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A week later, Schuldig found himself smiling at the bank manager and fought to keep the sincere twist of the lips from becoming his trademark smirk. Actually, what he really wanted to do was sneer. The greasy little ball of lard in front of him was going to be cleaned out by the two of them, and he deserved it. Schuldig's lip twisted upwards and he slapped his hand over his mouth to prevent the balding adulterer seeing his reaction.

"So, you would be on a minimum wage of…" Schuldig tuned out again, listening to the petty man's thoughts instead.

'I won't hire him, not with that pretty little blonde thing. Four girls in a month, and your wife knows nothing. Good show, old man. Why go through this little charade when it's not some nice bit of arse? Not even female, for god's sake. Remember Suki? I remember what she did for me. She liked it dirty. Too bad she threatened to yell rape…'

Schuldig's eyes narrowed. Wonderful, his new employer was a rapist and a murderer. Well, when they cleaned this place out Schuldig would be certain to get a shot or two into his head, just by accident, of course. He wondered how Yohji would take that proposition.

Schuldig leant against the filing cabinet and reached out mentally for Yohji, who was standing in an alley outside, separated by a single wall. Yohji's mind was reassuring.

"So, I'll give you a ca-" The tubby banker stopped in mid-sentence. Using Yohji as a base, Schuldig reached out and brushed a bead of sweat off the slimy man's slick forehead. "…A job. I'll give you a job," the man said dazedly.

Sweat beaded Schuldig's own forehead. He needed to get out of here. He could feel a wall of thoughts like a tsunami, seconds away from coming crashing down into his head. Yohji was his base, his earth wire, his ground zero. After spending so long in such close quarters it was almost unimaginable that Schuldig was going to be spending six days a week away from him. An uncharacteristic fear gripped the German. The plan would fail. He'd go nuts.

"When can you start?" the manager asked again.

Schuldig blinked and tried to get a grip on himself. His head throbbed and speech and thought were growing more indistinguishable. 'Soon…' he thought he said, but the perplexed look on the little man's face made him realise his lips hadn't moved. "Tomorrow," Schuldig said aloud, touching his lips to check they were moving.

'He touches his mouth a lot,' the manager observed. Schuldig was about to retort when it occurred to him that no matter how stupid the little man was, he wouldn't have said that aloud.

'I have to go,' Schuldig told the small man. "I have" 'an appointment' "elsewhere." With that, he fled, leaving a very confused guy in a business suit trying to work out what had just happened.

Yohji was waiting for him outside. Schuldig grabbed him, touching his face, arms, hair, anything that was left bare. Yohji gave a tolerant smile, but there was apprehension behind it.

"You're not ready for this," Yohji murmured, taking one of Schuldig's hands between both of his and holding it. Schuldig flinched. "We ought to have waited."

"You know we couldn't, Yohji." Schuldig sighed and pulled his hands away, tucking them into the pockets of his stolen suit. "A few more days and we're both out on our ear, and probably into the debtors prison. At least this way we actually have a salary coming in."

"True. But if you go to pieces…"

"I won't." Schuldig frowned. "Dammit, Yohji, I used to be good at this. I used to be the best. I've been worse off than this, and stayed pretty much perfectly intact. Why is it so hard now?"

"Tokyo has the highest population density of any city in the world," Yohji reminded him. "You were with Schwarz for a long time. Perhaps the summoning?"

"I think you hit it with the second one," Schuldig told him. "I let my shields slip. A lot. When things got rough, Crawford or Farfarello would bring me out of it."

Yohji frowned. "Farfarello?"

"Nothing like having your hand stuck in a blender to bring you back to yourself," Schuldig smirked. "This is going to work, Yohji. I hate that bastard in there. If for no other reason, I'm going to tough it out. You'd be amazed what vindictiveness can do as an incentive."

Yohji smirked back. "I see. So the thought of food, comfortable living, all that, means nothing?"

Schuldig opened his mouth but snapped it shut again. He'd almost said something very sappy about Yohji and making it all worth it whether the pulled it off or not. He wasn't certain whether to be glad he hadn't said it or scared that he'd thought it. It wasn't cynical, it wasn't jaded, it wasn't malicious. It even bordered on naïve and trusting. Not like Schuldig at all. But that wasn't what worried him. It smacked of dependence. Schuldig didn't appreciate being dependent on any man. Ever.

"Are you okay?" Yohji tilted his head to regard Schuldig out of one eye. "You're being unusually silent."

Schuldig grunted as people jostled him, feeling the millions of minds not as a wave but a pool now. A pool he could walk into, if he wanted. He'd known how to swim, once, and being afraid of the water didn't take away that skill. He had to do it sooner or later. Better sooner than later, before his nerve broke. Schuldig was growing increasingly aware that he was changing. The Schuldig of Schwarz had lost his edge, to a certain extent. The worst part was he wasn't sure whether he missed that harder Schuldig.

He took a figurative deep breath and jumped. Yohji watched as his eyes glazed over, glassy and blank. Schuldig had frozen in the middle of the street. His eyelids fluttered, his eyes rolled, his lips twitched and a sweat broke out on his forehead.

Suddenly three men chatting on the other side of the room turned to stare at Schuldig before executing sharp bows in unison. A girl walked up to Yohji and flashed him, apparently unaware of what she was doing. A child suddenly started talking German to his terrified father. An old woman started chatting up a teenaged boy, who flirted back.

"The boys are back in town," Schuldig growled, so low Yohji barely heard him. The song had never had any particular meaning for him until that moment. When his eyes opened they seemed to glow from within, and Yohji recognised the Schuldig he'd tried to kill, time and time again. Fear stole over him like a cold shadow in summer.

Schuldig was floating on the pool of thoughts, buoyed by his own ego. He'd done it. He was free again. He didn't need Yohji or anyone else. He was Schuldig, the guilty one, the bastard every one was scared shitless off, the guy who could own this town. Blue eyes glittered cruelly as he made the people around him to more and more bizarre things, embarrassing themselves and occasionally injuring themselves. He started to laugh.

"Stop it," Yohji snapped.

Schuldig froze mid-laugh and turned to stare at him. "What?" he asked, danger lacing the single word.

"This, Schuldig, stop it. I don't like it."

"And the world revolves around you, does it?" Schuldig's brows knitted as he started to move towards Yohji, slowly and sinuously. Yohji, to his credit, didn't move. "Come, Balinese," Schuldig spat the word and was rewarded by Yohji's flinch, "we don't always get what we want. Besides, this is your plan."

"Make people do stupid things they don't want to? Which bit of the plan was that?" Yohji snarled. "Let them go, Mastermind. Shit, I thought you'd changed."

Schuldig paused, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. "I told you, Yohji. I told you what I was, who I was. I'm a bastard. I'm evil. I enjoy hurting people."

"You enjoyed my company without hurting either of us," Yohji pointed out. "And you didn't tell me. You changed, Schuldig, just then. You lied to me, you lied to yourself. And now you've made those damn lies come true because you're scared to accept they might not be."

Schuldig blinked, now utterly confused. He went to reach into Yohji's mind and find out what he was trying to say when Yohji paled. Yohji took a step back, then another, really afraid now. Within moments he was fleeing down one of Tokyo's busiest streets, leaving Schuldig and his puppets outside the bank.

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