Midnight

(See disclaimer in the Prologue)

Dolk got the call from Lisa shortly after he and the others had left the police station.

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't be showing up since you called last to say that Kaze hasn't been any better. No, it's not a problem. I've got Miles and Gaeus with me today… Oh, really? Well, we're headed down to go take our frustrations out on our friend in jail right now. Once we're done with that, we're going to go visit Madoushi again… Cid pulled up a list of people with records and connections to the Kontonkawas or just That Incident in general who might be our perp, and we're going to try again for that ID. We'll check in with Fabula, too, and keep the Knights informed…

"That's good. You just take care of Kaze and the kids for now. I'll call again to check in sometime soon."

---

"Niisama…"

Kiri gave a noncommittal groan, then stirred and opened his eyes, only remembering just in time before trying to rub his face with the back of his hand. Kumo was sitting up next to him on the hospital bed, wearing only the loose white kimono he was using as sleepwear here. It was hanging wide open, showing a generous amount of his chest as well as the subtle curves of muscle over his soft belly as he sat turned to look down at his brother. Kumo was smiling down at him through that early-morning haze, his face rosy and his hair all mussed and the easy peace that lingered after a night's lovemaking and sleep settled over his body. Kiri realized that light marks still showed in a lazy trail from the side of Kumo's throat right down past the thin obi of his kimono where he'd nibbled at his brother's sweet skin the previous night.

The sight stirred Kiri's blood strongly, and he swallowed hard, hoping that he wouldn't get too turned on first thing in the morning. If he did, he'd either have to openly ask Kumo to go off somewhere so he could take care of it himself (if he even could, in his state) or he'd have to get Kumo to take care of it for him, which was risky and not all too smart since there'd be lots of awkward questions if some doctor or nurse or, worse, one of the police happened to walk in on them.

"Hey," Kumo said sweetly. Kiri's insides turned over, and he tried not to moan in open longing.

Instead, he reached out and tugged Kumo's kimono closed. "Hnn." Then gasped and curled up as savage pain shot through his arms, then across his chest and between his legs. "Shit—"

"Niisama, here…" Kumo retrieved a Styrofoam cup of water and four pills of varying shapes and sizes from the bedside table. "These should help… one of the nurses left them earlier, while you were still asleep."

Kiri accepted the pills with shaking hands and put all four in his mouth, sitting up as best he could so that Kumo could help him with the water. They felt lumpy and jagged when he swallowed, and he felt for a while like they were sticking in his throat until he took a few more drinks. When the cup was almost empty, he pushed it away and coughed and lay back. "Uggh. I hate taking pills." Making a face, he rubbed the spot in his upper arm where his IV had used to be. "At least I'm off that damn morphine. I hate how fuzzy that stuff makes my head."

Kumo murmured and stroked Kiri's hair, leaning in as close as he seemed to dare without jarring any of Kiri's wounds. "Niisama, just… take it easy."

With a sigh, Kiri leaned into his brother's arms. "…Thanks. It helps that you're here." Instead of outside doing who knows what and probably attracting that sick bastard's attention. "Just… just stay with me for a while, okay? These drugs—make me sleepy. And it's easier… when I know you're with me."

Kumo lightly kissed him on the lips, then on the cheek. "…Of course I will, Niisama."

Kiri snuggled close, abandoning what pride still prickled at the motion. "I love you, Kumo."

He'd closed his eyes, but he could still hear the smile in Kumo's reply: "I love you too, Niisama. Sleep tight, now. I'll be right here."

---

Dolk folded his arms and gritted his teeth, restraining a growl of hatred, as he watched armed guards escorting their prisoner from the innards of the maximum security prison to the table bisected by wire-reinforced Plexiglas that made up the visitor's room and makeshift interrogation chamber.

