Disclaimer: Schwarz, or any of the other illegal organizations mentioned
here ain't mine. Someone more creative than me owns them and I'm just
sucking the blood for all it's worth to me, and while I get an immense
amount of satisfaction writing this, I do not make money out of it. I'm
jobless and I don't own real property. Find someone else to pick on.
Notes: I'm uncertain as to how things are rightly spelled—much of what I know beyond the (badly translated) Weiss anime/OAV/manga and Glühen has been off fan sites and there are instances where spelling of proper names differ. I apologize if I commit grave spelling errors on proper names and, no, I won't point out my scapegoats.
Reunions
By alien21xx
Chapter 2
People stared at them in the airport. Schuldig had to wonder why Crawford bothered to go by public flight when SZ provided them with a private plane. Airports sucked. Too many idiots milling about for their bags, complaining about the red tape, waiting for their flight time... The four of them sat in one of the smoking lounges near the emigration desk. Crawford had settled their flight beforehand, and now they had to wait for the plane.
"Why are we here anyway?" he whined, about the third time he had asked the same question in the same hour. His side still hurt from his injury, painkillers ingested notwithstanding, and his head was beginning to throb with the endless stream of inane thoughts invading his mind. Not even his iron control could keep the voices at bay when there was this many people in the place all at once.
Crawford patiently folded his glasses and gently massaged his forehead. He rarely took off his glasses and when he did, it meant he was really stressed out, though the expression on his face betrayed none of these emotions.
"Because SZ isn't the one sanctioning this trip," came the simple reply.
Schuldig frowned. Not SZ? He shut his eyes, trying to concentrate, trying to pick up Crawford's mental voice over the cacophony of other thoughts. Something about the gravity of the mission made their leader tight-lipped over the whole scenario and that intrigued Schuldig. But apart from the underlying note of concern and... was that fear? No, couldn't be; maybe unease... that he could pick up from the American's mind, Schuldig found nothing. It was as if Crawford didn't know anything.
"So who is?" Nagi asked, one hand balancing the computer on his lap while the other kept a firm grip on Farfarello's arm. The madman was surprisingly well-behaved despite the amount of people present that he obviously wanted to kill.
"Rosenkrüs."
"Who?!" Schuldig and Nagi asked together, the latter more out of curiosity. Schuldig almost choked on his cigarette.
Brad didn't repeat his answer. Farfarello sat beside Nagi, humming to himself and looking quite dopey. Schuldig wondered if the Irishman had been drugged.
"Was that why Silvia was at the lab?"
Crawford shook his head. "I can only guess. My powers have helped little since your encounter."
"Fuck."
The boarding hour came and Crawford led the little party to the JAL business class section in the flight. The four of them had a cabin to their own. Even if they rode public, one could always trust Crawford to get the best.
"So what's this about Rosenkrüs?" Schuldig demanded as soon as they were seated and the flight attendant had left the cabin. Crawford sat across him and Farfarello, Nagi's laptop now on his own as the Japanese boy sat placidly, head almost perked in interest.
Rosenkrüs was Crawford and Schuldig's former life, before SZ, before Schwarz. They had been the first two, Crawford having almost grown up in the organization's fold, Schuldig adopted there since his family was killed by its agents. Technically, now that they were in Schwarz, which was under SZ, which in turn formed part of the organizational head of Rosenkrüs, Nagi and Farfarello were part of the organization too.
Schuldig tried to keep the frown off his face so as not to give himself away. He had gotten into trouble with the head honchos since the time he joined. Crawford had always been the one who bailed him out. Then again, Crawford had been the one who got him in anyway. And now, his recent clash with Silvia Lin, an officer from the main headquarters in Auschwitz, caused a tingle of worry to creep up his spine.
Crawford still had not put on his glasses and was tapping at the laptop keyboard in almost lazy disinterest. How peculiar.
"I'm sure... They called earlier, saying we would receive our orders upon arrival."
Nagi raised a slender brow. "And your powers have said nothing about this?"
Farfarello sniggered softly at the question, but quieted when the American fixed him a poison-laced stare, so he settled for smiling like an idiot at his teammates.
Why are you grinning like that?
The Irishman flicked a slanted glance at the man who sat next to him. No reason.
You think Crawford might be hiding something? Schuldig wanted to know. If Crawford was doing something for Rosenkrüs, they could very well be in big trouble. The German wanted nothing more to do with the rest of the organization after they had killed his last remaining kin.
