Notes!
Shounen-ai will occur in later chapters; no, I won't spoil the pairing for you.
There will be some intensive series spoilers, mostly Omi-centric stuff. I'm an Omi author, that's how I work.
The way I'm writing this story is different from my usual methods; I call it a posting method and it allows me to comfortably fit in more details and character workings than my normal writing. It takes a little longer to complete a chapter, but I generally end up far more pleased with the outcome.
Blended Grey: Prolouge
-----------------------
The soft light of the midnight moon cast pale shadows over the ground, giving an ethereal glow to what should have been the hours of darkness. Few were out at the late hour, but there was one young blonde who braved the shadows, moving as silently as a gentle breeze. Years of habit had instilled him with the instinct to cling to shadows, to be invisible in the darkness of the night, such that even now, when those skills were no longer needed, he fell to them out of pure habit. That was how it was and would always be for him, one of the once proud hunters of the dark. There was no other way to be, just one with the shadows, never seen, never heard. Not until it was too late.
Stepping lightly over a twig in his path, Omi paused to stare up at the moon, remember so many nights before, when there had been missions calling to him. He and the others had one lived like the night, killing the targets in its cover of darkness, being content and comfortable in a life of shadows. That, however, was no more. Weiß had officially been disbanded for its second time, this time a feeling of permanence settling over the remains of the group. Seven months had passed since their final mission together, where the intricate deception that had been their 'deaths' meant to fool the target into a sense of victory had won them back Manx and Kaori, at the cost of Akira. Seven months to the day it was that Weiß had received official word that they were to disband, never to hunt the dark beasts again. Seven months since he had seen or heard word from the three males that had been his closest friends since the forming of the group of white hunters.
The past seven months had been lonely for Omi, the only one of the four to remain working with Kritiker. The organization paid his bills in return for his hacking knowledge and ability. His status as an assassin had been changed to a data retrieval agent. Meant less danger and more time for him to live his life. A living he had slowly begun to build up. At the moment, he lived as Tsukiyono Omi, university student. No second job (beyond the secret one Kritiker provided him) consumed his time any longer, but he filled the spare hours that had once been flower shoppe management with the endless homework and reading of the general studies course he had taken to.
Speaking of that homework, he was on his way home from a late night study session at one of the dorms, a member of his study group housed there for the semester. He had spent the last five hours working on the latest oversized assignment for the basic economics course he was taking, one of six courses he had loaded himself with, of subjects ranging from economics to Literature to computing sciences. He wasn't aiming for a diploma of any sort, merely taking classes that caught his interest and carried some use in his life. Except for that Literature; it was a perpetual pain to him, being of a different structure than he had hoped when signing up for it.
Shaking his head, Omi pushed those thoughts aside, reminding himself that he was done with his schoolwork for the night. Now it was time to head to the small apartment that was his own and get back to the detailed retrieval Kritiker had requested of him earlier that week. Then snatch a few hours of sleep before he got up for the next day's Literature lecture and computing lab.
About to turn out and off of the campus grounds, the youth paused, hearing the sounds of a scuffle and a few voices just beyond the manicured bushes that made Tokyo University. Curious as to what could possibly be up at the late hour, he crept towards the concealing greenery, blinking wide sapphire eyes in surprise at the scene that was presented to him.
*
There was always one more than he could handle.
That had to be some sort of twisted rule designed to take down even the most skilled of fighters. Always just one more than could be defeated. And it wasn't like the movies, where the hero could just whip out some sort of secret weapon and save the day; no, this was reality, and in reality, life sucked. There was no secret weapon, just three people there when all you could really handle was two. At least, he figured there were three people. Considering that he was beyond a state of dead drunk, it was amazing he could count at all, much less decipher which thug was the real one, and which of the multitude of images were the fake. Maybe he was off by one or two people in his tally, but he could just blame that on there being a twin in their ranks, present just to screw up his count.
