Author's Note: Chapter warning for blood and violence. Also, reviews would be most welcome right now, as the author's ever fluctuating motivation could use some feeding (so please send cookies :)!

Chapter 10:

Enemies and Adversaries

"Darkling I listen; and, for many a time,

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme

To take into the air my quiet breath…"

From "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

There was the majestic sound of a cardinal calling through the trees…

Only-

There were no cardinals in the Heath. An abundance of other birds remained: wrens and skylarks and robins and, of course, Keat's famous nightingale. But not cardinals. Nagisa almost laughed. He should have been attending to his surroundings but instead he'd been attending to his own useless, childhood pain. He'd been careless. And now...now he was in trouble.

"Nagisa…" Blades of bright sunlight sliced through the tree branches above like daggers, embedding themselves like spikes of pure light into the shady ground. Nagisa's eyes widened as viscous drops of red fell across his face like raindrops; for a moment it seemed like the sky was bleeding. But no, it wasn't the sky; that's when he noticed that the drops were falling from the hand that Karma had been using to stroke his hair. Looking up, he saw a line of red, like that on a tube station map, flowing from the boy's arm, from shoulder to elbow to wrist, in a thin trail all the way down to his hand to finally fall, like so many errant tears, from his fingertips. Karma's eyes, bright amber like the swaying wheat fields of the Heath, were wide: with doubt, with surprise and-increasingly-with pain.

"Nagisa…" Karma held out his hand, wincing in pain, staring at the blood spattered limb as if it were an alien object. The blood from his shoulder was flowing faster now, increasing in volume. To his credit, Karma didn't topple over or clutch himself or react in any of the ways a typical person would when shot. He looked more surprised than anything. Nagisa was about to say Karma's name again when a voice interrupted him from the log above, saying:

"Aw, that shot was just from a measly .22. So don't look so scared; I barely put a scratch on him."

Nagisa was up and off the ground in an instant. Rage combined with adrenaline pulsed through his veins, redder than blood, as he grabbed the shooter by the ankle and dragged him bodily from his perch. "You guys feel free to step in any time now," the shooter said nervously into the air as Nagisa began to viciously pound his head into the side of the fallen log. The sound of half a dozen rifles being cocked simultaneously behind Nagisa's head wasn't even enough to make him stop. Finally, a woman's low voice said close to Nagisa's ear, "Alright, Angel, that's enough." Then in a louder voice, to the shooter: "What did I tell you, Andrew, about getting too close? Appearances, as I pointed out, can be very deceiving."

Nagisa slammed the shooter's forehead into the tree one last time, hard enough to make him see stars. The young man slumped to the ground, clutching his now bloodied nose. Nagisa turned slowly in the direction of the woman's voice. There were about eight armed assailants arranged around the clearing, all carrying heavy duty semi-automatics. Nagisa's eyes ticked coldly over each one before landing on the woman with the sleek black bobbed hairdo standing directly in front of him. With a shock, he realized he knew her. And seeing his look of recognition, the woman smiled in an unpleasant, reptilian manner. She said, with a heavy Russian accent:

"Hello again, Angel. How's the wound?"

The blood was pounding mercilessly in Nagisa's ears. It had been almost a year since Nagisa had last encountered this woman; it had been, of course, on one of his many assignments with Irina. It had all started one night out on a lonely road on the outskirts of Glasgow, from the inside of an unmarked lorry…

Rain drummed a persistent tattoo over the truck's metal roof, the rapport echoing like gunfire through the narrow cargo hold. In the darkened space of the trailer sat half a dozen teenage girls, shivering amongst crates of dried goods. Two of them, apparently sisters, whispered quietly to each other, their crisp white schoolgirl blouses glowing faintly in the dimness. The younger, barely thirteen, said in a plaintive whisper:

"I'm scared, Naomi. I want to go home."

"We're not going home, Ellie," answered her sister morosely. She couldn't have been more than three or four years older than the other girl. "Hell, it was barely any kind of home anyway. Mimi was only fostering us so she could get that monthly check. And then, as usual, when she found a better deal, well-"

"-I'm sorry, what did you just say about your foster mother?" interrupted another voice.

