WEIß KREUZ
Bekämpfen Sie das Kreuz

Drei (Three)

Wednesday. The day had started out as a brilliant fall day, the sun had been warm against the chilled air. Gentle breezes had wafted through the frail looking trees, sending a fiery mixture of colored leaves cascading in whirlwinds around the earth. Children had laughed and played in the park after school, and business had been good. But now...

Dusk was on the verge of settling in, and with it cold winds began to blow as dark thunderheads started to slowly tumble and churn in from the east. The ominous clouds swept in like tidal waves off the sea, the whipping winds heralding the approach of a big seasonal storm. To move to the west would be to follow the fading light, but Weiß sought out the darkness to come. Their plan was set.

The White Hunters met at the entrance to the old warehouse, standing as four by the decrepit gate, dressed in the garb of those seeking prey. They were alert, armed, ready. They also were not at all stunned to find a single light on inside the warehouse, a candle burning in the eastside wing. No one exchanged words, wished the other well. There was never a need. The mission had been given. Each member of Weiß now became a force to be reckoned with. Who would start the mission?

They parted ways wordlessly. Yoji covered the rear exit, where the office woman always came through. He'd make sure she would never leave. He also had their backs. Aya went towards the eastside wing, out of the darkness, as if drawn to that solitary light. He had the target in his sights; she had to be the one who waited there. Ken and Omi proceeded straight onwards to the office. To save Akira. Undercover of the approaching night, with the depths of the pounding storm rolling in behind them, they moved on.

The mission had begun.

Shrunk against the wall, Ken and Omi moved quickly and silently around the building. They weren't going in the main entrance. Using the pictures of the buildings that Ken had managed to scan from the court documents, they discovered that the office, badly burned out by the fire, had three separate rooms: the lobby through the door, the main office, and a secretary's small cubicle office right beyond the lobby. The main had been totally gutted, no chance for hiding someone there. They decided Akira would be held in the assistant's office. They could access it through the heating duct for a surprise entrance. Omi was small enough to do such a task. At his signal, Ken would storm the lobby.

"Here it is," whispered Ken, stopping in the black shadows of the building around the corner from the entrance.

Above them, where the wall had collapsed in, Omi could squeeze into the frame and gain access to the duct with a panel that would open somewhere (they weren't sure where) into the smaller room. Ken turned to Omi and crouched down, interlocking his fingers and offering his hands as a foothold and his knee as a boost up. Omi took it swiftly, on the job.

The Weiß boy leaped off Ken's knee. Using the support of Ken's arms tossing him up, Omi caught the side of the building. He squirmed just enough to pull his lithe, small body up, making sure not to kick Ken in the head behind him. He slid on his stomach across the beam. All he could do was pray it was stable enough to handle his light weight. Suddenly, he heard Ken softly call his name. Omi lifted himself to his knees and leaned back against his heels to look at his friend behind him.

"Be careful," Ken said, worry too plain in his dark blue-green eyes.

Omi smiled, sweet and innocent. "Leave it to me," he replied.

He heard Ken say, "I'll be right out here."

Omi knew he would have said If you need me, but there was never a need to voice such encouragement. They were all the same, capable and good at what they did. They were Hunters, skilled killers who protected those of the light. Omi would get the job done, or die trying. And he wasn't the only one.

Ken watched Omi struggle slightly as he slipped into the broken down corporate building. Soon the boy was swallowed up by the sheer blackness inside. His trained ears heard the tick-click! as Omi found the heating system and unscrewed the hinges. He was in.

Now Ken could only wait. He wanted to be patient, but it was hard to keep his claws sheathed. Damn, he had a bad feeling about this! Was it just worry over Omi and the others? It was hard to breathe right.

Omi, take care…

Inside, Omi used his elbows to crawl through the duct. It was caked in layers of dust, which helped to stifle any sound he made, but it also made visibility dismal and hard to get air. Curtains of cobwebs shifted in the breeze from outside, sticking in his hair and snagging his clothes. His nose tingled slightly; he could still smell the remnants of the blaze, the heavy soot and dark charred ashes, but his thoughts were only on the work at hand. He was fully prepared, and his nerves were fine. He could handle this! I just - he cursed himself for even thinking it, I hope we're not too late.

A quick right, a slight scare as the duct heaved a groan under his weight, and Omi saw the patch of horribly frail light up ahead. The opening was underneath him, the grate peering down from the ceiling onto the small office. Instantly, he pulled down the goggles from his head, readily equipped with heat-sensitive, night vision lenses. He tuned the frequency. Now, to see if anyone was waiting for them.

