Disclaimer: Ai no Kusabi is the property of Yoshihara Rieko and June. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: based on the anime, not the novel; set half a year after the end of the anime

Reflections
by Kadira (September '04)

His gaze seems far away as he stands in the remains of what was Dana Bahn not too long ago. Yet, it is only an appearance. As always, some part of his mind takes in every detail of his surroundings, no matter how small, starting with the trash that has collected between the ruins, the plants that fight their way through the stones, and a damaged wall to his left. That paying attention is essential for ones survival on the streets, he has learned and honed already as a child, when the slums were the only home he knew.

As he looks around, Katze can't help but wonder just where exactly the place is that they found death. He doesn't have a real reason to want to know, maybe apart from some morbid curiosity or just having something to focus on, something else than the pain that accompanies the loss. Being here for the first time since it happened is astonishingly difficult. The pain is still there and the wound still open, just as fresh as it has been six months, a few weeks and even just two days ago. He doesn't expect for it to go away either. Like everything else it will become part of his life and accompany him until the end. It is just there and he would learn to live with it in due time. A part of him already has gotten accustomed to it, but not enough to allow him to ignore it, even less to forget.

He doesn't really feel the biting wind as he walks between the ruins. There are signs of other visitors, like the trash that seems to be everywhere and piles of stones here and there, too organized as that it could be the result of the explosion. As usual, such places attracted the interest of everybody. He's pretty sure that there's nothing valuable to find here anymore. The mob will already have taken care of that months ago. For a moment he wonders if Raoul and Guy were here, too, trying to understand and to pay their respect. Probably. Not that Raoul would ever talk about it or that Katze would ask. If it were Iason, he maybe would find a way to get it out of him, but he doesn't know Raoul nearly good enough for that, nor has he any interest to find out about it. These days, they talk even less than before. Such pain is not something to be shared with others, even less in their different positions.

His fingers graze the scar at his cheek when he pushes back his hair. A mark that will never vanish, given to him by the very man he came here to moan. A punishment that turned out to be a liberation. From furniture to Black Market leader... Not that Riki would ever have understood it. His smile is faint as he remembers one of the times they worked together, just a few months after Riki returned to Eos. They had sat together after a possible business partner had left, finishing their drinks. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable, but relaxing, of the kind only few people could appreciate. Riki was one of them, which made working with him a pleasant affair.

But that day he had been different, more restless than usual. Katze had blamed their last talk, when he had tried to show Riki in a very practical way just how lucky he could count himself that he was Iason's pet and not that of anybody else, and prepared himself inwardly for another 'why' sessions. It wouldn't be the first. For some reason, Riki always came to him as far as his relationship with Iason was concerned, almost as if he knew that he was responsible for it.

"Don't you hate him? Sometimes at least?"

The unexpected question startled him, yet he kept the blank expression he had perfected over the years as a dealer. "Why?"

"For what he did to you. He took everything away from you, two times. How can you not hate him?"

Katze laughed softly. "It is not that easy. Life never is, but I thought you of all people would know that by now." More silence. "Do you hate him then? And don't give me your standard answer," he added, when the by know familiar glare in Riki's eyes appeared and he opened his mouth to speak.

It worked. For some time the silence returned between them. Just when Katze was about to resign himself to either more prodding or not getting an answer at all - both of which would have been fine with him - Riki spoke again, "I don't know," he said, voice thoughtful. "Sometimes I think, I do. Sometimes, I just wish I would."

One of many talks, all of them of a similar nature, as Riki tried to re-adjust to life with Iason and to accept the situation and to deal with feelings he didn't even want to understand. It seemed, as if Riki saw him as the only person who could understand him and who, in return, could make him understand. Probably because they were in a similar situation, both part of a world they didn't really belong to, caught in the middle with the elite.

But not even during the time when Riki had started to work for him, months before Iason had stepped into his life, they had talked that much. And while the questions and debates tended to annoy him, he still tried his best to give answers, and, after a time, he even looked forward to their talks. Even now he can't say if it was due an obligation he felt for Riki, because he really wanted to help him, or because it allowed him to see a different side of Riki the Dark, or ...

