Chapter II
The climbing was slow. Aya had been watching the trail and it's surrounding areas with extreme alertness, ready to dive again at the slightest sign. However, even if they hadn't had their guard so high up, they still would've been traversing slowly. The ground was slippery and switched between extremely muddy or rocky. Either way, advancing up the mountain wasn't easy. The water was coming down hard and already small rivers had formed next to their little deer path.
"I never saw 'hiker' as a job description when signing up to become an assassin," Yohji grumbled miserably. "Do you have any idea what time it is, Aya? It's 6 o' clock in the fucking morning. Are you aware of the way I work when woken up before my given time? Here, I'll lay it out:
From 5 o' clock-6 o'clock, I am the God of Evil. From 7-9 I'm a zombie, from 9-10 I'm simply incoherent and maybe if you're lucky and have a strong enough jolt of coffee waiting for me, you might be able get be to do something after 10 AM. But this traversing around a fuckin' mountain before the birds rise? It's not going to fly."
"You've been up before 10 for work, Yohji-kun."
"Only with lots of coffee."
"You've been up at 8, too, for the flower shop."
"There are girls though. Besides, it's not six, and it sure as hell isn't on a rainy mountain."
"We need to get a good head start since we didn't get as far as we needed to yesterday," Aya explained patiently.
"What are these time constraints? It's not like the guy is going anywhere."
"We told you to pack a poncho."
"Those things are so ugly," Yohji said vehemently.
"We're on a mountain, as you've pointed out repeatedly, who's going to see you?"
"It's a matter of personal pride."
"Then if you didn't bring the poncho and it wasn't for a good reason, don't bitch about getting wet," Aya snapped from the front of line. Behind him, Omi twisted back to share a look with Ken. Already the elder two were getting on each other's nerves, which meant patience was going to be spread thin very quickly.
The problem with Yohji, Omi mused, is that he didn't know when to stop.
* * * *
"The things we do when we're bored," Shuldich said in his nasal voice.
"We're have to put up with them again," Nagi observed, "Why do they always attack the people we're supposed to be protecting?"
"They're getting paid to be the knights in shining armor, the great Justice for the whole world, and we get paid to protect scum. Of course it's going to clash."
"Yes, but we get paid well," Crawford interrupted from where he was reading his newspaper.
"Did we really need to do the pendulum booby trap thing, Brad? Wasn't that a bit melodramatic?"
"You already said it so well. 'The things we do when we're bored.' And don't call me Brad," the American finished on automatic response.
"I wonder why Estet sent us all the way up here? I thought they needed us close to home, since we are their best team, after all."
"The organization works in Mysterious Ways," Crawford said mockingly.
"Don't let Farfarello catch you saying that. He'll go into another one of his rages."
"I think I know what our dear Farfarello does, Nagi."
"Speaking of the devil, where is he right now, anyway?"
"Polishing his knives."
"Again?"
A shrug. "It keeps him interested and quiet. I wouldn't complain."
"What's our next line of action, Crawford?"
"Wait until they get here. I'm sure we'll come as quite of a surprise. How are you doing with their minds?"
"Creating rifts between them is child's play. I'm almost insulted. The conditions are helping me out perfectly, too," Shuldich smirked.
The three members of Schwartz were resting in a room of the small house that was set just off from the house where the man whom they were guarding was. They'd been hired and then air dropped onto the top of the mountain. The room they were in currently was covered wall-to-wall with video screens. Weiss had managed to underestimate their target, or someone had failed to do their homework because the drug lord had paid for the wiring and instillation of cameras all over his mountain and property. Weiss' hopes to be discreet by hiking in was a joke. Everything single thing they did was relayed by the cameras in the forest.
"I think it's weird we never see our little computer drug lord," Nagi mused.
"We have our own food and bathroom and now our own little Weiss play toys to keep us interested. Who cares if we never see the guy?"
"Think we're going to kill them this time?"
"But then we'll ruin all future fun with them."
"It's cruel to keep toying with them."
"No, we're just making them confident of themselves. We're all special, superhuman and all that. They're feeling good that they've never been permanently injured us. They think we're on the same level," Shuldich explained. Crawford looked up from his paper, eyebrows raised slightly.
"They aren't really thinking that. They can't think they're that good."
"Oh yeah."
"I think I'm offended. Perhaps we should lower their confidence a bit this time."
"Aye, aye, captain."
* * * *
They were all muddy and aching by now. They weren't used to climbing, so it was a strain on their muscles, and the path had become steeper now. The four of them were slipping and falling on a regular basis and out of all of them Omi seemed to be suffering the worst. More then one rock has gotten the best of his naked legs and he had large scratches all up and down the lower section of his body. The rain was coming down hard now, a harsh wind making the cold rain bite into their skin and chilling them to the bone. The trees creaked and groaned as they protested the violent wind. The sky was a dark gray and seemed to threaten that worse things were coming their way.
"Aya! We can't stay out in the open like this!" Omi called over the wind to the team's leader.
"We can't set up anywhere either, though," Ken said from behind him.
"So what do you suggest we do?" Yohji demanded irritably from that back.
"We have to keep going ahead. If we stay still, we'll be like sitting duck."
"Ken-kun! It's dangerous to be out here!"