Despite spending four years in solitary, Tyrant Kontonkawa looked none the worse for wear. In fact, Dolk observed with some ire, the man seemed as calm and arrogant as ever—he hadn't even lost any weight. The gray jumpsuit striped with reflective orange on the shoulders and down each leg, which bagged on every other prisoner Dolk had ever encountered in a place like this, clung closely to the man's deceptively slender frame—one that, he knew, was actually highly combat-trained. His long lilac-colored hair had gotten quite a bit longer, and hung past his hips, but not even one strand of it seemed out of place, and as Kontonkawa sat elegantly, he swept it back in a bored yet refined gesture and leaned forward against the table, resting his chin against the heel of his hand and regarding the three detectives before him with his flat doll's features arranged in a sardonic smile and his ice-blue eyes cold.

"Ah… I see we've Soljashy, the Amazon woman, and…" a mild arch of the eyebrows that had been trimmed back to near-yanki degrees. "…our own dear Fungus." Dolk heard Miles growl softly next to him, and on his other side, he saw Gaeus' broad shoulders go taut. "To what do we owe the… pleasure of your company?" Kontonkawa said it with a sneer.

Dolk narrowed his eyes at the man. "We might not be able to trace everything directly back to you just yet, but we know you're up to something, damnit. And we just want you to know that we aren't going to stand idly by and let you do whatever you please with this city."

"And if I was 'up to something', as you so charmingly put it," Kontonkawa said brazenly, meeting Dolk's glare with a cold smile, "just what do you think you'd be able to do to stop me? There wasn't anything you could do before… after all."

"You got children involved last time, and you're getting them involved again," Miles snapped. "That's not the kind of thing we tolerate. If you're stupid enough to try anything, we won't even give you the benefit of a trial—we'll force you to meet justice right then and there."

Kontonkawa leaned back in his chair and looked down his nose at them all. "Hmph. So much for your beloved order, your honor."

"Who are you to speak of such things?" Gaeus burst out suddenly. "A pitiful creature such as you could never know anything of honor!"

"Guys, don't let him work on you," Dolk said softly, although his words did nothing to loosen the garrote's-wire tension strung between them all. To Kontonkawa, he warned, "Just know that we're watching you and all your little cronies very, very closely, you son of a bitch." Averting his eyes from the criminal's calculating smirk, he waved to the guards. "Lock the bastard back up."

And as the men hauled Kontonkawa back into the stone and steel bowels of the prison, Dolk wondered how it was that every time they came in here to work on this man, he wound up getting to them instead.

---

Lisa set the phone down and massaged her temples, sighing.

She hated to see any of her friends and coworkers unhappy, and she'd heard in Dolk's voice how badly Kontonkawa had managed to rattle him and the others. It wasn't fair for the events of four years ago to still have so much hold over them all—over everyone in Lucretia.

Sadly, she looked over to where her husband lay on his side of their bed, facing away from her. She still remembered every second of the terror she'd felt all those years ago, when she'd thought she was going to lose him—when she'd thought that she and her poor daughter and the baby growing inside her would be forced to face the rest of their lives alone. Kaze had been through more than enough already. And now, with the Knights of the Round under attack… it had torn every barely-healed wound open again, leaving Kaze horribly vulnerable, making him sick like he hadn't been since the weeks that had directly followed the conclusion of That Incident.

Lisa sat down next to him and watched him for a moment. He was sleeping deeply, and the shift of her weight as she lay down didn't cause him to stir. Tenderly, Lisa reached out to stroke his long hair, then traced the black lines of his Knight's mark, first running a fingertip down the straight line which ran from the nape of his neck to just below where his ribcage ended, then following the spiral back and forth over his shoulderblades. Still, he didn't wake.

Why was it that it seemed to be the fate of every Knight to suffer like this?

Sighing, Lisa leaned her forehead against Kaze's back and closed her eyes.

---

Since Lisa was still staying with Kaze, Dolk took Miles and Gaeus down to the hospital to show Kiri the results of Cid's search.

"Now, I should probably warn you—Madoushi's a bit caustic, and Kumo startles easily…" Dolk told them again as they walked.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be good," Miles drawled, rolling her eyes. "It's safe to let us near the other kids, Mommy."

"I should also warn you that they're kind of sleeping together."

