Bad Kitten: Chapter Two
By. Bento Box
04/02/03

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Darkness.

It was the first conscious thought, emotion, sense his perception brought to him. His mind seemed dettached from his body, and he couldn't tell if the darkness stemmed from within the empty silence of his own mind, curiously blank of any flickering images, or if his eyes were open and he was enveloped in a pitch-black vicinity.

Odd, how he never noticed how truly intertwined his mind and body were. How even something so natural as the slight rise and fall of his chest as he took in and breathed out air. Now, he felt no such ties.

He couldn't tell if he was truly conscious or not. Perhaps this was all an eery and all too real seeming dream or nightmare that he was suddenly caught up in.

But why was there only darkness? And why wasn't he able to feel his body, the way he normally would when he was consciously aware that he was in a dream?

The lack of control, of bodily awareness struck a cord within him, deep inside the darkness that he could not maneuver himself through.

He couldn't feel his body shudder, or the smooth hand that trailed down his arm, but abruptly all and any conscious thoughts fled.

And he slipped further into the featureless, empty well.

—

Crawford was pulling into a parking lot when the vision suddenly struck. His glasses slipped down his nose as he his hand jerked upwards to clutch and brace his forehead.

When the vision receded and murmured quietly into the back of his mind, the man beside him gave him a questioning look.

Neither his thoughts or emotions touched the grim words he uttered.

"Nagi's been kidnapped."

—

It was hours later that the meeting with their new clientale finally drew to an end. And though the ride back to the apartment had been silent, as soon as they both had crossed the threshold into the current apartment that served as a safehouse for Schwartz, Schuldig was soon on the American, eyes alight with disbelief.

"What the FUCK do you mean, Nagi's been kidnapped?!"

Crawford adjusted his glasses, and gave the other man a cool look, one elegantly shaped brow raised.

The German sneered at him, and knew the expression as 'I do not believe that I truly need to define in detail what I have just stated you ignoramus fool.'

"Fuck it, Crawford, just tell me how the hell was anyone able to kidnap Nagi. What, you're pre-cognition didn't fucking warn you that one of our members was going to be taken?"

The American's face tightened imperceptibly and he leveled Schuldig with an icy look. He was not pleased with himself for not forseeing this sudden disaster, and he did not take it kindly when Schuldig took it upon himself to point that out verbally.

Frowning at the German darkly, as a silent command to "shut up and stay still", he focused and placed all of his concentration into his powers, reaching out with his mind to run along the vein that revealed Nagi's ties to him. Millions and millions of delicate little lines interconnected to make a web that showed Crawford who was tied in with whom, the why, when and how displayed in flickering images.

And throughout the entire web, Crawford came up with nothing.

His control in seeing the future was not infallible, but he should have at least been able to catch at least a glimpse of future outcomes. Here, he was met with nothing. Blank walls faced him when he tried to reach out for Schwartz's future, Nagi's future. And where Nagi's lines were, their delicate fingers trailed off into darkness, as if his ties had been severed.

Disturbed by the image of the threads that disappeared off into an abyss that he could not follow Crawford drew himself back into the present and stared back into snapping green eyes, his face a complete mask of infallible calm.

"Reach Nagi with your mind."

Schuldig's eyes widened and then narrowed as he stared at Crawford in unconcealed surprise and slight unease.

Crawford allowed the corners of his mouth to turn downwards and he pinned the other man's eyes with a cold, hard stare.

"Do it, Schuldig."

Schuldig gave him a look that was a cross between a mocking smirk, and a sneer. Immersing himself within his own powers, he blocked out the vast sea of billions and billions of voices to pinpoint the mental link he held with Nagi, as he had with the other two men as well.

Unlike the constant presence of the world's voices, and the other Schwartz members, Nagi's end of the link was completely silent. Dead silent.

Nagi?

A crease formed between his brows, and he concentrated harder, not believing that he couldn't reach Nagi. Even if the boy were to be unconsciousness, he would still be able to enter the other's mind and sift through his memories. He called again, mental voice louder, harsher.

Silence answered him. There was nothing at all to reveal that there really even was a link between Schuldig and the boy. As if Nagi were dead and there was no living body to feed the mind that he should be able to touch. But Schuldig would know if the boy was dead, their links would have been severed and left open and bleeding until Schuldig himself pulled away. It would not be this empty, hollow echo that Schuldig had instead.

This was not possible. It made no sense.

Schuldig reluctantly withdrew from within his mind.

Crawford was still staring at him, and when Schuldig offered no scathing and gleeful remark of how his powers were 'above the American's and wasn't that just dandy?', a grim look appeared his face.

"Call the school and his teachers to see if Nagi was there."