Endtimes
Author's Notes- As always, constructive criticism is very welcome. I had to do a fair bit of reading on the subject of Revelations and the apocalypse, so apologies to any Christians if I misinterpreted any of it. Oh, and it's never canonically stated that Farfarello is a biokinetic, I just found some references to bio- and vitakinesis on Wikipedia, and it seemed to fit.
Disclaimers- I don't own any of the characters or the concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended. And while I doubt that any of the apostles are going to sue me over it, many of the quotes are taken from the Bible and not my own work either.
Warnings- ...It's Farfarello. A bit of blood and religious themes. A couple of ambiguous parts up to interpretation, I began writing as pre-slash, but read it however you please.
Ken's world isn't so clear-cut these days. Once he could draw the line with the honed edge of a katana, a near-invisible loop of razor wire, the tip of one claw. It's getting harder to believe in good guys and bad guys, the rules that keep his world stable beginning to blur together. Losing faith this way is often the beginning of the end for people in his line of work.
There's a lot of blood on his hands, and he thinks he's probably beyond redemption. He thinks about it every time he teaches soccer to local children, watches sunlight spill pale watery gold over their upturned faces and pretends he's just like them, pretends dawn didn't find him in the shower watching another man's diluted blood wash down the drain in pale pink swirls the colour of strawberry ice-cream. It doesn't even matter to him any more whether the person on the other end of his claw is a criminal or not. He enjoys the kill just as much either way. If he was a consequentialist he'd argue the actions or the reasons don't matter. Nothing matters, so long as the outcome is right and another dangerous predator is taken out of society and everyone can sleep a little safer. But it's hard to keep telling yourself that when your arm is slick with blood up to the elbow and you can feel cardiac muscle throbbing weakly between your claws like a trapped bird, and you like it.
He's always been the most normal Weiss member, and probably still is. Omi was lost a long time ago. The fact that he can hold onto his cheery manner and wake up smiling and asking what everyone wants for breakfast after a night of carnage makes him the most frightening one out of the lot. Aya's feelings are beginning to crystallise under too much pressure, inevitably turning into the perfect killing machine. Even seeing his sister awaken didn't save him. He doesn't want to contaminate her and drag her down into his dark nighttime world where the only requisite for a man's death was Persia's signature authorising it on a form. Yohji is still cut up with guilt and losing himself in cheap alcohol and cheaper sex. Ken will be able to hold himself together a lot longer than most in this business.
The Kritiker-run hospital he approaches is fairly small and passes itself off as a private care home from the outside. They usually have a ward half-full of agents from all over Japan recovering from various minor injuries, a few long-term residents undergoing rehabilitation, various civilians under their protection. And the psych wards, of course. This is where Ken is heading. A faint smile as he wonders in exactly what sense he's heading towards the wards. Perhaps in a few years he'll be bouncing around a padded cell next to Farfarello. Maybe not. The biokinetic is useful alive. They're still curious about what useful information they can tease out from his cells, but there's nothing new they can learn about Ken. They already know what makes an assassin go crazy. It's nothing they haven't seen a thousand times before.
The place makes him uneasy. Too many people in his line of work eventually end up here. No matter how good an agent you are, you'll inevitably get there just hours too late and find the kidnappers have already killed the child after cutting off too many appendages, the prostitute was already tortured to death by a client who was willing to pay enough for his very own snuff video, the man you just cut down was not the intended target. Agents fall apart and the hospital pieces them back together and sends them out again until they're too broken to carry on. There's rarely such a thing as retiring in a job like this. Some, like Omi, might be considered valuable enough to keep on after they're finished with assassination. The others will probably be considered too unstable and will be reported killed in action. As far as the everyday world knows, they've already died a long time ago.
Ken wanders past locked cells, nods at a security guard, winks at a pretty nurse who always smiles when she sees him. She blushes prettily, shining ponytail swinging and heels clicking as she walks away briskly, probably to tell a friend. He can see the faint shape of the tiny gun strapped to a long shapely thigh. Even those who come here to heal are trained to kill.