I doubt it. He's too wrapped up in uncertainty to hide anything... least of all from you. The last phrase hissed loudly in the back of the German's mind and he narrowed his eyes at Farfarello before concentrating on what Crawford was telling them.
"... haven't even seen anything about them." The American frowned darkly. "I think, gentlemen, it might be best to proceed with this mission with caution."
"If you think it poses so much of a danger, why did you accept anyway?" Farfarello hissed suspiciously, the harsh voice an odd contrast to the soft, almost calm look on the porcelain face.
Crawford leveled him with a stare, and even Nagi and Schuldig looked. Farfarello never questioned Crawford's authority in making decisions for the group, and this incident didn't seem like the Irishman at all.
"Because it's our heads that is at stake if I had declined."
The psychopath merely smirked. "Better that we die now and hurt God than die later, bound and enslaved while God laughs at our stupidity."
Crawford's eyes narrowed even more dangerously and Schuldig was half-afraid the two men might attack each other before the plane even took off, when one of the flight attendants appeared at the cabin doorway holding a hand phone. She pasted a fake smile at the four men, unaware of the tense contest of wills she had just interrupted.
"Yes?" Crawford snapped tersely, jerking his glasses back to his face. "Was there something you wanted?"
"A phone call for a Christian Schuyler," the attendant replied in mellifluous English, probably thinking that the three foreigners might not be able to understand Japanese. They had been conversing in English for the most part of the day.
Nagi frowned. "There's no-"
"Give me that," Schuldig snatched the phone away from the now-frowning attendant, sending nasty mental images of her mutilated body to her head when he caught wind of her thoughts about his rudeness. He glanced back to Crawford. "Two guesses as to who this is."
The American didn't bother to reply, but Farfarello's mouth curled into another derisive smirk. "Silvia."
+++++++++++
Nagi didn't speak. Crawford didn't even bother to look at him, and Farfarello himself remained silent. The three of them had been silent the moment Schuldig took the phone call in the plane. It had been Silvia. And she was looking for Christian. Christian. Schuldig's given name. Christian Schuyler had been dead for almost ten years. Since Schuldig was twelve. Before he met Silvia. Before he even met Crawford. How did they know?
And of course, Silvia had called to tell Schuldig that he was needed elsewhere. No one had spoken when the German left the cabin to follow the flight attendant. Farfarello stared at all their stunned faces and could not imagine why they were so... shocked.
He was so sure Crawford knew. Schuldig apparently didn't know why he was leaving, why he even had to take orders from someone who had just whupped his ass not six hours ago. He had this dubious look in his emerald eyes, like he didn't really know what he was getting himself into.
But he knew. Farfarello knew why. He didn't profess to have all the cards in the game, but he had an inkling of what's to happen. Those odd snatches of conversation that he caught between the German and their American leader lent insight to that almost strange singing he kept hearing ever since they boarded the plane. Singing. Something he couldn't really hear, more that it was in his head.
He'd thought at first that it was Schuldig, mocking him for teasing the German about his job in Schwarz as his and Nagi's official babysitter. The song had been inspirational. A Christian song giving praise to a God who didn't give two shits about his children. Amazing Grace. But the mental voice that was singing it was soft, lilting, almost... feminine.
Now, of course, Schuldig was gone, back in Tokyo to meet with... whoever. Silvia, SZ... it didn't matter to him. But it was strange now. This eerie silence among the three of them. With the German gone, there was no one to complain endlessly about his boredom. And Nagi and Crawford were like wallflowers. Flat, uninteresting...
"We're here," Crawford finally broke the silence. Their car stood in the driveway of a glass building. Strange. Not a hotel.
Farfarello picked up his knife. Didn't matter. He could hear the singing now. Just a little louder than before. Nagi sat in the front seat, fidgeting.
"Exactly what are we supposed to do here?" The boy's mild voice was tinged with uncertainty. Crawford hadn't briefed them about the mission. Probably because he knew nothing himself.
"The contact would be here." Useless answer.
Farfarello licked his knife. He wondered if he could kill anyone before the mission even started...
"Aren't we getting out?"
"No."
Nagi twisted his hands in his lap. "Why? Geez, it's broad daylight. It's not like anyone's gonna attack us."
Farfarello thought he caught a malicious glint in the American's eyes as the rearview mirror of the car reflected his glasses. "You'd be surprised."
As if on cue, the sound of glass shattering in the still winter air outside filled them. The top floor of the building had exploded, sending shards of glass and debris falling thousands of feet to the ground, where the meager amount of pedestrians suddenly scrambled for cover.
