Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ To Those About To Die ❯ Chapter 6 - Musings ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six -- Musings

"Geisel, you bitch!"

My hand paused just above the doorknob. For one moment I considered turning and walking away. It would be easy, and it would solve nothing.

I opened the door; a vase hurtled past my head to shatter beside the doorframe.

The Girl stood panting, fury etched in every fibre. Her hair and clothes were in disarray, and her face was flushed.

Kiko stood opposite her, wearing only a towel and a smirk.

"Team, stand down," I commanded, my voice carefully neutral to hide my displeasure. We had to start working as a team, the three of us, or Rosenkreuz was bound to send replacements.

Kiko started to speak around his grin, then his gaze fell upon my piercing and his expression softened. "Sorry, Berger," he mumbled.

The Girl scowled darkly at me. "Berger, what the hell is that? It's hardly appropriate for a team leader to --"

"Mädchen, that is not your place to say." I glared down at her, murder in my heart.

She pouted and changed the subject. "I have a name, you know."

My face betrayed my incredulity at her request, and my reply fell from numb lips: "I don't care." I turned and strode past the two of them and into the kitchen.

As the door swung shut behind me, I groped for a chair and fell heavily into it. Reaction too long denied flooded through me. I couldn't stop shaking, and tears barely restrained threatened to drown me. I gasped for air. Oh, Toni! She was the reason you were killed, to make way for that bitch. How could I work with her, knowing this? And now she's trying to seduce Kiko, trying or succeeding, and when will she convince him to turn against you too?

Calm, Berger. Calm down. I forced myself to breathe, to sit straight and just breathe. There was nothing more the Girl or anyone could do to Toni now. He lived only in my memory, and there I would keep him sacred and safe.

But to do this, I had to go on.

And to go on, I had to figure out how to yoke together a reluctant threesome bent on self destruction.

A troika bound for Hell.

I rose from my chair. Coffee would be a good excuse for the length of my absence, though I could sense that the Girl was no longer in the apartment, and Kiko no longer in the main room.

The only thing that could bind us to one another was our mission. I had to discern the motivation of the other two, figure out whether they hunted the renegades out of pride, greed, or compulsion. As the steaming coffee filled the carafe, I nodded to myself. First, figure out who they really were, then the motivation will make itself known.

Wait. Was I referring to my own team, or to Schwarz? I frowned as the implications of that thought sank in. Figure out who they really were... In my memory I could still see the red-haired telepath with Karl, smiling together, sneaking into an empty room. Then the motivation will make itself known...

I poured a cup of coffee and tried to ignore the stray grounds floating in it. Distracted, I made a sandwich and carried both back to the main room. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was close to understanding something, something critical.

On the shelves lay stacks of folders, dossiers on the target and related materials. We had each read them enough to have the damn things half memorized by now. Still... My hand lingered over one stack, then reached into the middle and pulled out one thick file. You are in here, my friend, and I will find you.

Mastermind. Not the kind of name I would recommend for an ego case, but the choice had not been mine to make.

I held file number two of sixteen. Three centimetres thick.

What was I missing? What were we all missing that had allowed this rebel to remain at large for nearly eight months?

Who was Schuldig? And what moved him to run? Another man might have returned to Rosenkreuz, fresh from the kill of the Elders, and proclaimed himself part of the next rule. If this were not possible, he could have sold his team over to buy his own safety. Nearly any other man would have.

No one knew what might have happened had Schwarz returned as conquerors rather than fled as exiles. Considering the nature of Esset, they would probably have been welcomed in and spent the rest of their lives waiting for another hotshot team to come after their power. They would have lived in the ease and luxury they had become accustomed to in Japan.

But they chose exile over conquest. They were not living in luxury; they had vanished off our collective radar. Why? What possessed them to take this road, a road of certain hardship and flight?

What kind of man turns away from the power of an easy victory?

My coffee had gone cold, but I drank it anyway. An odd idea tickled the back of my mind. I had always known that Rosenkreuz did not exist for the welfare of humanity or the nurturing of the soul, rather the opposite, in fact. Perhaps the men of Schwarz saw no benefit in such a place.

Perhaps, for some, it is better to serve in Heaven than to rule in Hell.

I set the file down and finished off my lunch without tasting it. I was an operative of Esset, leader by circumstance of a field team assigned to apprehend the team called Schwarz. It would not do to admire the target. That could jeopardize everything.

And yet...