Author: Mirrordance
E-mail: mirror_dance@hotmail.com
Title: Dead Waters
Type: series
Spoilers: basically references to stuff all throughout the series.
Warnings: angst, language and violence
Teaser: Ken befriends a hesitant Farfello in strange circumstances,
Ran gets hasseled by an investigative reporter looking into
vigilante groups, and Schwarz want to collaborate with Weiss against
a common enemy...
Keywords: Weiss, Schwarz, Action

"And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.

And he answered:

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters..."

--an excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran

"Dead Waters"

Part 1

      Glowing golden eyes followed the lonely figure as it stalked across the darkened city, as if it were lost and yet intentionally aimless all at once.

      The Irishman had been sent to kill Siberian, and he had been looking forward to the good fight that awaited; the Japanese boy was a handful, even for him.  But, as he watched the disconcerted man sneak out of his own home with glazed eyes and what looked to be incredibly heavy burdens of guilt on his stooped shoulders, he suddenly changed his mind.

      Like a predator stalking its prey, Farfello lithely followed Ken Hidaka as he walked around the empty city.  He was both curious and disappointed that the trained assassin wasn't able to detect him.

      It was an unfamiliar feeling.  Curiosity, that is.  There's been too little of that in his life.  Too little of any kind of feeling, physical or otherwise.

      Maybe that was why, against any form of sense, he was following this man, just to...to what? See what Siberian would do? Find out why this midnight walk bothered him so much?

      Yet another new feeling.  Confusion, that is.

      What was he doing, playing this damn game?

      He was supposed to kill him.

      Ken was oblivious to his stalker, as he was oblivious to practically everything else in the universe that night.

      There was a pain too intense within him, that made him focus there and nowhere else.  Nowhere else...

      He tried not to remember the date.  He really did.  Failed, apparently.  Knowing the day was near, he tried not to look at the calendar.  He really did.  Failed too.  He tried to forget.  He really did.

      But somehow, his mind and his heart could not escape the memory. 

      Two years ago today, he had killed his best friend.

      It wasn't this bad, last year.  He had thought that perhaps the first-year-anniversary would be the hardest, but he was wrong.  Back then, he was too distracted by a mission, and later, too tired and wounded from the assignment to think about Kase.

      But this year...Manx didn't come bearing a disk and a folder.  He had all the time to think.

      And thinking hurt like hell.

      Somehow, he had found his way from his seemingly oppressive room to the kitchen.  And to that damned knife, which in turn have found its way to his wrists.  He was going to wait it out.  He was already feeling lightheaded when he realized that the only friends that he had left were not going to be pleased finding him dead on the lenoleum.

      So he took himself outside, and walked and walked and walked, not knowing where he was going, as long as it was far enough away so they wouldn't be the one to find him dead this way.

      He stopped by an abandoned building.

      Perfect.

      And Farfello followed him still.

      He stopped a considerable distance away from Siberian, who stood at the edges of the roof of the old, condemned apartment building.

      Being quite used to the scent, Farfello detected the blood on the air, saw it on the steps and knew that it had come from the target. 

      Uncertainty gripped him again.  What was that Japanese boy doing, standing on the goddamn ledge like that, with his wrists bleeding?

      It was a stupid question.  What he actually couldn't undrerstand, was Why.

      Why was Siberian doing this?

      And most of all, why was he holding himself back from killing the target and putting him out of his misery?

      Especially since, apparently, it was what they both wanted?

      Siberian doesn't always regret the night that he had raised his claws to put a lethal blow on the two-faced man whom Ken had loved as a brother.

      Kase was evil.  It had to be done.  That's why Ken and his teammates existed.

      But tonight, Ken wasn't Siberian.  He wasn't the justified White Hunter, bearing arms to kill the scum.  He was just Ken Hidaka, who had killed his friend.

      He raised his arms to his sides, embracing the night.

      And let himself fall.

      It was a nameless, surprising emotion.

      Farfello's heart had tightened at the sight of that moment, that singular moment when he knew that the boy wasn't satisfied just slitting his wrists, but was going to make sure he stayed dead by jumping off the thirty-story building.

      Maybe that was the moment he suddenly realized the brutality of the truth of it.  Siberian wasn't bluffing.  This was the real thing.

      He lurched from his concealed place, and caught one bloody hand.

      The two assassins hung precariously at the edge of an unstable roof, but Farfello wasn't going to let go.

      Disoriented green eyes raised up to meet his own orbs of gold.

      There was a question in those eyes.  Then a strange kind of humor, as if Siberian was thinking that none of it could possibly be happening.

      Farfello could scarcely believe it himself.

      The green eyes slid close.

      The Irishman muttered a curse as he hauled up the boy's body.

      The two of them landed on a heap.  Farfello was not a gentle man.

      Standing up, he looked at the unconscious Siberian, and the blood that was pooling around them, the blood that was on his own hands, having grasped Ken Hidaka's wrists.

      It was an insane amount of blood.

      And for some reason, he didn't feel the usual elation over the sight, the feel nor the scent of it.

      He still didn't know why.

      But he hauled up the unconscious boy and brought him over to one of the empty apartments below.

      He didn't know what he was doing, but whatever it was, he wasn't going to do it halfway.

      He saved the boy from the fall--for whatever reason-- and he wouldn't let him bleed to death either.

      The sun rose, as it always did, over the city as if nothing had happened at all.

      The Earth was a separate existance, forever enduring no matter what life was lost and who it had belonged to.  It was a deceiving sight, but reassuring nontheless.

      Ran Fujimiya was the first one awake at the flower shop, which was also always the case.

      He strolled down to the kitchen, rubbing sleepily at amethyst eyes that seemed still asleep.  That was when he felt something wrong.

      He looked at the kitchen counter, and found the bloodied knife.

      Just as his eyes spotted the stray, scattered droplets of red on the floor, making a trail out the door.

      With heightened senses, he dashed up the stairs to the apartments above.  He kicked at Yoji's door, and the playboy had raised his head up from his pillow, sleepily inquisitive.  Relieved, Ran barged into Omi's door, nearly knocking the younger man over, who seemed to have been awakened by the noises he had made.

      It no longer surprised him to find Ken's room empty.

      He ran back to the kitchen and followed the trail of blood.

      It led him out of the shop, where busy people bustled on the streets that Saturday morning.

      The trail had been lost.