Re-edited... and put to better lay-out...

italics means telepathic... i just realized that the double slash went away...

Yes, I finally write 'em up... 3 chapters in a row....

I hearsay declare that Weiß Kreuz belongs not to me... it belongs to Koyasu Takehito-sensei and all other respective people.... I'm only having fun with it.

Chapter 7: Uncommon Sense



Nagi woke up and realized that he was lying on warm wooden floor. He must have fallen asleep. Darkness surrounded him. The air smelled like burned stearine. The candles had died and he felt wind blowing behind his back. The door was ajar and Farfarello was not there.

"Farf?" he called as he rubbed his eyes. They seemed to be swollen by tears. He looked around and there was no sign of the Irish team-mate.

The boy got up.

"Farf?" he called again, this time staggering himself towards the door.

There was no one in the corridor. Everything was silent. There was no sound in the house, even the traffic noise from the street seemed to be far of in a distant time. Farfarello must have gone from the house, Nagi snapped. That was bad. Every Schwarz members knew they had to keep the lunatic inside his room, except for duty, off course, and he had let the white haired gone away.

"Shit!" he cursed under his breath. His eyes wildly looking for any clues where the other one had gone and he caught drips of blood on the floor. Farfarello hardly bothered to bandage his wounds. Scars were his body-art. It was like tattoo and body piercing.

The trail led to the front door. That was a bad sign. He could be anywhere and it would make it harder to find him. Off course he was very easy to locate among the Japanese with his pale skin, bleached hair and scars, but Farfarello was not stupid enough to let himself be seen – except by his prey. It was like a bad premonition.

The boy hurried taking his over coat and ran to the elevator. He pushed the button many times and stomped his feet on the vinyl flooring. It seemed to be taking a long time for the elevator to reach the floor. The box was empty and he hurried pushed GL for ground floor and he wished the lift wouldn't take anymore passengers. The penthouse had limited elevator access, but there's no guarantee that he had total privacy on the way down.

The wish was not granted. It stopped after it went down two floors and a very fat woman came in. She was clad in some kind of flashy garments. They lived in a luxurious apartment building and there were also these bourgeois people living there. The woman must be one of them, judging from the way she was dressed. He saw Nagi and smiled.

"Are you going to cram school?" she asked with flowery tone.

Nagi shook his head but the woman seemed not to notice it.

"My son goes to cram school too," she said, "He's actually not that bad at school, but he's very lazy. I wish he'd make it to Fujikei next semester, but I think his second choice was OK too." He looked down at Nagi, noticing the pins on Nagi's uniform, and asked again, "You are a third grade, aren't you? Ah, you're studying at Seishiki College. That's a very good school. I wanted Takuya – that's my boy's name – to study there but he failed at the enrollment test. Which high school is your first choice? But I'm sure you could just continue your study at Seishiki. Its high school is also excellent. It's rather expensive though, but in this apartment who cannot afford it?"

Nagi wanted so bad to crush the woman into the aluminum panel to shut her up, but lucky for her, the lift stopped again and another woman came into the box. She seemed to know the other one and the fat woman began to ignore the boy. The two chatted about their two sons who seemed to be best friends. Nagi sighed with relief when he learned that none of the boys went to his school.

Finally the elevator hit the ground floor. Nagi darted out but found himself bumping into someone. He looked up to say sorry but his words froze in his mouth. Off course, being in one of the most frightening assassin team in the world doesn't mean that you have to be impolite. Unlike Farfarello, Nagi usually avoided unnecessary fights, but it must be noted that the person had to be settled for the "sorry", if not, Nagi could also be dangerous.

"Where do you think you're going, Nagi?" Crawford asked. He seemed to be in a bad mood but his tone was layered with something Nagi could not decipher. "Could it be looking for one of our members?"

"Crawford… o-o-kaeri…," Nagi muttered. Instinctively his head lowered to keep away from the American's glance. Something about this man always scared him.