For a short moment, Katze comes to a hold and rubs his arms while staring ahead of him without actually seeing anything. He wonders, neither for the first nor for the last time, he's sure about that, if he regrets his action. And as always, the answer is the same: No. Only the ending, the final act of a drama that nobody could stop or turn around anymore at the time everything was revealed.

Daryl had asked him once, in the beginning, if he knew how that alliance had come into being. How somebody like Iason could ever get entangled with a slum mongrel like Riki. Not just in the way it happened, but on such an intimate level. Then, when Katze had just shrugged, if he did have a hand in it.

Katze had just laughed it off then and turned around, not bothering to answer. It wasn't necessary either, not anymore after the time they'd known each other. "Does one of them know that you are responsible for this? How could you set him up? Condemn Riki to such a life? He is one of us!" the furniture has asked him the next time. The younger man's hands were clenched to fists at his side and his eyes were burning with anger. "What did he do to you that you hate him so much?"

Hate? Even now Katze can't suppress a chuckle at that. It isn't a pleasant sound. The lack of hate had been one of the reasons. He never hated Riki, never had a reason to do so. Rather had Riki's temperament reminded him of himself.

He told Daryl nothing of that, of course. He wouldn't have understood it anyway. Instead he just said, "Don't mistake your loyalties. You haven't been one of the slums anymore for a long time," Katze told him indifferently, seemingly blind to the sudden flinch. "It was for the best. He wouldn't have survived another year on the streets, no matter his talent and skills."

Of that he was sure. Rumors in the market made their round as fast as illegal products. One had to be blind and deaf to ignore them. Climbing up the ladder in the Black Market as fast as Riki had done was always accompanied by the envy of those less successful. Riki could have counted himself lucky, if he would have survived another year.

And compared to that being roughed up by the bodyguard elite, how they liked to call themselves, was nothing. They were only out to relieve their frustration of the system and since they couldn't get close to the ones responsible, they, in their whole cowardly glory, chose the weakest target, the ones that were personas non-grata, those nobody gave a damn about - slum mongrels. It had been easy to convince them to take on the job. Just some hard to gain alcohol, some out-of-planet cigarettes and the deal was done.

Iason was nothing compared to what could have happened to Riki if he had stayed in Ceres, actively involved in the Black Market business. He doubts that Riki would have seen it his way, though.

After he had ensured the bodyguard elite's cooperation, it had only been a matter of logistic to get Iason to the place Riki would be at that time. Some packed streets and an additional business factor took care of that.

He still remembers the unusual anxiety he felt when he drove them to the scene. He didn't know if and how Iason would react, even less anything after that. It could just as easily have happened that the Blondie wouldn't even have noticed what went on outside, that some mongrel getting beaten up wouldn't have interested him or that he, once the deed was done, would have returned to the car, without the two of them ever exchanging a word.

For the later, though, he had counted on Riki, knowing him at least a bit. The former had been the real question, because if something was predictable about Iason, it was that he was absolutely unpredictable, especially when he was in one of his moods. But even for that he had a backup plan. He wouldn't just have left Riki to die.

His anxiety had made it nearly impossible to keep up an aura of disinterest when Iason ordered him to stop. Without a word, the Blondie had stepped out of the car and things progressed from there on exactly as Katze had intended -- for both of them.

The first pages in this script, which then had taken on a life on its own and had completely gone out of control, were written. A part of him had expected no less. A part of him knew what they could do to each other, despite all the problems they would have to face, and despite Riki's resistance. In his eyes, behind his defiance, he could see the passion burning. At first for nothing in particular but his freedom, then, later, more veiled, for Iason. He had known the effect this combination of the two of them would have. At least to some extent.

Fire and ice, both too strong to destroy the other, yet strong enough to leave a mark. The fire would thaw the ice that was Iason and the ice would cool down Riki's fire a bit. It was the ideal combination. A challenge, not just for Iason, but for Riki as well, as for the rest of Tanagura. Yet, not even he had thought that it would turn into so much more, that beyond the layer of coldness would burn such a fire and that Riki would be the one to kindle it, however unintentionally. In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised him. And maybe his subconscious realized it already then and urged him to act on it.

