Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections ❯ Bait ( Chapter 15 )

Reflections:Bait

Chapter 15

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by L.A. Mason.

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

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

"Siberian?" The distorted voice using his code name was unrecognizable, and Ken nearly dropped the cell phone in his confusion. The, something clicked, and he understood that what he was hearing was less due to a lousy connection than it was to an attempt to conceal the speaker's identity, to avoid getting caught by anyone who might be tapping the call.

"M-- "

"Stop." Their handler's tone was implacable, and that more than anything else convinced the younger man that his guess was right; it was Manx. "We're falling back and going into deep cover. Your team is going to be on your own for a while. I'm sending an encrypted file with what little we've got to Bombay; he'll know where to pick it up." And just as abruptly as it had begun, the bizarre call was over, and he was listening to the rapid beep of an empty line.

"Omi… I think the shit has hit the fan." Ken said slowly. "That was Manx. Something's happened."

"What did she say? Exactly, word for word." The small blond was intently focused, his normal cheerfulness forgotten in the face of a larger, looming threat. He was nodding vigorously when Ken finished, smiling grimly. "I know where she means. I've got a back door account on a secure server. We've used it a couple of times to exchange files that were too sensitive to route any other way." Blue eyes gone dark as midnight met Ken's worried gaze, as he gave one final, serious nod. "And yes, the shit has definitely hit the fan. I know we're supposed to be waiting to see if Honey's phone call yields any results, but I need to get a look at Manx's message."

Ken hesitated. They had left Honey only moments earlier, after again warning her to get as far away as possible. With not having any clue where the enemy might strike from, they couldn't afford to go running off. But, neither could they ignore a warning themselves; Kritiker didn't just up and disappear without good reason.

Manx didn't abandon Weiss.

Seeing his indecision, Omi pushed. "There's an internet café a couple of blocks from here, Ken-kun. We need to see what Manx thought was important enough to call about."

"Yeah. Okay. You're right."

Ken was a little surprised when his companion wheeled about and led them to a grungy, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that looked just like any one of a thousand student hang-outs across the city, but then it struck him that the location was perfect - an anonymous IP connection, on a machine that no one would expect them to access, in a part of Tokyo that there was no reason for them to be in. And best of all, the only key to where Omi was going online existed in the boy's brain. There was no disc, no software trail that could lead the pursuers to them.

It didn't surprise him, however, that the petit blond stepped up to the bored cashier and paid for the use of a machine as if he did this sort of thing every day. For all Ken knew, Omi might have scoped out the café before, even though it was a long ways from the flower shop, his school, or any place else that they tended to go. Omi selected a machine well away from the plate glass front windows, and Ken pulled up a chair, unobtrusively blocking the view of anyone inside who might care enough to try to watch over their shoulders.

The hacker's focused air of concentration was completely at odds with his cute, boyish features and wide eyes, and Ken found himself studying the oblivious profile intently. Stress, and maybe time, too, had hollowed the fair cheeks a little, bringing out the contours of the bones underneath. There were stubborn blue stains that spoke of too many late nights and too much missed sleep beneath the round eyes that by shape and color hinted at a foreign, non-Japanese ancestry, just as did his fine, corn silk hair.

And God help him, Ken thought Omi was just as beautiful as Aya.

The object of his scrutiny shot him a quick glance. "I'm in, and I don't think you're going to like this. One of Kritiker's offices got hit about two hours ago. There were six dead, and an unknown number of computer files were compromised before the failsafe system kicked in and wiped the local server. Manx figures that whoever it was is connected to the bunch we're up against, because some surveillance photos from a stand-alone camera that they missed shows guys in the same black gear as the ones that hit us. Her theory is that somebody played connect-the-dots with the info on the three safe houses: the Fujita Masahiro apartment, the mansion, and the loft."

Ken flinched but kept his voice down to a dull whisper, "Why?" Omi grimaced as he hurriedly went to work erasing any trace of his presence from the rented pc.

"Accounts. The money to pay for the office came out of the same account as Aya's cover apartment. It was well buried, but someone who knows what they're doing could probably find it."

"Implying that these guys know what they're doing?"

Omi turned fully around in his chair, abandoning the darkened screen, then got to his feet. "Is there any doubt in your mind? Hm?"

"No…" Ken fell into step beside him as they left the nondescript café, his brows drawn down into a dark frown as he mulled over the sparse information. Abruptly, he muttered, " `Follow the money.' "

"Huh?"