Omi squinted. Even with the night vision it was difficult to pinpoint people. The heat sources were his only clue, and they worked extremely well in a building that hadn't had heat in a few years. He saw no one via the infrared. He undid the hinges to the shaft's grate as he looked on. A quick scan showed something right below him, a hunched form tied to a chair. There he was! Please still be alive! Now was the time.

The grate gave under his swift, slamming fist. Holding the rim of the duct with one hand, he slid through in an acrobatic twist. Omi released his grip as his legs swung free, his crossbow held aptly in the other hand.

And as soon as his feet hit the floor beside the chair, he released the lock and the bow snapped open, bolt ready. Omi was instantly on his knees and aiming, point checking every corner with the tip of his arrow for an enemy. Nothing with the heat source. Nothing with his night vision. He let out the breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding.

He lifted the goggles to rest at the top of his head as he trained his crossbow to the ceiling, out of harm's way. He turned to his side, smiling at the figure in the chair. The smile faded as he realized the person made no response to his sudden appearance, made no motion at all. Omi jumped to the boy's rescue.

"Akira-san?" He pulled the chair around to get a look at the boy's face, what had been done to him.

Then gasped loudly at the revelation. Omi's eyes went full and round in horror. It felt as if his heart had stopped; his mind was spinning. It couldn't be... Damn...

In the chair sat an oversized stuffed doll, its face painted like some demonic clown. It was smiling at him, staring at him with empty, black bead eyes. And it wasn't tied to the chair with ropes or chains. It was held there, tied down, with wires from an active bomb, sticks of dynamite and a computerized clock strapped to its frilly-lace chest with polka-dotted overalls. The clock was counting down. 30 minutes...

"Dammit," Omi whispered the curse, more in shock than anger or fear.

It was a trap.

Across the doll's forehead, written in thick, red paint was one German word: Betrüger.

Deceiver.

Yoji saw it instantly. A car parked just inside the rear exit. It was a black car similar to the one the woman had been driving before, the Taro Minor company car. Similar, but this one was different. It was sleeker, well polished, almost sporty in appearance. This car was maintained at peak performance to show it was expensive. What was going on? Was that girl here with someone else? It could be bad for them.

Cautiously, Yoji moved without a sound around to the oil tanker, slipping behind it for cover, just in case. Overhead, the skies gave a hushed grumble. The Gods on high were getting more angry; the storm would be unleashed soon. Wonderful evening for a mission! Yoji thought with only vague sarcasm.

He could see no one inside the car. Alright then.

He moved quickly over to the vehicle, his arm outstretched, his garrote wire ready for any target he desired. His long coat furled about his ankles, the red cross over his back all but invisible in the growing dark, as he sidled up to the snazzy black car. He moved up to the passenger's side door and tried the handle. The door was unlocked and opened easily. No one was inside. It was gorgeous leather interior, an off-ebony shade, and fully loaded systems. Yoji made an approving face.

However, serious Balinese noticed the spotless dashboard, and the lack of personality to the car. He moved to check the glove compartment, but found nothing. The car was kept clean on purpose; there was sure to be no evidence as to whom its owners were. Almost, he thought, like a car he would keep.

At that thought, something horrendous popped into his mind, and Yoji was quickly on the look-out. He hurriedly did a check of the yard. In the distance, drawing ever nearer by the moment, lightning illuminated the belly of the clouds. Any minute it would spill down from the heavens to the earth below. Hard rain would follow. And suddenly, his eyes wide as he saw it, they had a crisis on their hands.

Parked, waiting not too far from the other car, was a superior, red sports car. It was a car he was certain he'd seen somewhere before. And, Yoji thought with much distaste and alarm, he was certain he knew who it belonged to.

Then he heard Omi's cry.

Ken felt his heart skip a beat as he heard Omi cry out in distress. It was a quick cry, startled, bewildered. Something was seriously wrong. He was afraid to learn the truth of what was going on, but panic drove him to his partner. Ken bolted around the side of the building, flinging open the cracked, ruined door to the office lobby. All he could think about was Bombay in trouble.

"Omi?"

"Ken-kun - WAIT!"

With a jerk and a heavy sound torn from his lips in dismay, Ken, with an effort, stopped just outside the door, clawed hand still clutching the handle. Omi was crouched down on one knee, and Ken had the gut-wrenching feeling he was hurt. At the same time, his sense of survival snapped alive, and he quickly searched the rooms beyond with his gaze. Nothing. No one. Ken looked back to Omi through the straightaway into the assistant's office.

"Omi?" He was so worried. He wanted the boy to say something to him, to let him know he was all right.