He was too far away to hear or see much of the exchange that took place after the rescue, but something had clearly happened, so he followed them discreetly in the car to wait for Iason in front of Riki's home where they had ended up. It was what was required of him, since the head of Tanagura could hardly walk around alone in the slums.

As time went on and Iason didn't return, Katze allowed himself to relax slightly, even let a smirk appear on his face. Yet, even he was surprised when not just Iason returned to the car much later, but Riki as well. A very much out of it looking Riki, something not even the deadly glare he shot at the Blondie could change. Iason for his part just ignored Riki for the time being. "Eos, Katze. I think we can take care of the rest at some other day," he told him, voice as calm and collected as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Yet there was something in his eyes ... Though, Katze doubted that anybody who didn't know the Blondie could see it.

It had been the beginning of the end, even if at that time none of them knew it.

It was the last time he saw Riki for the next three years. He heard rumors about how Riki shook up the very foundation of the existence of pets, rumors about the two of them engaging in acts that were unthinkable between Blondie and pet, but nothing more. It was clear that Iason kept Riki systematically away from everybody.

Then, three years later, Iason had suddenly shown up. Not just called him, but personally came into his office. "I'm letting him go."

His lack of understanding must have shown clearly in the first shock, because Iason laughed. Katze thought he heard an underlying mix of bitterness and resignation in it. "Just for a year. I want for him to get some fresh air."

- and to make him realize what it is he really wants - you, Katze added silently in sudden understanding.

It were words, Iason would never say, but it showed very clearly just how the last three years, how Riki, had affected him. "I want for you to keep an eye on him. I don't want for anything to happen to him, Katze."

Not that he ever had refused an order, but the worry he heard would have made it even more impossible. "He knows how to survive on the streets. There is no danger for him." Not from the outside at least, not anymore after he had vanished for three years.

"Still. Make sure that he's still alive and healthy after the year. That is your responsibility now."

And so he had done, unobtrusive observing, making sure that Riki never found out. In the beginning, he had half expected for Iason to want a report ever so often. Much to his surprise, it never came. They retained their business relationship, of course, but it never went beyond that. In a way, Katze was glad for it, despite the unease and the growing restlessness he could sense from the Blondie as the year progressed.

And what should he have told him? That Riki struggled with a life that wasn't his anymore? That he spent his time getting drunk and avoiding Guy's advances? That the pet on vacation was just as restless as the master? But that he, contrary to Iason's hopes, wouldn't return willingly? That he couldn't do it, even if he would have been able to admit his own feelings? Riki had fought too long and too hard to gain back his freedom, however illusionary that might have been, had told himself too often and firmly that he neither wanted nor needed Iason as that he could go against that now - even if he knew that it couldn't last. The gaze when Riki had visited him, asking him if he was behind Kirie and he had mentioned Iason, had been proof enough for that. Riki had known deep down that Iason hadn't released him, that he had just granted him an extended vacation.

Kirie ... the first victim of the madness called passion and love that bound Riki and Iason. He had shown up just at the right time to play perfectly well into Iason's hands. Another puppet to be used. "Why do you want me to betray Bison?" he had asked straight forward. Katze applauded him for this foolish notion that could be rewarded as well as bring death in the Black Market.

"Because Iason wants it. You are working for him and will do as he says, never forget that."

"Of course not!" Such eagerness in this three words. Katze knew that Kirie expected more out of working for Iason than he would ever get.

"He wants Riki back," Katze explained, voice emotionless. "And for that he needs to break up Bison."

"Riki?" the youth asked, not understanding at all. "What does he want with him?"

"He has been with Iason before and Iason wants him back in Eos now. But it seems your gang leader needs a bit of … persuasion."

"With him? You mean as ... a pet?" Kirie asked, clearly stunned. "Why him?"

"That is all you need to know. Just do your job and you'll be rewarded," Katze told him, unwilling to go further into this, before he laid out the plan to Kirie, all the while ignoring the unspoken questions and the disappointment he could see in the other's eyes.

And how should he have explained to him, who had no experience whatsoever in the field, something not even those directly involved could fully comprehend, when even Riki and Iason could just act on the force that were their emotions?