Stumbling back from the three (or however many) people who had decided to appear in his path, he brushed away fire-toned hair from jade eyes, the feel of a confidant, if drunken, smirk touching his lips. So here he was, at midnight, in a dark shadowed park, facing three men who did not look pleasant. They certainly couldn't be Boy Scouts selling cookies, or doing their good deed of the day, not at the late hour. And considering their confident, smug, bastard looks, he could swear that they had some sort of nasty plan to involve him in. Probably trying to steal his money or something; though such was impossible, considering he was flat out broke, just as he had been for the last six months. When they found that out, they would likely try to beat him for the simple reason that he was the idiot for not carrying money when he was being mugged.
Letting out a low, nasal chuckle, he shook his head. Stupid humans, thinking they could take on the guilty one himself. And triumph at that. Not likely; Schuldich was never taken down that easily. "Nein, nein, you don't want to pick on me," he said, gazing at each (or who he figured was each) in turn. "No money, no valuables... Just me, and you really don't want that kind of thing, do you?"
Exchanging glances, the one up from grinned, shaking his head. "You're a fool to be walking around so late without a thing to be taken," he informed the German, who seemed to be tilting unnaturally from his drunkenness. "You see, then you just become a waste of time to people like us, who make a living off of the money of others." Nodding to his two friends, he kept his dark eyes on the foreigner, the pair moving around to roughly surround the male. "And we don't like wasting our time."
Snorting, Schuldich half-tracked each person through the general blur that was motion, pretty certain that he could find them again if he really looked. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to, if his telepathy worked at all. What he wanted to do was just make them think he was boring, someone to pass up and leave alone. However, he couldn't quite get his mind to work up the logic of points A through D, which was slowly screwing him over in the matters of mind altering. Damn alcohol tended to do that to him, he'd really have to find a way around that drunken handicap. Either that, or give up drinking, but that was the last thing he would do. Not after being alone for six months, since his realization after recovering from the dip in the sea (along with the building) that Schwarz was completely gone, their minds lost in the sea of humans and water. He'd not been sober once since realizing he was now alone in the world, and damn if he would give that up for the tricks of telepathy. Bah, that was overrated, especially when alcohol so nicely soothed the hurt of being lost as he was.
Well, if the telepathy wouldn't work, maybe he could talk his way out of a beating. Fighting might have worked, if coordination was even the slightest bit possible; but that wasn't, so it was talking he needed. "Ja, ja, then don't waste your time," he replied, his words slurring together into a mumble. "You go on your way, and I'll go on mine, which is to the next bar." Nodding, he moved forward to illustrate his point.
Tut'ing the attempt and slowly shaking his head, the leader stuck out an arm to block the German, who stumbled back upon walking into it. "No, you've already wasted our time by being here," he explained, teaching the dirtied logic of simple street thuggery to the telepath. "Now we have to teach you that doing that is stupid, and I hardly call a good lesson a waste of time. Ne, guys?" There was a murmur of agreement from the other two, one of which began to slowly crack his knuckles as slight hint to what the lesson plan was.
Glancing back, blurred emerald peered out from streaks of orange fire, narrowing at the other two. Hm, the logical talking route wasn't working. If he had been Nagi, he could have just floored the three and walked away. However, he wasn't the telekinetic, and all that thinking about the kid did was bring up an oddly sharp stab of lonely hurt amidst the unfocused mess that was the alcohol in him. That was hardly pleasant; he drank to forget about the others, not remember the pain of being away from the few people he could ever associate with and call friends, or even family. They had been linked in their odd abilities, making them a strong team to face the bastard society that rejected them all. Now they were shattered and gone...
Making a soft 'ch' under his breath, the German sized up his options. He could sit back and let them beat him, he could run, or he could try to fight back. Sitting around was immediately discarded, a sense of pride making him unable to just take a beating. Running was for cowards, and he was not a coward. That left fighting... If he was able. What the Hell, why not?
Turning without warning, he merely launched himself unsteadily at one of two behind him, slender fingers pulled into a fist which rammed itself home on the bastard's nose. Smirking as he fell, the German turned to the other two, striking out hard and fast, even if his aim was a bit on the bad side. Well, he was drunk! The fact that he'd landed his first punch was a miracle in itself. All he could hope for was that luck stayed with him as he swung his arm around again.
