty well, if the number of bodies and amount of blood strewn about the shiny steel kitchen were any indication. But thanks to the distraction that his dead ex represented, he could have died all the same. He opened his mouth to say something to that effect, but Omi's image in the mirror shook its head warningly. Ken grunted and looked away, distracting himself by checking on Aya instead.

The tall redhead was huddled into a surprisingly small space, shivering a bit as if he was cold, despite the fact that Omi had turned the car's heat up until it was almost uncomfortable from Ken's point of view. Still, Yohji seemed shocky, and God knew Aya was far from being well enough, even if he hadn't been dressed in a stupid powder blue hospital gown. Ken supposed he would just have to tough it out, especially when the unconscious man let out a tiny whimper, as if he were in pain, or maybe tormented by a nightmare. Tensing in anticipation of a counter-attack, Ken pressed his palm to Aya's forehead. No fever, which upped the odds on it being just a bad dream; as if any of them just had bad dreams anymore. He shook his head slightly at that, and withdrew to his side of the car. There was no point in tempting fate by continuing to touch when he shouldn't.

Aya was definitely thinner than he remembered.

Ken rubbed his own forehead pensively. The car they were in was well-stocked by Kitiker standards with weapons and such, but obviously had no personal items, like clothes. And that was going to be a problem. Aya wasn't quite as tall as Yohji, but with his slim build, it was still going to be a tough finding something for him to wear. Aw, hell. It was going to be a problem for all of them, he thought sourly as he picked at a patch of dried blood that flaked from his face. They were all a mess.

In retrospect, it was a good thing that they had gotten stuck with the Lincoln; there was no way Aya would have fit into a smaller car without being forced into contact with one of his teammates, and that was a distracting thought all on its own. The sculpted muscles of his bare calves were like a dancer's… or a swordsman's… sleek and powerful without the dense bulk that Ken was used to seeing in his own legs whenever he wore soccer shorts. It reminded him of meeting Aya on the Koneko's back stairs. The tall redhead had been on his way down from the flat rooftop that he often used for his early morning bouts of meditation, or practice, or whatever the heck it was, and had been clad only in loose workout pants, barefoot and bare chested in the cool light. The charcoal gray drawstring pants had slipped dangerously low on his hips, exposing the cup of his navel and the first few hairs of a rill of red gold that disappeared into his pants. Translucent, milky skin that was puckered by the thicker white of scars revealed the blue and rose of veins, and smoothly working muscles underneath: the line of the upper trapezius, deltoid and pectoral muscles, on down to his abdominals. Baffled and irritated, Aya had stopped short on the stairs, just a step higher than Ken, and the athlete had stared silently until realization turned him beet red, and he had turned tail and fled. Lusting after a teammate, no matter how beautiful, was a terrible idea. And that the person he wanted was Aya just made it a dozen times less appropriate.

Frowning, Ken again considered that Aya's haircut had to be the worst. Maybe whoever it was that had held him captive deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth just for that? The too short strands left his face open and too vulnerable in the flickering street lights, and Ken figured that Aya would hate that. The looks that made him stand out in a crowd were as much a shield to hide behind as his infamous temper and nasty attitude. Having seen Aya force himself to behave during the art auction, Ken now recognized that his companion wasn't quite as curmudgeonly and socially inept as he liked to come across. Taken together, it meant that Aya didn't want anyone close. Didn't want to be wanted.

Or did he? Shit, why had the man gone and hugged him like a teddy bear, anyway?

The fact that the car was slowing and turning a corner penetrated the fog in Ken's brain at just about the same time as Yohji's "Oy, Kenken. We're here." The older blond was sounding more normal, which was to say frivolous, and twisted around in his seat to give Ken a wink. Ken scowled. It wasn't like anything had been going on in the back seat, so why did the pain-in-the-ass playboy have to act like that? Belatedly, it occurred to him that Yohji hadn't been teasing, that the blond had been doing a bit of hiding behind masks of his own, but by then it was too late to play along. With a long-suffering sigh, Ken resigned himself to now having to put up with Yohji's attempts to cheer him up.