"Something Yohji said one time, when he was blabbing on. Basically, money is the grease that drives the world. Or oil. Something like that. Anyway, you can find anything - or anyone - if you can get a hold of the money trail."

"Maybe." At Omi's direction, they slid into another of the concealing alleys that crisscrossed the neighborhood. "Look, Manx is pretty sure that they didn't get anything that would lead them to Weiss, so we're probably safe enough for now. But if we don't have any luck tonight, or if Yohji-kun and Aya-kun don't turn up any solid leads, I think we should follow Kritiker's example and disappear. Information's no good if we're too dead to enjoy it."

Dead. A shiver ran down the athlete's spine. He wasn't superstitious, exactly, but the idea that someone had just walked over his grave refused to go away. Maybe they should give up, separate, and run.

It would mean not seeing the others - Omi, Aya, and even annoying Yohji - for a long time. Yet, the alternative, to try to stay together and to continue to fight might lead to disaster.

Omi reached up and patted his shoulder, murmuring, "I don't want to loose you, either. Not now. And I won't give up the others without a fight. All of you, you're my family." At Ken's reluctant nod, the teen forced a grin. "After all, you did pinky-swear. I have to stick around long enough to collect!"

"Brat!" But in spite of himself, a chuckle escaped. Omi was right, Weiss was his family too, and Ken didn't intend to give any of them up. "Okay. Let's head for the area Honey told them we were in, and bait that trap. The fuckers won't know what hit them."

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

"Somehow, it figures that it would rain." Ken remarked gloomily as they rendezvoused in a dimly lit alley to get their bearings. A sudden gust rattled the trash bag that he had improvised a poncho out of, drowning out Omi's reply and forcing them into the sheltered lee of a dark green dumpster.

Beside him, Omi sneezed and repeated thickly, "We're going to have to abort the mission." Muffled behind a tissue, the younger Weiss sneezed again and added with a sigh, "Crap."

"Abort? Noooo…" His whine sounded petulant, but Ken couldn't help it. "We can't. Not now. We might not have the chance to try again tomorrow."

"Ken-kun, don't be an idiot. If we stay out here, we're going to attract even more attention. I mean, do you see anyone else stupid enough to hang out on the street in this weather?" Omi's impatient, stuffed-up growl made it clear that as far as he was concerned, Ken had passed the idiot-threshold some time back, and was sinking fast. And, looking down into a face made even more pallid by contrast with the dark, rain-soaked bangs that clung to it, the brunet had to admit that his friend had a point. It was stupid to keep wandering around in the freezing cold. But if they gave up, who knew if there would be another chance? Shivering, Ken leaned against the side of the dumpster and tried to ignore the stench of rotten food - and worse - that hung in the dank air.

Omi pressed up against his side, trying to share a bit of his own warmth, and switched to persuasive wheedling. "Come on, Ken-kun… Let's get inside someplace. Just for a little while, okay?"

"Yeah… I guess." Giving up rankled, but it wasn't as if they had any choice; Omi was right that continuing to loiter in the area was going to hurt their chances of locating Aya's kidnappers, rather than help. And now, with Kritiker on the run, time was their enemy as well. Ken slung an arm loosely around his partner's shoulders. "So where did you have in mind?"

"I noticed some of the hookers go into a bar down the street a ways. I was thinking we could try in there." Omi answered eagerly.

"Uh, no offense, but you really don't look old enough for a bar." protested Ken. And he didn't. If Omi had come across as `jail bait' when he was clean and dry, now that he was enveloped in Ken's out-sized black wind breaker, the disturbing effect was that of a kid playing dress-up in his dad's clothes. There was no way that whatever bouncer the bar employed wasn't going to take one look, and heave the both of them back out onto the pavement. And that thought brought to mind another problem; namely that if they were going to salvage anything from the scenario they had laid out, Omi was going to have to enter the bar alone. When Ken said as much, the other drenched Hunter scowled.

"Crap." Omi repeated petulantly. Then he scrubbed booth hands over his face, pushing back his dripping hair. "Okay. I go in first. If I don't land on my ear back outside thirty seconds later, you follow me in. That'll be in keeping with our cover story, that you're tailing me. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky, and the people we're trying to catch will turn up there to get out of the rain, too."