"I said it's—whoa, wait." Miles stared at Dolk in fascination. "But they're brothers. They're having sex? That kind of sleeping together?"

Dolk reminded the graphic memories to stay behind their impenetrable barrier, groaned, and nodded. "Yes to the first, yes to the second, and there really is only one connotation to the phrase 'sleeping together' in that kind of context."

"So our victim's already in an incestuous relationship." Miles' eyebrows were approaching the ceiling. "How'd you learn this? I mean, if they're Knights, they'd know better than to parade it in a city like this, right?"

Dolk twitched. "Lisa and I narrowly escaped walking in on them. We saw enough through the two-way mirror to get the idea, and if it weren't for Fabula, we'd've gotten a lot more where it came from."

Miles whistled. "Wow. Part of me—feels really sorry that you had to see something like that. And the other side… the other side actually kinda wishes you'd taken pictures so you could share."

"Miles!"

She shrugged and grinned. "Well, some of us think that watching two guys going at it is hot."

Dolk shook his head at her, then turned to look up at Gaeus. "You don't seem too bothered by this either."

Gaeus just shrugged, nonplussed. "They're Mystarian. It's not that unheard-of, with their race."

"I'm just dropping this conversation right now before you two scare me any more," Dolk decided wisely under his breath. To be fair, he was still getting over the shock of having seen Kiri and Kumo doing that, but sometimes he really considered Miles and Gaeus to be too open-minded for their own good.

That was pretty much how things stood when the three of them walked through the door.

Kiri and Kumo had been sitting next to each other talking, and both of them turned when they heard the door opening. At first Kumo made to stand but saw Dolk and remained where he was, but the next moment when Miles and Gaeus came into the room, he was up on his feet and bowing. "Um—"

"It's alright," Dolk assured him. "They're also police officers. Lisa would've come like yesterday, but her husband's ill and she feels she needs to take care of him today."

Kumo nodded, still darting shy glances towards the newcomers. "I-I can understand that. Um—it's nice to meet you, um…"

"I'm Miles, and the big guy's my partner," Miles said with an easy grin, leaning against the two-way mirror.

Gaeus stood straight and actually gave Kumo a salute, smiling one of his impressive (if somewhat imposing) smiles. "Gaeus Fungus, at your service."

Kumo nodded, and bowed again. "N-nice to meet you both."

Miles leaned further back, pushed up the rolled-up sleeves of her uniform shirt a bit further, and stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "Now, what's with all that? Dolk, what kind of crap have you been telling these two? We don't bite. Besides, good-cop/bad-cop is only for the bad guys."

"Even if we did—bite, that is—she's had her shots; you'd be perfectly safe," Gaeus added helpfully.

"Guys," Dolk groaned, resisting the urge to facepalm. However, Kiri was already giving them his hoarse bark of a laugh, and Kumo was covering what looked suspiciously like a smile with his hand.

Gaeus stepped forward then and gave Kumo's hair a brief ruffle. The sight was almost comical—because of his race, Gaeus stood taller even than Kaze, and so he dwarfed Kumo by head and shoulders, and his hand was big enough to cover Kumo's face and then some—but there was something really very touching in the way that Kumo blinked up at Gaeus, taken off-guard, as the tall man smiled down at him.

"We are doing everything in our power to prevent any more harm from befalling the two of you," he said gruffly. "Rest at ease knowing that if by our lives or deaths we can protect you, we will."

"…" Kumo stared up at Gaeus with something like awe in his eyes as that huge hand was lifted off his hair. "…Gaeus-san…"

"…does he really mean that?" Kiri asked quietly, so that only Dolk could hear him.

"Definitely," Dolk replied in an undertone. "They might not look it now, but Miles worked the streets four years ago, so she's familiar with situations like these, and Gaeus was our inside man with the enemy. Miles has seen more than enough awful things happen to kids your brother's age and younger, and Gaeus' honor is his life. They're some of our very best, and they're like me and Lisa—they'll help you with everything they have."