The well-lit underground parking lot was apparently devoid of people. From the confident way Omi pulled in to park next another large sedan, it had to be secure, but something about the echoing combination of white-painted concrete, and aisles of empty vehicles gave Ken the willies. At least this time Yohji could help him shift their unconscious swordsman to the new car, because getting out of there fast was high on his list of priorities.

It was the new car made him pull up short, and blink. If Kritiker expected them to not attract attention, they were going about it all wrong. The brand-new Toyota Crown was distinctive, with its side profile that resembled the Japanese calligraphic figure for `one.' There weren't enough of that model on the streets to not turn heads. As if the metallic, midnight-blue paint job weren't noticeable enough, they had to travel in a statement for conspicuous consumption. Omi and Yohji shot the athlete nearly identical looks of amusement.

"Ne, Kenken," the taller of the pair drawled, "We're doing what they won't expect. I'll take you guys to the safe house, and keep on going to another drop site."

Oh. Decoy. The blatant car would be good for that. Grudgingly, Ken had to admit that it made sense. If Yohji was up to holding himself together, that is. He caught Omi's intense stare, and realized that that was the point; they were giving Balinese something to do precisely so that he could focus outside his own problems, and function.

One disaster at a time. They still had to contend with an Aya who couldn't take care of himself, when they had no doctor, no medication, and not even clothes for him. There was the question of who their attackers had been, how they had found the safe house, and why they were after Weiss. And, they had yet to make contact with Manx and pass what little intelligence they had on up the line. It was looking like another sleepless night.

*************

Aya was awake, and Ken was beginning to think it would be nice if he would pass out again. Not that the redhead was doing anything wrong, per se. He had just smiled faintly and passed up on a chance to grill them for the details of their escape, was all. When Omi mumbled a confused protest, that smile had grown broader, showing a sliver of white teeth and putting tiny creases at the corners of eyes gone luminous with sudden humor. Aya had spoken in that deep voice of his, saying "I trust you." Then he had walked away, going deeper into the apartment to see if the previous occupants had left any clothing behind, while his two partners stared at each other with identical, shell-shocked expressions.

The slender man came back a few minutes later, belting an old yukata around his waist that left his bare ankles exposed. The soft, dove-gray silk patterned with wisteria seemed like a woman's robe, but it suited him, muting the fire of his hair in the room's dim light. Fastidious as his code name, he had taken the time to clean up. None too subtly, Omi nudged Ken in the direction of the kitchen sink and a roll of paper towels to do likewise, but the brunet was entranced into watching their teammate. There was a subtle difference in the way he moved. He still had the unconscious, prowling grace of a jungle cat, but the defensive, hostile tang had gone out of it. Aya moved like someone supremely comfortable in his surroundings: aware, but not on the defensive. Omi twitched, reminding Ken that his young friend hadn't seen the strangeness that was the new Fujimiya before.

The kid opened his mouth to say something, and shut it again with a snap. Resigned, the brunet shrugged. Omi was smart, he would think of a way to justify everything, and life would slip back onto its tracks again. The swordsman padded past them, oblivious to the confused stares. Ken followed the dazed regard of the blond assassin, noting how the boy's fair skin paled, then flushed as Aya sank down to squat on his heels in front of an open cabinet in the narrow kitchen.

Oh. He could see why Omi was distracted. The thin, unlined silk was clinging to the ridges and valleys of Aya's back and hips, molding itself with unseemly intimacy to a body that was at once thin to the point of starvation, and muscled like a professional's. The tarnished silver of the fabric rippled and shone with the least movement. Seeing the mingled hurt and anger flooding the boy's stiffening body, Ken grabbed Omi by the upper arm and hustled him off to the side in case this turned out to be an argument that got ugly.

"Shit. Merciful Kannon…" Omi was murmuring. The words fit well with the stunned, glazed look to his face, and the beads of sweat that he was developing along his upper lip. The transparent lake-blue of the boy's eyes suddenly sharpened, and he focused them accusingly on Ken. "You jerk! Is that what you meant by Aya not being Aya?"

