Getting in between Aya and Yohji again made him feel vaguely sick when he remembered it. His jaw still ached from where Yohji had hit him. Omi had tried to take care of him, to see if it might be cracked, but Ken had waved him off. He sat at the register, half-asleep, as Omi (how DID he stay so cheerful all the time even when he was running on fumes?) greeted the few customers they had. The door opened behind him and Aya stepped through, already wearing his apron.

"Go, Ken," he said gruffly. "You're doing us no good down here. Sleep."

Ken twisted to blink blearily up at him. "Where's Yohji?"

"He didn't answer his door," Aya said flatly, and stepped further into the shop, prompting a few squeals. Ken stumbled to his feet and headed out through the back. He stopped by Yohji's door and knocked, calling for him, but there was no answer. He twisted the knob and found it unlocked.

"Yohji?" he called, stepping inside. But the room was empty.

Ken would have loved nothing more than to go up to his bed and collapse, but he hadn't called ahead to find a substitute for the day's practice, so he would have to show up. He climbed into his soccer things and headed out, taking his motorcycle this time, since he was too tired to walk.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, and the wind came in off the sea, easing the glare of the sun from a cloudless blue sky. He was a bit sluggish, but his kids weren't yet good enough that he needed to always be on his toes to keep up with them. None the less, practice wore him out, and when the last of them had been toted away by his parents an hour later, he wandered into the trees with a bottle of water and collapsed against a random trunk, rubbing the sweat from his forehead with a terrycloth towel.

It was so warm, and nice, that he let his eyes close. In minutes, he was asleep again.

When he woke, the sun was low in the sky. He climbed to his feet and checked his belongings. Miraculously, he had not been robbed, and he felt slightly better for having taken a nap. He wondered whether Yohji was home yet – had he had any luck with getting Asuka to remember? Noticing that the sun would set in an hour or so, he headed back to where he'd parked his motorcycle.

After taking only a few steps, he stopped.

Kundalini research. Schreient. Harvesting soul energy. He turned. It would take him extra time, and this late, it was very unlikely he'd even find him, but he had to try. His questions were more urgent now.

He broke into a jog.

The Buddha sat serene, tucked into a copse of trees and glowing red in the dying light. The bench was empty. "Farfarello?" Ken called tentatively, stepping into the silence space of the bend in the path, but there was no response. He turned around a few times, peering through the trees, but caught nothing. Disappointed, he trudged back to his motorcycle. He'd have to find his answers elsewhere, it seemed.

He hadn't been back at the shop for more than a few minutes before the phone rang, and Omi's startled voice declared that Neu had gotten some of her memory back, and had disclosed the location of Schreient's base to Yohji. Ken was overjoyed, and supportive. After all, it would be such a wonderful thing if it was true, if Yohji got Asuka back.

He needed her back, Ken realized slowly, as they made plans to meet up and attack the laboratory. Because Yohji was going insane, though none of them had really realized it yet. He was crumbling little by little under the stress, and the hopelessness, of what they did, and this incident had brought all that vulnerability and weakness boiling to the surface. He was a master of masks, Yohji Kudou was, but in the face of his once-true love, his masks were slipping.

Were they all like that on the inside, Ken wondered as he pulled on his bugnuks and tested the metal springs? Were they all crumbling bit by bit, waiting for a sufficiently strong emotional blow to knock the foundations out from under them? Was he that unstable too?

He'd already killed Kase, but in a way, he'd never be rid of him. He couldn't just forget, and not forgetting meant not healing.

He went to join the others downstairs.

X-X-X-

"I'm sorry," Omi had told him with that heartbreaking expression of regret on his face. "Things are moving too quickly now. You can rejoin them after we've gotten this taken care of, Ken-kun, but we need you to concentrate on helping us find Schreient."

He'd called in the substitute. He'd named the span of his absence as 'indefinite'. He had no excuse to be in the park right now, except the strong feeling in his gut that if he could just find Farfarello, the Irishman would have some of the answers he sought.