There's a mirror in the elevator and he surveys his reflection for a moment while hidden mechanisms around him hum and send him down underground into the wards very few can access. The young man in the mirror watches back mildly. His lifestyle has yet to taint his outward appearance. No visible scars, his face boyishly handsome, hair and eyes the wholesome smooth colour of milky chocolate. Attractive enough to draw a second look from any pretty girl, not distinctive enough to stop him disappearing into the underground.
The staff are all quite used to seeing him here most weeks. There were questions at first. He knows they'll have monitored him closely for any suspicious motives, but apparantly they're satisfied he isn't going insane himself. As usual, no one stops him as he approaches the highest security wing and enters the personal code Birman reluctantly gave him. The dim hospital noises are instantly cut off after the door hisses shut behind him. All the rooms here are soundproofed here. They have to be.
As he approaches the cell, a distinguished looking middle-aged man is standing outside another room, clipboard in hand, talking with a nurse and someone Ken doesn't recognise. He has to pass them, but the psychiatrist turns as he sees him. An elegant grey eyebrow raises, just fractionally.
"There haven't been any changes," The man said, raising a hand to silence his partner momentarily. He can't keep quite his expression neutral, clearly thinking himself above Kritiker's trained killers. "Why do you waste your time?"
Ken shrugs mildly, pausing for a moment out of politeness. He can't really answer the question himself. He is still essentially good-natured. He's never grudged taking time out of his day to help someone, no matter how much joy he takes in his work by night. This isn't really altruism though, just a strange morbid fascination that keeps bringing him back.
The psychiatrist looked at him for a long moment, and then made a small gesture of resignation. "Suit yourself. Please remember to take the staples out of any papers you leave in there though. The patient damaged his eye quite seriously last time,"
That was almost a month ago, and he'd already been told not to do it again. Farfarello's single eye was still bandaged over the next time he had visited, the soft gauze limp and saturated with blood. Ken didn't stay too long that week. He'd already realised that Farfarello didn't like being approached on his blind side, and even if he hadn't attacked anyone since his admission, Ken didn't want to risk it.
Ken taps in a four digit code outside the door, and it slid open quietly.
"Hello, Farfarello,"
It takes a moment to locate the assassin's indistinct shape, a faint ghost-like impression finally rising out from the walls. Everything here is white- pale skin, pale scars, pale hair against stark white paint. The only colour comes from the blood. It's spattered on the floor, used to paint symbols spiraling down the walls, pooling in the gouges up Farfarello's forearms, opened up to visible bone. Torn black stitches fleck the edges of the gaping wound, and the bandages leave wet red trails around and around the room, tracing inward on the floor to the place where Farfarello now kneels in the corner. Without a knife, he has to literally tear himself apart.
"They should just shoot you," Ken said, without any malice behind it.
Farfarello flinches at the sound of his voice, apparently just noticing Ken had arrived. He occasionally goes catatonic, sometimes for up to a day at a time. It's not surprising. All of Weiss have lost sleep remembering the mindless carnage the Beserker had wrought. Jei had to relive every last kill through Farfarello's single mad eye.
His expression doesn't change much at Ken's presence, sharp feral features guarded, blind side against the wall. There's no trace remaining of the claw marks that put him there. Farfarello doesn't seem to bear Ken any grudges over that- it was a good fight. The claws had slipped in through the vulnerable space just behind the jaw, missed the brain stem and sliced up through the temporal and frontal lobes. The part of Ken that frightens himself had almost found it hilarious when Kritiker told him he had lobotomised the Schwarz psycho. Not a very neat job, but effective. Even a non-biokinetic could have possibly survived that crude psychosurgery if the shock and bloodloss hadn't got to them. Frontal lobes are somewhat optional, and people had survived worse brain damage. Left alone, Farfarello's phenomenal healing ability would have probably healed it over completely- he had survived bullets to the head before. But now there were four tiny metal implants in there, barely detectable electrical pulses subtly altering his skewed brain activity. Kritiker hadn't fully succeeded in restoring sanity, but it was quite an improvement.