Ken nodded and turned the smaller blond loose with a gentle shove in the direction of their target. "The sooner you get going, the sooner we'll dry out."

"I'm going, I'm going…" Omi shot him a wan version of his normal, mega-watt grin and, sneakers squelching, slogged off through the standing puddles toward the glowing neon sign that marked the bar's location. Ken waited until he saw the brief bar of light cut off as the door closed behind his friend, and then began his own slow approach.

The warmth of the gust of stale air that hit him in the face when his turn came to ease open the door was very welcome. On the other hand, the reek of cigarette smoke it carried made Ken wrinkle his nose; it reminded him of Yohji, and not in a good way. On the older blond, the mingled scents of sex, smoke, and alcohol came across as weirdly exciting, but here in a shabby Tanagawa dive, it was just disgusting. Ken couldn't fathom why anyone who wasn't forced to would hang out in a place like that.

In keeping with the smell, the look of the place with its cracked linoleum and mismatched furnishings wasn't any more inviting, but somehow, it was still packed with people, dressed in a mix of tawdry finery and dull blue and brown work clothes. He had to wriggle his way sideways, along the wall, to catch sight of Omi leaning over the end of the scuffed bar, deep in earnest conversation with the bartender. It was a good thing that the tall figure with the short-cropped black hair and tight, white shirt was a woman, because otherwise Omi's pleading puppy-dog act would have come across as more of a `drowned rat.' As it was, the bartender's folded arms and growing, irritated frown didn't look too promising.

"Please." Omi begged. "I've got I.D. that says I'm old enough, but if it'll make you feel any better, I won't drink anything. I just gotta find a place to stay, okay?"

The bartender flicked a contemptuous glance at the I.D. clutched in the boy's hand. Ken had reason to know that the quality was first rate; like any Omi manufactured, his Hayami Yuki persona would stand up to even the most exacting scrutiny. Unless, of course, it was that of a bar keep who didn't care about anything except keeping minors out of her establishment. Then, they were royally screwed.

The woman's mouth drew down into a hard line. "Look, kid. I already told you, this isn't a half-way house for runaways. If you're after a place like that, you're gonna have to go see that scum, Iida. Course, it'll be a while, till he's out and about again. So, why don't you just run along home to your Mommy instead?"

"Because I can't." Omi's voice dropped into its lowest register, and his wide blue eyes took on a matching, hardened glitter. He unzipped the baggy windbreaker and pushed the enveloping fabric back, exposing a vee of pale chest and the delicate wings of his collar bones. The bartender's expression shifted subtly as she took in the dark, metallic sheen of the nearly transparent shirt and the way it clung damply to the teen's slender figure. Omi saw his advantage, and pressed it. "Iida-san set me up with somebody a couple of months ago. But the guy's wife got wise, and with the trouble over the Hot Body, it was simpler for him to dump me. I used to have a nice room over on Yasukuni Dori-- " In spite of her annoyance, the woman's mouth twitched at his use of the local nickname for Tanagawa's less-than-grand main drag, choked as it was with cheap apartments and boarding houses. A brief smile quirked the youth's pink lips, a visible gottcha! as he went for the kill. "With Iida-san out of action, I don't expect you to take any risks for me, or to set me up with a new client, or anything. I just need a place to stay till the rain lets up." He paused for a beat, then said. "I can pay."

Calculation replaced scorn and mistrust in her black eyes. "Twelve thousand Yen. You can stay down here till we close, and then bunk the rest of the night with Aoko-chan." From his observation post, Ken nearly choked when she named the price; it was on par with a decent private hotel room in a touristy part of Tokyo; but Omi didn't bat an eyelash.

"Throw in a hot bath, and some dry clothes, and it's a deal."

"Let's see the color of your money first." she retorted. Omi's smile morphed into a smirk as he dug a crumpled handful of notes out of a voluminous pocket on his cargo shorts. He smoothed out enough to meet her demands, and the woman nodded as she held out her hand. "Aoko-chan's with a customer, so you'll have to wait till she's done. In the meantime, you must be starved. I'll get you an instant ramen."

Envious, Ken's stomach rumbled. But even though no one was visibly paying him any attention, he didn't dare get too close to his partner, and he definitely didn't think that the bartender's generosity would extend to feeding another stray, anyway. Instead, he settled into an unobtrusive corner and prepared to wait out the remainder of the evening while nursing a bottle of cheap beer. Between the heat generated by the close-packed bodies in the bar, and the boredom generated by watching a third-rate soccer game out of South Africa on the TV mounted high on the wall, the weary brunet found his mind drifting back to Aya, and the what-ever-it-was that they had engaged in.

