Chapter 7

(in which Squalo is not amused, Belphegor finally gets to play, and a cake goes missing)

-/-

"So," said Squalo in a matter-of-fact tone of someone who had been dealing with idiots all his life and had no illusions about the humankind. "Let's have a little chat, shall we?" He unceremoniously dumped the girl on the floor and watched her scramble to her feet, not offering to help.

"Ugh..." She brushed the non-existent dirt off her dress and tried to glare up at him. "I thought you were going to make coffee."

"Not really." Squalo remained unimpressed by her futile efforts to appear taller than she really was. He'd seen it a million times and knew there was only one certain way to cure the patient. It was called decapitation. "I am going to drink the damn thing. You are going to make it. Fucking get to work."

"But–!"

"But me no buts, you little slut."

She seemed to be about to protest, but apparently thought better of it and turned to the coffee pot instead. She did mutter something that sounded suspiciously like she was wishing the earth would open up and swallow him, though. Not that Squalo cared if he had somehow hurt her feelings, of course; that was her problem and she was invited to deal with it however the hell she wanted. In his line of work, if he started worrying about other people's feelings or some other soppy shit like this, he would never be able to stop. Besides, he hadn't yet made up his mind whether he would kill her or not. It all depended, he supposed, on how it would go with Fran. If the brat demonstrated he had enough brains to come quietly, that was one thing. If not, however... And, of course, he would most certainly squash her like a bug if his coffee tasted like shit. That went without saying.

"And don't you dare to fuck it up, bitch!" he barked at her back, because he had found out years ago that if you were surrounded by complete morons it was better to give them an encouraging kick right from the start, or else they'd never get off their asses.

The girl said nothing, nor did she turn around, but the coffee pot in her hands shook slightly and her knuckles turned white. Inwardly, Squalo congratulated himself on making a good enough impression.

As he settled into a chair, he wondered if he had somehow been transported into a bad movie; possibly, one of those highly conceptual, surrealistic cinematographic chefs-d'oeuvre that never made a lick of sense to a normal human being. Squalo – who generally preferred historical movies with lots of fighting in them, or could go for The Saw, if he was really pissed off – frowned, as he tried to work out what was going on. He hated it when things got out of hand so early on, and he especially despised being misinformed: surprises didn't rank high in Squalo's personal book. Being misinformed by Mammon who was safely dead and out of reach, and therefore couldn't be kicked for this shit or reprimanded in any other way only made the matters worse. Now it was almost a personal insult.

He glared at the woman. She was still standing with her back to him, which, in fact, had been his idea when he chose this particular chair, because it gave him an advantage of seeing everything she did, while simultaneously preventing her from keeping track of his actions; but for some reason, he was nevertheless getting very annoyed. Why the hell was it taking her so damn long, anyway? Surely even a complete imbecile could make a cup of coffee.

"Hey, you!" he snarled, and the woman gave a start and nearly dropped the coffee pot. "Get a fucking grip! And hurry up already, I don't have all night."

"It will be ready it a minute." She started to turn around to face him, and Squalo growled warningly.

The girl froze, then returned her attention to the coffee again. Squalo scowled, still quite unhappy. He was wasting time, which in itself was pretty upsetting seeing how there was no end to the shit he had to do back in Italy, but even putting that aside, could he really be sure he'd got the right place? Yes, the slut had confirmed that Fran lived here, but now that Squalo had had a moment to take in his surroundings, he even began to doubt it was the right Fran.

What he had gathered from the brat's file, coupled with his uninspiring photograph, had led Squalo to expect a slightly different type of lodgings. It suggested a filthy hovel, with paper peeling off the walls, dirty dishes piled in a heap in the kitchen sink, and a hungry, flea-ridden cat shitting in the corners; or a nearly empty brick box complete with a matress, a three-legged chair and a wardrobe nailed together by someone who had already been dead for a while by the time the Parisians decided they could do with fewer prisons in the city and stormed the Bastille. He had prepared to face the stinky realm of filth, decay and neglect, along with its disgusting denizens, all of them, including Fran, drunk or doped up or simply incoherent – and was more than a little disconcerted by the sight that unfolded before his eyes.