Luck was not with him.
In the few seconds it had taken him to floor the first male, the second had moved in and brought his own fists into play, ramming one hard into the German's side. Letting out his breath sharply, Schuldich could hear the crack of bone, his ribs too exposed and weak from the starvation he'd put himself through in the uncharacteristic depression that had taken him in his solitude to handle such a strike. Not eating tended to have a detrimental affect, it seemed, leaving no padding to absorb such a solid blow. He would be feeling that in the morning, and for the next month or two.
The fact that clear injury had been given hardly slowed down the next blow, striking him full on the stomach and driving what remained of his breath from his lungs. Snapping out a slurred German curse, he fell to his knees, arms wrapped around his midsection as he glared at his opponent through strands of orange, pain haunting emerald depths. "Sa, such rudeness," he spoke, his voice low and broken by gasps drawn in to recover the air taken from him. "Here I thought Japan welcomed the occasional tourist." Smirking at the two remaining, he shifted his weight to one knee, trying to get his other foot underneath him so he could stand again.
That was promptly flattened as a fist crashed into his back, striking up pain right between his shoulder blades and driving him to the ground completely. Laying there for a moment, he ignored the physical hurt, concentrating instead on breathing, which was becoming oddly difficult. Then again, with at least one rib broken (by the sounds and hurt of it), it was to be expected that he'd become short of breath. It was unfortunate that he could not just ignore that and function fully in a fight. No, he was restricted to the hurts of a normal human, something he occasionally cursed about. Farfarello really had been the lucky one, to be able to just grin at being kicked, stabbed, and generally maimed by both his hand and that of others.
Now, if he could just get back on his feet, then he could beat the bastards into boneless pulps and liquefy their minds as a lesson to never touch a telepath. The problem was, every time he tried to move, they struck him down again. This was going to prove annoying...
*
Holding a hand against the brush that was constantly attempting to obstruct his vision of what was going on, Omi stared in what could only be coined as disbelief at the sight greeting his sapphire gaze. Seeing the Mastermind of Schwarz was hardly what he had expected. After six months of silence from Weiß's most powerful and persistent enemies, Omi had begun to believe in the truth of the odds of surviving the fall into the sea. It had been a miracle that the four white assassins had lived through the crumbling of a building atop them and the subsequent drop into the sea; for anyone or anything else to have made it was simply impossible. Or not, considering what he was witnessing right at that moment. After all, not even ten feet away from his position was Schuldich, very alive, and very drunk from the looks of it.
The question standing was what he should do about it.
Leaning back on his heels, his form crouched low to the ground for concealment, he pressed his thumb against his teeth, biting the nail lightly in thought. Hesitation shadowed his soft blue eyes, which shifted to each member of the scene in turn as he considered what it was that could be done. Or should be done, for that matter. Morals and logic were arguing in his mind about how to handle the situation. On one hand this was something he should attempt to assist in, his skills more than enough to handle three half-skilled idiots picking on the innocent in the night. One the other hand, their innocent of choice was hardly that innocent, as his chosen name depicted. Schuldich was a cunning creature of the shadows, an enemy to the young assassin's mind and habits; hardly someone who should need help, or who even deserved it. The German was responsible for so many deaths, so much pain, that he deserved nothing but suffering in return.
However, something was holding him off from simply passing judgment. Part of it was his nature and dislike of such things; it was far more fair to let a person prove themselves rather than be labeled. And then part of it was the man's situation itself. Schuldich looked especially thin, as though the six months since their last encounter had brought him no food worth clinging to his bones, and there was the flat truth that the man was clearly intoxicated beyond focus. Such things were additives to highly unfair odds, which Schuldich had already been facing without those factors keying in.
So, the question indeed was what he should do, or if he should do anything at all. It was against his basic nature to help one of the 'bad people' that Weiß had existed to eliminate, but it was equally against his character to just walk away from three-to-one unfair odds.