Hardly an act of kindness, though. After the Irish assassin was washed ashore, broken and bled out and still impossibly breathing, some top Kritiker agent had jumped at the chance to take a member of Schwarz alive. Of course, interrogation would be more or less useless, but they'd take any chance to learn about their enemies' abilities. Kritiker had no gifted members. Rosenkreuz guarded their kind jealously.
It would probably take them years to come close to understand the nature of Farfarello's biokinesis and whether it could somehow be engineered to enhance normal humans. But that didn't matter. They'd already established that his cells didn't age. No one there was intending to kill him off, and it would take a lot for him to inflict fatal damage upon himself without any weapons. He can open an artery quite easily, but his gift always kicks in before he can bleed out entirely.
"Jesus hasn't came back yet, huh?" Ken asks, propping himself against the bed. "Doesn't matter. You'll still be here when he finally gets round to it," He takes out a pile of newspaper and magazine articles neatly stapled together, the important points marked in yellow and pink highlighter pen. There's a mixture of sources there- smudgy free newspapers printed on cheap paper, high-end international publications, glossy womens' magazines. He was never really one for keeping up with the news before this. Omi subscribed to numerous newspapers and read them all diligently, even though Kritiker would tell them the only things they needed to know, the stuff that didn't make it to the newspapers. He cleared his throat and began reading.
"Sinister arising of cult-like behaviour reported amongst American teenagers in prestigious Catholic school. Mother tells heartbreaking story of how her daughter was lost..."
Many will come in the name of Christ, and deceive many.
"...Ten killed by Arab bombings in Israel... Tensions rising as conflict reaches peak.."
There will be wars and rumours of wars between nations and kingdoms
"...European charity concert to assist starving in Africa cancelled.. Mysterious lights reported in Welsh skies.."
The first sorrows will be in the form of calamities: famines, pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. Fearful sights and great signs from heaven.
"...Teenage girl, 16, killed for her faith. Armed robber held gun to her head and asked if she believed her God would save her.."
Orthodox Christians will be delivered up, killed and hated by all nations
"...Gay bar bombed in San Francisco, fifteen killed... Muslim teenager beaten to death in London"
Everywhere men will hate and betray each other.
"No false prophets this time. Sorry, Farfie. Maybe the apocalypse will come next week," Ken remembers to pick the staples out of the articles before setting them aside for Farfarello to check later. He wonders if he should start ordering a subscription to one of those trashy American newspapers. They always report the Virgin Mary's face being seen in a taco, or the Antichrist appearing in a spaceship. Although perhaps he'd just get disheartened if they kept promising the second coming every week and Jesus never showed up. Ken's beginning to see why Farfarello believes all this stuff. If you look closely enough, you can find all kinds of patterns that aren't really there. It's dangerous.
"I wait.." Farfarello began, and trailed off. It's strange hearing anxiety in a voice that always sounded like someone dragging a blade edge over stone. He picks at the open wound, but it's bled out and has nothing more to give, the exposed flesh an anaemic pink from blood loss. "But I don't hear Him any more. I think He stopped listening,"
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," Ken quoted back automatically. He bought a cheap Bible after the first time he visited. Good stuff- full of murder and betrayal and eternal damnation. No wonder Farfarello likes it so much.
Farfarello pulls his knees up to his chest and leans back against the wall, eye fixated somewhere beyond the asylum ceiling, up to the blue summer sky that won't split open and let the apocalypse in. He's unusually calm this week. Probably just the blood loss. It's easier to talk to him when he's in a quiet, despairing mood. Last week he was shaking, his pupil dilated, babbling about the endtimes. Poor bastard had thought the world had ended and he'd been left behind. The part of Farfarello that was mostly Jei was convinced he was completely beyond salvation now.