For one thing, the place was clean. Especially the kitchen, which was sparkly, squeaky clean, as if Lussuria had paid a friendly visit with a mop, a brush and a vacuum cleaner and stayed for tea to discuss further arrangements afterwards. It was also too posh and too girly. Squalo wasn't really the type to pay attention to the patterns on the carpets when he visited someone, and if he went to see a woman he was usually too busy doing other, more interesting things to notice anything that wasn't an open threat to his life. Like most assassins – or at least like all the assassins who were good at their job – Squalo had long since developed a selective vision that enabled him to percieve any danger within a half-a-mile radius and quickly come up with a dozen ways to solve the problem, while at the same time mercifully sparing him the disgusting details of what was often happening around him. It was a protective mechanism and a great blessing at the same time, because Squalo knew very well that if he allowed himself to concentrate for as long as fifteen minutes on some of the things that people did, he'd have to kill them all immediately. For example, it was completely impossible for anyone even remotely sane to watch Belphegor drag himself sluggishly through the day and not want to snap his neck. Belphegor was possibly one of the most annoying beings in the world. The only way was to skip over it as if it didn't exist. If it meant that worthless crap like the amount of lace on the curtains escaped his notice as well, so be it.

Squalo sometimes asked himself if that was the source of their stupid boss's usual state of barely contained rage which he inefficiently covered by a seemingly impassive attitude. Perhaps Xanxus was simply so focused on not seeing any of them that he had nothing to say. Perhaps they infuriated him so much he had to constantly control himself so as not to set them all on fire. It felt weird to think of Xanxus making allowances, but even he was bound to understand that the Varia was more than just one person, no matter how powerful.

Or maybe the boss just did whatever the hell he wanted and never gave a damn, expecting the rest of the universe to acknowledge how special he was and rearrange itself to accommodate his ambitions. Xanxus was a bastard like that.

Squalo snorted at the thought and refocused on the task at hand. Something fishy was going on. Even through the prism of his deeply-ingrained habit of seeing things as either targets or weapons, it was obvious to him that the fucking apartment on rue Chapon couldn't possibly belong to a guy like Fran, or to any man at all, for that matter, unless it was a man of Lussuria's persuasion, which, Squalo hoped like hell, wasn't the case. He barely had it in him to put up with the presence of one faggot; two would definitely be overkill. He would have to either slaughter them or move out of the hideout, and he knew which one he would prefer.

From his strategically chosen vantage point in the corner, Squalo had an excellent view not only of the kitchen and the hallway, but also of the interior of one of the rooms, because the door was left wide open, lights switched on, providing an opportunity to enjoy the sight of a fluffy creamy-coloured carpet, a big, comfortable couch with a number of bright, cheerful pillows scattered all over it, and lilac curtains on the window. The curtains had a flowery design. There were little porcelain figurines here and there, which only ever appeared if a woman invaded the space, and framed photographs, and shitty pictures of something vaguely pacifying. There was bound to be one with cute little kittens somewhere, thought Squalo dejectedly. Kittens playing with a ball of wool, or poking out of a shoe, or something equally saccharine. Every woman had one of those. Even thinking about it gave Squalo a toothache.

He couldn't even begin to fathom what was so wonderful about babies and small animals that women found it necessary to squeal and croon over them. The way he saw it, they were clumsy and annoying and often whiny, not to mention useless. A big, serious dog could rip someone's throat out – Squalo respected that, and so did everyone else if they knew what was good for them – but a puppy just got in the way. As far as kittens were concerned, Squalo believed that he had already had his share with Bester, who was probably the biggest, crankiest kitten the world had ever seen. Nobody who had had the luck to meet Bester would be able to find cats adorable afterwards. If the fucking liger as much as pawed you, it was like being hit by a truckload of bricks.

Giving his immediate surroundings one final look, Squalo had to admit, no matter how reluctantly, that while he, personally, was more into high-tech, and prefered somber colours, and didn't want anything to do with kittens or flowers, the apartment still looked nice; in a female sort of way, of course. A little suffocating in its unbearable cuteness, but okay to visit, provided you took care not to let your gaze linger on anything for too long. At least there was no pink to be seen.

Sometimes one had to take comfort in small things. Inwardly, Squalo cursed the deceased Arcobaleno to the hell and back again.

-/-

This cake was bound to be good, Fran knew. He hadn't yet opened the box, but he had spent twenty three minutes – he knew because he'd checked – choosing the thing before he finally decided to open the stolen wallet and say goodbye to its contents. It had been a sad farewell, because, taking into account his financial luck, who could say when he would next have an opportunity to actually buy stuff? Still, the cake was worth its weight in gold, figuratively speaking. It was big, and dripping with chocolate – mostly due to the summer heat – and full of cream, and had a cherry on top (Fran had specifically insisted that he needed a cherry; he'd always dreamed he would one day eat a cherry-topped cake). It was pleasantly heavy.