"Ken-kun..." The soft voice was shaking slightly. Dammit! Why wouldn't he tell him what was wrong! Then he didn't have to. Ken saw what Omi was kneeling by. At first his heart sunk, because he thought he was gazing at Akira's body, that the boy had been killed and dead all these days. Then he saw the flashing red numbers. The countdown.

"Oh, my God," he breathed almost voicelessly. The answer was clear as he saw the clock and the fake person with the message scrolled across it. They'd been set-up. Suddenly he snapped back into his wits, and his voice was demanding as he called to the other Weiß. "Omi, get out of there!"

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? Omi!"

Omi looked at him finally, and there was fear in his glassy eyes. They shined, even in the pale light of the storm. "Ken-kun," he said nervously. He pulled down his night vision goggles after that, and Ken saw his eyes were locked on the floor in the lobby. Infrared. "There's a laser system out there. If I go through there, or you had run in, you would have triggered it, and-" his tone was getting breathy. "-the bomb would have gone off instantly." He looked back up at Ken. "They were waiting for us to come through that door."

"Bastards!" Ken spat violently through his gritted teeth. How could they have known? His head felt like it was reeling. It wasn't panic or anger. It was worry, the fear of losing Omi. He asked, the clock ticking past 28 minutes, "Can you get back out the way you got in?"

"The hatch is in the ceiling," he replied. "I can't reach it."

"Use the chair," Ken stated without reasoning.

"I can't move it. I may set it off, and-" Omi swallowed hard. "I think it may be a series. The entire property may be rigged to this main device. I don't want... everyone..." He looked at Ken, sharing his gaze. The boy's was firm, his tone serious. "Ken-kun, warn the others! Get away!"

Ken lips part wordlessly. Disbelief. Anger. How could he ask him that? The selfless little - He should know better, after all they've been through together, all four of them. Never. "Never! Omi, I'm not leaving you here like this!"

"But Akira-san is still -"

"I'm not leaving you!"

Omi made a surprised sound, a defeated tone. "Ken-kun…" If he wouldn't leave, if he wouldn't tell the others, warn them the whole building was about to blow, then that left only one option.

Omi quickly unfastened one of the cases around his arm. Darts were nuzzled into the front, resting on the top of his arm ready for use, but he undid the string and flung open the case. Inside, he had a multitude of small gadgets. He took out his Swiss Army knife, on it a small pair of wire cutters, and lifted his goggles off his eyes. Ken watched, slightly baffled.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to try to unarm it."

Ken asked, briefly astonished, "Do you know how?"

Omi hesitated with his answer. He was a computer genius, a quick learner, but... "Wish me luck."

In the burned remains of the eastside wing, Aya stood fully in the doorway to the main room; no need to hide. This section of the property had been scorched pretty badly, the walls true black, and not much held up to the flames but the skeletal frame of the building. The light from the candle, which sat on a desk at the far wall, caused eerie shadows to dance and whirl around the room, shifting madly by the winds from the shattered windows. The chaotic light did little to alleviate the growing blackness. Outside, the sky grumbled. Closer. Everything was coming closer.

He saw a tall figure standing at the desk, his back to Aya. It was not at all the woman from before. Aya's senses were on alert, expecting the worst. But the figure made no move. Did they even know he was there? Silently, the whisper-soft hush of steel against leather, he drew out his katana, the blade catching the only available light to shine with its lethal grace. He let the sheath go to swing back under the folds of his white trench coat, held by the strap across his chest underneath. He brought the sword's point up. The target was in sight.

His voice was rage, seductive and deep. "Darkness. Die!"

As Aya charged the person, ready to strike him down, the first bolt of lightning seared the sky outside with a crashing rumble that shook the building. In the intensified light of the heavens, even though instantaneous, Aya saw the truth. For it only took an instant to see that the man wasn't tall, he was hanging from the ceiling. A noose around his neck. He was already dead.

Aya stopped mid-stride and fell back a step, his eyes gone cold. A trap. He had fallen into a trap.

Always ready for anything, Aya took this current situation in stride, perhaps only off by a mere beat. He moved to the man's body, turned it so the corpse swung to face him. His violet eyes widened. Pinned to the stranger's lapel was a name tag, a name he had never heard of before. There was no company name, but a bar code. Aya didn't need to be told that this man was a Kritiker agent. But across his forehead, cut into his skin, was a word crusted in blood, in German. Betrüger.

What could it mean? Aya stared at the body curiously, ripping off the tag and keeping it hidden under the folds of his coat. There were too many questions...

The woman wasn't there. Or was she waiting for him somewhere else? Had the true target gotten away? Suddenly, another white light pierced down from the sky, and Aya heard the voice underneath it. The familiar, deep voice, a voice of someone he had fought numerous times in the past.

"We meet again. Weiß."