Sighing softly, he rocked his weight back a bit, his mind working fast to find a solution to the situation before it got worse or inadvertently involved him. The saving grace in Schuldich's case was that he had never been named as a specific target for Weiß to deal with; it had just been horrible coincidence, either manufactured by Fate or the telepath, that had crossed their paths before. While Omi did label targets as bad people, those who never appeared on a mission tape or in a file were generally given a chance to prove themselves, since the path of judging and labeling others was one that only ended in torment, assumptions, and an overall mess. Even one such as Schuldich could be given a chance in that, he supposed. He had done nothing but judge the telepath from day one, of course with certain good reason, but seeing the man broken and bruised as he was now faltered that deeply held belief in the label. How could a cold bastard be as intoxicated and messed up as Schuldich was at the moment? True evil had no reason to be drunk, pathetic, and easy targets, not to the point of injury. Right? Well, it certainly seemed to fit.
Wavering on the edge of his decision, Omi drew out the black cellphone that was his contact with Kritiker, a finger idly tracing the white cross mark along the casing as he turned it over. Concealing it under his hands, he muffled the slight beeps as much as possible while he dialed in the number to speak with Birman, who still stood as the Kritiker agent that he reported to. His intention was to call her and have her arrange for some of the organization loyal police officers to come deal with the thugs. While he could have, the risks were a little high, and he was wary of it being a possible trap set by Schwarz, cleverly planned and executed. If he was going to make a move, he wanted resources to back him up.
Lifting the phone to his ear, Omi held his breath as it connected, still watching the scene and holding a mental prayer that this solution would not prove itself too late in its fruition.
- tbc -
Author's Note:
This is going to be a definite multi-chapter fic; don't come pestering me for what's going to happen, because I have no clue. I'm letting it form up as it goes. ^^; As for thsoe of you following my other fics: I am working on them, I promise! Weiß Schrecken has half of the next chapter finished, What We Deserve a little less. Even Fstive Distress is starting to come along nicely. Will work on all my incomplete stories, especially Blended Grey, over the next few weeks/months.
Shounen-ai will occur in later chapters; no, I won't spoil the pairing for you.
There will be some intensive series spoilers, mostly Omi-centric stuff. I'm an Omi author, that's how I work.
The way I'm writing this story is different from my usual methods; I call it a posting method and it allows me to comfortably fit in more details and character workings than my normal writing. It takes a little longer to complete a chapter, but I generally end up far more pleased with the outcome.
Blended Grey: Prolouge
-----------------------
The soft light of the midnight moon cast pale shadows over the ground, giving an ethereal glow to what should have been the hours of darkness. Few were out at the late hour, but there was one young blonde who braved the shadows, moving as silently as a gentle breeze. Years of habit had instilled him with the instinct to cling to shadows, to be invisible in the darkness of the night, such that even now, when those skills were no longer needed, he fell to them out of pure habit. That was how it was and would always be for him, one of the once proud hunters of the dark. There was no other way to be, just one with the shadows, never seen, never heard. Not until it was too late.
Stepping lightly over a twig in his path, Omi paused to stare up at the moon, remember so many nights before, when there had been missions calling to him. He and the others had one lived like the night, killing the targets in its cover of darkness, being content and comfortable in a life of shadows. That, however, was no more. Weiß had officially been disbanded for its second time, this time a feeling of permanence settling over the remains of the group. Seven months had passed since their final mission together, where the intricate deception that had been their 'deaths' meant to fool the target into a sense of victory had won them back Manx and Kaori, at the cost of Akira. Seven months to the day it was that Weiß had received official word that they were to disband, never to hunt the dark beasts again. Seven months since he had seen or heard word from the three males that had been his closest friends since the forming of the group of white hunters.
The past seven months had been lonely for Omi, the only one of the four to remain working with Kritiker. The organization paid his bills in return for his hacking knowledge and ability. His status as an assassin had been changed to a data retrieval agent. Meant less danger and more time for him to live his life. A living he had slowly begun to build up. At the moment, he lived as Tsukiyono Omi, university student. No second job (beyond the secret one Kritiker provided him) consumed his time any longer, but he filled the spare hours that had once been flower shoppe management with the endless homework and reading of the general studies course he had taken to.