Fran gave a happy sigh. He felt like a tired traveller seeing the long-awaited train appear from beyond the horizon, all flashes of light and speed and noise. The glorious moment of his revenge on W.W. was approaching, and even thinking about how he would finally get back at her gave Fran a warm, fuzzy feeling which he rarely had a chance to experience.

He wasn't exactly sure why he wanted to spite Master's loyal sidekick so much – well, starving him was part of the deal, of course, but it wasn't the real reason. The real reason lay hidden in the obscure place between the profound social (and financial) abyss separating them and her impossible loudness. Fran would probably find himself at a loss if someone asked him to explain the last part – because how could you explain something like this? – but the truth still remained: W.W. was loud in more ways than one; everything about her, from head to toe, announced, and stated, and declared one thing or another. She was so awfully full of herself that even when she was silent her presence was still tiring, and sometimes Fran found himself wishing she would just yell at him to get it – whatever it was – over with.

Fran scratched his nose and peered up at the windows of W.W.'s apartment. Well, he couldn't see all of them from here – only the big one in W.W.'s room. The kitchen and Fran's own temporary abode gave onto the other side, so he would have to go around the house if he wanted to look at them. He couldn't decide if he did. In fact, Fran couldn't even understand why he was still perched on a rather uncomfortable bench in front of the entrance instead of going in and eating the cake as he had previously planned to. It was very strange. Absent-mindedly, he pulled at the edge of his shirt – his second-best shirt which had a smiling cartoonish penguin printed on the front – and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.

Something felt wrong, that was why. Fran had no clue whatsoever as to what it was, but something seemed to be... out of place. Weird. Messed up. Something had happened or was happening, or at least that was what his intuition kept telling him. Too bad his intuition couldn't be bothered to supply any details.

Irritably, Fran kicked the empty cigarette pack that was lying quite peacefully on the ground where its previous owner had left it. Master was very big on the whole intuition thing. It was such a recurring theme during their dreamworld meetings – or should he call them lessons? he could never say where conversations ended and lectures began with Mukuro – that Fran sometimes wished there was more to the job than guesswork and imagintation. He even had once or twice voiced this opinion in front of Master and was punished quite severely for the lack of proper mindset. Master never got tired of reiterating that intuition was one of the most important things for an illusionist and as such, should never be ignored. The ability to wield one's intuition as a weapon, according to Mukuro, was a crucial factor and might very well determine if the illusionist in question was going to live to see another day. Fran had never really thought to disagree – he knew it was useful to listen to that little disembodied voice whispering inside his skull as it could sometimes provide a piece of helpful, if vague, advice or serve as an alarm signal, much like it was doing now. Still, he couldn't figure out what was wrong. This uneasy feeling usually visited him when he was about to have a run-in with the police or a gang of thugs or something equally unpleasant.

Unpleasant, but obvious, though. Fran knew it was prudent to avoid the police since he'd had crossed more than a few borders without any legal documents, and authorities everywhere frowned upon such behavior; and no one in their right mind would want to meet street thugs – it was extremely risky and promised to raise health issues. Those were good, solid reasons to become anxious and follow the commands your intuition tried to give you, and Fran had always been able to recognize the moment when fleeing was the only option.

Now, however, he was getting quite confused. Rue Chapon appered to be no different, quietly bubbling with its daily routine, with its usual evening activities; and no one suspicious was anywhere in sight. The house was the same, and the cars parked here and there were exactly the same good old cars he'd got accustomed to seeing every day. He strained his ears and heard nothing out of ordinary. For a moment, he thought he had seen something move out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look closer it appered to be a flock of pigeons taking flight off the roof of the nearby house. Fran shrugged with relief. Pigeons were alright. Everywhere had pigeons.

He glanced down at the cake in his hands and shrugged again, than got to his feet. There was no point in sitting outside any longer, especially when he had so much to look forward to. The uneasiness must be a by-product of the fatigue and, even more important, starvation – the problem he was going to solve with this very cake in a couple of minutes.

In a couple of minutes, he told himself cheerfully, he would finally get a chance to gloat, and this time he wouldn't miss it.

-/-

The trees grew thick near the old houses, and Belphegor made no sound as he dropped down from the roof to a balcony, and then further down to the ground, graceful and near-insubstantial, a slightly darker shadow among other shadows. He straightened up and stood motionless for a moment as he watched the door close behind the little punk, as Squalo would undoubtedly call him.