Because that much became obvious when Iason had turned to him after the year was almost at its end.

"You'll set up Bison. Use Kirie. He will be more than eager to do it," Iason had said, a hint of distaste in his voice.

"Why? They are no danger."

A moment of uncontrolled emotions flashed in the other's eyes, let them come to life and showed Katze that he had asked the wrong question. Yet, he had worked together with and for Iason long enough to know that calm was the key with him. He had settled back and lit himself another cigarette while he waited for the Blondie to calm down.

"Because the year is over." Simple, matter-of-factly, like almost everything he did. "I always keep my promises and I want Riki back. He is mine and will return to my side."

Katze nodded but remained silent. He didn't have a doubt that Iason had a plan already.

"Isn't that what you have expected when you brought us together?" Katze startled at the question. It was impossible to cover his momentary shock. Iason laughed. "You didn't think that I wouldn't realize that, did you? I should probably kill you for forcing me into a situation where emotions overrule my rational thinking. However you gave me Riki and you will help me to get him back now, so I'm willing to overlook that. What I really want to know is why did you do it?"

Katze swallowed. He hadn't experienced such a particular feeling of discomfort in a very long time. That was not a situation he was prepared for, nor did he believe that he ever could have been. Though, it probably shouldn't have surprised him, seeing just who he was dealing with. To underestimate somebody could happen to the best, only in his case, it was already the second time with the same person, the first time being partly responsible for his current situation. With care, he put out his not even half finished cigarette, then leaned back. "You were bored with the usual and Riki seemed like a good way to solve that. That's all."

And it was mostly true as well. He certainly didn't expect for Iason to become obsessed with Riki to a point that he even risked the wrath of Jupiter. His ruthlessness in getting what he wanted was nothing new, the underlying passion however, was. It seemed, once set free there was no reining it anymore. He could almost feel pity for Riki. After being the target of this particular Blondie's obsession for three years, it was no surprise that he felt lost now.

Iason accepted his answer after a short moment with a nod, then changed the topic. "And this is what you'll do..."

And with that the next stage had been set. The trap around Riki was closing once more, without that he even knew it. And much like that first time, there was no way Riki could escape it, even if he wanted to, which Katze still doubts, even after all that happened.

With numb fingers, he fishes for a new box of cigarettes in his coat pocket, tucks one between equally cold lips and lightens it.

Riki never had a chance. Not that first time and certainly not anymore the second.

"Why don't you come out straight and say it's Iason?"

Riki's expression, especially his eyes, showed his emotions much better than words ever could have done - shock, anger, resentment, but also longing. Eyes, the window to the soul. Never had the saying sounded more true.

"Don't underestimate Iason."

Not that there was still need to say this. Riki knew it already then. Spending three years in the kind of relationship they had, left one with certain knowledge about the other's personality, even if said person was a Blondie. But for some reason Katze had felt obliged to say it, to warn Riki. It was the least he could do. Not that it would change anything.

"And if you really want to be free, leave Tanagura."

Not that Riki would ever have done it. He couldn't. That much was obvious after their talk. He was too thoroughly trapped in the web Iason and his own emotions had spun and from which he couldn't free himself. And maybe, deep down, at a place where he didn't need to confront that particular desire, he didn't even want to either.

The next time he saw Riki was when the trap snapped shut.

"You bastard! Where's Guy? And the others? Using dirty tricks on us!"

"I warned you Riki."

And he had done so. If Riki had been so determined to stay away from Iason, he would have listened to his instincts, taken his belongings and run as far and fast as any possible. Not that it would have done him much good, but Iason would have had a much harder time tracking him down outside of Tanagura.

"Have you got the determination to fight against the whole of Tanagura?"

He could just as well have said against Iason, because Iason was Tanagura, but Riki knew that as well as anybody else.

Again, it was him who drove Iason to Riki the next day. Again, he stayed in the car, waiting for the inevitable outcome, unable to still his thoughts, wondering, worrying, maybe for the first time asking himself where this would lead to, knowing very well that this wouldn't just be a repeat performance of the last three years. They both had influenced each other too much, both, unintentionally and deliberately, had allowed the other to leave his print and on the way changed too much as that they could just take off where they had stopped a year ago. In fact, as far as Katze saw it, there were only two possibilities, either they grew closer or they would cause each other's downfall.