"I'm not even home yet," grumbled the man. He sighed as if to get rid of his emotions. "Come. I've been waiting for you. I thought you would never wake up."

The man grabbed the brown haired boy by his arm and dragged him to the basement where Schuldig had waited inside his car.

"Get in!" he shoved the boy into the back seat and then turned to Schuldig. "Get moving and stop smoking! I hate the reek of your car already." He took the cigarette from the red head's lips and crushed it into the ashtray.

The red head muttered several strings of curses in his own tongue but he obeyed his leader anyway and sped outside the apartment building. "Where do I have to drive to, Crawford-sama?" he asked in teasingly.

Crawford glared at him but then he turned himself to the back seat. "Where did he go, Nagi? You must have a clue."

"I… I really don't," Nagi mumbled. He only knew that Farfarello must have gone out, but he couldn't guess where he headed to. Farfarello liked to hurt religious people. He might have gone to a church or monastery but he could also be found randomly tormenting people.

Schuldig spat, "Brad, aren't you the one who have the precognition? You're supposed to know where he heads to right when you called me." He calmly opened his window, took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it to Crawford's disappointment. He liked to smoke cigarette to enhance his concentration when driving a car. Nicotine gave him a kind of calmness that nothing could give him.

"Didn't I tell you not to smoke?" Crawford yelled at the German.

The car stopped at red light.

"Look, Brad, first of all, this is my car, and second, it's my right to smoke here." He stared at the American with irritation. "If you don't calm down why don't you have one yourself? This thing refreshes your mind." He took his cigarette from his lips and shoved it into Crawford's.

The traffic light turned green and the car started to move again.

The American hurried taking it from his lips. He hated to be defeated, but somehow he took it back to his lips and drew a deep inhale of nicotine blend and tobacco. He realized he was almost losing control on his emotion. Thank goodness Schuldig kept him in check. Everything seemed to be wrong that afternoon starting when Schuldig dragged him to Nagi's school. And now Farfarello was missing.

Off course he already knew what the Irish might do. Precognitive visions didn't always tell the real future. It only told what might happened if nothing wringed it. Crawford sometimes thought the oddity of the future and his precognitive ability; how the ability of people to choose could make a big change to the world and made his visions gone amiss. A little butterfly's wing flaps could create a whole thunderstorm in the other side of the world. Well, that needed a very long explanation then.

But most of the time, if he concentrated hard, he would see what might happen with all those alternative of choices made by others. The only problem was to determine which choice would be chosen. And there were too many people who had this freedom to choose, and there were too many possibilities. That's why he hated God to give such freedom to mankind.

Right now he was not still sure which of the alternatives he had seen might happen. There were too many factors to see, though he only needed to check on two particular persons. But these two had already given him too much.

Brad, where do I have to drive to? We can't find him by driving around, right?

Nagi might know how to get there… but….

Schuldig stole a glance towards the man at the passenger's seat.

Since when do you have a heart, Brad? I never knew you're so considerate towards the brat.

Shut up!

"You don't have to be so tensed," muttered the German apparently he smiled to see Crawford smoking, it had been a very long time since he last saw that. His hand reached to the mirror and adjusted it to be able to see the boy at the back seat. He only needed the rear view mirrors to drive, the other one was not so necessary for him. "Du, Nagi, where do we have to head?"

The boy shrugged. He didn't know either. He was thinking of following the blood trail that Farfarello left behind, but he knew it was not a wise decision. Farfarello healed quickly, the bleeding would stop soon and he would loose the trail.

"Smart thinking," said Schuldig, "You're not genius for nothing. But I don't like driving aimlessly around Tokyo, especially if I'm the one paying for Benzin."

Nagi glared at the driver. Schuldig must have read his peripheral thoughts, the unnecessary thoughts that he emitted. He kept the important ones to himself.

"Why don't you use your radar and search for Farfarello yourself?" he grunted.