"It'll be even worse if we settle under one of these trees. At least this way, we'll have less of a chance of being hit by falling limbs."
"Actually, the chance is probably equal."
"Look, I don't want to hear about it right now. Can the statistics, Omi."
"How much longer do we have to hike, Aya?"
The three members looked expectedly up at their leader. The group had paused the uphill climb as they waited for a response. Cold water dripped from all of them, the ponchos had done nothing for Ken and Omi except hinder them, so they had packed them up again. Yohji had been a bit smug on that point, because now he felt even better about not having packed it in the first place.
They were all four absolutely miserable. They'd suffered through rain before, but never something that lasted so long, or seemed so concentrated. Not to mention the rain was cold and it was August. There wasn't supposed to be rain like that.
Omi sniffled and rubbed absently at his nose while waiting a response from Aya, who was currently studying the GPS unit.
"This doesn't make any sense," he finally said.
"What?"
"The GPS unit is acting haywire. It's not giving me any readings, and.shit!" Aya suddenly broke off, hitting his hand against the side of the little machine.
"What's wrong?"
"It just stopped working."
"Is it out of batteries?"
"That's impossible. Kritiker gave us brand new systems," Omi said.
"Well something just happened."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Yohji grumbled, pulling out his own unit from his sopping clothes. "Oh, this is just great."
"Yours not working either?"
"These things are pieces of shit!" Ken declared angrily, cursing the small thing.
"This is like a nightmare or something."
"The only thing to do now is keep going. I know where we're going."
* * * *
Nagi stared passively out the window. The storm seemed to have worsened severely in the last few minutes. The rain beat against the glass forming small rivulets down the side. As Nagi watched, the fast drops fell into large stable ones and together they collided into the windowsill. Nagi caught himself holding races between droplets as he waited to see which would hit the bottom first.
He flinched slightly at the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder moments later. Thunder and lightning? This was new. There was hardly ever thunder and lightning with typhoons, which is what Nagi assumed this was. He hadn't been watching the weather lately, but rainy season was over, and this seemed more then just a passing summer storm.
Also, it wasn't passing.
The boy sighed. He was bored. It had gotten to the point where he was anticipating the arrival of Weiss. The team wasn't any sort of competition to his own team, but he was looking forward to smashing Bombay into a tree and hearing a few of his bones crack. At least then he could feel he got something out of this wait.
Nagi glanced over at one of the cameras that showed where Weiss currently was. He was a little surprised to see that they were still climbing, despite the rough storm. Then again, it probably would've been near impossible to set up their tents with this wind. It was going to be hell for them come nightfall.
Then again, maybe with a little luck they'd be able to make it this far.
Crap. They seemed to be fighting again about something.
"Shuldich! Stop messing with their minds. I want a fight. They could still make it here by tonight, and we can fight then. If they keep stopping to fight, they'll never make it."
"I'm not doing anything. They're fighting on their own. Their GPS units are all broken."
"So now they're going to get lost?"
"I'm bored too, Nagi. I can suggest directions to Abyssinian and he'll take them without thinking anything is wrong."
* * * *
Brad Crawford couldn't see the future.
Well, normally he could, but ever since they had been on this damn mountain, the future had been elusive. It was past annoying. Crawford took to looking at the future when he was bored, or just for reassurance about something or to check for warnings. Sometimes images came unbidden, but that had happened a lot before he knew how to control it. The last thing he had gotten was the route Weiss would be going on so that he could tell Farfarello and Shuldich where to set up the trap. But that had been before they had gotten on this mountain. Anyway, right now he couldn't get anything.
The oldest member of Schwarz was suspicious. There had been times when he couldn't pick up the future before, but they'd been brief. This has lasted several days now, and he almost felt he should mention it to his teammates.
Almost.
But largely he felt it wasn't their problem yet. He was going to tell Shuldich tonight if things weren't better by then. It didn't seem to be a serious problem, though. He sighed, absently pushing his glasses up on his nose. This whole protection mission was annoying and seemed irrelevant to their job. Sure, they had protected Takatori, but that was for personal gain. The man had power and was on his way to the top. Unfortunately, he had been his own worst enemy and worked for his eventual downfall. Not to mention the team that had brought him down was personally involved and was going to revel at the spilling of his blood.
When Crawford did something that pissed people off, he made sure that anyone left standing was dead, or would never be a threat. His only violation on this had been Weiss, but he had never considered them serious competition. It was hard to take the opposing team at face value, really.
They were so perfectly angsty, Crawford mused as he considered the conversations he had had with Shuldich. It was part of what made them fun. They all obsessed over some great Bad Thing, and wouldn't let themselves alone about it. It was as if they believed that in order to be heroes and assassins, they had to be appropriately angsty and tortured by self-inflicted wounds. If everyone was as bad as they, the world wouldn't have to worry about overpopulation any longer. Half the population would have committed suicide.
Crawford had lost people before. His family had been destroyed, but you didn't seem him obsessing over it. It was true, he wasn't the nicest guy, but he sure as hell had better things to do then be depressed all day.
So Siberian had lost his best friend? So what? This wasn't anything special. Thousands of people lost best friends everyday because of time or because of some serious fight they had with one another. And then, some even lost friends to corruption like Ken had. Millions lost their jobs because of internal conflict or some other crime that they may or may not have taken part of. None of them had decided to become an assassin.