First off, did it count as sex? Judging by the spark that jumped to life in his groin, his libido was voting `Hell, yes!' but the thinking side of his brain wasn't so sure. In fact, in a dark, humiliated corner, Ken's bruised psyche was whimpering over the unfairness of it all; he had had Aya - difficult, gorgeous, `shut-up-and-die' Aya - in his bed for the better part of the night, and hadn't gotten a whole lot out of the experience. Yeah, sure, Yohji was right, Ken hadn't exactly objected to any of it, either, but it was still pretty hard on the ego.

And, worst of all, Ken wanted to do it again.

And then there was his close encounter of the alley kind with his best friend. Omi was maturing into his own brand of beauty, and Ken would be lying if he claimed that he wasn't seriously attracted. He tugged haphazardly at a handful of hair that was drying into ragged spikes and sighed. What Ken didn't need was to start trying to compare the two young men, because while both were an integral part of his life as an assassin, the differences far out-weighed the similarities. It was enough to say that Omi was smart, funny, and sweet where Aya was acerbic and tormented. And that both were as sexy as Hell.

His hormones were voting for another try on that front, too.

It was just so fucking unfair. Somehow, the universe had switched from `Hidaka Ken, celibate,' to `Hidaka Ken, up to his ass in bishounen,' and neglected to warn him of the incoming barrage. While, granted, the ex-soccer player didn't exactly want to avoid the opportunities presented him any more, the whole situation was more up Yohji's alley than his. For a brief moment, he entertained the thought of laying the mess at the playboy's feet and begging for advice, but memories of a certain gleeful hilarity squashed the idea. No, on second thought, Ken would tough it out on his own.

The bar's single, harried waitress wriggled her way through the crowd and handed him another plastic bottle of half-warm beer. Ken made a face, but dug out the money none the less. Drinking was making him even more tired, and a bit light-headed to boot, but not drinking - and not spending - would see him out on the street and separated from his younger companion. It wasn't that he had doubts about Omi's abilities when it came to taking care of himself, but rather that the way life had been treating them lately, the brunet wasn't about to take chances.

Fed, and dressed in a dry girl's tee-shirt that proclaimed `Party Princess' in shockingly pink glitter characters, the other Hunter was far from threatening. If anything, the androgynous cuteness made him look like he ought to be at a high school pep rally rather than a seedy, working class bar. And it definitely suited Omi's cover persona far better than it did his real nighttime occupation as a member of Weiss. For sitting out in the open, trying to attract attention, Omi's get-up was very effective. Grinning with false regret, he had already had to turn down a couple of offers from ordinary factory men with a determined shake of his sleek blond head.

Maybe that was why Omi's latest suitor took so long to register on Ken's radar.

Sliding off his stool at the bar, the petit hacker was pulling on the still-wet windbreaker with a grimace when Ken shook himself and sat up straight. What Omi wasn't doing was making eye-contact with his teammate. If anything, he was determinedly not looking Ken's way. The slightly built youth took a step in the direction of the door, only to be occluded from the athlete's sight by a man in faded dungarees who was easily as tall as Yohji, and probably twice as wide. The man had his head tilted attentively in the boy's direction, and a possessive hand gripped the black-clad elbow. Ken's eyes widened in shock as a second man joined the first on route to the door, and he had to suppress the urge to duck guiltily when their intense, predatory gaze swept across the room.

But the second that they were out the door, he abandoned his beer and went snaking through the throng in pursuit. There was no way that he was going to allow them out of his sight. For one thing, his instincts were screaming that the two men had somehow gotten the drop on the littlest assassin, because there was no other explanation for the teenager's apparent docility. To just get up and leave meant a gun to Omi's ribs, or some kind of a threat to the absent part of their team. By ignoring Ken's presence rather than sounding the alarm, the Weiss tactician was saying `they don't know about you, but I trust that you'll see what's happening.' Ken just hoped that the trust wasn't misplaced.

