Black Label
Chapter 1: 20th Century Boy
"Couldn't resist! After we left Japan, I've just been dying to have a piece of her with me again, you know what I mean?" Schuldig sunk into the driver's seat, gloved hands caressing the steering wheel as though it were a lover's skin.
"Uh...sure," not quite the grease monkey himself, Nagi found it hard to relate and struggled to humor him," it's a great looking car, Schuldig, very...befitting of you. Thanks for the ride."
After an arduous hour-long drive, paired with Schuldig's monologue on the technical and aesthetic brilliance of his latest import, Nagi started to regret his decision to cut that deal with Crawford. It's gonna be worth it. He attempted to reassure himself as he walked up the stone steps toward his assignment, and further away from Schuldig and his garishly red rendition of a Nissan GT-R. Nagi was at least appreciative of that distinctive new car smell, though he knew it wouldn't last long, after all it was a Friday night.
There were many things puzzling him about this particular mission. Namely, why Crawford had so readily agreed to Nagi's terms for taking it on. Perhaps Crawford had started to lighten up, the man did let Farfarello run off with a woman he'd just met. But Nagi was not one to pry, especially when it concerned Crawford's plans for Eszet and Rosenkreuz.
A feint beep sounded from Nagi's jacket pocket. He slipped on the earpiece, something Schwarz used only for long distance work, usually their psionic link was more than sufficient.
"Nagi, the vicinity is clear I presume?" Crawford's voice, calm as ever.
"Yes, Schuldig just left." Nagi glanced back down to the empty road.
"Follow my instructions from here on in. It is imperative that Schuldig remains oblivious to the objective, or else I would've briefed you beforehand," the stress Crawford put on secrecy was obvious from the start. Nagi tried to shrug off his curiosity.
"Of course."
"Get to the nineteenth floor, you might encounter some interference, nothing you can't handle. Locate room number three-seven-four. Let me know when," Crawford was just about to cut away, "oh and Nagi, don't worry about being discreet." Nagi could almost feel him smirk.
Seeing as he'd completely laid waste to several buildings in the past, and having assumed the position of Schwarz's premier messenger-boy cum security camera clue-in on more than one occasion, Nagi was not exactly a master of stealth. Putting away the earpiece, he closed his eyes and breathed in deep.
Raising his palms towards the glass entrance, Nagi went to work.
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Striking red hair, tousled, short and clearly unwashed. His blue eyes, and that unmistakably fiendish grin. I couldn't stop looking at him. What's going on?
"Hi, do you like my face?" he was uncomfortably straightforward, and not to mention confident.
Fishing around my vocabulary for the perfect word to accurately express my simultaneous bewilderment and horror would have taken too long, so I ignored.
"I saw you," said the boy, "You killed someone."
"I had to," indignant towards his accusations, I focused my attention on the single door leading out of the room. I was forced to make a choice. Weren't we all? The weight of a hand on my shoulder sullied my concentration. What now? Can't you take a hint! I turned my head, ready to let him have a piece of my mind.
His gaze caught me in a bind. The whites of his eyes vanished, its entirety consumed by blood maroon, his sapphire irises followed suit. The boy's hair was red no longer, in fact every hint of pigment had escaped him. His skin had gone beyond white to almost translucent; veins, arteries, even muscle tissue became increasingly visible. And still he was staring me down.
Cold sweat rolled past my temples; my insides burned, fingertips trembled, and with a jerk I leaned forward and expelled what little contents my stomach held. I stumbled backwards, reaching a wall I could prop myself up against. Some kind of demon? What the hell is this?
"Got 'cha! Hah, that has got to be the best reaction I've ever gotten...ever!" he's laughing? How can he be laughing?
Anger, fear, disgust, confusion, a convoluted rush of emotions and ideas engulfed my mind. One part of me wanted to hurt him, while another just wanted to find a way out. Feeling lightheaded from throwing up, I could barely act on either option.
"That's right! Mother always said to eat it while it's warm!" his voice echoed through the bare room, adopting a sinister quality in addition to its mocking.
There were many things I wish I had never seen that day, and what I saw next topped off the list. Two other children had scrambled to my gastric output, scraping every morsel from the concrete and licking up the juices afterward. I had forgotten how long it'd been since my last real meal, and I was hungry, but it was definitely not enough for me to resort to eating someone else's sick.
