Author: Mirrordance

Title: Relativieren (2007)

Warnings: Language, Death, Violence

Summary: Ran Fujimiya is missing in action, and Yoji asks for Schuldich's help to find him. Together, they will find that there are things much better left unknown-- secrets about betrayal and guilt, and worst of all, the depths of the darkness of a human soul.

3: Windows to the Soul
Ken was out.

It really shouldn't have been very strange, he was always out. Out in the sun, out with the soccer kids who emulated his every act, from the soccer drills to the flavor of ice cream he picked every time. He was just out a lot.

It was probably more accurate to say that Ken was out prowling, which he has been doing since Omi Tsukiyono died in his arms. He walked around aimlessly. just wishing to be away from the Koneko, where he couldn't breathe, just wishing to be away from everything. His soul would have willingly jumped from his skin, if he could just manage it.

It worried Yoji at the start, he could tell, still does every now and then, but after a few tries of driving around the city and finding that the young soccer player wasn't doing anything significantly crazy, Yoji just let him get back home on his own time.

And it was usually a long, long time.

Ken simply couldn't breathe in the Koneko. At the start, its emptiness gnawed at him, a pain that reverberated deep into his bones. And then the Replacements sent in by Kritiker came along, and the emptiness had ceased and it instead became stiflingly full. His pain had become rage, and the only place he could direct it was the two new agents assigned to Weiß.

Because they were supposed to be Omi, and they were supposed to be Ran. And they weren't.

Deep within him he knew it was wrong to fault the two men. Which was probably why instead of being a pain in the ass back at the shop, he just takes the long, aimless walks.

But still.

They were Replacements.

Which was fine with him and Yoji on missions, but other than that, he firmly decided that they better stay out of his way, if they knew what was good for them. The two new agents assigned to Weiß didn't take long to find out that no matter how good they were in a fight, Ken Hidaka and Yoji Kudou had already exiled them.

The shop was just closing when the door chimed and he finally stepped back into the shop, exhaling a sigh that practically deflated him.

"Nice walk?"

Ken glanced up at the lean man with the startling black eyes. Black hair, black eyes. Blackest black. One of the two new White Hunters. Desmond had been an international diamond thief the media had dubbed the "Ice Cat," before surrendering and offering his stealth services to Kritiker in exchange for amnesty. He always asked the same thing whenever Ken came back, never minding the barely noticeable nod the other would answer him with.

"Yoji's back?" Ken asked.

"Just," replied Desmond, knowing from experience that the best exchange the two of them could ever have is business only, all bullshit aside. "He's downstairs."

"Thanks," mumbled Ken as he made his way down to the basement.

Trailing down the familiar way across the spiral steps, he could already hear that Yoji was prepping the video system. The closer Ken got, the more he could hear and see and the more absorbed he became over what the older man was doing.

The video was amateurish, from a hand cam and unedited, grainy and earthy and so unmistakably real.

Ken watched the screen, fixated as the face of the German Schwarz member backed away from the screen, apparently after pressing the Record button. He flashed the camera a wink and a mischievous smile before saying,

"This is Schuldich. I'm going into the mind of Weiß."

"Cut the crap," a familiar voice from behind him says. Schuldich moves aside.

It was an irate and nervous-looking Yoji. "Let's get this over with."

"It can't video what I see in your head, of course," said Schuldich as he moved toward Yoji, "But I can say aloud what I see and what I'll be doing. It's the best we can do."

Yoji glanced at the camera. "Good enough for me"

"Relax, Weiß."

"I think that's a little too much to ask," said Yoji wryly, looking deep into the German's eyes, until they slowly closed.

Ken watched, breathless, as the two men fell silent. But the silence didn't last long before Schuldich jerked back, as forces only he could feel jolted him as he entered Yoji's mind.

Ken listened intently, sick to his stomach as Schuldich's voice, through Yoji's eyes, guided them through the days that had ultimately led them into this nightmare of a life.

The more the German spoke, the deeper into Yoji's character he immersed himself in, and the more their voices started to sound the same. A pair of tones and sounds and accents and nuances eventually merging into just one, single, lonely voice.

"It's dark.

"It usually starts this way upon entry. My entry, that is. Wait. Light. Light. Too bright. I'm opening my eyes. The digital clock on my nightstand says it's about noon. Ken is screaming my--Yoji's, Yoji's name. Kudou. That's me. The shop. The shop has to be manned. I have to get off my lazy ass. Yoji. Yoji has to get off his lazy ass. It's a working day. But I dreamed of Asuka..."

Schuldich paused, muttering to himself, "Who's Asuka?" Before continuing.

"The sun always shines too goddamn bright this time of day. Bell tolls. Bell by the door. It always tolls when customers come in, but somehow, when it's Manx, I know. The four of us filed down to the basement. The shop would have to wait for awhile."

The video stopped, jolting Ken into a misplaced reality. Yoji had paused the tape, and was looking at him intently, expectantly.

"What does all that mean?" Ken asked him, shakily.

"I'm asking for his help," Yoji said, intentionally, conveniently editing out the name to keep from reiterating that he was working with Schwarz, "I'm looking for Ran."

