A Sense of Dark

Chapter Thirteen

by PenguinKye

October 12, 199X 7:00 PM

We got in the way we always get in, which is, I open doors and we sneak through them. I felt like we were developing a pattern with Weiß: open, creep, go to the basement, throw things around, leave. But we only got as far as creeping when we knew there was something wrong. Crawford was poised (poised, I guess, would be the thing he was) at the top of their silly concrete spiral stairs, and up floated the voice.

It was Omi Tsukiyono, which worked, because I hated him to begin with, so he might as well be the bearer of bad news. It was laughing. They all were, but he was laughing and trying to talk at the same time. It made him sound drunk.

It took a minute, but I did realize that it was being drunk that made him sound drunk. So he wasn't such a good little boy after all. He was a really naughty boy. They'd been closed for, what, an hour? Which I figured out more when he started talking. Up came his voice. It said:

"Heeh heehh…dammit dammit Ken should be shere becawsh…becawsh…victory over th' DARK BEESHTS, that's what becawsh."

"We dinit' hunt t'day, OmiOmiOmi," said Kudou's voice. "You…rr confuzzed."

"NO NO!" said Tsukiyono fiercely. "The ROACHEES…WILL NOT…CUBBACK…come back. Ack. Roach."

"Shutup." Oh the honorable leader. Who knew he'd talk better hammered than sober? "You makemy headhurtsoshutup."That was pretty much my thought. They kept talking, but none of us much noticed because of what Tsukiyono had said.

Ken. Hidaka. Currently. Not. Present.

"Anyway?" I asked, and even though it was a whisper it sounded like a scream without Schuldig to pass messages.

There was this pause from Crawford that I hated, since at any moment they might stop slurring in the basement, notice us and cut us to bits while Crawford made up his mind.

Kudou screamed because Tsukiyono had put beer-covered ice down his shirt. Then he fell off the couch and started writhing on the floor.

Crawford, I had to amend, could take his time for once without us getting dead.

"Yes. Go," Crawford breathed, just to screw with my amendment.

Farf grinned a little. A lot. I tried to figure out whether I should put Crawford between me and Farf or me between Farf and Crawford. Before I could decide, Crawford pushed me forward.

"You first," he hissed.

Oh thanks, I thought.

If they hadn't been totally wasted, Weiß would have noticed that I was walking down their stairs, standing behind their couch, purveying Kudou's writhing and Fujimiya's glowering and Tsukiyono's hysterical tooth-setting laughter.

"HELMEUP!" bellowed Kudou.

"Getchurself up," growled Fujimiya. Tsukiyono seemed to have passed out from laughing too long without breathing.

"I'll help you get up," I said quietly, and even in their stupors, Fuyimiya and Kudou went still and looked straight at me. Tsukiyono was in a different place, so by the time he managed to find 'up', Youji Kudou and the ceiling had bonded, and Fujimiya was lurching to his feet with a shout. His sword had appeared miraculously from under a sofa cushion.

This was a man with no life.

He probably would have drawn it to cut me in half or something, like he was in some lame samurai anime, but Crawford said, "Come now, young man. I think you'll find that I am going to kill you." So Crawford it disgusted me.

Meanwhile, Farfarello performed a circus-worthy springing leap from the stairs to the back of the sofa and was giving a full-on crazy one-eyed glare to a dazed and really unhappy-looking Tsukiyono. I had a vision of what Farf would want to do to him and I decided to pretend I was elsewhere.

I sat down next to Kudou, who was awake but disoriented.

"Why..shoo…lil…tiny…bashard…" he muttered. It was possible that the jolt to his head had taken the buzz off his drunkenness. He sort of lunged at me and I looked at him and he froze in mid-lunge.

"Why do you say those things?" I asked. He stared at me.

"The hell?" he demanded.

"Tsukiyono almost killed him, but I bet the words were yours," I said. He squinted for a longish time about that one before he started, looking enlightened (using that word really loosely).

"Wha, yer little murdring friend?" he asked. I wondered who the hell else I would be talking about, and why that was such a strange idea.

"Yes."

"Some shit...flawed something."

"What?"

"Sure I talked ta him…but he kept spouting this crazy crap. Hey, listen to the effin' aliter-alitertitation." He was silent for about four seconds. "So are you killing me or something?"

"You kill yourself."

"Huh?"

"I feel your lungs in my hands."

"…Gross."

"I feel them to crush them, cell by cell, tube by tube, like pink bubble wrap inside a box." I was speaking quietly. I always do, but I can hear it, and I know Crawford can hear it—the difference when I am angry. Kudou must have heard it too. He was starting to looked frightened.

"Shit…you are way freaking eviler than us," he said. Was it possible that he was almost amusing when he was drunk?

"But they aren't the right color, Youji Kudou," I said. "You've put so many diseases and poisons inside yourself that the only dark beasts you have to fear are the ones you put between your lips."

"Um…kay. So're ya gon kill me, ya freakin' freak?" I pinned him with my gaze and he went pale and slippery like butter left in the heat.

"All I have to do…is push a little harder." I was blind now to whatever it was that Farf and Crawford were doing. I was slipping deep into my favorite part of my talent, feeling the infintesimal: viruses and bacteria itching to swarm and kill, lungs and liver fading and warping, blackened by abuse. I pressed in on weakened organs, and Kudou gasped and curled in agony, like something small and wet stung with alcohol. I nudged at diseases and opened paths for them, helping them speed up and up and up, until they coursed through his body and wrought their destruction at hundreds of times the normal speed. His immuities were pinioned beneath my grip.

Writhing in drunkenness was not in the same kingdom as writhing in agony.

I sat quietly, working my will and watching as Youji Kudou got his comeuppance. Every foolish thing he had done was now working against him. All it took was faith and trust…and a little bit of revenge-driven telekenesis.

"Thank you," I said as Kudou sobbed and panted, and whispered, close to his ear, "Without the screaming, it
wouldn't really be revenge."

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NOTES:

Haha…yeah, as much as I like, my Nagi, he's a creepy little kid, isn't he? I think these are what we call anger management issues. Sorry about how INCREDIBLY short this chapter is. I got to this point and realized I needed a POV change. I promise to put 14 up really soon after this one. ;;

Oh, by the way—I got this body-controlling Nagi power from his resurrection of Tot. How he was able to do that was never really explained in the series (at least, not in the first one, and that's all I've seen), so I decided I was allowed to mess with it—and turn it to the opposite purpose. I think that Nagi is turning out as the most powerful part of Schwarz in this fic. 0o

Happy Valentine's Day! (> )