"…Huh." Kiri looked at Miles and Gaeus for a moment with new respect, then turned back to Dolk. "Anyway, what brings you all here today? I suppose there's something you want me to tell you, or some other thing I can do to help you along."

"Well, there's not many new leads, so I had our head of tech support pull the file of every guy who might have a grudge against the Knights who matches your basis of a profile in any way. It's not much, and we may not come up with anything, but I'd like you to look through these for us. Who knows? Your assailant might be in here."

Kiri sighed. "Paperwork. My favorite."

"You're telling me. And, hey, this is my job."

"Whatever." Kiri held out one hand—he had a much smaller brace on today, one that just covered the hand and wrist, but his bandages still went halfway up his forearm. "Give it."

Dolk handed over the manila folder and sat next to Kiri in the chair Kumo'd been occupying while Kiri started to flip through the copies of criminal records and Miles and Gaeus engaged Kumo in conversation.

"So you're a Knight too, huh?" Miles asked.

"Y-yes. I'm not very experienced, it's true—I've only been one for a few months—but if I must, I will fight in order to help my fellow Knights of the Round," Kumo replied hesitantly.

"Where's your Knight's mark, then?" Miles sounded curious. "We've seen your brother's, but you seem to wear pretty covering clothes, so it's hard to tell."

Interestingly enough, here Kumo let out a little squeak and went bright pink. "Th-that's…"

"Hm?" Miles waited, raising her eyebrows at him.

"I-I'd rather not…" Kumo covered his face, blushing even worse. "It's embarrassing…"

"Now, if you can't answer a simple question like that, how are you going to be able to verify your Knighthood to your own order?" Miles asked, sounding annoyed, almost disgusted. "Not all Knights are so open as to take your word for it that you're one of them."

"Miles…" Gaeus said in a low voice.

"Don't defend the kid. He's got to learn to speak up and defend himself," Miles retorted, waving her partner off. So saying, she crossed her arms and looked at Kumo. "Well?"

"B-but…" Kumo looked frantically towards Kiri, pleading for rescue.

Kiri gave Miles a flat glare, then shook his head and turned to Kumo with a sigh. "Tell them. You're still of an age where people'll doubt you if you can't. It's okay."

Kumo fidgeted, crimson straight up to the ears, but nodded miserably and gave a little sigh, as though steeling himself. "It's. It's, u-um." He slipped his right hand between his legs and lightly tapped the inside of his right thigh, high up in his groin. "Right here."

"Oh." Miles blinked and shifted and refolded her arms as everyone just stood there awkwardly staring at Kumo and Kumo, in turn, kept his eyes to the floor and pulled his hand away from his hidden tattoo. "…Well."

"The idea was to hide it so that we can still treat Kumo like a civilian if we have to," Kiri explained, that acid edge back in his voice as he gave Miles a resentful stare. "He's young, he's hopelessly inexperienced, and the powers that be have a penchant for tossing new Knights into sticky situations that get way over their heads almost instantly, without even stopping to see if they can swim yet. That being the case, concealing Kumo's Knighthood is the only way we can make absolutely sure he's safe. His Knight's clothes have a slit there so that you can see he's Marked, to keep it from being a problem in combat situations."

More awkward silence, then: "That… must've been a bit awkward, to have it done there," Miles said at length, giving Kumo a considering stare with an arched eyebrow.

"Not particularly." Kiri shrugged one shoulder and turned back to the profiles he was supposed to be looking through. "I was the one who did it. It's usually family or someone else close who gives a Knight his or her tattoo, just in case it has to be put in a place you'd be uncomfortable having someone who isn't intimate with you touching.

"And, hell, it's not like I'd ever let anyone else touch my Kumo there."

"N-Niisama." This from Kumo, who was twisting the hem of his shirt anxiously.

Kiri just scowled possessively and continued reading.

There was dead silence in the room but for the flip of pages as Kiri went through the reports, usually only looking at a face for a few seconds before dismissing it. Meanwhile, Dolk just stared at the ceiling and marveled at Miles' ability to stuff her foot in her mouth in all possible circumstances.