With their Asian features, neither of the men fit the descriptions that Weiss had of the French-Vietnamese, or of the Slav, but they obviously weren't ordinary working stiffs, either. Flanking Omi, the two had cut through the oblivious bar crowd like sharks through a shoal of herring, and that was a bad sign. The men had moved like they knew how to use those big bodies with efficient, deadly precision, and it was with relief that Ken hid behind another trio of patrons staggering out the door.

The precaution proved to be a smart one; a third man detached himself from the shadows when the drunken group emerged into the sheeting rain. Ken tugged a corner of his improvised poncho up to cover his head and coincidentally conceal his face as his human shields complained loudly and struggled with coat collars and hoods. The stranger melted back into hiding, although Ken was positive he could feel the speculative stare drilling in between his shoulder blades as he turned his back.

Thankfully, the knot of bar customers split up, scattering to the right and left along the shimmering, rain-slicked sidewalk. If they had stuck together as a unit, Ken would have been screwed. Instead, he was able to hustle along as if trying to keep up with one of them, and chase after Omi and his escort at the same time.

The problem was, it would only work until his quarry piled into a car, and that could be at any time.

Fuck, what had they been thinking when they had come up with the hair-brained idea of using one of their own as bait?! Under cover of his plastic poncho, Ken fumbled for the cell phone hidden in his back pack, and swore raggedly. His only hope - Omi's only hope lay in reaching the other pair of Hunters, and praying to God that they were someplace close by. For the moment, the bad guys were strolling along as if they hadn't a care in the world, while the length of their stride forced the smaller blond into a jog. Every time their purposeful progress approached a vehicle, Ken's heart leapt to his mouth. And, every time they continued on past, it settled back painfully into his chest.

Somewhere out in the rainy city, Yohji's phone just rang, and rang…

"Come on, you stupid son of a bitch, pick up the God damned phone!" Ken hissed. Struggling to keep his hands free for the knife tucked out of sight inside his shirt, he shifted the little silver rectangle to his other shoulder, mashing it against his jaw and ear. Nine rings… ten… It wasn't set up to bounce to voicemail. Twelve rings. Viciously, Ken stabbed the disconnect, and tried Aya's number instead. He hoped to God Abyssinian would pick up.

"Hai." One syllable, rendered faint and tinny by distance and a poor connection, but it was the sweetest sound imaginable. Ken slowed his pace, abandoning his flesh and blood shield and increasing the gap to keep his prey from noticing.

"We got trouble." he muttered. "Two guys picked Bombay up. We're on foot, and I'm tailing, but I don't know if I'll be able to keep up. I can't raise Balinese."

"Your location."

"Um…" Ken peered wildly about until he spotted a street sign. In typical Tokyo fashion, there were hardly any. "Roponogi Crossing. Heading north."

"You're half a block from the Hot Body." Aya said shortly. That this meant something to the surly redhead was clear from his tone, but the implications escaped the frustrated athlete.

"Would you just spit it out, already? What the hell are you talking about?" he snarled under his breath. The trio ahead of him was cutting across the empty street, and there was absolutely no cover left.

"The building is boarded up. No one will be looking for them there. Approach with caution." The phone clicked as the older Hunter cut the connection.

The whorehouse. Of course. He was an idiot. Ken cursed himself roundly and sprinted back down the block for an alley mouth. That it was the same one where he had originally met Honey, on his first visit to Tanagawa, was an irony that wasn't lost on the young man; it was just one that he didn't have the luxury of appreciating right at the moment. He splashed through a deeper puddle, its surface darkly rainbowed with oil, and skidded into a smaller side passageway between two brick buildings. The rustling plastic of his trash bag poncho was stripped off and stuffed into an open garbage can as he shifted from haste to stealth. Ken slid the last couple of feet to the end of the gap, his shoulders rubbing against the moisture-slimed brick, but the cold and wet made no impression on his focused mind.

Sure enough, Aya had been right. There they came, Omi with his menacing bookends, and they were headed for the Hot Body, right across from Ken's hiding place. The boarded over front entrance swung open as if it were a normal door, and they vanished inside, taking his partner with them.

Ken sagged against the wall, stunned, then tensed as his brain kicked back into gear. There was no way of knowing how long it would take Aya to arrive, and whether he would be alone, or accompanied by the missing Balinese. That meant that effectively the Weiss team consisted of only Omi, and himself. The opposition, on the other hand, could easily number a dozen or more, given that they had been willing to send three men out to retrieve one scrawny-looking kid. The thought that that bartender could conceivably have given in and allowed his younger partner to remain just so that she could tip off the enemy crossed Ken's mind, and he shook his head to dislodge the idea. True or not, it didn't matter. What was important was that the smaller assassin was inside their opponents' territory, and currently his only back-up was stuck outside.