"I've got a lead on who might be running things behind the scenes," Omi had disclosed, fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. "But the security is unbelievable. It's going to take me a long time, and I just can't look into this and try and track down Schreient at once."

"So we find Schreient first." This was Aya. "They're a member short right now. They're weak."

It had been a good thing Yohji wasn't around to hear Aya say that. He'd killed Neu. He'd done what he had to do, as far as Ken saw it. But the act had damaged something critical deep inside the man, and since he'd crushed her trachea with his wires, he'd spent a great deal of his time either in his room or driving around the city, in tears.

When Ken let himself think about that, it made him so livid he could scream.

The bench was empty when he reached it, and for a minute he stared at it, feeling forlorn. Then he sat down and sprawled over it, arms hooking over the back. It was cloudy, and the sunlight was weak through the trees. The dull gray of the sky, and the frenetic activity of the last week or so, made him sleepy. His eyes drooped.

He wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming. He hoped he was dreaming. He had slid sideways on the bench, and his vision was pleasantly blurred. Strong fingers raked through his hair and kneaded his head, causing slow, gentle waves of bliss to wash down his spine. He felt so relaxed, he thought he might melt into the bench. With a mighty effort, he tilted his head back and found himself staring into a single golden eye, and the black patch of cloth covering the spot where the other had been.

"Is your eye really gone?" he slurred.

"I tore it out myself," came the soft, musical reply. Those fingers continued to work their way over Ken's scalp, making it impossible for him to move.

"There's something… I have to ask you," he managed, sighing as callused fingers rubbed at his temples.

"Then ask," Farfarello said quietly, his expression distant, his eye heavy-lidded.

"It's about the kundalini," Ken mumbled, eyes drifting shut despite himself. "To harvest spiritual energy like that, scientifically… can you really do that?"

"Science is the way of those who are not Awake," Farfarello told him, the lyrical rhythm of his voice lulling Ken even more. "We have better methods."

"So you ARE involved." Ken struggled to collect himself and sit up. "You know something about this, the weird killings with the spines cut out…."

Strong hands held him down, and slightly roughened thumbs dug into spots in his neck that caused a sudden release of warmth and lack of tension. He sank back obediently with a groan. "You need not be concerned about that," Farfarello told him. "If I were you, I would be worried about much more important things. It is all coming to a crucible. The best laid plans of men will be tried, and either succeed or fail. And the consequences…." His voice faded out for a moment. "… Will be dire."

"What are you talking about?" Ken's eyes closed again, and his jaw felt heavy.

"The end of the world," Farfarello murmured. "And the beginning of a new one. You will be there to see it, Hidaka Ken, Siberian kitten. But even the Oracle does not know if you will survive it."

"I don't know if I'd mind if the world ended," Ken told him blearily. "It all seems so pointless. Yohji's so sad… I don't understand why it has to be that way. What did he ever do to deserve that kind of pain? What did I do? What did Omi or Aya do?"

"Does it have to have a point?" Farfarello wondered.

"It should. Shouldn't it? If it doesn't, why are we here, anyway?" Ken felt his frustration rising, and he shifted in Farfarello's lap. "It's not fair. None of it's fair."

"Nothing is fair," Farfarello murmured. "There is no justice, in this world or the next, except the crude justice which man makes and wields in an effort to control his life and the lives of his neighbors. Injustice does not matter. What matters is whether you have the strength to overcome it."

"I don't know if I do," Ken admitted, feeling close to tears, anger and frustration and sadness and weariness mixing into a cocktail that threatened to boil over. "I don't know if any of us do. What happens if we don't? Do we break, or die? I don't want to. I don't want to see my friends broken."

"The shattering is not always the end," Farfarello told him soothingly, fingers stroking through his hair. "It is just a change. Like the Death card in the tarot deck, it does not always mean what you initially think it does."

"I wonder about that," Ken confessed, cracking his eyes open and seeing Farfarello still watching him. "You were a normal boy once, like I was, and you shattered, and you became this thing, and now you tell me Jei is dead. A ghost. What happens if it's too much for me? What happens if I shatter? Will Ken Hidaka be a ghost too? Will I just lose everything I was?" A pair of tears trickled from the corners of his eyes. He was too comfortable to move and wipe them away. "There's something dark down there. I don't want to set it free."