Farfarello blinked as a tall, red-haired man emerged from the riot, seemingly untroubled by the explosion. He was walking straight for their car, a wide, careless smile pasted on his brisk, ageless features. Farfarello thought he looked familiar, the fifty-ish face holding a strange compelling beauty that he found unnerving. He didn't know many people, except perhaps for Schwarz, his dead family back in Ireland, and the countless, faceless people he had killed. He wondered if the mental singing came from this man, then decided it couldn't. This man looked mechanical, brusque. No elegance. When he died, Farfarello knew he would die in a mad shower of blood.
The old man smiled. "Mr. Crawford. It's been a long time."
Crawford rolled down his window as the man bent slightly to bow, the usual polite Japanese greeting. "Colonel Schuyler."
"I was wondering where you had stashed my son."
++++++++
Nagi stared at the empty softdrink can on the half-soaked coaster. They were in a hotel now. Crawford had driven them there after they picked up the colonel. Nagi had had to move to the backseat to sit with Farfarello for the old man had eyed the psychopath with undisguised disgust. Farfie had cut up his mouth again while licking his knife.
The colonel was indeed their contact, and he had booked them in a rather ordinary, boring hotel in the Kowloon side, supposedly for keeping a low profile. Crawford, he had said, already looked too obvious, with his pale Caucasian skin, and having a teenage boy and a madman in tow would elicit too many strange stares from the middle-class immigrants staying in the Hong Kong side. Nagi thought, perhaps, that since he and Farfarello weren't needed for the reconnaissance in the mission, Crawford would let them stay in their rooms or do whatever they wanted with their time while he met with the contact.
Apparently not.
Now he was trapped in a boring discussion about gene alteration facilities in China. At first he'd decided that being in a meeting with the contact would shed some light about their mission, and about Schuldig's disappearance. The flight attendant had said that the person who'd called the redhead was asking for Christian Schuyler. And this man Crawford was talking to now bore the same name. Not to mention he'd asked about his son. Schuldig?
Nagi found that strange. He didn't profess to know much about his teammates in Schwarz, but he was certain none of them had any family left. Otherwise, they wouldn't be trapped in this barbaric lifestyle. Farfarello had murdered his adoptive family and his real mother, and Crawford had simply left whatever horror he had lived with in New York. He himself had been an orphan for as long as he could remember. He figured, if Schuldig was as deep into Rosenkrüs as Crawford was, then the German must have lost his family a long time ago.
"Mark my words, Mr. Crawford," the colonel was saying now, his tone grave, "the facility must be destroyed lest the monsters Vermont has created be traced back to Rosenkrüs. There's too much evidence pointing the testing to us now."
Crawford nodded once, his closed, calm face betraying no emotion. "Of course, sir."
Nagi watched them. He could feel Farfarello's interest in the exchange as well. The Irishman was uncharacteristically subdued. Hell, he'd been strangely quiet since the flight, with Schuldig gone. It seemed the Irishman and the German were really the ones who made a lot of noise when they were together.
The colonel stood up briskly, smiling the ageless, fathomless smile again. Disturbingly familiar, Nagi thought. Then again, if this man was indeed Schuldig's... relation, then he shouldn't be surprised.
"Very good. I shall expect to be informed of your mission's success as soon as possible."
"Of course, colonel," Crawford replied smoothly.
"I'll be waiting in the Auschwitz headquarters." The man turned on his heel.
He was halfway out of the room when Farfarello suddenly spoke.
"Where's Schuldig?"
Crawford stiffened, flicking a surprised glance at the Irishman. Nagi waited tensely. Something told him that this man knew.
The colonel turned to them, green eyes narrowing as he registered the Irishman to have asked the question. "Christian is none of your concern." He nodded to Crawford. "He never will be, from here on." And then he left.
Nagi sank into his chair, staring at the empty hallway. He hadn't realized he'd been standing until he sat down. "Crawford...?"
"Yes?" Almost a tired sigh. Almost.
"That was Schuldig's father... right?"
"Yes."
Nagi didn't understand. He stared again at the hallway, at the open door. "What did he mean—about Schuldig not being our concern?"
Crawford shook his head. "Better question: question: What does he—what does Rosenkrüs—want here? And what do they want from Schuldig?"
Farfarello picked up his soda can and took a sip before starting to lick his knife again. The blade pressed deeply into his lip, splitting it, causing blood to well out and drip onto the white button down shirt Crawford made Schuldig put on him before they left Tokyo that evening. "They're going to kill him."
