Title: Would you kindly?

Author: Madame aZure

Fandom: Noblesse

Pairing: None

Genre: Drama/Angst

Rating: T

Warnings: this chapter contains violence. Read at your own risk.

Disclaimer: I do not own Noblesse or any of the characters. No trademark infringement or profit is meant from the writing of this fanfiction.

~ PRESENT TIME ~

"What makes something like me? I look at genes all day long, and never do I see the blueprint of sin. These children I brutalized have awoken something inside that for most is beautiful and natural, but in me, is an abomination… my maternal instinct."

― Brigid Tenenbaum, Bioshock.

"Have you ever heard it? The sound of something important to you disappearing?"

.

.

.

CRACK!

Before he even heard it, he had felt it. In the tip of his fingers, in the very marrow of his bones, resonating throughout his whole being. The last of his hope shattering before his very eyes and it sounded so much like bones breaking.

Suddenly, he was engulfed by water. Dark, muddy water blurring the reality around him, stealing sound and color, filling his lungs, suffocating him. And in his eyes, there was fire. Wet, salty fire burning his sight.

"Delta, let him go!" Someone ordered, but the voice barely ever reached him, muffled by all the water around him. Still, it resonated within him, even if he hadn't been properly ordered to obey. His fingers unlatched themselves from around Takeo's throat, the sniper slipping from his grasp and falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Takeo!"

The others had finally arrived, but somehow he could not find the power to escape the water and register their presence, nor the elegant click-clack of heels on pavement that announced the arrival of someone else. A stranger.

All he could see was his comrade laying on the ground, eyes closed, his sharp features softened as if he were sleeping, and on his neck, the mark of his mistake, a shock of blue and purple in the form of two hands.

"What's the meaning of this?" M-21 flinched, Crombel's question snapping him out of his stupefaction. Although the scientist had spoken calmly, the sharp edge of his words betrayed his tension. After all, someone else ordering M-21 around was not something he had anticipated or taken into consideration, and as a man who liked having control over every single detail of his plans and schemes, he wasn't pleased by it in the least. He'd made sure he was the only one alive with the key to the Project W-Y-K, or at least the scraps of data left after the lead scientist of that project decided to take it all with her into hell, so who…"M-21, kindly see who has ordered you to stop."

M-21 was so tired, both mentally and physically. He was tired of every single good thing in his life going all sorts of wrong, he was tired of seeing those he cared about getting hurt, he was tired of being so useless and incapable of protecting what was important to him.

However, he had been given an order, so he turned around to look for that whose voice resonated with him.

Not far from him stood a woman he did and did not know. The moment their eyes met, a myriad of emotions passed through hers. A flicker of happiness at their reunion, tinted with the beginning of a smile showing on her thin red lips, sadness when she saw his unshed tears, fury and protectiveness making her jaw clench and fists tighten. The wind gently rustled her curled brown locks touched by silver and her vintage black dress, and time seemed to run again.

"Brigid …" Crombel breathed out in seemed like some sort of morbid admiration. "M-21 would you kindly repeat after me."

"Brigid, what a pleasure to see that you are alive and well,"M-21 said without inflexion.

Green eyes glinted with understanding and the woman gaze sharpened. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that's you, Crombel, ja?" Her accent was rough, gravelly, but M-21 couldn't exactly pinpoint where she was from.

"You've always been perspicacious."

"Und you've always been a dirty rat," she replied flatly, as if she just made an observation. "What do you think you're doing to my little one, you…" she ended the sentence in a foreign word M-21 didn't comprehend, but the way she harshly spoke it told him it was most likely a swear.

"Didn't you abandon him years ago? I think you've passed the point where you could claim him as your child." Crombel cruelly laughed into the earpiece. "What brings you back from the dead, Brigid?"

"Unfinished business," she replied promptly as if he wasn't worth a real answer.

"I see."Crombel trailed off. "M-21, would you kindly capture her? I want her alive!"

M-21 tensed at the order, expecting to find himself executing it immediately, but something wasn't quite right. He could feel the strings of Crombel's command pulling at his very being, trying to force him into submission, but their hold on him was too weak, almost strangely so, but before he could question it, the woman spoke again.

"Delta, kindly execute protocol Alpha-4R," she said soothingly, smiling gently at him.

M-21's was suddenly on his knees, feeling... good? Drowsy, confused and unable to focus, but good. Happy. Almost like floating through a dream, clouds in his head catching all his rational thoughts in a soft embrace. Bitter tears filling his eyes, soft sobs escaping his lips, he was ironically happy and couldn't find the power to question anything anymore.

"Sehr gut, Delta," she praised him and he could feel himself smile in return. "Now, take out your earpiece und destroy it." He did as instructed as, taking out the small piece of electronic out of his ear and crushing it between his fingers.

"M?" The werewolf heard Tao ask quietly, but he didn't answer him. Brigid walked over to where he was kneeling, M-21 watching her with a happy, content expression, hands folded patiently in his lap.

"What have you done to him?" Regis demanded.

"I've made him happy," she replied. She took his face into her hands and he leaned into her touch with a soft sigh, closing his eyes. "Oh, how much you've grown," she murmured to herself, gently wiping his tears with her thumbs. "Und you're just like your brother…" She slipped a hand under his chin and tilted his head so the light hit his face in a certain way, studying his features. "Just like Sigma…"

M-21 opened his eyes and blinked slowly at her, still confused as to why was he so content. Just before he… did something horrible, he knew that, but now it seemed like something of little importance. She – whoever she was – was praising him and he was so happy for it.

"You're in such a bad shape," she tut-tutted and frowned. That pallor and dark circles under his eyes told her that most likely Crombel used him without any regards to his health, depriving him of a proper sleep and meal. "Now, Delta. Let us help your friends and take care of you, ja?"

"Okay," he nodded absentmindedly and stood up, turning around and going to help Takeo, barely even noticing how the others looked at him.

"M?" Tao tugged on his sleeve when he crouched down to take the unconscious sniper in his arms.

"Yes," he replied tilting his head.

Tao looked at him. They all looked at him and seem at loss for words at whatever they saw in his eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED… :)

A/N: What Brigid does here is to order M-21's brain to release the chemicals responsible for happiness (the main being dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins hence Alpha-4R, though take the effects described here with a grain of salt because I'm not really sure how a person overdosing on all these chemicals would act :/), but I didn't quite get the opportunity to slip this explanation into the discussion. She literally made him happy (mostly because she doesn't want to see him suffer anymore).

In Bioshock, Brigid Tenenbaum is the one who discovered ADAM and took part in creating the Little Sisters. She then later becomes disgusted with what she's done and tries to atone for her sins by saving as many children as possible. In game, she is the one giving you the opportunity to save the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them for ADAM as Atlas suggests.

"At that moment… I heard the sound of someone important to me disappearing."This is a quote from the movie Confessions (告白 or Kokuhaku).