Finally, Kiri closed the folder with a decisive snap and held it back out towards Dolk. "He's not in here, not anywhere. You're not looking for someone you've dealt with before."

"Are you sure?" Dolk asked, though he knew what answer he'd get.

"Positive. I keep telling you, when I see him, I'll know beyond any doubt. If you've seen the face of the guy who does that to you, you don't forget it," Kiri snapped. "…even if you wish you could," he said a lot more quietly, under his breath.

Dolk sighed. "Well, thank you anyway. At least we can cross these people off the list now."

As he collected his coworkers and trailed out of the hospital, he wondered if there really was any hope of finding the rapist, or if Kontonkawa had been right and again the police would be unable to do anything until it was too late to stop whatever events were in play from coming to fruition.

---

When Fabula got in, Aura was sitting hunched over at the table at the center of the bare, darkened room, her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. Her expression was perfectly blank, but once Fabula had closed and locked the door, she sat up and turned towards her, those ghostly pale silver eyes glinting in the moonlight that spilled over the floor and the drab bed.

The specter of a smile crossed Aura's face. "…hey," she said, her voice a harsh rasp.

Love and worry and pain and want and dozens of other emotions tumbled through Fabula's chest, tangling and constricting painfully in her heart. "Hello," she replied.

"So?"

"Nothing new," Fabula replied with a sigh. "Good or bad."

"…and those kids?"

"So far, nothing with them yet either," Fabula answered her.

Aura rose from the chair, and something in the shadows on her face alerted Fabula to the fact that this had been a bad day; for a split second here and there, she looked just as she had four years ago, when Kaze had wrenched her out of Chaos and they'd all feared for a horrible moment that it had been too late—

Knowing what Aura needed of her, Fabula undid the buttons on her suit coat and let it slide off her shoulders to fall in a soft gray pile on the ground. She took off her shirt, cast it off absently, and looked sadly at Aura, letting her long hair spill over the tattoo that started at the center of her chest and trailed down between her breasts, mourning what had come before but willing to cling to what was left.

Skin to skin, they connected.

This was the way it was between them now. As much as the drugs, as much as the isolation and the cold lack of any color in the room, Aura used sex to keep the taint in her mind and heart at bay. The mind went blank if the body needed badly enough, which wasn't much but was all they needed to pretend that things had never changed, to deny that even lust sometimes ran cold, that under the pressure of Aura's wavering sanity, what had once been so vivid a love was starting to splinter.

Then again, as Aura healed, there was always hope for things to change.

Then again, who was to say that Fabula didn't deserve this? After all, it was her fault Aura was like this—

She'd slipped up; she'd slipped up badly. Aura had come to her rescue, had diverted the Kontonkawas' attention and gotten caught instead; and they'd gloried so in having a Knight in their grasp at last, and they'd tortured her and tortured her until her blood ran and her mind broke but Aura still hadn't told them anything—

And by the time they'd arrived there, they'd already begun to absorb her into Chaos, and she'd stood frozen while Kaze had shoved bodily into the battle and torn his sister away, and she still hadn't been able to do anything even when the darkness and the dimensional rip had gathered to them, and had only been able to gather the strength to fight when both of them had come too close to dying—

So she let Aura drag her down to the bed and lay still and let Aura do whatever she pleased, and even as she came and arched up and almost cried out because it hurt even as it felt like she was flying, her mind and heart were distant and removed from herself, bound to the ground by chains of guilt.

Afterwards, they lay side by side and breathed and stared up at the skylight, and Aura reached out and took her hand, and when Fabula turned to look at her, she looked almost like she'd been before, and the kindness and regret in her smile broke her heart.

"I'm using you again," Aura said at length in that hoarse voice. "I'm sorry."

"No… it's well within your rights to use me however you choose," Fabula told her, pushing Aura's dark sweat-damp bangs back from her forehead.

They slept sporadically, and woke and took each other viciously, trying to answer with their bodies the desperate search for the way to recapture the warmth and love from four years ago. And while Fabula lay on her side and watched the wall and waited for sleep to return, she heard the sudden rustle of the sheets as Aura sat up.