What eventually happened never even once crossed his mind.

Obviously like Iason, he had forgotten about Guy as soon as Iason's order was followed and he was released again. With Riki being back in Eos, Guy had lost all importance and had been degraded once more to being just another slum mongrel.

A miscalculation he would have time to regret for a very long time. Had he just paid some more attention on the streets, maybe he would have heard that the former second in command of Bison had lost it and spent his time with unusual activities, like getting maps of places like Dana Bahn and Eos and buying explosives in masses. If he had done that, he would never have agreed to take Riki back into the Black Market business. As it was, it had seemed save when Iason had approached him.

... He used to work for you before. Could you still use him?

...Seems like the water of Eos does not agree with a mongrel from the slum ...

... He came pleading that he would suffocate here. HE came to ME. That's why if you can use him, I'm willing to loosen his chain a bit more.

... It's better than letting him suffocate in Eos.

It spoke volumes.

"Do you love him so much?"

He never got an answer. Of course not. But the silence was revealing and shocking in itself. More so than a mere 'yes' or any word of affirmation could have been. He had suspected it, of course, but to hear it - or rather not to hear it -, so clearly, showed how seriously affected Iason was.

What are you going to do Riki? You've completely dragged down a Tanagura Blondie to the level of a low-class human. What are you going to do from now?

He doesn't think that Riki was even really aware of the risks Iason's took not only by being unable to deny his request, but by loving him.

When Riki suddenly had vanished and vague rumors about him and Guy had made the rounds, he had believed that it had been Riki's choice, that he had once more put his desire for freedom before everything else, regardless of who would get hurt on the way. Despite Iason's insistence that he shouldn't do anything, he had searched, of course, had used his connections to find them in the firm intention of giving Riki a serious piece of his mind.

The memory becomes even bitterer when he sets it in relation to Iason, who seemingly not once had believed that it was just another one of Riki's stunts, that his pet had escaped once more. He knew that something was wrong, right from the beginning.

"Indeed, you're such a hopeless case."

Katze closes his eyes as those words come unbidden into his mind. Had he really doubted Riki that much? Had he really believed that he would wander off into the sunset with Guy, pet ring on and everything, leaving Iason behind? It had been a stupid assumption, especially after Riki had given him the emergency call and even more after the last weeks, when the two of them seemed to have found their own special peace, as Katze realized later. But in that moment, he had allowed himself to be overcome by anger, disappointment and worry for both of them, which had made rational thinking almost impossible.

"How's Iason?"

Not a: 'He must be furious', as he would have said in the past, no fights, not even the beginning of rebellious behavior, nothing. Just these simple words. Calm, yet, in retrospect, he can hear the underlying pain and desperation in it.

"Go and see for yourself."

"It's too late. I can't see him now."

Just as calm and collected on the surface, with even more hidden pain and despair, mingled with resignation. It should have stopped him. Maybe it would have, if he wouldn't have had to watch Iason during the last days, being eaten alive by worries.

"Haven't got time to listen to your impertinent talk. Hurry up and get ready."

"I can't go back, Katze ... I'm not a man anymore ... I'm the same as you now. It was the only way to take the Pet ring off. What a bitter requital."

His hands clench involuntarily as he remembers, as he feels the same bang of realization he had that day. Riki hadn't been at his best then, but even so, did he really think that that would have stopped Iason? That the Blondie would just have thrown him away like a broken toy? Did he still doubt the Blondie's feelings, the bond between them? Hadn't he realized by then that he, too, held power over Iason and that his master was just as much a slave as Riki himself?

The world blurs as he remembers everything that happened then, the questions he would never get answered, the regret of not having been cautious enough ... just everything and he feels light-headed as he sits down on an artificial pile of stones, his back supported by the remains of the automatic locking doors.

He allows his surroundings to blur entirely and to let the last few moments come into focus -- Riki, who could barely walk, dragging a seemingly lifeless Guy with him, then falling unconscious before he had even reached the car. He remembers the not yet dried tracks of tears on the other's cheeks, the still reddish eyes, the desperate expression in the same, when Riki had finally regained consciousness.