Speaking of that homework, he was on his way home from a late night study session at one of the dorms, a member of his study group housed there for the semester. He had spent the last five hours working on the latest oversized assignment for the basic economics course he was taking, one of six courses he had loaded himself with, of subjects ranging from economics to Literature to computing sciences. He wasn't aiming for a diploma of any sort, merely taking classes that caught his interest and carried some use in his life. Except for that Literature; it was a perpetual pain to him, being of a different structure than he had hoped when signing up for it.
Shaking his head, Omi pushed those thoughts aside, reminding himself that he was done with his schoolwork for the night. Now it was time to head to the small apartment that was his own and get back to the detailed retrieval Kritiker had requested of him earlier that week. Then snatch a few hours of sleep before he got up for the next day's Literature lecture and computing lab.
About to turn out and off of the campus grounds, the youth paused, hearing the sounds of a scuffle and a few voices just beyond the manicured bushes that made Tokyo University. Curious as to what could possibly be up at the late hour, he crept towards the concealing greenery, blinking wide sapphire eyes in surprise at the scene that was presented to him.
*
There was always one more than he could handle.
That had to be some sort of twisted rule designed to take down even the most skilled of fighters. Always just one more than could be defeated. And it wasn't like the movies, where the hero could just whip out some sort of secret weapon and save the day; no, this was reality, and in reality, life sucked. There was no secret weapon, just three people there when all you could really handle was two. At least, he figured there were three people. Considering that he was beyond a state of dead drunk, it was amazing he could count at all, much less decipher which thug was the real one, and which of the multitude of images were the fake. Maybe he was off by one or two people in his tally, but he could just blame that on there being a twin in their ranks, present just to screw up his count.
Stumbling back from the three (or however many) people who had decided to appear in his path, he brushed away fire-toned hair from jade eyes, the feel of a confidant, if drunken, smirk touching his lips. So here he was, at midnight, in a dark shadowed park, facing three men who did not look pleasant. They certainly couldn't be Boy Scouts selling cookies, or doing their good deed of the day, not at the late hour. And considering their confident, smug, bastard looks, he could swear that they had some sort of nasty plan to involve him in. Probably trying to steal his money or something; though such was impossible, considering he was flat out broke, just as he had been for the last six months. When they found that out, they would likely try to beat him for the simple reason that he was the idiot for not carrying money when he was being mugged.
Letting out a low, nasal chuckle, he shook his head. Stupid humans, thinking they could take on the guilty one himself. And triumph at that. Not likely; Schuldich was never taken down that easily. "Nein, nein, you don't want to pick on me," he said, gazing at each (or who he figured was each) in turn. "No money, no valuables... Just me, and you really don't want that kind of thing, do you?"
Exchanging glances, the one up from grinned, shaking his head. "You're a fool to be walking around so late without a thing to be taken," he informed the German, who seemed to be tilting unnaturally from his drunkenness. "You see, then you just become a waste of time to people like us, who make a living off of the money of others." Nodding to his two friends, he kept his dark eyes on the foreigner, the pair moving around to roughly surround the male. "And we don't like wasting our time."
Snorting, Schuldich half-tracked each person through the general blur that was motion, pretty certain that he could find them again if he really looked. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to, if his telepathy worked at all. What he wanted to do was just make them think he was boring, someone to pass up and leave alone. However, he couldn't quite get his mind to work up the logic of points A through D, which was slowly screwing him over in the matters of mind altering. Damn alcohol tended to do that to him, he'd really have to find a way around that drunken handicap. Either that, or give up drinking, but that was the last thing he would do. Not after being alone for six months, since his realization after recovering from the dip in the sea (along with the building) that Schwarz was completely gone, their minds lost in the sea of humans and water. He'd not been sober once since realizing he was now alone in the world, and damn if he would give that up for the tricks of telepathy. Bah, that was overrated, especially when alcohol so nicely soothed the hurt of being lost as he was.