He had recognized the guy as soon as he laid his eyes on him – it was weird how a person with a hair-color that outrageous looked so blank and unnoticeable, but nothing could hide from the Prince – and wasn't sure what he thought about him, yet. It didn't matter, of course, he would have plenty of time to make up his mind. There was no need to rush. It was quite curious that he had found nothing worth mentioning in his room, though. No documents, no photos, not a single personal item. Not even a souvenir keychain or something stupid like this. It was as if the boy didn't actually exist, so insignificant was the impact he made on the world.

Without even looking, Bel plucked a knife out of the dead pigeon he was holding in his left hand. This particular pigeon had had the misfortune of being too close to the Varia assassin when the latter had decided to get down from the roof, and the fact had sealed its fate – by tragically shortening its lifespan. The other pigeons could still be seen circling in the sky as if unsure of what they should do now that their usual resting place was so obviously unsafe.

Fucking chickens, thought Belphegor, letting the dead bird fall from his hand, uncaring of the blood on his fingers, I might have been found out. He put the knife away, but not too far. Unless he was mistaken, which he wasn't, quite soon he'd be needing it.

He waited for a few more seconds before heading for the entrance as well. Few things pleased him more than the terrified look on the faces of his victims when they realized he was breathing down their necks and there was no escape.

-/-

"Milk? Sugar?"

Squalo, who was still longingly thinking about the many horrible things he, unfortunately, would never be able to inflict on Mammon, returned to reality.

"No fucking milk!" he ordered, then considered the hypothetical proportions of the oncoming headache and added. "Lots of sugar, woman." Another thought floated up. He sneered at her back. "And don't you dare to try and pull some shitty little stunt, got it? Unless you keep an extra head hidden somewhere, that is."

She jerked her shoulders with what appeared to be thinly veiled exasperation. "I'm not going to poison you, just so you know."

"Too damn right, you're not," replied Squalo flatly. "The moment I see anything I don't like, I'll cleave you in half. We'll see how fucking long you can live after that."

"Ugh. I mean I have no reason to do anything like this." She stepped away from the counter and put a big mug of coffee on the table in front of him. Squalo sniffed suspiciously. It smelled quite appealing and harmless. Arsenic-free, hopefully.

"Oh really?" he sais snidely. "So you don't mind if we stay for the weekend?" Squalo believed that it was his victims' job to be quiet and afraid, and didn't appreaciate the backtalk. "And don't even think about it, bimbo," he said menacingly, and she froze, half-way from the door. "You're going to sit by the window like a good girl, so we can play questions and answers." He bared his teeth in a smile that would put alligators to shame if they saw it. "I'm gonna do all the hard work, as usual, and come up with the fucking questions. You just have to tell me every damn thing you know. Simple as hell."

"Why– " She cut short abruptly, apparently realizing it wasn't too sensible to argue. "Sure. Alright. Fire away."

Fire wasn't the word Squalo wanted to hear at the moment, since it reminded him of his stupid boss and all the wonderful crap he was going to have to go through if the outcome wasn't to Xanxus' liking. And long, long years of bitter experience told Squalo that very few things were ever to Xanxus' liking.

He grabbed his coffee mug and fixed the woman with a murderous glare, wishing he could forego all this pathetic semblance of an investigation and just chop her head off to vent out; despite the fact that she had nothing to do with how much of a bastard Xanxus happened to be. Still, even disregarding that, everything felt so fucking wrong about this situation, starting with the little bitch herself, and he was going to get to the bottom of it, one way or another. Seeping his coffee, Squalo peered at the girl closely, and for the briefest of moments he had a nagging suspicion he had already met her in the past or at the very least had seen her face – it seemed vaguely familiar – but he couldn't remember when or where, so perhaps it was just a unexpected case of deja vu; or maybe she simply resembled one of the many women that occasionally entered his life late in the evening only to be booted out in the morning in what Squalo himself considered to be a healthy, business-like manner and everyone else, including the aforementioned women, defined as barbaric rudeness, not that he cared about their worthless opinions. He never bothered to memorize their names or faces, which had once prompted Lussuria to remark that if he continued this way, he'd never get anywhere with his personal life. Squalo had asked the faggot to kindly fuck off, because he couldn't see what it had to do with anything: he believed that personal life was called personal for a reason, and the reason was that you reserved it for yourself and no one else. If you let someone invade it – with pictures of kittens, God forbid – it ceased to be a personal affair and became a freaking circus. A traveling circus, if you were stupid enough to let it go too far.

