I wrote this in the night to Sunday as it still was a possibility. Now, it has to be titled as AU. Oh well, I don't really care. We all have to write at least one story not following the rules of the fandom, and this one is mine. You might notice that I didn't post this as "complete" story. I still want to leave the door open to add to it. Especially, after seeing Rai and Muzaka talk in the latest Noblesse chapter, I might want to have them bond. Or Muzaka and M-21 talk about the whole heart-case. Maybe Tao wants to be Tao and do dog-jokes. Let's see ;)
Crombel had told him. About Frankenstein and his experiments. Why his daughter had to die and how, where, her heart finally had ended up.
He wouldn't, couldn't, believe that someone associated with his friend would do something like this. At the same time he knew Frankenstein and how he sought for knowledge. He had to see it with his own eyes. He had to hear Frankenstein's reason for doing so, but either way the experiment had to die. How could he not? Taking his daughter's heart to gain power? Such a selfish being shouldn't carry part of his loveable child.
And so he had sought out the human with a werewolf's heart. He needed to see it for himself. With the information he shook out of a middle ranked agent, quite literally, it was almost easy to find him. It turned out to be harder to get him alone. He always was surrounded by humans, other man-made people, and even nobles. And Raziel. How his friend could stay in the presence of that abnormality was beyond him. Somehow his mind shied away from that thought; he felt betrayed.
Finally, after days of stalking, he got the man alone. He smelled the fear radiating from him, but still he followed to the top of the surrounding buildings without forcing Muzaka to drag the experiment there. Of course, he didn't let himself be killed as obediently as that, but Muzaka had expected this. Who accepted the death of his child for gaining power would do everything to stay alive. Even fighting a loosing battle. And lose he did.
Surprisingly, it took a few minutes to beat him up enough to stay down. Whatever Frankenstein did with his daughter's memento, it surely gave this man more power than he had anticipated. Three gashes on his upper arm were the evidence of that.
In the end, the experiment lay on the ground, Muzaka keeping him down, his fingers wrapped around his throat. A feral grin spread on his face. One of the people responsible for his daughter's death would finally perish! He would be able to feel the fast fluttering beneath his fingertips disappear, hear the choked breaths turn into silence, see the light in those eyes starting up at him die!
For an instance, the grey eyes appeared blue to him. He no longer saw the man before him, but his daughter, the same fear, pain, and distress in her eyes he had seen so many years ago after her first, lost fight with another werewolf. She had been so young back then, she had been at the time of her death still. Had she made the exact same face the day she died? How he longed for her! To hold his child again, but it would never be. The moment passed.
Grey eyes stared up in his face, still full of pain and fear, but now tinted with confusion, too. He had loosened his grip around the other man's throat, Muzaka noticed. The experiment seemed to be too exhausted or too injured to use the chance, but stayed down, his eyes flickering close before snapping open again. For the first time he really looked at the man. How old might he be? Twenty? Forty? Muzaka always found it hard to tell with humans. For one of them, he might be an adult, for a werewolf barely out of adolescence. It was a miracle that he had been able to summon that much power, if even for a few seconds.
"Why?" Incomprehension flashed over the younger man's face. Muzaka tightened his grip around the throat again with an angry snarl. "Why did you take this heart? How can you live with knowing someone had to die for you?"
Surprise and then anger burned in those eyes. A sharp hiss escaped the younger man's mouth and with surprising strength he tried to throw him, unsuccessfully, off.
"You think I wanted this? My comrades... I," the man growled as Muzaka let go enough to allow him enough air to answer. Anger. Tears in grey eyes. Now it was Muzaka who felt confused. He had expected the man to plea for his life, or the attempt to reason, not this heated glare he received. Neither had he anticipated this sadness.
Before he could pull himself together, Muzaka felt two familiar presences appear. He had lingered too long. He should have long ago killed this one without bothering this much to ask questions. Almost soundlessly two people landed a few meters away on the rooftop, and Muzaka rose his head to face them.
"I would appreciate it if you would step aside without further hurting my child."
Muzaka's joyless laugh sounded strangled even to his own ears. Leave it to Frankenstein to call the man carrying his daughter's heart in his chest a child. As if he would be helpless. As if he needed protection. As if he didn't belong to the people ruthlessly killing his only child to take her apart and use her broken body.
"So you hold him that dear that you kill one of mine to put her heart into him? Did it satisfy your curiosity to play around with lives?"
"I did nothing of that kind. I only kept him alive and stabilized his body, but I did not kill a werewolf to gain organs; neither did I do this to him."
They hadn't approached so far. He knew that Raziel tried to keep humans save, but Frankenstein had always seemed to only care for the Noblesse, nobody else. Did he now care for this experiment? Muzaka's eyes strayed back to the man lying on the ground. Blood pooled around him, and he seemed to fight a loosing battle with his consciousness. Red angry marks showed where Muzaka had put his fingers around the white skin of his throat.
"He is a victim, like she had been," Raziel finally said in his calm and soft voice. Muzaka didn't want to hear it, didn't want to believe it. But as long as he knew Raziel, he had never lied to him. To tell the truth, Muzaka wasn't even sure if the Noblesse even knew how to lie at all. Was the experiment really a victim? Muzaka had felt something off, but he had done his best to not listen to the whisper of reason. If he did, he would need to think. Which would lead to memories of his daughter, and that would hurt. Anger felt safer.
A sensation under his fingertips made him look down again. He didn't clench his hand around the other man's throat any more, but it still rested on his skin without adding any pressure. He felt the pulse, a soft fast beat, but neither fluttering nor faltering. His daughter's heart tried its best to keep this man breathing. And he had almost taken this life. He had almost killed the last thing still left of his child.
Muzaka threw his head back and let out a scream, partly howl, partly sob. He sat back on his heels as tears started to flow. Frankenstein came cautiously closer and helped the lying man into a sitting position. A quick, blurry glance told Muzaka that the injured one either relaxed while leaning into Frankenstein's side or had lost consciousness, but he didn't really care. As long as the heart was still beating...
Curling up in himself, Muzaka leaned forward. His nails left scratches, first in the concrete then in his palms, as he clenched his hands to fists. The pain was nothing compared to what he felt in his heart. Up till now anger had kept a thin barrier between him and grief, but now they had taken the target of his anger away from him. His daughter was gone. He would never see her smile at him again. She would never laugh again. He could never hold her again.
Of course, he had known so for a while, but only now he finally accepted it. Perhaps he had needed to feel her heart beat in another person's chest to be able to do so. It was tearing him apart. How should he survive this? They had taken away from him the only thing in the world that was good and his and dear. His soul bled, and he was alone.
A hand softly came to rest on his shoulder. Raziel. Muzaka hadn't noticed his approach. The Noblesse couldn't understand what he was going through, since he didn't have a child and lost it. Still, the comfort of warmth, of a living being that cared, was perhaps the only thing between him and utter despair. Muzaka leaned his shoulder against the man standing next to him while he cried.
"Let's go home," Raziel finally said after minutes or hours. Muzaka couldn't tell, but his throat felt sore from sobbing, and screaming, and cursing fate. He swept the back of his hands over his eyes. Frankenstein and the man with his daughter's heart were gone. Instead a young noble stood at the edge of the roof, her face impassive as she looked out over the rooftops to give him privacy.
The hand that had rested on his shoulder till now left and appeared in front of his vision. Muzaka grasped it, accepting the silent invitation.