"Well, yeah…" Ken dropped his grip on the blond's arm, and scrubbed sheepishly at the back of his head, instead. He fully expected to get himself reamed out, but the kid wasn't interested in recriminations. In fact, he was ignoring Ken completely as he sank down to perch on the edge of a chair in the living room. "I can't believe I just scoped out Aya. What is wrong with me?!"

Well, that explained a lot. Ken was delighted to have a fellow traveler on the long road to dementia. He patted Omi's shoulder. "It's strange, isn't it? Aya almost looks like a normal person, doesn't he?"

The irritation in the glare the kid speared him with was tempered with a little mortification. "That man will never look normal. But it's like someone flipped a switch, and turned off all the hate in him. Even when his sister woke up, he was never happy. Now he is."

Ken kept half an eye on the slim form in gray at the other end of the apartment. Aya didn't seem to have heard their vehement, hissing whispers. He rose smoothly from his crouch, unthinkingly shaking out the yukata's skirt as he moved down the kitchen counter, taking out a pot, filling it with water, and moving over to the stove. Within minutes, the smell of miso filled the air. Their teammate was standing in front of the stove, outwardly at least calm in the aftermath of an evening spent with people trying to kill him. He reached for a packet of dried sea-weed and slowly added bits to the simmering soup.

"Omi-kun, get the bowls." he said shortly. Ken relaxed marginally; that had sounded like the Abyssinian he had been accustomed to work with. But then the man had to favor the hacker with a tiny smile, and the unforgivable word "Please?"

"Um. Okay…" The assassin swallowed hard, and hissed out of the corner of his mouth at the older boy who followed close behind, "Now what?"

Fatalistic, Ken shrugged. "We go eat miso, I guess."

***********

The light dinner was somewhere left of surreal. They all knelt around a low table. Aya's hands shook too much under the weight of the big bowl, so Ken ended up doing the honors and serving them, while Omi handed around rice crackers and an assortment of pickles he had found stored in a cupboard. The older man didn't speak any more than he normally did, but his quiet, relaxed air was so out-of-character that he wouldn't have shocked his teammates any more if he had stood naked on the table and done karaoke. The soccer player realized he was humming "Jonkara Onnabushi" by Yoko Nagayama when Omi shot him a reproachful glare, and shuddered.

"If you're going around the bend, too, I'd prefer if you didn't do it singing enka. Yetch." He stacked the bowls and retreated to the sink to wash up. Ken trailed along behind.

"I was just thinking how Aya couldn't get any weirder, even if he got up on the table to sing-- "

"Please! I don't need that image, thank you very much." His shudder became melodramatic as he threw a dish towel at Ken's face. The brunet snagged it out of the air and took a spot beside him to help with drying the dishes. He held his peace, having figured out that Omi was bothered by what he saw. Ken considered the boy's reaction, weighing it against his own. There was a lot less anger and confused hurt, this time. Maybe it meant that he was getting used to the strange shift of personality?

Dishes done and put away, the pair of them drifted back into the living room. Ken stifled a yawn of epic proportions. The apartment they had taken refuge in was part of a series of lofts built into a refurbished warehouse. The walls were mostly exposed, sand colored brick, except for the wall of glass concealed by drapes that made up one side of the living room. Fighting down another yawn, Ken poked his head into the other two doors - finding that they also had a small bathroom, and one big bedroom. He paused in the door to the latter, registering that the darkened space had one very big western style bed in it, and that Aya was curled loosely in the middle of it.

The sleepy man levered himself up onto one elbow, trading stares with the younger assassin until Ken dropped his eyes and glanced away. He was about to turn on his heel and retreat to the living room, when quiet words trapped him, "Ken-kun, Omi-kun, please come join me. The bed is more than large enough for all of us."