Harmless though he might appear, Omi was far from helpless. Aside from an unknown number of steel needles concealed on his person, the delicate-seeming boy was an accomplished martial artist in his own right, and could handle himself in an unarmed fight. He was swift, and agile, and against even well-trained opponents could generally hold his own. Unless they managed to grapple with him. Ken's overactive imagination supplied a graphic picture of his best friend being pulled apart by the two behemoths like a wishbone, and he gave a strangled moan. No, better not think about that. So long as his captors didn't make the connection to Aya, to Weiss, or to Kritiker, Omi would be safe.

Safe. Christ, what had they done to make Omi go with them willingly?

Ken pressed his back to the wall and tried to think. Thanks to his earlier visit, he knew the area surrounding the closed-down brothel fairly well, and the Hunter was confident that he could pick out all the best places to post sentries, and avoid them accordingly. The dark and cold, and the confusing glitter and shine of reflections on the wet streets all would work in his favor when it came to being spotted visually. Trouble, however, lay in electronics, and thermal-sensing gear, because once he moved out from behind the concealing mass of the other buildings, sticking to the shadows wouldn't be enough. These guys weren't amateurs like the idiots that had set up the Hot Body's original surveillance cameras. He would need something good to carry him across the open ground to the Hot Body. Now, if he had Omi's help, it would be easy. The gifted hacker had been known to screw up the feed at a distance even on a stand-alone set of IR goggles. But Ken didn't have Omi, and that realization brought him full-circle back to why he desperately needed to find a way into the building across the street.

With sneaking up not an option, there were only two possible courses of action left open: one, to be blatant and obvious, and bluff his way in, and, two, to create a diversion. Given that he was soaked, shivering, about half the size of the guards he had seen so far, and lousy at poker, a diversion was looking better and better. But the question was, what?

If he could get close to the building, the assassin figured he could set it on fire, and drive the enemy out. But getting close would mean that he could sneak up on them, and didn't need to set a fire. The wind driving the cold rain shifted, and a gust of it hit him squarely in the face. Shivering, Ken amended the discarded plan with the sour thought that it also presupposed that he could get a fire started. The way his luck was running, that wasn't too likely.

Although, a fire would be kind of nice… The athlete had played games in all kinds of weather during his brief career, and he could feel the creeping lassitude of hypothermia sapping his waning strength. The narrow crack between buildings was mostly protected from observation, but it was less than perfect where the weather was concerned. Ken closed his eyes briefly and chaffed at his chilled arms, trying to get the circulation going again. Spring wasn't the best time of year to be running around under-dressed, but he and Omi had been handicapped by the roles they were to play, and by what wardrobe Villa Weiss could provide. It was pure bad luck that the comparatively mild daytime weather had turned into a truly sucky night, between dropping temperatures and the persistent wet.

Aya didn't say he was coming. At the thought, Ken's hands halted, each gripping the opposite bicep in what turned into a desperate self-hug. He'd been standing there, assuming the older Hunter was on his way, but what if he didn't come? Traditionally, Aya's loyalty had always been to the mission first, and the team second. As Abyssinian, he had walked away from Weiss more than once, and it had been outside forces, like his sister's kidnapping, that had brought him back.

Not the team.

His fingers bit deep into the muscle as the worried brunet ran back over their brief conversation. Aya hadn't responded to Ken's unspoken suggestion that something was wrong with Balinese, either. Nor had he given any hints as to what was going on at his end. All he had done was to point the way to the Hot Body, and then hung up.

Without a watch, Ken had only the vaguest idea as to how long it had been since his partner and best friend had vanished into the boarded-up club. Maybe half an hour? Time-wise, it had to be pushing two in the morning; the barren streets were devoid of traffic and pedestrians, both, as the area's fragile nightlife died stillborn. Soggy trash lay in the gutters, and a street light on the nearer corner was flickering on and off in an electrical end-of-life cycle, fitfully illuminating the grimy, empty storefronts. It was hard to imagine that only a couple of weeks ago, when the whorehouse had been doing steady business, that the neighborhood had been jumping after dark.

Christ on a crutch, what was he going to do?