Naomi squinted into a blackened corner where the dark outline of another figure sat. "'Mother' is far too good a word for her," Naomi said bitterly. "She's nothing but a money grubbing bitch who'd sell out her own kin if it meant making an extra pound or two. Doubly so if you're not her kin." A small pause, then, "What do you care anyway?"

A match was struck and the dark suddenly became less so. Sitting in the corner was a pretty girl with unusual blue hair and a blouse similar to Naomi's and-unexpectedly-a warm, friendly smile. "I know a thing or two about bad mothers," said Nagisa to the other girl, his smile unwavering. "And what did you say your foster mom's name was?"

Naomi narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but still she answered, "Mimi."

"And her last name?"

"Fairbanks. Why?" Nagisa made a mental note to check into the affairs of a Ms. Mimi Fairbanks from Glasgow later. "No reason," said Nagisa mysteriously as the match flared out and died. Naomi, unperturbed by the dark, said, "And why are you being all smiley? You do know what's going to happen to us, don't you?"

Beside her, Ellie asked in a terrified squeak, "What's going to happen?"

"The Bratva are going to take us to one of those horrid brothels over the border and-"

"-that's not going to happen-" Nagisa interjected.

"-says who-"

"-me, for one-"

"-you? Ha! What's a shrimpy little girl like you gonna do?"

No answer.

"See. You're full of shit. You're not-" Naomi's words were cut off as the truck screeched to an abrupt halt, flinging most of the girls into packing crates or against one another. Nagisa tensed; the lorry had stopped too soon. Irina wouldn't have had a chance to intercept the truck yet. The girls cringed behind boxes of dried goods and exchanged worried glances with one another in the dark. All except for Nagisa, who sat coiled like a snake in his corner.

Over the rat-a-ta-tat sound of pouring rain, a pair of voices could be heard arguing outside the truck. Suddenly there was the metallic, hawk like screech of a latch being pulled back and the doors were thrown open and a light shined inside. A woman's voice boomed through the confines of the truck:

"My intel says there is a stowaway in here and I'm here to-"

"-don't be ridiculous, Dominika! Look for yourself! There's no one here except for a bunch of harmless schoolgirls," said a male voice with a heavy Russian accent. The beam of an electric torch danced over the trailer's narrow space, briefly touching on each girl.

"You think girls are harmless?" said the woman named Dominika menacingly. She sntached the torch away from the man. She stepped up onto the lip of the truck and swept the beam slowly over the objects inside, swinging the light back and forth like a prison floodlight. It lingered uncomfortably over each and every girl, causing each one to squint and look away. Nagisa copied their actions when the light fell on him, bowing his head until the light moved off and away. A second man who was standing somewhere out of sight said in a crisp English accent, "See, Mika. You satisfied now? Everything's going smooth-"

"-shut up, Andrew. And of course, everything's going smoothly. I'm not the moronic fuck-up my brother Dimitri was." There was a slight pause, then she said, coldly, "Andrew, give me your sidearm." In the darkness, Nagisa could see the woman's outstretched hand reaching out behind her. All Nagisa could see of her was her dark bob and the silver reflective buttons on her black trench coat; the buttons stared at him like a row of tarantula's eyes, winking at him in the darkness.

The man called Andrew said in a reluctant voice, "Mika I don't think-"

"-what you think doesn't matter," growled Dominika. "Your sidearm. Now." The gun was placed in Dominika's hand. Once again, the torch beam swept through the truck's cargo hold. Nagisa remained preternaturally still as he waited for the light to fall on him. The beam crossed the hold and struck him full in the face, forcing his hand up over his eyes. The beam lingered on him for a moment before shifting away, this time falling on the sisters Naomi and Ellie. From the open doors, Dominika called, "You there, little one. What is your name?"

The answer came out in a stuttered squeak, "E-E-Ellie."

"And how old are you, Ellie?"

"I-I'm going to be thirteen in t-two weeks."