Omi made a sputtering sound of equal parts hysteria, and disbelief. There might have been a sliver of humor in there, too, because the kid snorted and said, "What the heck. The worst that can happen is that he wakes up and kills me, right?" But that apparently wasn't the worst. The blond entered and gingerly sat down on the near edge of the mattress, only to have himself be pulled firmly onto the bed, and the gray silk-clad arm around his waist draw him down to spoon with their normally stand-offish partner. The kid went rigid with terror, wide blue eyes drowning in as his pupils expanded with a rush. Aya apparently took notice of the effect he had, instead calling peremptorily over his shoulder, "Ken, come to bed. Now."

Yohji is going to pop a cork… Ken thought, shaking his head. He kicked off his borrowed slippers at the side of the big bed and slid under the covers by Aya's back. There was no way he was going to get through this without a loooong explanation. He was just dozing, imagining the consternation on the senior Weiss' face as he found the three of them snuggled up together, when the distant sound of a muffled thump jerked him back to full consciousness. A brief, confused image of a peacefully sleeping Omi, head pillowed on Aya's shoulder and fingers locked tightly around a handful of the yukata's collar flashed by, mingled with an Oh shit! Not again! as Ken rolled from the bed and into the cover afforded by a dresser against the wall. By the time he glanced toward the bed again, its other occupants had evaporated.

Aya scuttled in a crouch toward the half-open door, gray silk skirts rucked up around his pale legs, halting, back against the wall just within the deep shadow cast by the still lit living room. Shifting into the Abyssinian's hunting stealth, he went still, staring patiently through the crack formed by the door's hinges. A flicker of shadow moved in the room beyond. Ken frowned, forcing himself to remain motionless even though he vibrated with the need to go, to attack. Sure enough, after a long moment, a second, and then a third noiseless apparition flitted by. They didn't have a lot of time before the intruders finished securing the small apartment and came looking for them.

The minute tensing in the redhead warned Ken that the man was readying himself. He was unarmed, and he was thinking about fighting? The soccer player shot a frantic look Omi's way, to where the kid was pressed to the other side of the open door, willing the petit blond to wise up and pay attention. But the kid was equally focussed on the living room, a hand loaded with silver needles held low by his side to conceal their tell-tale gleam. He wasn't paying the least attention to Ken's frantic eye-brow wiggling and finger-signing.

Aya's sword was lying on top of the dresser, inches above Ken's head.

Okay. He took a deep, calming breath. There was no way he could toss the weapon to his partner without the faint but distinctive rattle of blade in sheath giving him away. The best he could do would be to grab it, himself, when the situation exploded. Ken had no illusions about his own skill as a swordsman - they were somewhere just above nonexistent - but he had trained using a short staff and it would work just fine for that. Aya used the iron sheath for blocking all the time. It would be okay. He would just pass the blade off during the fight. They had done that sort of thing a hundred times. His heart was thudding so loudly in his chest that he swore the enemy would be able to hear it.

Just then, the door to the building's main corridor clattered open, and Yohji's cheerful voice rang out, "Honey, I'm home!" and the lights went out in the big main room. Aya flittered through the bedroom door a half second ahead of Omi, the two of them vanishing as Ken snatched up the sword and followed. A faint, distinctive whine that his back-brain recognized as Yohji's wire being played out came from his left, just as a soft thud-rustle-grunt pin-pointed the location of another team member. A bright muzzle-flash and muffled thhwpt gave Ken a direction to go on for a target, and he redirected his full-out rush, clearing the couch in a bound. The sword's sheath impacted the gunman's wrist, in all likelihood breaking it, and a punch to the jaw put the man down.

The lights came back on.

Yohji was leaning casually against the wall beside the switch, the soft whine of his wire retracting the only sound he made. Omi straightened from behind the back of a chair, warily searching a room that had gone from pristine to bloody mess in a matter of seconds. The team's collective gaze settled on Aya, stretched on top of a squirming, black clad figure, holding one of its arms twisted up behind its head. Yohji expelled his breath explosively. "Aya! Just kill him already!"

"No." The reply was a bit breathless, but even without the concealing fringe of scarlet hair, there was no mistaking the stubborn set to the other assassin's jaw. Ken steeled himself unthinkingly against the `killing is wrong' remark that he was sure would follow, but Aya said nothing, just tightened his grip until his captive was gasping in agony.