+++++++++++++ end of chapter 2
Review?
Notes: I'm uncertain as to how things are rightly spelled—much of what I know beyond the (badly translated) Weiss anime/OAV/manga and Glühen has been off fan sites and there are instances where spelling of proper names differ. I apologize if I commit grave spelling errors on proper names and, no, I won't point out my scapegoats.
Reunions
By alien21xx
Chapter 2
People stared at them in the airport. Schuldig had to wonder why Crawford bothered to go by public flight when SZ provided them with a private plane. Airports sucked. Too many idiots milling about for their bags, complaining about the red tape, waiting for their flight time... The four of them sat in one of the smoking lounges near the emigration desk. Crawford had settled their flight beforehand, and now they had to wait for the plane.
"Why are we here anyway?" he whined, about the third time he had asked the same question in the same hour. His side still hurt from his injury, painkillers ingested notwithstanding, and his head was beginning to throb with the endless stream of inane thoughts invading his mind. Not even his iron control could keep the voices at bay when there was this many people in the place all at once.
Crawford patiently folded his glasses and gently massaged his forehead. He rarely took off his glasses and when he did, it meant he was really stressed out, though the expression on his face betrayed none of these emotions.
"Because SZ isn't the one sanctioning this trip," came the simple reply.
Schuldig frowned. Not SZ? He shut his eyes, trying to concentrate, trying to pick up Crawford's mental voice over the cacophony of other thoughts. Something about the gravity of the mission made their leader tight-lipped over the whole scenario and that intrigued Schuldig. But apart from the underlying note of concern and... was that fear? No, couldn't be; maybe unease... that he could pick up from the American's mind, Schuldig found nothing. It was as if Crawford didn't know anything.
"So who is?" Nagi asked, one hand balancing the computer on his lap while the other kept a firm grip on Farfarello's arm. The madman was surprisingly well-behaved despite the amount of people present that he obviously wanted to kill.
"Rosenkrüs."
"Who?!" Schuldig and Nagi asked together, the latter more out of curiosity. Schuldig almost choked on his cigarette.
Brad didn't repeat his answer. Farfarello sat beside Nagi, humming to himself and looking quite dopey. Schuldig wondered if the Irishman had been drugged.
"Was that why Silvia was at the lab?"
Crawford shook his head. "I can only guess. My powers have helped little since your encounter."
"Fuck."
The boarding hour came and Crawford led the little party to the JAL business class section in the flight. The four of them had a cabin to their own. Even if they rode public, one could always trust Crawford to get the best.
"So what's this about Rosenkrüs?" Schuldig demanded as soon as they were seated and the flight attendant had left the cabin. Crawford sat across him and Farfarello, Nagi's laptop now on his own as the Japanese boy sat placidly, head almost perked in interest.
Rosenkrüs was Crawford and Schuldig's former life, before SZ, before Schwarz. They had been the first two, Crawford having almost grown up in the organization's fold, Schuldig adopted there since his family was killed by its agents. Technically, now that they were in Schwarz, which was under SZ, which in turn formed part of the organizational head of Rosenkrüs, Nagi and Farfarello were part of the organization too.
Schuldig tried to keep the frown off his face so as not to give himself away. He had gotten into trouble with the head honchos since the time he joined. Crawford had always been the one who bailed him out. Then again, Crawford had been the one who got him in anyway. And now, his recent clash with Silvia Lin, an officer from the main headquarters in Auschwitz, caused a tingle of worry to creep up his spine.
Crawford still had not put on his glasses and was tapping at the laptop keyboard in almost lazy disinterest. How peculiar.
"I'm sure... They called earlier, saying we would receive our orders upon arrival."
Nagi raised a slender brow. "And your powers have said nothing about this?"
Farfarello sniggered softly at the question, but quieted when the American fixed him a poison-laced stare, so he settled for smiling like an idiot at his teammates.
Why are you grinning like that?
The Irishman flicked a slanted glance at the man who sat next to him. No reason.
You think Crawford might be hiding something? Schuldig wanted to know. If Crawford was doing something for Rosenkrüs, they could very well be in big trouble. The German wanted nothing more to do with the rest of the organization after they had killed his last remaining kin.
I doubt it. He's too wrapped up in uncertainty to hide anything... least of all from you. The last phrase hissed loudly in the back of the German's mind and he narrowed his eyes at Farfarello before concentrating on what Crawford was telling them.