Schuldig gave a sigh, "And losing the fun of searching? Oh, c'mon!" He waved his hand as if he just heard something ridiculous. Of course Nagi had his point and Schuldig could actually do that if he wanted to. But searching for a person would meant that he had to turn down his own barrier and that would make thoughts from other people going into his head unfiltered. He usually did it to find persons in Rozenkreuz, but people there had barriers.

Schuldig, I think I've seen that sign before.

"Yes, Braddy dear?"

"Turn left." Crawford pointed left.

The red head followed the finger and saw a large department store sign. "Of course you've seen that thing. That road leads to Nagi's school. You saw it this afternoon when I drag you there– ah…!" Schuldig just realized his big mistake.

"You were at the school?" Nagi moaned in disbelief. Now he really was in big trouble. If the two of them was at school, that meant they were there when he read the essay. That also meant that Crawford knew about the parent day and what he wrote. Crawford would make a big fuss about it. He had to thank Schuldig for taking the American there. He had mentioned it clearly, "…when I drag you there."

"Moron!" was the only word that skipped through Crawford's lips.

Nagi shrugged again but then he started to open his mouth, "Look, about the essay, I didn't write anything about us. I don't see why you have to keep a secret that you come. Why didn't you enter the class?"

"You were already in front of the class and reading," Crawford answered shortly. His right hand moved up to fix his glasses to its place. He was covering up something. Nagi had learned from his years living with the American that he always did it when he was not telling the truth or if he were up to something. The only natural-born liar in the group was Schuldig. Farfarello hardly ever tell lies. For him lies and truth didn't exist.

"But you were the first to hide it from me."

"You said you didn't want to attend any school business, so why telling you?"

"That doesn't mean you can keep it secret as you like."

So it's becoming a personal matter, Papa Brad?

Schuldig's lips curled to a satisfying smile. At least now he was sure that the leader cared about the youngest one anyway. He knew Crawford wouldn't do anything bad to him. Off course a punishment would be obvious but it wouldn't be something to be afraid of – in a Schwarz point of view, that is.

Shut up!

But I like to see him this lively. Don't you, Brad?

Crawford glanced at Schuldig but he said nothing. The red head's smile widened to a grin. He felt like he had just won a big war. He had made the stoic American speechless two times this evening.

"I only thought it would be wiser not to tell you something unimportant," Nagi still tried to defend himself. He looked sulky.

Crawford crushed his cigarette on the ashtray. "We'll discuss about this later." He looked outside and saw that they had just passed Nagi's school. The car headed on to the suburban housing area. It was already dark. The city light polluted the sky and turned into dull purple. He hated city light. They were all fake.

"We have to find Farfarello. I hate unnecessary killings," he continued after a while. He was still looking outside but his gaze was fixed on something unseen. The night breeze blew on his face as the car sped still. The road was empty.

Nagi and Schuldig both stared at their leader. They knew he was getting those visions again. Something was about to happen. Farfarello is up to killing someone and it seemed that he was not picking his victim randomly tonight. Something in Crawford's words made Nagi grew uneasy. He rarely cared what the Irish was doing. One less person in this world usually meant nothing to him. But tonight was different; he wondered whom the Irish meant to torture tonight.

"Do you know the victim, Crawford?" he asked.

Crawford snapped but he soon gained himself. He turned himself to the boy. "A woman, end of twenties, I suppose. Oval glasses or something like that," he paused, "Funny, but I think I've seen a figure like that today." He fell to silence again, "Could it be…?"

Now Nagi felt as if his heart beat was pounding faster.

"Who's she?"

He felt like he was not going to like the answer.

"What do you mean, Brad?" Schuldig bothered to voice up his mind.

Crawford turned to Schuldig. He answered, but he didn't sound quite sure about it, "She reminds me of a woman I saw at school today."

Nagi gasped, "You mean…." His mouth hung open for a while. There were a lot of women at school that afternoon, but somehow the only one he could think of was, "Sakoda-sensei?"


- tbc -

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to say Tank or Benzin.... Schu's inserting a bit of German here.

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