She turned, saw that Aura was gripping the sheets hard and that she was staring up into nothing, her eyes wide and her pupils contracted to dots. "…what is it?"

"Get dressed," Aura said, her voice suddenly strong and sure. Fabula was surprised for a moment to hear Aura the Knight, but she sat up.

"What's going on?"

"—they're on the move," Aura replied cryptically. "The others will need you."

As Fabula sat and watched her, Aura shook her head and ran one hand through her hair, tightly gripping her bangs and holding them back. "Hurry, I said. I don't think you'll make it in time, but—"

"But…?" Fabula leaned in, and Aura slumped against her side, suddenly vulnerable again, her thick hair warm on Fabula's shoulder and the slight, delicate curve of her breast pressed against her arm.

"…they'll probably need you for damage control," Aura answered listlessly. "You—want to stop this, don't you—? To protect them—"

In a flash, Fabula understood what Aura meant, and before she could even try to think, she was across the room, struggling into her clothes.

---

"It'll be fine," Kumo said, leaning down to kiss Kiri's cheek as he tugged the laces of his shoe. "The store's down on the corner of the street; I'll be there and back in five minutes. Nothing's going to happen."

"But, Kumo—" That panic was rising in Kiri's throat again, and it had him trying to sit up although the pain dragged him back down with a groan.

"Even if there were still enough nurses on duty for us to find someone to ask, there might be a few strange questions if we said we're out of condoms and need more," Kumo told him with an awkward smile and a soft blush. "Besides—I want to get something for you, too. You need a little cheering up, Niisama!"

"That's what you're here for," Kiri said with a wry smile, although worry twisted it.

"Niisama, come on." Kumo waved a hand in the air as his blush spread. "It'll be okay." Before Kiri could protest, Kumo had leaned down to kiss him again, then was out the door and down the hall.

Kiri stared at the spot where Kumo had disappeared, at a loss as to what to say or do, that deep infinite wellspring of fear rising up to clutch his throat tight.

There was nothing he could do.

---

Providence, he concluded, was a funny thing.

Here he'd been prepared to search hours for viable prey, and he'd not been walking the streets for five minutes when it had come to him.

He wondered idly what naïve foolishness had decided the boy on his late-night shopping trip, then decided it mattered little as he closed the distance between himself and the child. The boy was wearing closely clinging white and green, and he had a plastic bag from that corner mart draped over his right arm at the elbow. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings at all, intent on the distant light of the hospital, smiling and apparently humming some kind of tune beneath his breath.

He reached out and pulled, and the boy's eyes went wide as he lurched towards the crevasse between two buildings, pulling the child after him.

"—!" With a wordless cry of terror, the boy whirled, and then there was sharp pain through his wrist as those slender fingers and their well-shaped nails dug between his tendons, forcing him to let go with a snarled curse. Jumping away warily, the boy raised his hands before him defensively, cautiously tracing him with those wide, fearful eyes.

"You'll pay for this, brat," he growled, and lunged. The boy stumbled backwards, blocked his first and second strike, and began to whisper something in alternated harsh and lyrical syllables, an incantation the man recognized. It was the activation key leading into a Knight's distress call; if the boy completed it, all he had to do was touch his tattoo and every Knight within a mile and a half would be all over this place. By the time the man had realized this, the boy was at the end of the call, and was reaching towards his own body when the man pounced, slamming him hard into the wall and grabbing his right wrist. There was the crunch of breaking bone and a wail from the boy as he pulled his arm in, and in the emptiness of the street, the man took savage hold of his opportunity.

It was fast, and it was brutal. It took little effort to tear the boy's clothing, and less to pin him back with his own superior body weight and strength, one hand on his left wrist and the other over his mouth to stifle what would've been screams of pain and terror. No virgin, this one, but still young and fragile and probably never touched but out of love.

It ended quickly, and they sank to the cold sidewalk, the boy's eyes glassy with tears as he trembled and whimpered weakly out of fear.

He smirked.