There was silence, so Ken chatted on for a while about trivial things that didn't even interest himself that much any more. What was happening in the world, what happened at the flower shop, the soccer lessons he'd given that week. Farfarello seems to find the noise soothing anyway.
"Aya-chan sent us some photos of her cats. She was going to get an Abyssinian, but couldn't bring herself to buy a purebred when there were stray cats being destroyed. So she adopted two of the ugliest things you ever saw, because no one else would give them a home and they said they'd been in the shelter for months. And Mamoru's been accepted at the university he wanted, though he isn't sure if he's going to take his place up,"
"Mamoru?" Farfarello stirred slightly. So he was listening.
"Oh, Omi's real name. He's trying to get used to answering to it again. You remember him, don't you? That time in the church,"
Farfarello winced. Of course. That isn't a memory anyone wants to be reminded of. Elderly priests burned black with acid even as they tried to save Farfarello, Ruth pleading just before she threw herself in front of his blade. They died easier than some of his victims too. They weren't nailed up, sinner's eyes cut from their sockets and cruciform slashes laying them open to the bone. They weren't torn apart alive piece by bloodied piece, reduced to nothing but so much meat come undone.
"They died for Him," Farfarello replied, reassuring himself perhaps. "When they arise again, they will be at His right hand side,"
When the dead rise. Ken already knows all about Farfarello's dreams of the world's end. The sky torn open like wet tissue paper and the seven wraths of God raining down upon the earth. Farfarello wonders if this city is Babylon itself, swelling with sin and poison, drunk on the blood of saints and ripe with fornication, figures writhing slowly in the filthy streets. He sees rivers running scarlet, staining the dying land, hailstones raining broken glass, sinners praying in the streets on torn knees and their shame branded forever upon their forehead with the mark of the beast. White horses running crazed through the falling nations, eyes like embers and the men upon their backs bearing the name of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, a double-edged sword and in righteousness they will judge and make war.
"Have they found the Oracle yet?" Farfarello asks.
Ken isn't sure how much to share. Crawford disappeared after the tower collapsed. Many of the corpses were never retrieved, but even so, no one seems to even consider the possibility that he may have died. He just wasn't the type to die like that. Nagi is still in Japan, currently no longer working for Rosenkreuz. He's bright enough to know they haven't simply let him go, but for whatever reasons of their own, no one is currently monitoring him. He rarely goes outside and gets by siphoning off money from bank accounts when he needs it. Mostly to pay for Schuldig's hospital fees- the telepath's shields collapsed after the tower incident, and let the whole world in.
Nagi contacted Ken once, simply walked right up to him in the park after one of his soccer lessons. He looked out of place next to the other children, neat and sober and tidy in his school uniform. It was a nice disguise, but Nagi hadn't been to school in years.
"You're in contact with Farfarello," No accusations or explanations. Ken nodded, turning away to pick up another flat cone he'd used to mark a temporary goal out on the grass. If Nagi wanted him dead, then it didn't make any difference whether Ken was facing him or not. He could be armed and ready and the telekinetic could still snap his neck in the time it took for a thought, for an electrical impulse to send the command rippling through his brain.
"Kritiker have him," He picked up someone's jumper, left behind when the day got too hot. There's a tag inside with the child's name neatly written in marker. "Probably not much use to you now. He's a lot less homicidal these days,"
"So I heard," Nagi said. "Why are you visiting him?"
Ken swung a net filled with footballs over his shoulder and turned back to face Nagi. The boy looked back calmly, showing no signs of the strange power contained within that small frame.
"No idea," He replied truthfully. "Why don't you visit him? He's your teammate" The telekinetic probably could walk right into a Kritiker building if he wanted to. Seeing that blue-haired Schrient girl cut down had awoken powers within Nagi of a magnitude that Rosenkreuz's scales couldn't even begin to measure.