Well, if the telepathy wouldn't work, maybe he could talk his way out of a beating. Fighting might have worked, if coordination was even the slightest bit possible; but that wasn't, so it was talking he needed. "Ja, ja, then don't waste your time," he replied, his words slurring together into a mumble. "You go on your way, and I'll go on mine, which is to the next bar." Nodding, he moved forward to illustrate his point.
Tut'ing the attempt and slowly shaking his head, the leader stuck out an arm to block the German, who stumbled back upon walking into it. "No, you've already wasted our time by being here," he explained, teaching the dirtied logic of simple street thuggery to the telepath. "Now we have to teach you that doing that is stupid, and I hardly call a good lesson a waste of time. Ne, guys?" There was a murmur of agreement from the other two, one of which began to slowly crack his knuckles as slight hint to what the lesson plan was.
Glancing back, blurred emerald peered out from streaks of orange fire, narrowing at the other two. Hm, the logical talking route wasn't working. If he had been Nagi, he could have just floored the three and walked away. However, he wasn't the telekinetic, and all that thinking about the kid did was bring up an oddly sharp stab of lonely hurt amidst the unfocused mess that was the alcohol in him. That was hardly pleasant; he drank to forget about the others, not remember the pain of being away from the few people he could ever associate with and call friends, or even family. They had been linked in their odd abilities, making them a strong team to face the bastard society that rejected them all. Now they were shattered and gone...
Making a soft 'ch' under his breath, the German sized up his options. He could sit back and let them beat him, he could run, or he could try to fight back. Sitting around was immediately discarded, a sense of pride making him unable to just take a beating. Running was for cowards, and he was not a coward. That left fighting... If he was able. What the Hell, why not?
Turning without warning, he merely launched himself unsteadily at one of two behind him, slender fingers pulled into a fist which rammed itself home on the bastard's nose. Smirking as he fell, the German turned to the other two, striking out hard and fast, even if his aim was a bit on the bad side. Well, he was drunk! The fact that he'd landed his first punch was a miracle in itself. All he could hope for was that luck stayed with him as he swung his arm around again.
Luck was not with him.
In the few seconds it had taken him to floor the first male, the second had moved in and brought his own fists into play, ramming one hard into the German's side. Letting out his breath sharply, Schuldich could hear the crack of bone, his ribs too exposed and weak from the starvation he'd put himself through in the uncharacteristic depression that had taken him in his solitude to handle such a strike. Not eating tended to have a detrimental affect, it seemed, leaving no padding to absorb such a solid blow. He would be feeling that in the morning, and for the next month or two.
The fact that clear injury had been given hardly slowed down the next blow, striking him full on the stomach and driving what remained of his breath from his lungs. Snapping out a slurred German curse, he fell to his knees, arms wrapped around his midsection as he glared at his opponent through strands of orange, pain haunting emerald depths. "Sa, such rudeness," he spoke, his voice low and broken by gasps drawn in to recover the air taken from him. "Here I thought Japan welcomed the occasional tourist." Smirking at the two remaining, he shifted his weight to one knee, trying to get his other foot underneath him so he could stand again.
That was promptly flattened as a fist crashed into his back, striking up pain right between his shoulder blades and driving him to the ground completely. Laying there for a moment, he ignored the physical hurt, concentrating instead on breathing, which was becoming oddly difficult. Then again, with at least one rib broken (by the sounds and hurt of it), it was to be expected that he'd become short of breath. It was unfortunate that he could not just ignore that and function fully in a fight. No, he was restricted to the hurts of a normal human, something he occasionally cursed about. Farfarello really had been the lucky one, to be able to just grin at being kicked, stabbed, and generally maimed by both his hand and that of others.
Now, if he could just get back on his feet, then he could beat the bastards into boneless pulps and liquefy their minds as a lesson to never touch a telepath. The problem was, every time he tried to move, they struck him down again. This was going to prove annoying...