"... haven't even seen anything about them." The American frowned darkly. "I think, gentlemen, it might be best to proceed with this mission with caution."
"If you think it poses so much of a danger, why did you accept anyway?" Farfarello hissed suspiciously, the harsh voice an odd contrast to the soft, almost calm look on the porcelain face.
Crawford leveled him with a stare, and even Nagi and Schuldig looked. Farfarello never questioned Crawford's authority in making decisions for the group, and this incident didn't seem like the Irishman at all.
"Because it's our heads that is at stake if I had declined."
The psychopath merely smirked. "Better that we die now and hurt God than die later, bound and enslaved while God laughs at our stupidity."
Crawford's eyes narrowed even more dangerously and Schuldig was half-afraid the two men might attack each other before the plane even took off, when one of the flight attendants appeared at the cabin doorway holding a hand phone. She pasted a fake smile at the four men, unaware of the tense contest of wills she had just interrupted.
"Yes?" Crawford snapped tersely, jerking his glasses back to his face. "Was there something you wanted?"
"A phone call for a Christian Schuyler," the attendant replied in mellifluous English, probably thinking that the three foreigners might not be able to understand Japanese. They had been conversing in English for the most part of the day.
Nagi frowned. "There's no-"
"Give me that," Schuldig snatched the phone away from the now-frowning attendant, sending nasty mental images of her mutilated body to her head when he caught wind of her thoughts about his rudeness. He glanced back to Crawford. "Two guesses as to who this is."
The American didn't bother to reply, but Farfarello's mouth curled into another derisive smirk. "Silvia."
+++++++++++
Nagi didn't speak. Crawford didn't even bother to look at him, and Farfarello himself remained silent. The three of them had been silent the moment Schuldig took the phone call in the plane. It had been Silvia. And she was looking for Christian. Christian. Schuldig's given name. Christian Schuyler had been dead for almost ten years. Since Schuldig was twelve. Before he met Silvia. Before he even met Crawford. How did they know?
And of course, Silvia had called to tell Schuldig that he was needed elsewhere. No one had spoken when the German left the cabin to follow the flight attendant. Farfarello stared at all their stunned faces and could not imagine why they were so... shocked.
He was so sure Crawford knew. Schuldig apparently didn't know why he was leaving, why he even had to take orders from someone who had just whupped his ass not six hours ago. He had this dubious look in his emerald eyes, like he didn't really know what he was getting himself into.
But he knew. Farfarello knew why. He didn't profess to have all the cards in the game, but he had an inkling of what's to happen. Those odd snatches of conversation that he caught between the German and their American leader lent insight to that almost strange singing he kept hearing ever since they boarded the plane. Singing. Something he couldn't really hear, more that it was in his head.
He'd thought at first that it was Schuldig, mocking him for teasing the German about his job in Schwarz as his and Nagi's official babysitter. The song had been inspirational. A Christian song giving praise to a God who didn't give two shits about his children. Amazing Grace. But the mental voice that was singing it was soft, lilting, almost... feminine.
Now, of course, Schuldig was gone, back in Tokyo to meet with... whoever. Silvia, SZ... it didn't matter to him. But it was strange now. This eerie silence among the three of them. With the German gone, there was no one to complain endlessly about his boredom. And Nagi and Crawford were like wallflowers. Flat, uninteresting...
"We're here," Crawford finally broke the silence. Their car stood in the driveway of a glass building. Strange. Not a hotel.
Farfarello picked up his knife. Didn't matter. He could hear the singing now. Just a little louder than before. Nagi sat in the front seat, fidgeting.
"Exactly what are we supposed to do here?" The boy's mild voice was tinged with uncertainty. Crawford hadn't briefed them about the mission. Probably because he knew nothing himself.
"The contact would be here." Useless answer.
Farfarello licked his knife. He wondered if he could kill anyone before the mission even started...
"Aren't we getting out?"
"No."
Nagi twisted his hands in his lap. "Why? Geez, it's broad daylight. It's not like anyone's gonna attack us."
Farfarello thought he caught a malicious glint in the American's eyes as the rearview mirror of the car reflected his glasses. "You'd be surprised."
As if on cue, the sound of glass shattering in the still winter air outside filled them. The top floor of the building had exploded, sending shards of glass and debris falling thousands of feet to the ground, where the meager amount of pedestrians suddenly scrambled for cover.