Nagi frowned. "Farfarello is hardly much use to us now,"
"Neither is Schuldig," Ken began walking away. Nagi didn't follow him or ask how he knew about Schuldig, just stood there in the middle of the sun-washed park surrounded by teenagers and yet completely alone, and let him walk away.
"They never found anything," He tells Farfarello.
"They never will," Farfarello replied. He blinks slowly, muddy golden gaze clearing a little, and then dabbles in the pooled blood and stands unsteadily, turns back to his work. He's going to run out of blood before he's finished, and once he passes out someone will probably get rid of all his hard work. Latin inscriptions trace a circle around the walls, the letters indistinct and running together from being drawn with a fingertip. Underneath, there is a continuous equation running all the way around. Ken has a vague idea what the numbers represent in Christianity. One true God, two represents the duality of Christ as human and divine, three for the Trinity. Four marks the evangelists, five is the number of the wounds they inflicted upon Him during the crucifixion. Six days of creation, seven for consummation and the day of rest, eight to represent resurrection, nine gifts of the Holy Spirit and ten for the Commandments He laid down. Combined, he has no idea what they're spelling out.
The symbols are easier. Doves for peace, vines for connectedness, the icthys is the secret symbol of the faithful and the lamb for sacrifice. Alpha and Omega represent the beginning and the end, the creation and the destruction of all things. And crosses everywhere, Latin, Greek, Russian Orthodox and Calvary. The budded cross to represent the Trinity, the baptismal cross for regeneration. The colour of the blood they're drawn in represents spiritual awakening, the colour of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, although Farfarello only uses it because he has no other medium to work with.
"Do you do this to invite Him in or keep Him out?" Ken asks, intrigued.
Farfarello's amber eye flickers wearily towards him, stopping to rest again and stumbling against the wall. A wide swathe of inscriptions blur together, a red streak left behind as he slides to the floor and waits patiently while his cells replicate at a fantastic rate, healing him so he can start all over again.
"Why would I keep Him out?" Farfarello asks, his voice weaker than usual from blood loss. "He is everywhere. You cannot hide from the Lord,". He begins picking at the bandages above his elbow, trying to find an edge to loosen. A fine tremor runs through his hands, perhaps just shock setting in from the bleeding.
"You're frightened of Him," Ken replied, matter of fact. He leaned forward. "Here, I'll get it-"
"He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End," Farfarello begins repeating the mantra to himself. "He will bring the water of life and the healing of the nations and there will be no more night in His shadow-"
"And there will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie but only those who are written into the book of life. Do you think he cut your name out, Farfarello?" Ken asks, finding an edge and tugging the bandage loose for Farfarello to begin working at.
"I have not confessed my sins," Farfarello pulls at the bandage slowly, exhausted.
"I didn't think they'd let you receive the Sacrament of Penance in here. Are you trying to find absolution anyway?"
Farfarello doesn't answer. The bandages slowly begin to fall away and expose the wound there. Six neat black stitches, each one a tiny perfect cross holding the Berserker together.
"I heard a theory once that we're all really dead, and that what we think is life is actually purgatory," Ken says conversationally, something he once saw in a trashy horror film. If it's true and this is his chance for redemption, then he's screwed too. "One last chance for salvation if you've fucked up,"
The first stitch comes loose and a thin trickle of crimson slowly makes its way down Farfarello's pale scarred arm, beading on the floor. Farfarello seems to be considering Ken's idea before rejecting it. He can't stand up yet, but begins tracing the shaky outline of the Omega as far up the wall as he can reach. Ken moves a little closer to begin reading the indistinct letters.