He examined the girl again and decided it wasn't important. If they had truly met, surely she would have recognized him by that moment. How many swordsmen could she have possibly encountered in her boring little life, thought Squalo with the typical arrogance of those who had already realized they were special but had yet to see how much it annoyed other people.

"Fine," he said finally, lapsing into a condescending tone of an emperor agreeing to talk to a lowly peasant. "I take it this shithole belongs to you?"

"This shi– yes, it does." She pursed her lips disapprovingly, but refrained from commenting, which was good, because Squalo despised useless prattle with every fibre of his soul, and he definitely wasn't in the mood to put up with it now. Not even though the headache seemed to be receding.

"What about the brat then? Is he your brother or something?"

"Fran, you mean? Of course not. He's nobody." Her words had an odd ring to them, an echo of some unvoiced resentment trying to wriggle its way out from under the metaphoric rock, but instead of explaining herself, she fell silent again and began to examine her nails.

This, thought Squalo, was the worst part about any interrogation. No one ever wanted to talk, not even if after he made it crystal-fucking-clear that being uncooperative might mean that by the end of the conversation there would be fewer bodyparts still atttached and functioning. It was the sort of work that required patience and the ability to refrain from spilling the victim's guts on the floor, at least until all the necessary information was obtained. And what made it worse, it wasn't just civilians like the little bitch, back home there was no shortage of mafiosi who tried to play cool when in reality all they had to back up their swagger was the absolute lack of brains.

Squalo gritted his teeth.

"Fucking elaborate."

Frowning, he tried to reshape the already blurred image of Fran that had formed in his mind after he read the file and superimpose it on the posh chick sitting across the table from him, and gave up in frustration. No chance he could ever get them to meet anywhere. The mere idea of a cockroach like Fran and this Barbie-doll coexisting peacefully on the same square mile flew in the face of everything that was right in the world.

He glanced down at her fancy dress, which was actually too short to even be considered a dress, and another possibility occurred to him.

"Or do you keep him around because he fucks you, eh, slut?"

This had the most curious effect. The chick froze, mouth agape, like a fish out of the water, eyes wide, staring at him in what seemed to be horrified indignation. Her face reddened. She closed her mouth, then opened it again and took a deep breath. Then she regained her speech, and a moment later he wished she hadn't.

"What! Him! And me? With him! Absolutely not! Never! He's a total stranger!" Anger made her voice so high-pitched and shrill that Squalo immediately felt the headache slam happily back into place.

He winced. Enough was enough. "Who the hell do you take me for, a fucking idiot?" He barked, swinging his sword in her direction in a way that suggested that no more backchat would be tolerated. She shut up, but Squalo went on regardless. "You expect me to buy this shit? You expect me to believe that a bitch like you would let a total stranger in like nobody's business? No fucking way you're serious about that. Listen now, if you don't–"

"I'm not lying! I let him in because an old... friend of mine asked me to! I couldn't refuse. I never wanted him here!" Her voice took on a strange tone, a curious mix of anger, discontent and... sadness? Oddly enough, there was no fear – or rather, it was present, naturally, but seemed to be a little too controlled for an ordinary person, for an ignorant outsider who didn't know a thing about the mafia and its methods. Where were the shrieking, and finger-pointing, and I'll call the police, and other laughable things civilians resorted to when they suddenly found their cozy little world crumbling down around them? It was as if the girl knew exactly what she was facing and was now trying to stand her ground without actually provoking an attack. Fucking strange, that. Smart, of course, but strange. Perhaps, he was a bit too hasty to think coming here had been a mistake. Who could say, by now?

Squalo pinched the bridge of his nose and supressed the urge to start chopping things into little pieces. The more time he spent in the damn flat, in that damn city, the more complicated the situation became. Now even the bimbo was beginning to look suspicious, and the Mist brat had sprouted some caring friends as well as a shitload of personal history which Squalo had no desire to learn about. And none of it had beeen in the bloody file. Screw you, Mammon, he thought in helpless frustration, your fucking archive is full of holes. Well, what else did he expect, really, considering that the thing was almost half a year past its consumption date, so to speak.

He finished what still remained of his coffee – it tasted like the essence of bitterness mixed with a barrelful of sugar, which, in Squalo's opinion, meant it tasted like shit – and fixed the girl with an angry glare. What the hell, eh? He could keep up the Q&A session, as was the bloody tradition, or he could try and look for a shortcut, because there always was one.