Silver flashed in the dark as Dominika lifted her arm. "No, you're not." Before Dominika had even finished her sentence, Nagisa was up and out of his corner, barrelling into Ellie. The girl screamed as the shot rang out, the sound echoing loudly in the small space of the trailer. It was as if time had slowed down to a trickle as Nagisa pushed the girl out of the way; his pulse beating out the seconds of the clock at an agonizingly slow pace as he waited for the inevitable. He was certainly fast enough to save the girl, but he knew he wasn't fast enough to clear that bullet. The shot was going to connect. There was no way around it. The scene played out in slow-mo in Nagisa's head as he fell awkwardly into a packing crate. A line of pain ripped through his side, following the path of the bullet as it entered and exited through his flesh like a passing freight train, leaving nothing but a trail of throbbing agony in its wake. Nagisa gritted his teeth as he slumped into the crate, his chest heaving as he fought off the pain that was being telegraphed to every outpost and nerve in his body.

"Got you," whispered Dominika in a smug voice. The torch beam hit Nagisa full in the face. "It is you, isn't it?" said Dominika conversationally. "You're the one who killed Dimitri in Berlin. I saw the hair and I suspected as much, but I wasn't sure. But it's true what they say, you do have a bleeding heart, a soft spot." A small pause. "That's a fatal flaw for an assassin, you know." There was a slight click as the hammer was thumbed back on the gun. That's when Naomi threw herself across Nagisa, her arms spread out. "No! Don't shoot her!" she yelled.

"Mika, there is a convoy headed our way-"

"-get out of the way, girl-"

"-Mika, we have to go, they're stopping-"

"-I'm not done-"

"-I'm not going to let you shoot her-"

"-Mika-"

"-I said, move! You stupid bitch-"

Voices argued over each other, increasing in volume. Out of nowhere a barrage of bullets sprayed across the side of the truck, hitting the metal like a loud snare drum, and the girls all screamed and dove for cover. One of the bullets hit the driver outside, and he fell, screaming in agony into the middle of the road. The man named Andrew began to drag Dominika away from the back of the truck, even as she hit him and cursed at him in fast Russian. More gunfire rang out, but the sounds became a distant echo as Nagisa felt himself starting to fade out. A hand shook his shoulder. "Hey," said Naomi. "Hey, don't pass out now! I think we're being rescued!" Dark, everything was too dark. Especially the pool that was forming under Nagisa, spreading like wet paint beneath the crate. Much too dark.

"Nagisa!" Irina's voice called out from the distance. "Nagisa!"

The sound of his named being said over and over again was the last thing Nagisa heard before finally succumbing to the welcoming unconsciousness of the dark…

Nagisa had never been wounded on assignment before then. Of course, it was to be expected in his line of work. But that still didn't make it any less painful. The small scar on his left side throbbed at the muscle memory of it, at the night this woman had almost ended his life.

"Hello, Dominika," Nagisa said evenly. "I see you found me again."

Dominika smiled her cold, unpleasant smile. "Yes. But it took me quite a while. You're a hard one to pin down. It's very unusual for you to stay in one place for any length of time. I would almost say we got lucky, if it wasn't for the fact that I had help."

Nagisa arched an eyebrow. "You had help?"

The cold smile didn't waver. "Yes, help. You see, there is someone else here who is even more obsessed with your movements than I am." Dominika turned toward the trees. "Akira? You can come out now. We've got him."

Nagisa's heart started trip hammering in his chest. No, it couldn't be. The military sent him off to a mental institution years ago...And just like that, Nagisa felt like he was fifteen years old again. And just like at fifteen, he felt that insecure, and that scared.

From the tree line emerged Akira Takaoka, his face pockmarked with pale, shiny scars. The last time Nagisa had laid eyes on him, the man had gone completely insane, had become nothing more than the cracked shell of a broken man. But not this time. This time, he looked different. He looked calm. He looked thoughtful. He looked...normal. But then he smiled, and with it went any sense of normalcy. No, it was far, far worse, because there was a cold, vast emptiness, a complete lack of humanity there that Nagisa didn't remember ever seeing in him before. That, and a hint of palpable expectation. A shiver went down Nagisa's spine as Takaoka's eyes raked him from head to foot. In a raspy voice, he said, almost cheerfully:

"Well, hello again, Nagisa. It's so very, very nice to see you…"