Omi strode cautiously closer, dropping down to sit on his heels at a safe distance to stare at the prisoner. "I think…" he said slowly, "That we have a problem." The boy's gaze flicked up, lighting briefly on each of his companions. "Are any of you wondering how they got here so quickly?"

"Aa." Ken grunted. Now that Omi mentioned it, it was pretty strange, at that. He knew that the kid had done a careful job, following a circuitous route that should have revealed any pursuit. And, knowing Omi, that had extended to checking air traffic chatter and any other frequency that he could eavesdrop on, using the big car's equipment to its fullest. The only way the enemy could have found them would have been to ferret out and put a watch on every Kritiker hide-out - which was damned inefficient since they hadn't known in advance which one they were going to wind up at themselves, and had maintained the communications blackout with Manx and Birman afterwards. Unless they had managed to pick up a tracking device?

The same chain of thought had obviously run through everyone's minds. Yohji lit a cigarette, tucking the lighter back out of sight in the pocket of his tight jeans. "But where…?" he murmured softly. "They wouldn't have had access to the Lincoln, and besides, we switched cars. We didn't take any gear from the estate."

"Except for Aya's katana." Omi pointed out reasonably. Ken glanced down at the sheathed weapon doubtfully. What the hacker said was true; it was the only thing beside themselves to come out of the safe house. But it didn't seem possible that they had managed to plant a bug on it during the brief melee. The only thing besides ourselves… A painful tightness gripped his chest, and his hand clenched involuntarily on the sword.

"Did you check Aya over, after we got him back?"

The smaller blond flinched at that. "No, I didn't." he admitted. Aya met their eyes, eerily calm despite the still struggling figure that he had pinned to the carpet.

"Hey!" Yohji protested. "Aya's been stripped naked, checked over by that idiot Nariakira and by the hospital, and probably by the cops, too--"

"And you know as well as I do that there's more than one place to hide a tracker!" Omi retorted. He spread his hands wide, apologetic. "I should have checked. I'm sorry."

The genuine grief in the kid's voice over the last part forced Ken to speak up. He shook himself and pushed away from the brick wall. "Forget about it. What's past is past. I mean, it's not like I thought about it before now, and neither did anybody else." He joined the trio on the floor, leaving Yohji standing behind him. "Since this safe house is compromised, we need to get moving again. Let's check Aya over, and see if Ninja-boy here can tell us anything, and then hit the road. Okay?"

Omi straightened and stepped over the swordsman and his captive. "Copy that. There's some stuff stashed in the wall safe in the bedroom. Let me go take a look at what the powers that be have left us."

Yohji finally took pity on the struggling pair and played out some of his wire. "Here, let me tie up the package for you." He looped strands tightly about the wriggling man's ankles, his wrists, and passed a noose about his throat. Aya rolled away, leaving the lanky man to address the prisoner in a typically pleasant way, saying "If you struggle, you'll strangle yourself. Just so you know."

Ken ignored the one-sided exchange, focussed entirely on their redhead. Not too surprisingly, Aya was winded, and an unhealthy pallor had settled across his features. But he was still conscious, and was half-sitting, half reclining on his elbow on the floor. That was more strength than he had shown mere hours earlier, when he had been attacked at the mansion. The enforced rest in the car during their flight, and again in the apartment had helped. Without thinking, the soccer player rose to his feet and extended a hand to the other man. "Come on. Let's get you up onto the couch. You can rest a bit more while Omi-kun does his thing. Okay?"

Aya shot him a glare of pure exasperation, but accepted the proffered hand all the same. Ken had to rock back on his heels to counter the man's weight and height, but it worked to get him up from the floor. But the really amazing thing was that the taller man voluntarily leaned against him, allowing Ken to shoulder some of his weary weight, and also allowing the younger assassin to lead him to the couch. Once there, Aya murmured "Thank you," so softly that Ken could almost have sworn that he imagined it.