Squalo put the empty mug down on the table. The shortcut.

"Hey, deario," he said. "Tell you what. I'm getting a bit fed up with your chitchat here, you know? So here's what we're gonna do. You get your fat ass off this chair – now! – and go and call the Fran guy. Tell him to come back to his home-sweet-home. Tell him you're dying to look into his eyes. Or that his grandpa kicked the bucket and left behind a fortune. Whatever. But I want the brat here. Got it?"

"That I'm dying to– Eh, it's not going to work. I'm sorry." She licked her lips nervously but didn't avert her eyes. Squalo could almost admire that. Almost.

"No?" he said, feeling his left eyebrow start to twitch. "It's not? It's fucking not?"

"Listen, I'd like to do it, I really would, I'm not an idiot, but I can't–"

"Do I look like I give a shit?"

"– because he doesn't have a mobile phone."

Squalo paused. He couldn't believe his ears. The brat didn't have a phone? In Paris? In the twenty first fucking century? Well, maybe, he had misunderstood. There was just no way such a dinosaur existed for real.

"He left it here or what? And who the hell goes out without their phone, anyway? Just how brainless is he?"

M.M. pursed her lips disapprovingly. "He didn't forget. He doesn't have a mobile phone, like I told you. At all."

"What!"

"Well, what do you expect?" she snapped suddenly, getting rather red in the face. Squalo was perplexed to realize she was actually fuming. "He's been around for more than half a year now, and he eats more than a hungry pig, and intrudes on my personal space, and gets on my nerves all the time, and he's not even paying for anything! I'm not buying him a phone on top of everything else!"

"You gotta be kidding me," said Squalo, finally beginning to appreciate the scale of the problem at hand. It was amazing, the shit your learned if only you cared to talk to someone for half a minute. Maybe he should remember that. "You mean, the little piece of crap is freeloading off of you?"

"Yes!"

"Not working or anything?"

"No!"

"Ah." Squalo believed he could understand why she had seemed so eager to tell him about Fran. "Fine. The two of you here are so nuts it–" He cut short abruptly, as there was a muffled noise from the direction of the front door. The hurried footsteps, no, someone running, the unmistakable frantic rhythm of panic impossible to overlook, then a key being hastily inserted into the keyhole and turned. The door itself being pushed open.

It occurred to Squalo that Belphegor hadn't manifested any signs of life for a while now. He knew what it meant and swore under his breath. For the brat's own good, he hoped there was no lasting damage. Well, whatever. The shit was finally about to come to a logical conclusion. He couldn't fucking wait.

Squalo grinned, for the lack of a better term. There was no mirth in it.

-/-

W.W.'s house was old, dating back to who knew when, and although it had, during its long and eventful life, suffered a couple of reconstructions and renovations, they were all cosmetic, so to speak, and mainly focused on preventing it from collapsing in a heap of dust and concrete. You couldn't just go around and mess with the cultural heritage, after all. You could only add to it, when and where it was appropriate.

On the whole, Fran had nothing against it. Quite the contrary, in fact: the long history of the house, its continuous presence in the lives of people inhabiting the area, were the things he, a person with no past or present, could admire. What he didn't find so admirable, at least at the moment, was the fact that due to its deeply-respected historical status and extreme old age, the house had only one elevator which was big, and slow, and capricious and seemed to function according to some mysterious schedule no one had ever seen in print. And W.W. lived on the fourth floor.

Fran waited and listened for the sounds of the old mechanism coming back to life. There were none. He sighed. He was very, very tired, and the cake was getting increasingly heavy by the minute. The pillow never seemed further away.

The door behind Fran squeaked plaintively as it turned on its hinges, admitting someone into the cool semi-darkness of the elevator hall. Then he heard the door click shut again, but there were no footsteps, only the silence, rushing in like a tide, profound and expectant. The world seemed to hold its breath. The hairs on the back of Fran's neck prickled. With a sinking feeling he wasn't going to like what he was about to see, he looked around.

A lone figure was standing by the now closed door; a young man. He wasn't tall, or particularly imposing, or rippling with muscle. He wasn't doing anything threatening either; he wasn't even moving. His clothes were dark, but not in the impressive midnight-black sense of the word, and he held his hands in the pockets of his unbuttoned coat.