So Balinese had lost a lover? Big fucking deal. Once again, nothing new here. What made that playboy think his case was the only one that ever existed? That he was the only one who suffered from the death of a lover? It was pitiful the way he lamented over his partner. People died. It happened all the time. But here he was, so involved and wrapped up in it as if he had been suffering his whole life.
So Abyssinian's parents had been killed and his sister made a vegetable.? Alright, admittedly, the red head had a stronger case to be angsty and depressed. In just one night, just a few minutes really, his secure home life had been blown to bits, literally, and his younger sister had been tossed into the air like a rag doll by a car. Takatori had talked about the explosion of the bankers house quite fondly. It seemed he had taken great pride in the whole matter. Abyssinian wasn't really depressed though, so Crawford couldn't fault him there. He had become cold and brooding, that was true, but he had taken what had happened and formulated it until it had become something useful: hate. There was more to him then that, though, and that was something the American grudgingly respected. If he focused only on hate, he would've become as twisted as Farfarello. Instead he was the leader of Weiss, however how unwilling, and had a head for it.
And then there was Bombay. The youngest of the group, he never had known anything outside of Kritiker and Weiss. His home life hadn't been much better though, as was proven when no one had agreed to pay a ransom on the young boy. Despite all this, he didn't dwell on it or hate the world because of it. From the few times he had been around the youngest member, it seemed he radiated true happiness and genuine feelings, instead of hiding behind some façade. It made Crawford wonder if the boy wasn't shallow, but the boy didn't come off that way. Shuldich could probably help him out, as far as digging to the psyche of their enemies, but that would show too much interest in such small potatoes. Anyway, it just gave him something to do when he was bored.
It was amusing that Weiss was climbing up the mountain to what they thought would be an easy battle against a pasty little drug lord, and instead they would be facing down against Schwarz.
* * * *
Omi's legs hurt. It wasn't the pain of anything serious, but rather that stinging pain when you had thousands of superficial cuts, and rain and plants kept brushing against them. Omi couldn't blame anyone but himself, and even so, he wasn't obsessing over it. His legs hurt, true, but right now he was so absolutely exhausted that the pain was distant. They had been climbing for so long it seemed, and the storm wasn't getting any better. Omi had been watching the weather before they had left on the trip, and nowhere had he seen anything about a typhoon. Something this big would've been in the makings before they had left. It was disheartening to think they were going to have to climb back down through this mess. Hopefully by then things would be better. Or maybe they could wait the storm out at the house they were going to. It would be slightly morbid, but it had gotten to the point where Omi no longer cared. There was so much rain. Everything was soaked. Small rivulets of water ran down the side of his face, his eyelashes were stuck together, forming little triangles as the collected to one another. His hair was matted tightly to his head and dripped cold rain down his neck. Because of the severe wind and never ceasing rain, the ponchos had ended up doing nothing except make it even more miserable. Defeated, the boy had pulled it off, cursing it silently. The sooner they got to the top, the better. Omi wondered why Kritiker had sent them on this mission in the first place. Usually he agreed with whatever the organization had to say, but this was pushing it.
Ken didn't feel Aya knew where he was going. He felt that the redhead had decided to take action, for better or for worse, and start making up directions as to where they were supposed to go. At least this way he wouldn't have lost face. At least, that's what the biker felt the case was. It wasn't like he'd been here before, or like they even had a recognizable trail to follow. It just seemed as if he was leading them onward, and it was disturbing.
"Aya, do you know which way we're supposed to be going?" Ken finally asked, exasperated with the mountain and storm.
"Up," Aya replied simply.
"Oh fuck no. That answer isn't going to fly," Yohji interrupted. He had been harboring the same feelings as Ken but there a better solution hadn't been offered, and they did need to get somewhere where they could set up the tents.
"He asked which way we're supposed to go, there it is."
"Don't try to get all snippy and smart."
"There's no way in hell you can know where we are going."
"I think maybe you should shutup and follow. I know where we're going."
"Oh yeah? How?"
Omi sighed, tuning out his friends. They had been arguing off and on the whole trip, but since the destruction of all their GPS units, the fighting had intensified tenfold and was growing more heated. This whole trip was destructive to the team.but what did they say. "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger."? In this case, it might be the team killing one another. They were definitely being pushed to their limit. Even during the best of times, the four occasionally lashed out at one another, with disagreements ranging beneath everything under the sun. Despite the occasional grating on nerves, they did work exceptionally well, and Omi liked to think they were all friends. It was times like these, however, that he doubted even that.
"You ass! What do you think we're going to do? Swim?"
"Ken, shutup," Yohji glared at the younger member, green eyes glittering dangerously. The animosity the two had shared the night before apparently hadn't diminished after a day of walking.
"How about all you guys shutup?" Omi scowled. He was fed up with all this fighting. He rubbed a hand across his nose.
"Look, we don't need any comments from you."
"Yohji! Omi didn't do anything! Don't talk to him that way."
"All I'm saying is that it's not his fight."
"Like hell it isn't!" Omi broke in again, the volume of his voice raised a notch. "We're a team, if you didn't remember! We're supposed to be climbing up that mountain to fight that drug lord together. I don't want to get up there and realize I don't have anyone to back me up because we're all pissed off at one another over a tent or something."
"We don't even know where we're going."
"Up! Aya said it simply enough. There's not much else we can go, now is there? Maybe we can still get up there before nightfall. I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to get this guy as soon as I can, because then we can come off this mountain all the faster."
"True."
"So let's go!" Omi said, exasperated.
* * * *
Farfarello looked into the room where the drug lord was supposedly operating. He had grown bored with counting and polishing his knives and had felt a little exploring was in order. He felt a tinge of excitement. Weiss was coming! It was like an early Christmas present. He loved tearing them apart and watching the red blood drip from the wounds that he had caused. It was so interesting to watch the blood pool beneath them, watch their faces scrunch in pain. Pain was a concept Farfarello couldn't really comprehend, and the only thing he knew of it was a faint memory when he had found his parents. That had been a different pain, though. One of the soul, not of the flesh.
Farfarello had to admit he was jealous of the pain others felt, and so the more he could make them feel it, the better he felt. He also knew that it hurt. A lot. And that caused him joy, too. The taking of a life was satisfying, too. God created the miracle of life, and Farfarello destroyed it just as quickly. Just one swipe of a blade in the right place and that was the end. It was even better though, when he could draw it out slowly, could watch his victim's face scrunch, could draw them out to just before they fell unconscious. This was the ultimate revenge on God. To make one of His creations suffer.
But back to the room. There was no one there. Everything looked as it should. A computer, papers everywhere, general chaos and so forth. However, there was no drug lord, and it looked like he hadn't been there for a while.
It also smelled.
Farfarello stepped into the room. He knew that smell. It was the sweet smell of death. It also smelt like something that had been there for a while. The Irishman scanned the room slowly until he found what he wanted.
Nagi was on his one thousand two hundred and sixty-first race when Farfarello came into the room. Nagi looked over with a bored expression on his face, wondering what the crazy Irishman wanted.
"He's dead."
Nagi began paying more attention. This could become interesting. "Who's dead?" Crawford asked.
"The person we're supposed to be protecting."
"Huh?" Crawford stood up from his place at the table, his cool lost for just a moment. Shuldich looked surprised at the news, too.
"He's been dead a while. God killed him."
"Show us."
Without saying anything, Farfarello turned and led them out.
* * * *
Wearily the four members of Weiss trudged on through the rain and trees. It was slowly becoming darker, and Aya was searching for a place to set up camp. It seemed they would not be lucky enough to find the house tonight. Not as if they would be strong enough if the lord had any sort of guard. Omi had considered it highly unlikely, but they hadn't ruled it out. Just as Aya was about to call it quits, he caught a gold glitter a fair bit above them. He had been idly searching the mountain above them to make sure it was safe and that there weren't any loose rocks above, but he hadn't expected to be this lucky. Aya grinned internally. It looks like this mission would be over before they thought. "If you guys are willing to push it a little longer, it's only a little more of a climb and we're there."
The other members of Weiss looked up. "Score!" Ken whooped. "Let's do it!"
"I'm going to make this painful," Yohji smiled grimly, green eyes narrowed.
Spirits raised, the four began the steeper climb to the top.
* * * *
"Why didn't you see this?" Shuldich demanded of Crawford. The American responded in silence. Shuldich narrowed his eyes, knowing it wouldn't do any good until Crawford decided he wanted to say something. After a few moments the American finally spoke.
"Ever since we have been on this mountain, my ability has been blocked," Crawford responded.
"When were you planning on telling us?"
"When it became your business."
"I think when you can't see the death of our job, it becomes our business."
"I wasn't aware," Crawford said simply, as if that summed everything up.
Shuldich cursed in German. Dealing with the American was impossible. While he didn't really care about the well being of who they were supposed to be protecting, and he didn't care about the American or his well being, he DID like to know a little of what was going on. Upon occasion, anyway.
"I think we should be more concerned with how he ended up dead in the first place," Nagi broke in before the two could get into a full fledged fight. After a final share of glares, Brad and Shuldich broke away the fighting to examine the body.
"I'm not a doctor, but I think it could be the bullet hole in his head," Shuldich said smartly.
"Did he commit suicide?"
"There's no gun. Why didn't we hear the shot?"
"It looks like he's been dead a while. Before we even got here."
"Why hadn't any of us checked.?"
"Because it's not our business to what he was doing. We only needed to talk to him when something came up."
"Well, fuck."
The ponderings of Schwarz were suddenly interrupted at the sound of scuffling and the rush of Abyssinian through the door, quickly followed by Bombay and the crashing of Siberian as he came through the window, Yohji standing outside in the rain, his arm up, posed to let loose the wire. The four stopped however in dead surprise however when they saw the dead man on the floor and Schwarz standing around him.
"Schwarz!"
"Weiss. How nice of you to come."
~End Chapter II~
Hello everyone! ^^ This is shaping up to be possibly one of the longest stories I've ever done. It depends on how my interest maintains in it, but so far it's fueled and there's a lot I want to do with it. You know, I realized I need/want a Beta reader. If there's anyone out there who would be willing to help, I'd appreciate it. Just e-mail or IM me, please!
The climbing was slow. Aya had been watching the trail and it's surrounding areas with extreme alertness, ready to dive again at the slightest sign. However, even if they hadn't had their guard so high up, they still would've been traversing slowly. The ground was slippery and switched between extremely muddy or rocky. Either way, advancing up the mountain wasn't easy. The water was coming down hard and already small rivers had formed next to their little deer path.
"I never saw 'hiker' as a job description when signing up to become an assassin," Yohji grumbled miserably. "Do you have any idea what time it is, Aya? It's 6 o' clock in the fucking morning. Are you aware of the way I work when woken up before my given time? Here, I'll lay it out:
From 5 o' clock-6 o'clock, I am the God of Evil. From 7-9 I'm a zombie, from 9-10 I'm simply incoherent and maybe if you're lucky and have a strong enough jolt of coffee waiting for me, you might be able get be to do something after 10 AM. But this traversing around a fuckin' mountain before the birds rise? It's not going to fly."
"You've been up before 10 for work, Yohji-kun."
"Only with lots of coffee."
"You've been up at 8, too, for the flower shop."
"There are girls though. Besides, it's not six, and it sure as hell isn't on a rainy mountain."
"We need to get a good head start since we didn't get as far as we needed to yesterday," Aya explained patiently.
"What are these time constraints? It's not like the guy is going anywhere."
"We told you to pack a poncho."
"Those things are so ugly," Yohji said vehemently.
"We're on a mountain, as you've pointed out repeatedly, who's going to see you?"
"It's a matter of personal pride."
"Then if you didn't bring the poncho and it wasn't for a good reason, don't bitch about getting wet," Aya snapped from the front of line. Behind him, Omi twisted back to share a look with Ken. Already the elder two were getting on each other's nerves, which meant patience was going to be spread thin very quickly.
The problem with Yohji, Omi mused, is that he didn't know when to stop.
* * * *
"The things we do when we're bored," Shuldich said in his nasal voice.
"We're have to put up with them again," Nagi observed, "Why do they always attack the people we're supposed to be protecting?"
"They're getting paid to be the knights in shining armor, the great Justice for the whole world, and we get paid to protect scum. Of course it's going to clash."
"Yes, but we get paid well," Crawford interrupted from where he was reading his newspaper.
"Did we really need to do the pendulum booby trap thing, Brad? Wasn't that a bit melodramatic?"
"You already said it so well. 'The things we do when we're bored.' And don't call me Brad," the American finished on automatic response.
"I wonder why Estet sent us all the way up here? I thought they needed us close to home, since we are their best team, after all."
"The organization works in Mysterious Ways," Crawford said mockingly.
"Don't let Farfarello catch you saying that. He'll go into another one of his rages."
"I think I know what our dear Farfarello does, Nagi."
"Speaking of the devil, where is he right now, anyway?"
"Polishing his knives."
"Again?"
A shrug. "It keeps him interested and quiet. I wouldn't complain."
"What's our next line of action, Crawford?"
"Wait until they get here. I'm sure we'll come as quite of a surprise. How are you doing with their minds?"
"Creating rifts between them is child's play. I'm almost insulted. The conditions are helping me out perfectly, too," Shuldich smirked.
The three members of Schwartz were resting in a room of the small house that was set just off from the house where the man whom they were guarding was. They'd been hired and then air dropped onto the top of the mountain. The room they were in currently was covered wall-to-wall with video screens. Weiss had managed to underestimate their target, or someone had failed to do their homework because the drug lord had paid for the wiring and instillation of cameras all over his mountain and property. Weiss' hopes to be discreet by hiking in was a joke. Everything single thing they did was relayed by the cameras in the forest.
"I think it's weird we never see our little computer drug lord," Nagi mused.
"We have our own food and bathroom and now our own little Weiss play toys to keep us interested. Who cares if we never see the guy?"
"Think we're going to kill them this time?"
"But then we'll ruin all future fun with them."
"It's cruel to keep toying with them."
"No, we're just making them confident of themselves. We're all special, superhuman and all that. They're feeling good that they've never been permanently injured us. They think we're on the same level," Shuldich explained. Crawford looked up from his paper, eyebrows raised slightly.
"They aren't really thinking that. They can't think they're that good."
"Oh yeah."
"I think I'm offended. Perhaps we should lower their confidence a bit this time."
"Aye, aye, captain."
* * * *
They were all muddy and aching by now. They weren't used to climbing, so it was a strain on their muscles, and the path had become steeper now. The four of them were slipping and falling on a regular basis and out of all of them Omi seemed to be suffering the worst. More then one rock has gotten the best of his naked legs and he had large scratches all up and down the lower section of his body. The rain was coming down hard now, a harsh wind making the cold rain bite into their skin and chilling them to the bone. The trees creaked and groaned as they protested the violent wind. The sky was a dark gray and seemed to threaten that worse things were coming their way.
"Aya! We can't stay out in the open like this!" Omi called over the wind to the team's leader.
"We can't set up anywhere either, though," Ken said from behind him.
"So what do you suggest we do?" Yohji demanded irritably from that back.
"We have to keep going ahead. If we stay still, we'll be like sitting duck."
"Ken-kun! It's dangerous to be out here!"
"It'll be even worse if we settle under one of these trees. At least this way, we'll have less of a chance of being hit by falling limbs."
"Actually, the chance is probably equal."
"Look, I don't want to hear about it right now. Can the statistics, Omi."
"How much longer do we have to hike, Aya?"
The three members looked expectedly up at their leader. The group had paused the uphill climb as they waited for a response. Cold water dripped from all of them, the ponchos had done nothing for Ken and Omi except hinder them, so they had packed them up again. Yohji had been a bit smug on that point, because now he felt even better about not having packed it in the first place.
They were all four absolutely miserable. They'd suffered through rain before, but never something that lasted so long, or seemed so concentrated. Not to mention the rain was cold and it was August. There wasn't supposed to be rain like that.
Omi sniffled and rubbed absently at his nose while waiting a response from Aya, who was currently studying the GPS unit.
"This doesn't make any sense," he finally said.
"What?"
"The GPS unit is acting haywire. It's not giving me any readings, and.shit!" Aya suddenly broke off, hitting his hand against the side of the little machine.
"What's wrong?"
"It just stopped working."
"Is it out of batteries?"
"That's impossible. Kritiker gave us brand new systems," Omi said.
"Well something just happened."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Yohji grumbled, pulling out his own unit from his sopping clothes. "Oh, this is just great."
"Yours not working either?"
"These things are pieces of shit!" Ken declared angrily, cursing the small thing.
"This is like a nightmare or something."
"The only thing to do now is keep going. I know where we're going."
* * * *
Nagi stared passively out the window. The storm seemed to have worsened severely in the last few minutes. The rain beat against the glass forming small rivulets down the side. As Nagi watched, the fast drops fell into large stable ones and together they collided into the windowsill. Nagi caught himself holding races between droplets as he waited to see which would hit the bottom first.
He flinched slightly at the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder moments later. Thunder and lightning? This was new. There was hardly ever thunder and lightning with typhoons, which is what Nagi assumed this was. He hadn't been watching the weather lately, but rainy season was over, and this seemed more then just a passing summer storm.
Also, it wasn't passing.
The boy sighed. He was bored. It had gotten to the point where he was anticipating the arrival of Weiss. The team wasn't any sort of competition to his own team, but he was looking forward to smashing Bombay into a tree and hearing a few of his bones crack. At least then he could feel he got something out of this wait.
Nagi glanced over at one of the cameras that showed where Weiss currently was. He was a little surprised to see that they were still climbing, despite the rough storm. Then again, it probably would've been near impossible to set up their tents with this wind. It was going to be hell for them come nightfall.
Then again, maybe with a little luck they'd be able to make it this far.
Crap. They seemed to be fighting again about something.
"Shuldich! Stop messing with their minds. I want a fight. They could still make it here by tonight, and we can fight then. If they keep stopping to fight, they'll never make it."
"I'm not doing anything. They're fighting on their own. Their GPS units are all broken."
"So now they're going to get lost?"
"I'm bored too, Nagi. I can suggest directions to Abyssinian and he'll take them without thinking anything is wrong."
* * * *
Brad Crawford couldn't see the future.
Well, normally he could, but ever since they had been on this damn mountain, the future had been elusive. It was past annoying. Crawford took to looking at the future when he was bored, or just for reassurance about something or to check for warnings. Sometimes images came unbidden, but that had happened a lot before he knew how to control it. The last thing he had gotten was the route Weiss would be going on so that he could tell Farfarello and Shuldich where to set up the trap. But that had been before they had gotten on this mountain. Anyway, right now he couldn't get anything.
The oldest member of Schwarz was suspicious. There had been times when he couldn't pick up the future before, but they'd been brief. This has lasted several days now, and he almost felt he should mention it to his teammates.
Almost.
But largely he felt it wasn't their problem yet. He was going to tell Shuldich tonight if things weren't better by then. It didn't seem to be a serious problem, though. He sighed, absently pushing his glasses up on his nose. This whole protection mission was annoying and seemed irrelevant to their job. Sure, they had protected Takatori, but that was for personal gain. The man had power and was on his way to the top. Unfortunately, he had been his own worst enemy and worked for his eventual downfall. Not to mention the team that had brought him down was personally involved and was going to revel at the spilling of his blood.
When Crawford did something that pissed people off, he made sure that anyone left standing was dead, or would never be a threat. His only violation on this had been Weiss, but he had never considered them serious competition. It was hard to take the opposing team at face value, really.
They were so perfectly angsty, Crawford mused as he considered the conversations he had had with Shuldich. It was part of what made them fun. They all obsessed over some great Bad Thing, and wouldn't let themselves alone about it. It was as if they believed that in order to be heroes and assassins, they had to be appropriately angsty and tortured by self-inflicted wounds. If everyone was as bad as they, the world wouldn't have to worry about overpopulation any longer. Half the population would have committed suicide.
Crawford had lost people before. His family had been destroyed, but you didn't seem him obsessing over it. It was true, he wasn't the nicest guy, but he sure as hell had better things to do then be depressed all day.
So Siberian had lost his best friend? So what? This wasn't anything special. Thousands of people lost best friends everyday because of time or because of some serious fight they had with one another. And then, some even lost friends to corruption like Ken had. Millions lost their jobs because of internal conflict or some other crime that they may or may not have taken part of. None of them had decided to become an assassin.
So Balinese had lost a lover? Big fucking deal. Once again, nothing new here. What made that playboy think his case was the only one that ever existed? That he was the only one who suffered from the death of a lover? It was pitiful the way he lamented over his partner. People died. It happened all the time. But here he was, so involved and wrapped up in it as if he had been suffering his whole life.
So Abyssinian's parents had been killed and his sister made a vegetable.? Alright, admittedly, the red head had a stronger case to be angsty and depressed. In just one night, just a few minutes really, his secure home life had been blown to bits, literally, and his younger sister had been tossed into the air like a rag doll by a car. Takatori had talked about the explosion of the bankers house quite fondly. It seemed he had taken great pride in the whole matter. Abyssinian wasn't really depressed though, so Crawford couldn't fault him there. He had become cold and brooding, that was true, but he had taken what had happened and formulated it until it had become something useful: hate. There was more to him then that, though, and that was something the American grudgingly respected. If he focused only on hate, he would've become as twisted as Farfarello. Instead he was the leader of Weiss, however how unwilling, and had a head for it.
And then there was Bombay. The youngest of the group, he never had known anything outside of Kritiker and Weiss. His home life hadn't been much better though, as was proven when no one had agreed to pay a ransom on the young boy. Despite all this, he didn't dwell on it or hate the world because of it. From the few times he had been around the youngest member, it seemed he radiated true happiness and genuine feelings, instead of hiding behind some façade. It made Crawford wonder if the boy wasn't shallow, but the boy didn't come off that way. Shuldich could probably help him out, as far as digging to the psyche of their enemies, but that would show too much interest in such small potatoes. Anyway, it just gave him something to do when he was bored.
It was amusing that Weiss was climbing up the mountain to what they thought would be an easy battle against a pasty little drug lord, and instead they would be facing down against Schwarz.
* * * *
Omi's legs hurt. It wasn't the pain of anything serious, but rather that stinging pain when you had thousands of superficial cuts, and rain and plants kept brushing against them. Omi couldn't blame anyone but himself, and even so, he wasn't obsessing over it. His legs hurt, true, but right now he was so absolutely exhausted that the pain was distant. They had been climbing for so long it seemed, and the storm wasn't getting any better. Omi had been watching the weather before they had left on the trip, and nowhere had he seen anything about a typhoon. Something this big would've been in the makings before they had left. It was disheartening to think they were going to have to climb back down through this mess. Hopefully by then things would be better. Or maybe they could wait the storm out at the house they were going to. It would be slightly morbid, but it had gotten to the point where Omi no longer cared. There was so much rain. Everything was soaked. Small rivulets of water ran down the side of his face, his eyelashes were stuck together, forming little triangles as the collected to one another. His hair was matted tightly to his head and dripped cold rain down his neck. Because of the severe wind and never ceasing rain, the ponchos had ended up doing nothing except make it even more miserable. Defeated, the boy had pulled it off, cursing it silently. The sooner they got to the top, the better. Omi wondered why Kritiker had sent them on this mission in the first place. Usually he agreed with whatever the organization had to say, but this was pushing it.
Ken didn't feel Aya knew where he was going. He felt that the redhead had decided to take action, for better or for worse, and start making up directions as to where they were supposed to go. At least this way he wouldn't have lost face. At least, that's what the biker felt the case was. It wasn't like he'd been here before, or like they even had a recognizable trail to follow. It just seemed as if he was leading them onward, and it was disturbing.
"Aya, do you know which way we're supposed to be going?" Ken finally asked, exasperated with the mountain and storm.
"Up," Aya replied simply.
"Oh fuck no. That answer isn't going to fly," Yohji interrupted. He had been harboring the same feelings as Ken but there a better solution hadn't been offered, and they did need to get somewhere where they could set up the tents.
"He asked which way we're supposed to go, there it is."
"Don't try to get all snippy and smart."
"There's no way in hell you can know where we are going."
"I think maybe you should shutup and follow. I know where we're going."
"Oh yeah? How?"
Omi sighed, tuning out his friends. They had been arguing off and on the whole trip, but since the destruction of all their GPS units, the fighting had intensified tenfold and was growing more heated. This whole trip was destructive to the team.but what did they say. "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger."? In this case, it might be the team killing one another. They were definitely being pushed to their limit. Even during the best of times, the four occasionally lashed out at one another, with disagreements ranging beneath everything under the sun. Despite the occasional grating on nerves, they did work exceptionally well, and Omi liked to think they were all friends. It was times like these, however, that he doubted even that.
"You ass! What do you think we're going to do? Swim?"
"Ken, shutup," Yohji glared at the younger member, green eyes glittering dangerously. The animosity the two had shared the night before apparently hadn't diminished after a day of walking.
"How about all you guys shutup?" Omi scowled. He was fed up with all this fighting. He rubbed a hand across his nose.
"Look, we don't need any comments from you."
"Yohji! Omi didn't do anything! Don't talk to him that way."
"All I'm saying is that it's not his fight."
"Like hell it isn't!" Omi broke in again, the volume of his voice raised a notch. "We're a team, if you didn't remember! We're supposed to be climbing up that mountain to fight that drug lord together. I don't want to get up there and realize I don't have anyone to back me up because we're all pissed off at one another over a tent or something."
"We don't even know where we're going."
"Up! Aya said it simply enough. There's not much else we can go, now is there? Maybe we can still get up there before nightfall. I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to get this guy as soon as I can, because then we can come off this mountain all the faster."
"True."
"So let's go!" Omi said, exasperated.
* * * *
Farfarello looked into the room where the drug lord was supposedly operating. He had grown bored with counting and polishing his knives and had felt a little exploring was in order. He felt a tinge of excitement. Weiss was coming! It was like an early Christmas present. He loved tearing them apart and watching the red blood drip from the wounds that he had caused. It was so interesting to watch the blood pool beneath them, watch their faces scrunch in pain. Pain was a concept Farfarello couldn't really comprehend, and the only thing he knew of it was a faint memory when he had found his parents. That had been a different pain, though. One of the soul, not of the flesh.
Farfarello had to admit he was jealous of the pain others felt, and so the more he could make them feel it, the better he felt. He also knew that it hurt. A lot. And that caused him joy, too. The taking of a life was satisfying, too. God created the miracle of life, and Farfarello destroyed it just as quickly. Just one swipe of a blade in the right place and that was the end. It was even better though, when he could draw it out slowly, could watch his victim's face scrunch, could draw them out to just before they fell unconscious. This was the ultimate revenge on God. To make one of His creations suffer.
But back to the room. There was no one there. Everything looked as it should. A computer, papers everywhere, general chaos and so forth. However, there was no drug lord, and it looked like he hadn't been there for a while.
It also smelled.
Farfarello stepped into the room. He knew that smell. It was the sweet smell of death. It also smelt like something that had been there for a while. The Irishman scanned the room slowly until he found what he wanted.
Nagi was on his one thousand two hundred and sixty-first race when Farfarello came into the room. Nagi looked over with a bored expression on his face, wondering what the crazy Irishman wanted.
"He's dead."
Nagi began paying more attention. This could become interesting. "Who's dead?" Crawford asked.
"The person we're supposed to be protecting."
"Huh?" Crawford stood up from his place at the table, his cool lost for just a moment. Shuldich looked surprised at the news, too.
"He's been dead a while. God killed him."
"Show us."
Without saying anything, Farfarello turned and led them out.
* * * *
Wearily the four members of Weiss trudged on through the rain and trees. It was slowly becoming darker, and Aya was searching for a place to set up camp. It seemed they would not be lucky enough to find the house tonight. Not as if they would be strong enough if the lord had any sort of guard. Omi had considered it highly unlikely, but they hadn't ruled it out. Just as Aya was about to call it quits, he caught a gold glitter a fair bit above them. He had been idly searching the mountain above them to make sure it was safe and that there weren't any loose rocks above, but he hadn't expected to be this lucky. Aya grinned internally. It looks like this mission would be over before they thought. "If you guys are willing to push it a little longer, it's only a little more of a climb and we're there."
The other members of Weiss looked up. "Score!" Ken whooped. "Let's do it!"
"I'm going to make this painful," Yohji smiled grimly, green eyes narrowed.
Spirits raised, the four began the steeper climb to the top.
* * * *
"Why didn't you see this?" Shuldich demanded of Crawford. The American responded in silence. Shuldich narrowed his eyes, knowing it wouldn't do any good until Crawford decided he wanted to say something. After a few moments the American finally spoke.
"Ever since we have been on this mountain, my ability has been blocked," Crawford responded.
"When were you planning on telling us?"
"When it became your business."
"I think when you can't see the death of our job, it becomes our business."
"I wasn't aware," Crawford said simply, as if that summed everything up.
Shuldich cursed in German. Dealing with the American was impossible. While he didn't really care about the well being of who they were supposed to be protecting, and he didn't care about the American or his well being, he DID like to know a little of what was going on. Upon occasion, anyway.
"I think we should be more concerned with how he ended up dead in the first place," Nagi broke in before the two could get into a full fledged fight. After a final share of glares, Brad and Shuldich broke away the fighting to examine the body.
"I'm not a doctor, but I think it could be the bullet hole in his head," Shuldich said smartly.
"Did he commit suicide?"
"There's no gun. Why didn't we hear the shot?"
"It looks like he's been dead a while. Before we even got here."
"Why hadn't any of us checked.?"
"Because it's not our business to what he was doing. We only needed to talk to him when something came up."
"Well, fuck."
The ponderings of Schwarz were suddenly interrupted at the sound of scuffling and the rush of Abyssinian through the door, quickly followed by Bombay and the crashing of Siberian as he came through the window, Yohji standing outside in the rain, his arm up, posed to let loose the wire. The four stopped however in dead surprise however when they saw the dead man on the floor and Schwarz standing around him.
"Schwarz!"
"Weiss. How nice of you to come."
~End Chapter II~
Hello everyone! ^^ This is shaping up to be possibly one of the longest stories I've ever done. It depends on how my interest maintains in it, but so far it's fueled and there's a lot I want to do with it. You know, I realized I need/want a Beta reader. If there's anyone out there who would be willing to help, I'd appreciate it. Just e-mail or IM me, please!