"Don't you ever worry?" Farfarello asks, starting to draw the loop of the ichthys. "You don't come armed,"
"I always held my own against you. And you're not armed either,"
"No.." Farfarello said quietly. "I never had to be armed either,"
He stops drawing, the fresh wound already drying up and a metre of wall still unpainted and the circle incomplete. Farfarello looks almost shattered these days. The Beserker had been broken badly enough, and now they'd restored just enough of Jei to leave him struggling under the weight of sins he'd never be able to atone for. He couldn't even retreat back into denial and claim God had done it again, just like the time He had taken Jei's entire family from him.
"Do you think some sins are unforgiveable?" Farfarello asked, a little desperately. Ken could answer kindly. It doesn't make any differences in the grand scheme of things, whether Farfarello has something to hope for or not. Jesus isn't coming and if He ever gave a damn about what His subjects did, Ken thinks He stopped caring a long time ago.
"Yes, I do," Ken replied after a long pause, staring thoughtfully at his own hands and the skin roughened across his knuckles from his bugnuks. His cheap little Bible was full of talk of redemption. He just remembers Ruth and the priests and every other victim Farfarello had opened up and left strewn around in bright bloody strings of pulp and flesh.
"I thought so," Farfarello falls silent, fingers brushing the corner of his eye almost thoughtfully, rubbing the healed unscarred skin. Ken hopes he won't open that up while he's still here. He doesn't need to take the blame for that again.
"Why did you do that to your eye anyway?" Ken asks, curious. "it's not as if you have any more to spare,"
"And if thy eye causeth thee to sin, pluck it out, and cast it from thee," Farfarello quoted.
"How did it cause you to sin?" Ken asked, but there was no answer. Farfarello shrugged, and dispassionately picked out a few stitches, dropping them into a little pile on the floor. There was a long silence. There was nothing awkward about it, the air heavy and metallic with the familiar scent of blood, a broken circle of symbols shutting out the outside world and the pair of them in a strange, quiet kind of half-peace. Ken's watch finally breaks the silence, beeping to remind him that his time is up.
"Time to go. I'll leave these," He indicated the pile of articles. Farfarello can sift through them later to uncover the signs of whatever he's looking for.
"Aye, you do that," Farfarello watches him with a smile as thin and sharp as the edge of a razor blade. "Got a mission tonight?"
"Yeah," Ken stands and stretches lazily. "Suspected child pornography ring. The place is supposedly swarming with security. You'd love it,"
"It's a good night to die," Farfarello dabs in the pool of blood around him, finds it too tacky to draw with and surveys his forearms again for any sign of bleeding. "Enjoy yourself, then,"
"Thanks. I'll kill one for you," Ken walks over to the door and waits to be let out. "See you next week. I hope Jesus shows up first,"
Farfarello doesn't answer, and Ken doesn't look back. The door swished open smoothly and he stepped out, back into clean sterile hospital air. The psychiatrist he spoke to earlier is there, his eyes flicking over Ken greedily. "Anything?"
Ken shrugged. "The usual,"
"The end of the world, eternal damnation?" The doctor sighed heavily. "I don't suppose you know where this fixation came from?"
Yes, he does. Once there was a boy called Jei who tried to be very good, even though there was something very wrong with him and had been ever since he was born. He loved his family and read his Bible, and managed to walk the fine line between sanity and madness. And then one day something happened that let the sickness out, and when he woke up he found God had killed everyone he cared about. So when he saw God had forsaken him, he rejected God too. Until one day he woke up saner than ever before and realised that it had been himself all along and now he'd never make it to heaven. So now he waits and atones, and wonders if Jesus has stopped listening.
"No," Ken said mildly. "Just gibberish, I think,"
Ken walked back outside freely, no one stopping him as he passed. The air outside is golden with sunset and he breathes it in deeply, awaiting the night and the soft thud of his claws sheathed in flesh and bone. Another day, another mission, over and over again until one day he's too slow to avoid a bullet, or deemed too unstable to continue, and then Farfarello will have to await his apocalypse alone.
He chuckled a little darkly, and then turned to walk home, the dying sun staining the streets bloody as the light faded and left the heavens as dark and empty and silent as ever.