Isn't it a bit too hot to be wearing this thing, thought Fran, and was vaguely horrified to realize how painfully sluggish his mind had suddenly become, that it was refusing to string words into sentences, to formulate the simplest ideas. He stood rooted to the spot and watched the newcomer tilt his head to one side. In the shadows it was impossible to see clearly, but somehow Fran was absolutely sure the bastard was smiling. It was an instinctive kind of knowledge and it didn't make him feel any better. Also, now he knew for sure what his intuition had been trying to tell him and wished he had paid more attention to its words of caution.

The stranger took his right hand out of the pocket and waved. Metal glinted dully between his fingers.

"Hello!"

Fran couldn't say if it was the wheather finally getting the better of him or some other fluke, but the air seemed to have gone thick and dense, like syrup, like the ridiculous vegetable cream-soup loved by W.W.

He exhaled, shaking off the strange reverie. There was nothing more primitive and down-to-earth than W.W. and her gastronomic quirks. Fran was more than just grateful for this now.

"Hi, bro!" he exclaimed, as he faded into invisibility, simultaneously side-stepping out of harm's way, and not a moment too soon. A knife, weirdly shaped but obviously sharp, zoomed past him – slower than it normally would if Fran wasn't in his black-and-white illusionary world, but still much faster than he'd expected.

Fran whipped around to look at the attacker and found that he hadn't moved from his place by the door. This was both good, because Fran preferred to put as much distance as he could between himself and raging madmen, and bad, seeing how this door was the only escape route from the house, and now it was blocked. What disturbed Fran even more was that the guy was, in fact, smiling – a wide, toothy smile of a child who had just been given the toy he'd been asking for since last Christmas. It was a smile that promised things Fran didn't want to experience.

There was no way to figure out exactly if the maniac could see him or not, due to the fact that his blond hair obscured half his face. Fran wondered if he was blind and maybe relied on his hearing instead. The possibility did nothing to cheer him up. Even if the bastard was blind, which was, after all, only a wild guess, he had no idea if his invisibility trick cancelled out any senses other than sight. It had never occurred to him to check. Supposing that he ran for it, would this nutter hear the sound of his footsteps or not? Fran wasn't sure he wanted to find out. He hesitated, trying to decide what to do, and these two or three seconds very nearly cost him his life.

There was a soft, low chuckle, which dissolved into laughter; and next moment, a volley of knives came flying in a wide arc in Fran's direction. There was no way to avoid them all but drop down to the floor, and he did so, somehow managing not to squash the cake. As he looked up he saw all the blades stuck into the walls at various angles, some of them quite strange and seemingly useless as they appeared to have veered too far away from where he was. Quickly, Fran started to get up. His poor intuition shrieked histerically in the back of his mind, and he froze as his eyes landed on something in the air a foot above his head, glimmering ever so faintly in the soft evening sun still shining through the narrow dusty window. Something long and impossibly thin, like a thread of a spider web, like a guitar string, like a wire.

A wire.

Fran felt his mouth go instantly dry, as his unhelpful imagination painted a picture of himself cut in two by this thing. Now that he knew what to look for, he was beginning to see others as well. Everywhere where a knife was embedded in the wall, there was a glimmer, a blade so stretched and so compressed at the same time that it became nearly invisible.

Fran swallowed. This was no joke, for sure. This was a real maniac.

Another chuckle snapped him out of the terrified stupor.

"Ahh, I can see you again. What was that thing you did to hide yourself, hm? I never saw anything like this before. But it won't work again, you know."

Three thoughts registered as Fran's head jerked in the direction of the voice. The first one was full of triumph – his tricks were working! Even on that maniac, they were working! The second was like a cold shower and it said: yeah, but you lost your focus and the illusion got dismissed, so what? The third was bereft of any emotion and simply stated the fact: the bastard had finally decided to leave his strategic position by the exit. Well, of course, he had. It was now impossible to reach the door without bumping straight into him – and outcome Fran was determined to avoid at all costs – and everything to the left and to the right was criss-crossed with wires; a deadly shimmering net. It didn't matter now that the blond madman appeared to be susceptible to Fran's illusions: this place was already a trap. The only way to go was up the stairs, further into the old house.

Back into W.W.'s cozy apartment which, fortunately, had a big, serious door with a big, serious lock. Back to safety.

Leaping over several steps at a time, praying he'd be able to outrun the enemy, Fran shot up the stairs, followed by the hissing sound of the bastard's laughter. It puzzled him that the guy didn't try to catch up with him, that no knives were flung at his back; but he had no time to contemplate such subtleties. Maybe for the psychopath down there it all was a game. Cat-and-mouse sort of thing, why not? He'd think about it later, after he locked the door.