A soft scuff spun from behind spun Ken around, sending him into a crouch and a leap with his knife in his fist. The dark form that he crashed into staggered and gave way, saved from serious injury only because the smaller brunet's reflexes were slowed by cold and stiff muscles. Strong fingers clad in thin black leather closed around Ken's wrist, and slammed his hand into the bricks, costing him skin and control of the knife. Then he was spinning again, face first into the dirty wall and his arm was ruthlessly pinned to his shoulder blades, while a lean, wiry body pressed hard against his backside. Ken bucked, thrusting himself backwards with his free hand, but the narrowness of the passageway worked against him. Slammed into the wall again, his chin scraped painfully and the shorter assassin bit off a surprised yelp, turning it into a growl as berserker rage began to rise in his soul.

"Siberian!" The sharp hiss directly into his ear froze Ken, dissipating his fury.

"A- Aya?" he whispered. The body nailing him to the wall didn't so much relax as shift minutely, granting the younger man breathing space without releasing him. Ken took the chance to gulp in air, muttering, "Shit! That hurt…"

The tight grip on his wrist disappeared, and the brunet groaned as he slowly lowered his arm. He was used to relying on those muscles and tendons, used to the strains of hand-to-hand combat, but Aya knew just where the pressure points were that would negate Ken's strength, and they hurt. Being disarmed via a brick wall wasn't high on his list of fun activities, either. Both his hand and his chin were throbbing in time together. The only consolation was that Aya hadn't been trying to kill him, because there was a good chance that he would have succeeded.

"Where's Omi?" the low voice demanded.

"Inside… You were right; they went into the club." Ken answered quietly. He shivered again, noting with an increasingly distracted part of his brain that the stand-offish redhead hadn't moved away, but was still pressed lightly against him, warm and solid from thigh to hip, to back. Ken licked his lips hesitantly. "Hey… are you all right?"

"Hn." Aya released him, shifting to occupy the other assassin's original vantage point near the alley's mouth. Instead of his usual black trench coat, he wore a hip-length leather jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, both in a dull slate-gray that blended into the wet darkness. With the hood pulled up over his red hair and pale skin, he was nearly invisible.

"Aya…" Instincts were warning Ken that something was wrong, but he couldn't get a handle on what. Tension vibrated through the slender man, coming off in nearly palpable waves, and in turn it made younger Hunter wary. Then an anomaly clicked, and he demanded, "Yohji didn't come with you, did he? What happened to him?"

Silence. Then, softly, "I don't know. I couldn't find him."

Ken grabbed Aya's shoulder and wrenched him deeper into the narrow gap, away from the possibility of detection should he give in to the temptation to shake the man silly. "What the fuck do you mean, `couldn't find him'?"

The hood slipped back halfway. Aya, normally pale, was bloodless in what little flickering light penetrated their hiding place. The emotionless masks that had so frustrated Ken were again stripped away, but this time it wasn't joy that was revealed, but grief that made his jaw clench helplessly. A tremor shook the deep voice. "Yohji went into the police headquarters, and told his story. Everything was fine. But then he didn't come out."

"When was this?" Ken's fingers dug into Aya's leather coat, and he felt the man wince, but he didn't ease the frantic pressure. Something had happened to the playboy; Ken's gut roiled and he swallowed hard.

"About 4:00 pm."

Ten or more hours earlier. A million things could have happened in that span of time. Yohji might already be dead, his body dumped far out into the bay, or… "Jesus, Aya," Ken whispered, "Why didn't you call us? We could have-- "

"Done nothing. Neither you nor Omi would be effective against the police. He, because of his role in Yohji's recent subterfuge, and you because of your past history. The same is also true of me. There are those on the force who might still remember…" Aya replied quietly, allowing the distraught ball player to mangle his arm. Their eyes met, and Ken nodded slowly.

"Yeah… your parents' murders. I remember, too." And he did, even though the brunet suspected that there were still large segments of Aya's history that he was unaware of. Omi had filled him in on some of the high points after they had learned of the swordsman's encounter with Benson during the auction investigation, but there was a lot that even their hacker hadn't been able to ferret out. Kritiker could bury the truth deep when they wanted to. Ken forced his fingers to uncurl, although he left them resting lightly on the leather sleeve, and took a shaky breath of his own. "So what do we do?"