"If you do not," Farfarello told him quietly, "it will claw its way free and tear you apart in the process. It is as much a part of you as the light of God in your soul. You must know them both if you wish to be complete."

"You drowned all the light," Ken mumbled, watching those scarred lips move with a belated sort of fascination. "Is there anything in you except darkness?"

"I?" Farfarello's mouth quirked in amusement. "I was all darkness. With each passing day, I am more and more gray. I do not think I will ever become what you call 'light', but it is not as it was."

Ken found himself at a loss for words and made an effort to bestir himself. "Who's doing this?" he breathed. "Who's behind it all? It isn't you, or Schreient. You're all working for someone."

"In time, all things will be revealed to you," Farfarello told him, cool fingertips brushing across his forehead. "At the moment, I cannot say. The waiting will not be long, white kitten. You will know the truth soon."

"You can't, or you won't?" Ken demanded, half in despair.

"I won't," Farfarello corrected himself. "I am many things, but not a traitor."

"You can't like Crawford that much," Ken protested weakly. "The things he does to you…."

"It is not Crawford I fight for," Farfarello told him, pressing blissfully cool hands against Ken's neck and digging his fingertips in lightly. "I would not fight for any man. All of this is for something greater."

"Greater?" Ken whispered, blinking up at that delicately formed, scarred face.

"A dream," Farfarello told him. "That which is greater than all other motivations. I have one too, and the Oracle is merely one of those trying with me to see it through. We are not together because we like each other. We are together because we dream the same dream, and we are willing to fight against impossible odds to accomplish it."

Ken softened despite himself. "That's…."

"Hush." A slightly roughened thumb pressed against his lips. "You have not been sleeping well. Sleep now, until your comrades call you."

Ken opened his eyes. "How do you know I haven't been…." He began, but trailed off as Farfarello's knuckles dug into points on his neck that made his shoulders loosen even further. So strange, he could do this, or he could cause unbelievable pain, the same skill applied different ways. Where did he learn it?

"I see ghosts," Farfarello sang quietly to him. "I see the spirits of the dead. I know you are haunted, Hidaka Ken. The ghost disturbs your sleep, but I will not let him. You can rest here, now… one evil ghost will keep another one away." He giggled quietly, as if at some private joke.

It was ludicrous. It was dangerous. But if it was just a strange dream, what harm? Ken closed his eyes. Farfarello could slit his throat if this was real, tear his eyes out, rip him apart, but he couldn't summon the ability to care. He was so tired, and that attention felt so good, that he let himself drift off without further protest.

The sound of voices just barely managed to pierce the thick, blessed fog that descended over his mind.

"I don't know what you think you're doing. Didn't you tell me you don't play these kind of games?"

Low. Nasal. Schuldich.

"Do not presume to know my intentions." Musical and dark. Farfarello.

"You've got his head in your lap, and it's still attached to his body. That's a pretty clear indicator of your intentions. Didn't know you swung that way, Farfie."

"Sodomy hurts God." Farfarello's tone was content and even. He was not rising to Schuldich's bait. "But my mind is not a gutter like yours. I only want to show him the source of his pain before it overwhelms him."

"If it did, he'd be something like you. Doesn't the irony of that amuse you at all?"

"In a way."

A snort of disbelief. "Don't tell me you're trying to SAVE him. He's just a little lost kitten, scared of his own claws. He's Talentless. He's WORTHLESS."

"A man's worth is not based on the color of his skin or hair, the contents of his skull, or the arrangement of his genes," Farfarello said coolly. "You see human beings as playthings to be twisted to your whim. I see something more. This should not bother you. I am not interfering in your games."

"It bothers me because it means you care," Schuldich replied, sounding unaccustomedly solemn. "I worry about what HE'S doing to YOU…."

Ken went back to sleep.

X-X-X-