Fran fumbled for the key in the pocket of his pants, glancing nervously over his shoulder; fished it out and shoved into the keyhole, and turned, twice. He half-expected the door to remain closed, like it would in any self-respecting nightmare, but nothing of the sort happened. The lock gave a gentle click and Fran half-fell into the familiar hallway.

Something strange was going on.

The lights were on in the kitchen, and the air was permeated with the aroma of coffee. W.W., wearing something that seemed too festive for the circumstances, was sitting by the window, very still and very pale, hands folded on the table in a proper schoolgirl manner. She was looking straight at him, her eyes too huge for her face. Any other time, Fran would consider it funny and pester her about how stupid she looked, but right now he wasn't in the best of moods.

Besides, W.W. had company. There was a man at the other end of the table, and as he saw Fran, he stood up.

Fran blinked, tired and bewildered. He hadn't really considered the possibility of W.W. acquiring a personal life that didn't include Master, but even if he had, he would have never thought this was the type of man she would go for. Even for her, the guy seemed a bit too extreme. He appeared to be in his late twenties, tall, with long hair so white it was painful to look at, and a face that was all sharp angles and lines. He didn't strike Fran as particularly friendly. The fact that he was equipped with a sword didn't help the matters either.

Fran stared at the sword, praying it wasn't real. But he knew better than to raise his hopes.

By the window, W.W. unfroze and said in a small, strangled voice.

"What... what are you going to do with him?"

Fran opened his mouth to inform her that he didn't give a damn if she organized an orgy, and anyway, it was even better to have more people around, taking into account that the blond maniac might not have left yet, when he realized that she wasn't talking to him.

This was immediately confirmed, as the white-haired man replied, without as much as looking at her. "What do you think we're gonna do with him, eh? Actually, we're gonna do you a favor, totally free of charge, no fucking catch, no shit. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?" His cold evaluating gaze slid over Fran, making him more than a little uncomfortable. "We're taking this worthless little piece of crap with us, is what I'm saying. Isn't that what you wanted all along?"

"Yes, no, well, I'm don't..." she hesitated, biting her lower lip, then started anew. "It's just that you can't actually–"

"I can and I fucking will. Watch me." His voice was loud and harsh, and to Fran, it sounded like metal being cut with a saw.

"What? No, wait, you can't just take him away like that, I mean, I've been told to keep... it's not that I care of anything, but I can't let you–" Apparently, it was beginning to dawn on W.W. that he wasn't listening to her; and she seemed desperate to get her point across, because she rose from her chair and grabbed his arm.

It clearly was the wrong thing to do. In one fluid motion, the swordsman shook her off and then backhanded her across the face. She slammed into the wall, made a wet hiccupping sound, and collapsed on the floor like a rag doll. He didn't even bother to pause and glance at her. Instead, he fixed Fran with a stare and took a step in his direction.

Not even attempting to make sense of what was happening anymore, Fran tried to become invisible again. If it had managed to affect the psycho below, surely it wouldn't fail him now.

The swordsman sneered, lips peeling back in a humourless grimace. His eyes never left Fran's.

"Huh! This pathetic shit won't work on me, brat!"

At the same time, Fran heard the already familiar hissing laughter from behind him, where the front door still remained unlocked. He didn't turn to check if his imagination was playing tricks on him. By now, he was certain it was not a coincidence or an accident. Something was going on that he hadn't been told about, despite the fact that he was, in fact, right in the middle of it. These men must have come here – come from where, by the way? – specifically for him, that much was clear from what the white-haired guy had told W.W.

Dazed, Fran prodded his memory, searching for someone who might be interested enough in him to send professionals to pick him up, but nothing sprang to mind. Sadly, he wasn't given time to come up with more theories.

He did have enough time to see the swordsman lunge, inhumanly fast, uncaring of the feeble illusionary tricks; see the hungry, enraptured grin and eyes like arctic water. One final thought coagulated in the back of his panic-stricken mind and filled him with regret: somewhere along the way, he'd lost the cake.

Then the world blacked out and faded away.


A/N: well, what can I say? At least it's a long chapter. And stuff finally gets to happen. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before - my memory is like a leaky cauldron, sadly, - but it's not the end of the story. You didn't really think it was going to end before Fran even had a chance to meet Xanxus, did you? Also, all the currently unresolved issues will be addressed, I guarantee that. :) Even the one about what Lussuria put in the soup.

Thank you all for your amazing reviews! Please, tell me what you think, you know I like it!