"I sent an email to one of Manx's anonymous accounts. There's no way of knowing when it will be received, but there's very little else we can attempt." Paradoxically, Aya's rich voice was steadier, more in control, even as the stiff trembling in his limbs grew.

The last of the fight and fury drained out of the hot-tempered younger man. Much though he hated to admit it, Aya was right. None of them dared to approach the cops. And, with the possibility that Kritiker itself had been compromised still looming, going openly to their handler was also impossible. He stroked a hand gently down Aya's arm, mutely offering an apology.

Interestingly enough, the gesture drained some of the tension from the red haired man, leaving him docile under Ken's touch. That, in and of itself, was a warning. Ken really didn't want to push any more, but he sighed. "Aya… I think the same people have got Yohji and Omi. Omittchi gave in real easily, and just went with them. I think it was because they told him that they'd taken Yohji somehow."

"Yes." Aya bowed his head. Concerned, Ken dared to lean into him. Stiffly resistant for a moment, Aya finally fumbled with the buttons fastening his coat, opening it and enveloping the shorter man into its leather-scented warmth. "You're cold." He seemed surprised by the discovery, and the slowly thawing brunet snorted.

"Yeah." It felt heavenly to not be chilled to the bone. After a moment, Ken worked up the nerve to slide his arms around the other man's slim waist, carefully hugging him. The changeable wind veered around again, leaving them in a pocket of calm. Aya allowed his cheek to rest against the soaked, sun-streaked hair and that tiny gesture was enough to pull a shuddering exhalation out of Ken. Closing his eyes, he fought back unexpected tears.

"What's wrong?" The sound was barely audible, just a faint vibration of bone and muscle, but Ken tightened his embrace.

"I… was afraid you weren't going to come." The confession was just as faint, addressed to the damp cotton knit of the sweatshirt that the redhead wore beneath his coat. Aya shifted uncomfortably, then forced himself into rigid stillness. Ken's hands clenched into the fabric against the small of the swordsman's back, wordlessly denying him the chance to retreat. If there was no escape for one miserable, lost assassin, there would be none for the other.

Aya wrapped his coat a little more closely around them both, and hesitantly cleared his throat. "I didn't want to." he admitted. "But… Omi… For Omi, I abandoned my post, my task… Even though I know Kritiker has gone into hiding, and that we may not have another chance."

"There were phone calls out from the cops?"

"Aa. I was tracing several promising leads, using the equipment that Manx lent us, and Omi's software." Tonelessly, Aya wrote off what might have been their only chance to track down his assailants before they could move again, before they disappeared back into Tokyo's dense population or, worse, left the country entirely. And before Weiss was forced to follow suit. The brunet felt a twinge of regret that it had been his frantic interruption that had scuttled the other half of Weiss's objectives, maybe for good.

"I'm sorry." whispered Ken. This time, when he tightened his hold on Aya, he meant it as comfort, not as a threat. The slender man nodded slightly, his cheek rubbing unpleasantly over wet hair.

"It was my decision. I should not have allowed Omi to get close to me… He should not have… wanted… someone so soaked in blood and sin, as I am. If it had not been for me, he would not have gotten involved." The iron command had cracked on `wanted,' and let a world of frustration and loneliness leak out before Aya could stuff it all back under wraps. "I can't forget that I've slept with him in my arms."

Ken hesitated, unsure how far he dared to push, but wanting - himself - to feel Aya's willing embrace.

But Yohji and Omi - especially Omi - came first.

He took a deep breath. "Aya. Screw the mission. Let's go waste the bastards and get our friends back."

It was amazing just how much the swordsman's slim body could give away when one was allowed close enough to touch him. By the feel of the sudden, sharply indrawn breath, and the slight but none the less real rocking back onto his heels, Aya telegraphed startlement, and alarm. A barely visibly widening of his shadowed eyes, and the corresponding dilation of the inky darkness within corresponded to conflicted fear as the lean muscles within the circle of Ken's arms bunched, ready to flee. "I won't kill." Aya hissed raggedly. "I can't."

"Aya! Don't fall apart on me." Ken pleaded. "I need you. They need you." Aya flinched away, but the compact athlete pushed him into the bricks, refusing to let go. "Fuck it all, I don't care if you kill them or not - I can take care of it if it needs doing. But I do need your brain, Aya. I'm not smart like you." He paused for a beat, staring up into the stricken features, then whispered, "Please, Aya… I need you. Help me."

To Be Continued…