Part four of Hoshiko's (late) birthday fic...which has suddenly developed a plot...of sorts. _;;

~silvershadeus~

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz, I'm just borrowing the characters for a bit.

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The Little Things - Part 4

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He'd been warned from the beginning that overconfidence and a low opinion of his enemies would get him or worse - his teammates - killed. They'd told him, even then, that he would have teammates one day, when they'd found ones with the 'proper temperaments'.

Risking a look over at Aya, hunched over in the opposite corner bleeding out from a wound low on his side, Omi had to wonder at the 'proper temperaments' comment. Even a blind man would have been able to sense the undercurrent of tension running through the four of them at any time.

Alone, they were able to function perfectly fine. Perhaps a little unbalanced in certain areas of skills and abilities, but able to function nonetheless. It was when you began to group them together that everything went to hell and then back again to form a somewhat imperfect balance between them.

He knew that they hardly seemed to be an effective team, what with the constant bickering and occasional bout of physical violence, but strangely enough, they were. And if Manx's words were to be trusted, they were one of Kritiker's best teams ever fielded, which only made things more puzzling. Logic said that four people of such vastly different temperaments and personalities would most likely wind up either killing each shortly after meeting. And while they may have come close several times, somehow they'd managed to make a sort of peace with each other. They were a team, and perhaps more, if they'd ever admit such a thing to themselves.

"Hold on a little longer, Abyssinian. I'll find a way out of here." Omi whispered, knowing that Aya could hear him perfectly well across the room via his earpiece. "I'll get us out of here."

Aya grunted noncommittally, violet eyes sweeping over the office and Omi before refocusing on the outer doorway.

Keeping an ear out for any sound out in the hallway, Omi turned back to gently tapping on the wall behind him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to clear his mind of unnecessary clutter in order to visualize the building's blueprints and floor plans he'd memorized earlier. They'd been forced down three floors by the guards, having been discovered mere moments after he'd set his virus program on the target's computer system. He wasn't quite sure what had alerted them, but he had more important things to worry about.

A stray bullet had hit Aya as they'd backed down the stairs, who had been doing his job protecting Omi, and the precious data he'd been able to download from the target's computer. As far as Omi had been able to tell no major blood vessel had been hit, but Aya was slowly and steadily bleeding out. If they didn't get him to proper medical care soon, he wasn't going to make it.

"Bombay?"

It hurt, to hear Aya sounding so weak. And it felt so wrong that Aya should be the one hurt so badly. It should have been him, Omi knew. It should have been him with the bullet in his side and blood staining his clothes.

"What are you doing?"

Omi spared the redhead a glance, hearing the impatience and slight concern coloring the older man's words. It wasn't concern for himself or even Omi, but for the sake of the mission. Aya would never admit to feeling anything resembling concern for his teammates, but Omi knew better. He could see it in Aya's eyes, if not on his face. For Aya, it was better to pretend that the mission came first, the lives of his teammates or himself second. It made sense, in Aya-logic.

Omi also knew that it wouldn't take the guards long to pick through the confusing trial they'd left, and even less for them to break through the blocked doors leading to the stairwells. He'd disabled the elevators earlier using strategically placed explosives, which was beginning to look like a mistake on his part. The stairs were dangerous now, with guards beginning to swarm upwards from the ground floor and a small force moving to trap them from the upper floors.

"According to the original floor plans, this used to be an old factory before they converted it into an office building." Omi replied, going back to tapping on the walls, blue eyes narrowed in concentration. "The company records showed that they didn't bother to remove the freight elevator, they just blocked the area off behind a false wall when they sectioned it off to make room for offices. It would have cost too much to get rid of it, and they still use it on the lower floors to move supplies and larger orders the company gets."

Pausing as part of the wall sounded different than the rest when he tapped it, Omi allowed himself a small smile.

"If I can find the hidden door, we should be able to get out of here using it." Omi said, dropping to his knees, the knife he kept strapped to his forearm dropping into his waiting palm as he twisted his wrist sharply. [1]

Using the sharp edge of the small knife, he pried away some of the cheap wood paneling to reveal a small lever set low along the bottom of the wall. Flipping his knife around, he used the butt as a hammer to disengage the lever. Stopping when he heard an almost inaudible 'click', Omi returned his knife to its sheath, getting to his feet in one smooth motion.

Stepping back, he eyed the section of wall directly before him, searching for the outline of a door, and he wasn't disappointed when he did. Barely a shade darker than the paneling around it, was a rectangular shape just the right size for a door.