"Haven't got time for that. Still inside...... Iason's...still inside...."

The few moments it took him to digest and comprehend the words, to make sense of them, seemed to drag on forever, far too long as that he could have changed anything. This is at least what he tried to tell himself over and over again as days turned into weeks, then months. And even now, he doesn't know if it is the truth, if he couldn't have saved Iason and so, in essence, both of them, if he had taken control over the situation. Maybe Jupiter could have done something, maybe the praised doctors working for the elite, maybe ... Only a few of many questions he would never get an answer to.

His hands are shaking as he pulls out another cigarette and lights it.

"And you just left him there?" His shock had been plain and honest. That hadn't been something he would have expected after the last weeks. Not even for Guy. But maybe he should have. Loyalty was after all one of Riki's greatest strengths and weaknesses. It was the reason he had been the unchallenged leader of Bison for so long and in return had made it so easy for Iason to bring him back.

Yet, it still had seemed like an impossible to grasp concept for him.

With effort, Riki had sat up. "He told me to go, to take Guy away. He ... he can't move anymore," he explained, voice shaking. The tears in the other's eyes, first just watering them, giving them an almost feverish glance, then finding a way out, came as a shock. Katze couldn't remember any other time that Riki the Dark had shed tears. Not for anything. Anger and rage, yes, betrayal as well, but never tears, certainly not in front of him.

"Damn him!"

Katze wasn't exactly sure whom Riki meant, but it didn't matter either. With even more effort, Riki stood up. Katze resisted the urge to help him, knowing that it wouldn't be anymore welcome than it would be if their roles were reversed. Instead, he tried to get his mind around what he heard, tried to make sense out of it, tried to find a solution. He never got that far.

"Promise me that you'll take care of Guy," Riki demanded, mouth set into a thin line. "He will need medical attention..."

"We can take care of that when we get back," Katze said, mind going on autopilot. A detached part of him realized it for what it was -- self-protection. Just as it had helped him in the past, it suppressed now everything else but what was important. Riki and Guy both needed medical attention. As soon as possible.

"No. Take Guy and go. I can't leave here."

Katze had starred at him, his mind for a moment curiously blank. "Why?" was all he could get out, his voice tense.

At the same moment he asked the question, the answer presented itself, even without Riki saying anything. It was in his eyes, in the unpredicted tears, in the unambiguous despair he radiated. Yet there was more. Not just determination, but that special kind of understanding and acceptance only the fewest people would ever experience in the most extreme situations. It radiated from him and through his despair like the light of a candle would cut through an almost impenetrable darkness.

It seemed, Riki not just had understood, but also accepted. Not just the situation and that, like before grudgingly, but he had been able to see and comprehend the whole image and, even more importantly, had admitted his own feelings. Now at the very end, when there was no way out anymore...

Katze just nodded, unable to say anything, not even knowing what to say. There were no words that were sufficient. Not in this situation.

"I won't - can't - let him go alone. Promise me that you'll take care of Guy, Katze." Not just pleading, but imploring, with the force of all his pent-up and far too long suppressed emotions.

Katze nodded. "You serious?" he finally asked, forcing breath through a far too tight chest and throat.

Riki nodded. "He knew Guy would be a hindrance, he risked himself to save me, that's enough reason to go back. I won't let him go on his own."

The aggressive fire of the explosions lighted the world around them once more. Time was running out. Not that there was much left to say. The determination in Riki's eyes showed clearly that he had made up his mind, and Katze would be the last to stop him. Wordlessly, he brought out his almost empty box of cigarettes and gave it to Riki. "It's Black Moon. I have it 'cause of the business, just in case." He swallowed. "You'll soon be relieved if you smoke it." It was the least he could do.

"Thanks. For everything," Riki said with a slight smile, before he went towards the inferno to be reunited with the man he had tried to escape from for the better part of the time they had together -- and into certain death.

As soon as Riki had left, he grabbed Guy and dragged him to the car, not able to stick around for longer.