"Inside your head?" Ken asked, cautiously coming closer to stand, hovering above Yoji who was on the couch, clutching the remote control.

"He needs to know what happened," said Yoji, "he needs to know where, who else was there. Faces of enemies, witnesses. anyone who may know something. So that he can look for what had happened to Ran inside their heads."

"That makes sense," Ken conceded, warily.

Yoji nodded, glancing at the blnk screen. He wanted Ken to leave. Just now, he was starting to realize that when Schuldich had gone to his mind to see what had happened through his eyes, the German had also felt the things he felt; emotions which will undoubtedly be described as the video progresses. Emotions he was loathe to expose to Ken just yet-- his fears, the lies in his assurances, his rage, his loss.

"I want to see all of it," Ken said determinedly, as if Yoji had just said his thoughts aloud.

The older man looked at Ken, deep into that amber core of fire. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe Ken understood everything anyway after all.

"Come sit by me," Yoji offered, making space on the couch as the video continued.

Maybe it was boring to watch.

Just two men sitting on a black leather couch with eyes closed. Even the house looked boring.

One of the men was silent, the other speaking, narrating erratically-- sometimes slow and languid, then quick and excited and calm and placid and just a mix of everything a human could care to feel in moments falling one after the other.

Maybe it was even boring to listen to.

But the words triggered emotions and memories through Yoji and Ken, such that each word, each fragment of a letter, mattered so greatly.

"The four of us filed down to the basement," Schuldich's voice echoed in the silent room, "The shop would have to wait for awhile."

The mission had been far from simple.

The four members of Weiß had watched the Kritiker video, thinking that the multimillionaire drug lord is definitely courting their 'attention;' his market is the youth, he orders out murders, he blackmails politicians and other men of power into protecting him. Before the tape was even done, the answer had been Mission Accepted.

But of course, Ran Fujimiya looked Manx straight in the eye and said so. It was a given that the three would follow suit; after years of working together, this could not be doubted. But probably, because of the hardship of the said mission, Manx had asked the other three as well, and unsurprisingly, they all agreed to do what had to be done.

What had to be done.

It was the night of their mission that Ran Fujimiya was lost. Just...vanished. Dead, captive or deserter, none of them knew. The four of them split up to do their job, and he never came back.

Yoji stopped the playing tape at the sound of approaching footsteps. They were noisy, he knew, by choice. After all, the man who owned them was an assassin, and the sound died out mission-time, with the silent, lethal movement of one of the most light-footed men he had ever encountered.

"The Ghost," as he was known in the underground, had been a government assassin. The screwed-up system made him want out of 'government service,' but the consequence was death. The only organization powerful enough to protect him was Kritiker, which he shifted loyalties to. So far, he found no wrong in the justice this group delivers.

"Dinner," Matsu had said, with a forced cheer crinkling the corners of his sharp, clear crystal blue eyes. Of compact built, he was slightly shorter than Ken, but just as lean. His reckless, sandy hair made him look so much like a child, although he was as old as Yoji.

"Thanks," Ken said, "but we can fend for ourselves."

"Desmond cooked," Matsu said, a hint of irritation in his even voice, "He cooked enough for an army. I think it really would be nice..." his voice trailed off, sensing the tension in the air. These men would not be disturbed.

But unlike Desmond, who was calm and agreeable, Matsu was more fiery and impulsive.

"You people are sick," he said, before turning away and heading up for what would be a two-man dinner upstairs.

Yoji paused in thought for awhile, before pressing the play button once again.

The mission that followed the one where they lost Ran had perhaps come too soon.

In a way, it had been an annex of that previous one. Because after the death of the drug lord, one of his more ambitious underlings took over where the boss broke off, and everything started all over again.

"Everytime one falls," Schuldich said as he narrated the events from Yoji's eyes and feelings, "Ten just pop back up to take its goddamn place."

And so it had to be done all over again.

The new boss had lived that night, but Omi had been lost to several, keenly-placed gunshot wounds. Ken had retreated laboriously with his dying friend, and Yoji, who had also left in a rush, found them in the city's labyrinthine, underground waterways.

"Ken, Ken! I want to scream it so much," Schuldich narrated, "but I have to keep the right perspective. Siberian. That ought to straighten us both out. He looks shell-shocked. Omi's fucking dead. God. God. But he must believe we're all right. One of us should. Ken keeps saying we'll all end up dead like this. If not tonight some other night. God, his voice. And the things he's saying. He shouldn't know we feel the same.

"I don't give a fuck. One night at a time, Siberian. Tonight...We're not going to die in this place."

"He's laughing at me," said Schuldich, sounding hurt and surprised, "Why would he find what I said so funny? He's losing consciousness. Thank God. Thank God to stop that harsh, bitter laugh. But Thank God for nothing else."

Then Schuldich had pulled out of Yoji's mind.

Yoji had been too distraught to notice it at the time, but the honesty of the video had showed him Schuldich turning away from him as he returned to the real world and out of Yoji's mind, coolly brushing a tear from his eye and jutting out his chin to look at Yoji with a crooked smile.

"You're a real sad sonofabitch."

To be continued...