He turned to find Yohji staring at the two of them with a dawning comprehension in his green eyes. The former detective held back whatever it was that he was considering, turning instead to Omi as the kid bustled back in with a small black duffle and a laptop case in his hands. He was grinning. "Not as good as my own gear, but good enough."

The amount of gadgetry that he pulled out of the duffle bag was staggering. Ken recognized a lot of it: head sets for communications, a widget that could unscramble the codes on electronic door locks, smaller bits and pieces that could be used in all sorts of interesting ways… Everything from timing an explosion to tapping a phone line. The kid's childishly small hand unerringly selected a rectangle that looked more like a calculator than anything else, and plugged an ear-bud into it. "This picks up on broadcast signals. It's meant for eavesdropping on conversations via cell phone, or whatever, but I can play hot-and-cold with it, too. If that doesn't work, there's a wireless card in the laptop, and some software that might help us out."

It took him less than thirty seconds to locate the microchip that had been inserted under the skin of Aya's scalp, just above his left ear.

"Woof." Yohji muttered quietly. He was speaking for all of them. The twilight violet of the swordsman's eyes went unreadably dark, and he held absolutely still while Omi murmured another apology and sliced open his skin to get the chip out. His hand shot out, catching the startled boy by the wrist when he went to move away. "Keep checking." he commanded.

Omi and Ken both flinched at the raw emotion in the two words. They had heard Aya loose it before - who of them hadn't? All it had taken was sighting a member of the Takatori, and the redhead had been known to ditch a mission and allow fury to lead him. But this was different. This was Aya acknowledging that his presence was putting Weiss at risk, and demanding that the risk be neutralized. At whatever cost.

The kid shot Ken an uncertain, wavering look, silently pleading for help. Shit, it wasn't as if he had a clue what to say, either. No, that wasn't true. Aya was right. They had to be certain, and as Manx and Birman had so carefully pointed out, Aya had been out of their hands for weeks. Who knew what booby traps he might represent? In the end, Omi did locate a second chip, concealed behind the soft ginger curls of the older man's groin. He whimpered, refusing to meet anyone's eyes, reversed the knife in his hand and offered it to Aya. Yohji burst out laughing, and a tiny smile even tugged at the redhead's lips. Their amusement just made the kid's blush burn brighter.

"Oh, shut up." he grumbled. "It's not my fault you're all perverts." The older blond snerked, choking on a wisecrack, and ended up having to sit down. Aya efficiently removed the hidden chip, and set it on the low table beside the first one. Still pink, and still avoiding looking anyone in the face, Omi prodded the tiny black rectangles thoughtfully. He spoke quietly, "At the risk of setting you jokers off again, these are the same kinds of chips that veterinarians use to tag pets, so that they can be identified and returned to their owners if lost."

"Aya as a kitty? Oooh, that's original." Yohji sputtered. Ken whapped him in the back of the head, but it failed to stop his snickers. Omi rolled his blue eyes expressively.

"No, stupid. It means that the chips are cheap, readily available, and impossible to trace. We can leave them here, which will probably do nothing toward throwing off pursuit, but they won't tell us a darned thing about who's chasing us."

"So? Aya very thoughtfully kept one of them alive for us. We can ask him."

"No, we can't. He's dead." Aya's low voice was full of some unidentifiable emotion. Startled, Ken turned to their captive. The swordsman was right; during the brief lull while they had searched for the trackers, the man had pulled the wires binding him taut, and silently strangled himself. The slender redhead lurched up from the couch, ducking the automatic hand that Ken extended toward him. Unfamiliar anguish twisted his pale features almost beyond recognition. "Don't--"

"Aya!" Ken wasn't sure if the shout came from Omi, or from Yohji; he only had one thought and that was to intercept the distraught man. But recovering from injuries, or not, Aya was quick on his feet, and graceful. He evaded Ken's efforts to catch him, and slammed the door to the bathroom behind his retreating form.

They exchanged bewildered glances. Yohji swore softly, and spoke for all of them: "Shit! What the hell was that?"