He doesn't remember much anymore of what happened then, just the emptiness he felt, followed by pain that nagged at him, but which he first allowed out when he'd reached the comforting solitude of his own place. But then full force, as everything came together and crushing down on him like the stones had crushed down here, like a part of Tanagura had come crushing down with Iason's death.

But even then, the whole impact of everything it meant had been just out of his reach. Being caught in his own shock and pain, he couldn't deal with it just then, couldn't care what it meant for anybody else. Not that he had any say in it. Life would continue in Tanagura, as always, with just a few changes, which most of the ordinary population wouldn't even realize.

Just as it had been the case.

Katze closes his eyes for a moment and lays his head against the cold wall behind him.

It had been the end of it.

Almost.

Just far too few weeks later, Guy had come into his office, uninvited and unwanted. The last living remainder of the tragedy that took place.

A wave of emotions had swept over him as he had laid eyes on the one responsible for everything. Part of him wanted to get out his gun and to put a final end to it by just shooting him, another part of him wanted to lay his hands around the mongrel's throat and to see the light leaving his eyes, maybe in the moment of final understanding, but another part just wanted to send him away, in the hope that he would never see him again. Yet, there was something in Guy's eyes that didn't allow for him to do any of that. He can't say if it was the obvious emotional pain the other suffered or his desperate wish to understand.

"Why did he do that?" Guy had asked, voice low. "Why did he chose the one who turned him into ... this, for his own sick pleasure?"

Katze shook his head. "If you still don't understand it, you never will, no matter what I tell you."

"But I want to. I need to understand it," almost pleading. Guy hated himself for it, he could see that much, in his eyes as well as in his posture, as he huddled together on the couch.

Katze shook his head, then lit a cigarette. Unlike Riki the last time he had been here, he didn't offer Guy one. He had no reason to do so. Thoughtful, he sat across from Guy, while trying to find the right words.

"People, somehow somewhere, have to support each other to live. No matter who is whose support," he said finally. "I don't quite understand it, but they could only be drawn close by rebelling against each other. I suppose...perhaps it was fate. Master and Pet. You may be reluctant to accept it, but some love can only be requited in such an ending."

In the other's eyes, he could see that he indeed didn't understand. "Love?" Guy finally spit out. "He brainwashed him and turned him into his toy! That is all he did! Riki didn't love him. He would never have gone to him if he had a choice!"

Katze shrugged. He hadn't expected anything else. Even if Guy had been more open to it, the pain would have fogged his mind. Not that it still mattered. If Guy couldn't see the obvious proof, he couldn't help him. He put out his cigarette and stood up, turning towards his terminal again. Half there, he stopped once more. "Have you ever asked Riki how he really felt? Before you did that to him? Did you never wonder why you only lost one arm but are still alive, despite everything you did?" he asked, voice tight, not facing the other man.

The only answer he got was the closing of the door after what seemed like an eternity of almost unbearable being together.

It was the last time he had spoken to Guy. Or heard of him or seen him for that matter. Maybe he had left Tanagura. Maybe somebody else got revenge for what he did. Guy, after all, had catapulted himself on the top of the list of the people most wanted dead, most of all by Jupiter and the elite. Maybe Raoul got his hands on him. He wouldn't put it past the Blondie to get revenge for his dead friend. If it hadn't been for his last promise to Riki, he might even have done it himself.

But as it was, it wasn't his concern. Never had been, maybe apart from the fact that he should have seen the danger Guy presented, the madness that consumed him and in the end everybody near him.

Then again, would they ever have come to the point that Riki had accepted his own emotions and chosen Iason out of his own free will if the situation had been any different? Or would that game of theirs have continued forever? Could they have found peace and happiness in life? With Jupiter and almost everybody being against them?

Katze shakes his head. More questions he would never get an answer to.

If he would believe that there was more to death than nothingness, -- anything at all --, he would hope for them that they finally found happiness and peace with and within each other.

For a moment longer he sits on the pile of stones, allows his thoughts to drift without actually thinking about anything. Then, as if driven by some invisible force, he comes to his feet. There was no sense in spending more time here, to dwell even longer in the past. It was time to return, to live on somehow, now that he gave his final goodbye, however insufficient it might have been.

The End