The little display of desperation before me was broken up by the click of the door being unlocked. A lengthy creak later it was fully opened, and a tall, thin man stepped in. Impeccably dressed in a uniform of grey, adorned with polished bronze buttons, he sported spotless black boots and a shiny headful of slicked-back blonde hair, this man was far too coordinated. Whatever his purpose was, there was no doubt that he had gotten our full attention.
Looking at him I felt inclined to straighten up. Something seemed to come over everyone at that instant; those who were sitting down got up, and all filed along the wall with me without any objections. My eyes were drawn toward the pale, demon-esque boy, as even he had obeyed. He shuffled in-line beside me, dark brown flooded into his strands of hair, it grew out longer and thicker, his eyes reverted to the same blue I had seen earlier, but the features on his face had been tweaked unrecognizably, he'd also shrunk an inch or two, all while I watched. This is too much. I can't take this shit anymore.
The man gave the door a gentle push, an audible click and it was sealed. "Yuri" from the night before, so this is how you look like. I knew who he was, he hadn't spoken a word yet, but it felt as if he'd already introduced himself, pleasantries excluded. My body moved and my face was now inches away from the blank wall, a quick peek to the left and right of me revealed that all the rest had done similarly.
"I hate the screaming of children, so please don't," Yuri spoke, but instead of the commanding tone I was expecting, he came across as a monotonous bore. You must really hate your job, Yuri.
The familiar smell of burnt flesh did not bode well and quite naturally it was timed to perfection with a hoarse scream. The second one was preceded by weak sniffling, the third was no better. Yuri stepped mechanically from one child to the next, sighing with each shriek. Then it was my turn.
I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes tight. I didn't know what Yuri had done to those few in front of me, but they were now twitching on the ground in agony. I felt a point of pressure on my nape, it didn't hurt, but Yuri was pressing down hard. Suddenly an acute pain surged through my vertebra, something had pierced my flesh, something cold and hard. A scorching heat seared me in the same spot, and unwittingly I let out a cry of my own.
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Nagi had disposed of his assailants with relative ease. They were definitely dispatchers of the Eszet brand, but disposable ones at that. It would seem that whoever put them up to this task did not have much foresight. With a flick of the wrist Nagi had sent his final attacker soaring through the window, plummeting to his death. Dusting off the tiny scraps of debris left on his shoulders from blasting through a solid wall, he put on his earpiece.
"You've made a mess of the place. The police are going to have a field day with this tomorrow," the immediacy of Crawford's voice returning to the earpiece was not unexpected, as was his sarcasm, "Now find me a file."
"What?" Nagi was used to retrieving files for Crawford on a computer, hacking was his forte; it only meant that this file had to be old.
"Yes, a file. Paper, Nagi, from before you were born," Crawford was growing impatient, "serial number 0603-72485344."
0603? A third degree division six? The guys I just killed were probably division six! To the best of his knowledge less than one percent of all division six charges have ever been worthy of note. Nagi began to seriously question Crawford's sanity. The eight numbers do ring a bell though.
It didn't take long to find; there weren't many other files present, and this one in particular had been sandwiched within the pages of an Immanuel Kant work. How quaint.
"You're going to look at what's inside at some point anyway, so you might as well do it now," Crawford always had a strange way of issuing orders. Nagi flipped it open.
"Crawford," Nagi hesitated, "this is Schuldig."
**Disclaimer: I do not own the Weiss Kreuz franchise. Please don't sue me, you won't get much money out of it.**
Author's Notes: I've changed the story rating from T to M, just to be safe. Violence, swearing and taboo topics are definitely going to be on the rise as the story progresses, and I don't want to be offending anyone in the future, so be forewarned. As I hope you can gather, this isn't unravelling in chronological order. I'm not particularly confident in my ability to portray interwoven scenes of "past" vs. "present", but I hope it isn't too hard to follow. (I'm "hoping" for a lot of things with this story it seems xD please bear with me.) I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but all italics signify thoughts.
I was listening to the Placebo cover of "20th Century Boy" at the time of writing. It made sense then! Don't ask. I've also been watching a lot of Top Gear! They made the Nissan GT-R look so yummy, and I couldn't resist plugging it in. :D