Farfarello blinked as a tall, red-haired man emerged from the riot, seemingly untroubled by the explosion. He was walking straight for their car, a wide, careless smile pasted on his brisk, ageless features. Farfarello thought he looked familiar, the fifty-ish face holding a strange compelling beauty that he found unnerving. He didn't know many people, except perhaps for Schwarz, his dead family back in Ireland, and the countless, faceless people he had killed. He wondered if the mental singing came from this man, then decided it couldn't. This man looked mechanical, brusque. No elegance. When he died, Farfarello knew he would die in a mad shower of blood.
The old man smiled. "Mr. Crawford. It's been a long time."
Crawford rolled down his window as the man bent slightly to bow, the usual polite Japanese greeting. "Colonel Schuyler."
"I was wondering where you had stashed my son."
++++++++
Nagi stared at the empty softdrink can on the half-soaked coaster. They were in a hotel now. Crawford had driven them there after they picked up the colonel. Nagi had had to move to the backseat to sit with Farfarello for the old man had eyed the psychopath with undisguised disgust. Farfie had cut up his mouth again while licking his knife.
The colonel was indeed their contact, and he had booked them in a rather ordinary, boring hotel in the Kowloon side, supposedly for keeping a low profile. Crawford, he had said, already looked too obvious, with his pale Caucasian skin, and having a teenage boy and a madman in tow would elicit too many strange stares from the middle-class immigrants staying in the Hong Kong side. Nagi thought, perhaps, that since he and Farfarello weren't needed for the reconnaissance in the mission, Crawford would let them stay in their rooms or do whatever they wanted with their time while he met with the contact.
Apparently not.
Now he was trapped in a boring discussion about gene alteration facilities in China. At first he'd decided that being in a meeting with the contact would shed some light about their mission, and about Schuldig's disappearance. The flight attendant had said that the person who'd called the redhead was asking for Christian Schuyler. And this man Crawford was talking to now bore the same name. Not to mention he'd asked about his son. Schuldig?
Nagi found that strange. He didn't profess to know much about his teammates in Schwarz, but he was certain none of them had any family left. Otherwise, they wouldn't be trapped in this barbaric lifestyle. Farfarello had murdered his adoptive family and his real mother, and Crawford had simply left whatever horror he had lived with in New York. He himself had been an orphan for as long as he could remember. He figured, if Schuldig was as deep into Rosenkrüs as Crawford was, then the German must have lost his family a long time ago.
"Mark my words, Mr. Crawford," the colonel was saying now, his tone grave, "the facility must be destroyed lest the monsters Vermont has created be traced back to Rosenkrüs. There's too much evidence pointing the testing to us now."
Crawford nodded once, his closed, calm face betraying no emotion. "Of course, sir."
Nagi watched them. He could feel Farfarello's interest in the exchange as well. The Irishman was uncharacteristically subdued. Hell, he'd been strangely quiet since the flight, with Schuldig gone. It seemed the Irishman and the German were really the ones who made a lot of noise when they were together.
The colonel stood up briskly, smiling the ageless, fathomless smile again. Disturbingly familiar, Nagi thought. Then again, if this man was indeed Schuldig's... relation, then he shouldn't be surprised.
"Very good. I shall expect to be informed of your mission's success as soon as possible."
"Of course, colonel," Crawford replied smoothly.
"I'll be waiting in the Auschwitz headquarters." The man turned on his heel.
He was halfway out of the room when Farfarello suddenly spoke.
"Where's Schuldig?"
Crawford stiffened, flicking a surprised glance at the Irishman. Nagi waited tensely. Something told him that this man knew.
The colonel turned to them, green eyes narrowing as he registered the Irishman to have asked the question. "Christian is none of your concern." He nodded to Crawford. "He never will be, from here on." And then he left.
Nagi sank into his chair, staring at the empty hallway. He hadn't realized he'd been standing until he sat down. "Crawford...?"
"Yes?" Almost a tired sigh. Almost.
"That was Schuldig's father... right?"
"Yes."
Nagi didn't understand. He stared again at the hallway, at the open door. "What did he mean—about Schuldig not being our concern?"
Crawford shook his head. "Better question: question: What does he—what does Rosenkrüs—want here? And what do they want from Schuldig?"
Farfarello picked up his soda can and took a sip before starting to lick his knife again. The blade pressed deeply into his lip, splitting it, causing blood to well out and drip onto the white button down shirt Crawford made Schuldig put on him before they left Tokyo that evening. "They're going to kill him."
+++++++++++++ end of chapter 2
Review?