Just like the last Knight he'd gone after, the boy pushed himself back and tried to attack, but he knew better than to relax his guard, and caught the boy's entire left arm and twisted it behind his back. There was a sick crack and a tear of tendon and bone, and the boy let out a delicious shriek as his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket; he laughed scornfully and pushed the boy down to the ground, dragging his pants down past his hips and taking him even more viciously than before, glorying in the cries of pain that met each rough, deep thrust.

All the while, as he panted and laughed and rocked his hips in and out, the boy's voice shaped a faint tremolo of words he couldn't fully hear or understand. A prayer, perhaps. When would these people ever learn that there was no one who would come to save them?

He didn't notice until it was too late that the boy had been inching his maimed right arm across the ground. As it was, he wasn't able to reach in time to stop those trembling fingers from tucking between the boy's legs and pressing to the black mark hidden up against the inside of his thigh.

The Knight's mark glowed bright white, and then there was a pillar of light that erupted around his body, streaming high and full into the air. As if in mockery of his own underestimation of the boy's inner strength, dark pleasure seared through him and orgasm took him in his weakness, exploding and sending him rushing hard and fast deep into his victorious victim.

Seething, he gripped the back of the boy's neck hard and squeezed vindictively, making him squeal as he thrust one last vicious time, then pulled back and straightened up, glaring coldly at the shivering boy lying in the ruined tatters of his clothes and the splatters of his blood, a thick trail of the man's semen across his thigh, seeping with more blood down the contours of his bare lily-white ass.

"Disgusting," he proclaimed, and drove his heel into the boy's tearstained face until he felt bone give and heard one last wail from the pathetic child. Then, knowing he had no more time, he fled back into the abyssal darkness of Lucretia's midnight.

Secrets never slept.

The one that had lain dormant in his body for four years was going to change everything.

---

The desk clerk working the graveyard shift at the hospital froze mid-yawn when she saw him.

Kiri Madoushi's baby brother Kumo had left some ten minutes ago to go pick some things up at the store, since there'd been nobody on hand who could go in his place, but—

But how could this have happened just outside, and in so short a time—?

As Kumo pushed feebly at the door, his fingers left streaks of blood on the glass, and when he had to put his shoulder into it to get it open, she could see his sob for breath as he strained for purchase. When finally he staggered into the lobby, he swayed unsteadily, tried to take a step, and then looked up and his eyes were suddenly on her as he coughed, shaking with shame and pain and crying—

"Please…" he managed, and tried to take another step, and then he collapsed.

The clerk ran out to him, and stared down as he lay bleeding onto the floor, unconscious, then knelt at his side, feeling at his throat for his pulse.

There was none.

Levering Kumo's dead weight up into her arms, she turned on her knees towards the inside of the hospital, and screamed for all she was worth. "Someone—!"

---

And in a town far away, a young man and a young woman in their mid-teens stood next to a boarding subway train.

"Are you really sure you'll be alright with—going back there, after all this?" the boy asked hesitantly.

The girl just smiled at him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Well, hey, I can't turn down an assignment like this. You know how it is. An order's an order. Besides… if we spend all our time running away, then we'll never be able to let it go."

"Then—then shouldn't I at least go with—?" he asked, but she was shaking her head.

"You're not a Knight. Besides, you've got school! You're gonna be a doctor so you can help people, right? So you've gotta study, and keep those grades up so you can get into a good college! Don't waste all that time you spent busting your butt to get into that high school. Besides—you know Mom and Dad'll fall apart without you."

"Yeah…" He smiled awkwardly at her. "Just—even though Knights get their private school, don't completely blow off studying while you're there."

She laughed, and hugged him.

"Last call boarding the 11:15 train to Lucretia," the voice on the overhead speakers said. "All passengers taking the 11:15 to Lucretia, board now."

"Well, I guess it's time to go," she said, letting go of him and picking up her bags.

As she disappeared into the train with a wave, he bit his lip and looked down at his shoes.

"Be…" he said softly, shaking his head. "Be careful, Oneechan."

:TBC: