Chapter 5

The azure-haired girl didn't seem to notice his surprise. She must have caught sight of his wound, because she bent down beside him, nonchalantly leaning closer to take a better look. Nagi felt uncomfortable having someone so close to him, yet he found himself not being able to move, immobile to the ground, as if his own powers held an iron grip to his uninjured arm. The girl turned to her stuffed toy, whispering words in a hushed tone. Nodding as if in agreement, the girl turned, gently placed the pink rabbit on the ground beside him, going on to rip a section of her skirt into long strips of fabric. He looked on in puzzlement, watching her tie the strips together.

After several minutes knotting the fabric, she asked, "Can you lift your arm?"

Nagi nodded, although a nagging suspicion was arising. Even though he had seen her in his dreams, that gave her no more trust than he would give to a stranger. He could easily kill her if he chose to do so. Comforted by the thought, he let her raise his injured arm. The girl wrapped the section of strips together to form a sling that held his arm to place. A smile of accomplishment lit up on her face as she backed away from Nagi and picked up the stuffed toy from the ground.

A crackling sound coming from the stuffed rabbit made all traces of her smile diminishing. She picked up the toy from the ground, unclasping an object that was hooked around its neck. A communicating device. The girl listened intently to the voice on the other end, nodding several times in quiet soberness. After several seconds had passed, she turned the device off, making a move to leave.

"Wait! I mean—"

She appeared quite startled, as if she had forgotten his presence. The corner of her mouth turned slightly upwards. "You should go home. It's not safe for children to play here."

…A child?

Chapter 6

One cut on the canvas, two on the canvas, three and the canvas is complete.

Four cuts on the canvas, five on the canvas, six and the..

"Playing with that knife of yours again?" Schuldich looked unfazed by the fact that Farfarello's blood was making a trail towards his shoes, soaking the white soles until it resembled the same deep red of the liquid. He bent down and rested his hand on the silvery bleached locks of his hair. The first time he had touched Farfarello's hair he had been surprised. He had expected the strands to feel coarse as its appearance, yet in truth his hair felt soft, delicate. Unexpected for a psychotic insane-certified murderer.

"With that anti-social attitude of yours, you know you're never going to make any friends."

Farfarello trailed the sharp edge of the knife down his arm, leaving a trail of blood droplets welling at the site of the cut. He stared at the blood in fascination, slicing even deeper into the wound so more of the red liquid came to surface. Feeling a temporary high of satisfaction, he replied to Schuldich's insults, which he rarely ever did. "People say they're your friends because you have something they envy. Their emotions are as deep as water in a plate. I don't want to be acquainted with people like that."

"You've got a point. Even though your mind's still a collage of random words, you can make up a sentence that makes sense once in a while. Farf, you listening?" The German shook his head when he saw that Farfarello was so engrossed with his 'toy' that he had not been listening to a word he had said.

A child…warehouse…blue-hair..

Schuldich had turned his back to Farfarello, intent on leaving when he began receiving a different set of wavelength thoughts that involved neither God nor murder. He let the invisible hands go into Farfarello's mind, gently prodding to see if he could find any notion that matched the jumbled vocabulary. Finding nothing that matched, he cut the connections loose from the psychopath, a slight expression of mystification spanning his features.

Blue hair…that color seemed familiar. Hearing a door slam in the distance, the puzzle pieces fell together. Nagi. Of course. Him and his moronic dream of a person whose face was that of a woman's, but the demeanor was one of a child. He followed the trail of thoughts to the living room, where he found himself facing an invisible brick wall. Nagi must have been able to sense his presence and had blocked off his mind from him.

Schuldich saw an amusing sight in front of him when he came face to face with Nagi. He had an arm sling over his right shoulder, the light fabric soaked in blood. Nagi's uniform, which normally was kept neat and proper, even after a killing, had rips and tears throughout, as if he had taken a long hike through the woods. Even his hair matched the state of his clothes, disheveled and plastered to the side of his head.

"Where the hell were you? Did you break your arm?"

Nagi dismissed the redhead with a wave of his free hand, taking off the bloodied sling and throwing it carelessly onto the stark white couch. "Did. I managed to heal it though."

Schuldich, noticing the dainty handi-work of the sling, questioned Nagi, "Did you get a woman to make that sling for you?"

The barrier collapsed, a bombarding of images open for the telepath to explore. And explore he did, flipping through Nagi's mind like a book. Finally content with the information he received, he withdrew. "So you met the girl in your dreams, and she's the one who made the sling. That's why you didn't just heal yourself right away and dealt with the temporary pain, because you knew she'd help you out." Schuldich laughed harshly.

Nagi's face flushed, his face coloring until it much resembled the color of his sling—red. He had let his guard down, and now Schuldich would be on his case. "You had no right."

Schuldich noticed the slight tremor in Nagi's voice, but let it go as embarrassment rather than fury. Not a smart idea on his part, because the next second, he found himself being flung across the room by an inhuman force. His back slammed against a glass cupboard, the glass shattering against the force of impact. "What the fuck did you do that for?" He winced in pain, feeling a particularly glass shard jabbing at his side.

Brad was going to give him hell afterwards for breaking his precious vase collection he kept locked inside a glass display case. How was he supposed to know Nagi would go as far as to harm him, he had never made a threatening gesture to him until now. Seeing Nagi heading in his direction, he held his hand out to him, thinking he was going to help him up.

Nagi visibly ignored Schuldich, brushing past him and into the hallway, where he heard Nagi shut the door to his room quietly. The telepath angrily hit his fist on the cupboard, recoiling when the sharp shards dug into the sensitive parts of his palm. "Fuck." From now on he'd have to be more careful with his words around Nagi, that is, if he wanted to keep his injury record to a minimum.

TBC…