*
Holding a hand against the brush that was constantly attempting to obstruct his vision of what was going on, Omi stared in what could only be coined as disbelief at the sight greeting his sapphire gaze. Seeing the Mastermind of Schwarz was hardly what he had expected. After six months of silence from Weiß's most powerful and persistent enemies, Omi had begun to believe in the truth of the odds of surviving the fall into the sea. It had been a miracle that the four white assassins had lived through the crumbling of a building atop them and the subsequent drop into the sea; for anyone or anything else to have made it was simply impossible. Or not, considering what he was witnessing right at that moment. After all, not even ten feet away from his position was Schuldich, very alive, and very drunk from the looks of it.
The question standing was what he should do about it.
Leaning back on his heels, his form crouched low to the ground for concealment, he pressed his thumb against his teeth, biting the nail lightly in thought. Hesitation shadowed his soft blue eyes, which shifted to each member of the scene in turn as he considered what it was that could be done. Or should be done, for that matter. Morals and logic were arguing in his mind about how to handle the situation. On one hand this was something he should attempt to assist in, his skills more than enough to handle three half-skilled idiots picking on the innocent in the night. One the other hand, their innocent of choice was hardly that innocent, as his chosen name depicted. Schuldich was a cunning creature of the shadows, an enemy to the young assassin's mind and habits; hardly someone who should need help, or who even deserved it. The German was responsible for so many deaths, so much pain, that he deserved nothing but suffering in return.
However, something was holding him off from simply passing judgment. Part of it was his nature and dislike of such things; it was far more fair to let a person prove themselves rather than be labeled. And then part of it was the man's situation itself. Schuldich looked especially thin, as though the six months since their last encounter had brought him no food worth clinging to his bones, and there was the flat truth that the man was clearly intoxicated beyond focus. Such things were additives to highly unfair odds, which Schuldich had already been facing without those factors keying in.
So, the question indeed was what he should do, or if he should do anything at all. It was against his basic nature to help one of the 'bad people' that Weiß had existed to eliminate, but it was equally against his character to just walk away from three-to-one unfair odds.
Sighing softly, he rocked his weight back a bit, his mind working fast to find a solution to the situation before it got worse or inadvertently involved him. The saving grace in Schuldich's case was that he had never been named as a specific target for Weiß to deal with; it had just been horrible coincidence, either manufactured by Fate or the telepath, that had crossed their paths before. While Omi did label targets as bad people, those who never appeared on a mission tape or in a file were generally given a chance to prove themselves, since the path of judging and labeling others was one that only ended in torment, assumptions, and an overall mess. Even one such as Schuldich could be given a chance in that, he supposed. He had done nothing but judge the telepath from day one, of course with certain good reason, but seeing the man broken and bruised as he was now faltered that deeply held belief in the label. How could a cold bastard be as intoxicated and messed up as Schuldich was at the moment? True evil had no reason to be drunk, pathetic, and easy targets, not to the point of injury. Right? Well, it certainly seemed to fit.
Wavering on the edge of his decision, Omi drew out the black cellphone that was his contact with Kritiker, a finger idly tracing the white cross mark along the casing as he turned it over. Concealing it under his hands, he muffled the slight beeps as much as possible while he dialed in the number to speak with Birman, who still stood as the Kritiker agent that he reported to. His intention was to call her and have her arrange for some of the organization loyal police officers to come deal with the thugs. While he could have, the risks were a little high, and he was wary of it being a possible trap set by Schwarz, cleverly planned and executed. If he was going to make a move, he wanted resources to back him up.
Lifting the phone to his ear, Omi held his breath as it connected, still watching the scene and holding a mental prayer that this solution would not prove itself too late in its fruition.
- tbc -
Author's Note:
This is going to be a definite multi-chapter fic; don't come pestering me for what's going to happen, because I have no clue. I'm letting it form up as it goes. ^^; As for thsoe of you following my other fics: I am working on them, I promise! Weiß Schrecken has half of the next chapter finished, What We Deserve a little less. Even Fstive Distress is starting to come along nicely. Will work on all my incomplete stories, especially Blended Grey, over the next few weeks/months.