Turning to face Aya, Omi's smile widened a notch.

"Manx also told me that the target used it to escape from the last team Kritiker sent after them, years ago."

Aya didn't respond verbally, but his eyes did narrow slightly at Omi's admission.

Reaching out a hand, Omi slid it down until it rested roughly in the middle of the faint outline, and pushed, while at the same time sliding the panel to his right. After a moment, he set his other hand against he wood and put his weight against it. There was a slight creak, and then the panel slid aside smoothly and silently.

Omi smiled as he stepped through the door. There, set about fifteen feet away was an empty elevator shaft. The area looked as though it was fairly well kept, not a speck of dust to be found anywhere. Walking up to the elevator shaft, Omi pressed the floor indicator button, smiling a little as he heard the slight hum of the cables working.

"They'll be too busy trying to break through the mess we left behind to pay attention to something like the freight elevators, so we should be able to use it to get to the ground floor undetected." He explained to Aya, who had come through the open door to investigate.

Aya looked for a moment as though he wanted to argue that point, but for some reason decided not to when he saw the look on Omi's face. There was something there that made him instantly wary.

Omi had that look on his face that meant he was busy calculating strategy and odds in his head, weighing risk against failure and coming up short. He watched the younger man pace the confines of the hidden room, blue eyes troubled while they waited for the elevator to arrive.

He knew they only had a limited amount of time before the guards found them again, and when they did... They had to know about the hidden door and the freight elevator. One of them would have to draw the guards away and keep them from realizing that they'd been tricked until it was too late. After all, there was no way that the guards could know that they knew about the hidden room.

All he had to do was find a way to convince Aya that he was the best choice to act as the decoy in this situation. Unlike Aya, he wasn't wounded and would be able to keep the guards busy without putting himself into too much danger.

If he was careful.

"Abyssinian - "

Omi was cut off when they heard the shouts of their pursuers from further out down the hallway. Pounding footsteps followed a moment later, drawing closer with each moment. Whirling as the elevator platform came to a clanking halt behind them, Omi made his decision.

Reaching into his pocket he drew out the data disk that had been the main focus of their mission. On it were names and files that if brought to light would destroy the reputations of countless businessmen and politicians. Kritiker had been after the information on that disk for years, and they couldn't afford to lose it now.

"Take it and go, Abyssinian. You're wounded and there are too many of them for you to handle. I'll keep them at bay long enough for you to escape and then I'll follow you."

Aya opened his mouth to protest, and then Omi looked at him, something in his eyes warning Aya to listen to him.

"Trust me, Abyssinian, I know what I'm doing. I'm in no hurry to get myself killed."

It was those words, along with the serious light in Omi's eyes that convinced Aya, despite his misgivings. He knew Omi had been doing this sort of thing far longer than he had, and that he was possibly even more well trained than he himself was, but it was Omi.

The same Omi that insisted on leaving a saucer of milk on the back steps of the shop for stray cats. The same Omi who took their old clothes down to the homeless shelter every fall. The same Omi who made a special flower arrangement for him to take to his sister every week. The same Omi who had sat down with him when he'd first shown up at the Koneko and shown him how to make his first flower arrangement. The same Omi who'd sat up late watching an anime marathon last Friday instead of studying for his exams.

It was those things, and countless other little things that he did or said that made up the person Aya knew as Omi. The person Aya cared for in his own way as more than a teammate, and more than a friend. More like a brother.

"Go!"

Aya blinked as Omi shoved him roughly, causing him to stumble backwards on the elevator platform. He caught a flash of movement as Omi slapped the 'down' button, and then the elevator was moving. The last thing he saw before the elevator sank out of view was Omi reaching for his darts.

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TBC...

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A/N: Apologies to anyone reading this...it was written in the wee hours of the morning on too little sleep and far too much carbonated beverages virtually oozing caffeine than is actually good for the human body. Also, anything involving action-related scenes have been left out of this part due to the writer's inability to write them at the moment in a way that does not have little comic balloons saying 'pow!', 'bam!', or (her all time favorite) 'biff!' (You'll have to wait for later parts for that. ^_~)

[1] - I'm aware that Omi doesn't actually have such a knife in the anime (I've not yet had the chance to read the manga) but *I* like to think he would have something like it. Darts and arrows are all well and good but you can't use them to splice wires, now can you? And besides, what self-respecting florist/assassin would be caught dead without at least *one* knife on him? O.O;;