The Right Side of Sunset

Nagi was skipping lessons when the Irishman found him. Nagi got away with this on a surprisingly regular basis, especially General Studies. While his own education had been extremely lacking, as long as he had his laptop the teachers had found he was capable of educating himself. Besides, no one had bothered to learn Japanese, so they couldn't exactly quiz him on how he was doing. Nagi kept his new found grasp of both English and German relatively secret, revelling in the privacy he got.

Jei sat down next to Nagi, who was reading Dante's Divine Comedy with translating dictionary open on his laptop beside him.

"Ye won't make much sense of it that way," Jei smiled. "It's hard enough when English is your first language."

Nagi nodded absently. This wasn't the first time he'd run into the Irishman, though he didn't publicise their acquaintance. He was just as dangerous as Rammi, and twice as unpredictable.

"It's all about Hell," Jei added. "I know a lot about Hell. It's all in the Bible."

"I'm not Christian," Nagi said. "I don't think I believe in anything."

"You'll go to hell," Jei said unconcernedly. "Everyone here will. When I get there I'm going to stand on Lucifer's right hand side and help him in the war against God."

Nagi frowned. "But, if god created everything, why would he create someone to oppose him? It doesn't make sense."

"God's a bastard."

"Well, when you look at it that way…" Nagi shot Jei an amused look.

"He created us to hurt. I am a victim of His whims," Jei insisted. "I was but a child when my family were slaughtered. Those of us who love Him best are hurt the worst."

"So you hate him in the hope he won't hurt you?" Nagi hazarded a guess.

"I hate Him because I was willing to give him everything until He took everything from me. He claims He rewards the faithful. I am one of His victims, and I will show Him that pain makes us strong."

"If that were true I'd be one of the strongest people in existence," Nagi said pointedly, pulling up his sleeve to show his stick thin arm. There was hardly a shred of muscle on it.

"Strong emotion makes your power more volatile, aye?" Jei looked at him.

Nagi frowned. "Oh. Oh, I see. When… yes, that's true. Indeed. That which does not kill us makes us strong."

"One of his jokes," Jei told him. "We're just toys for Him to laugh at, stumbling around this planet. He manipulates us to see how we will react. He created us and hurts us and He claims our pain pains Him."

Nagi's mouth twitched. "Oh… dear," he grinned. "You make it sound as though God is like Schuldig."

Jei's eye's widened. "That is a frightening thought," he declared. "Schuldig in charge of the world."

They both smiled at each other. Nagi couldn't help but like Jei. He was strange and, well, insane, but as long as you weren't one of God's favoured he was amiable enough. He was a zealot of sorts, and Nagi knew that made him unpredictable, but that just made it all the more interesting to be around him.

Nagi hoisted the book up in his lap. It was a large book, and he was a small boy. He felt overwhelmed by the tight rows of text sometimes, hiding his legs almost entirely from view.

"What does that mean?" he pointed at a word. "I can't find it in the dictionary."

"It's a name," Jei explained. "One of the demons. I'm surprised you didn't realise that."

"It's not even my native alphabet," Nagi pointed out, ego a little bruised. "Even the sentence structure is different."

Jei leant over the Japanese boy and read the paragraph over his shoulder. "Don't suppose you can say the name, can ye?" he grinned.

"Falfalello," Nagi tried, "Farfarerro… Falfalerro." He tossed the book aside in a fit of petulance. "I care!" he said. "I'm not stupid! It's just so different. I can't do this and it's not fair!" Jei laughed at him. Nagi looked even more hurt. "It's not my fault," he said again. "It's just so hard and I'm tired and I know I sound like an idiot getting it wrong over and over again but I can't do it without help and no one cares and everyone thinks I'm stupid and I'm not, I'm really not."

"You're just a child," Jei smiled. "I kept trying to quite when I read this, and it's my language. And I was older than you are now."

"I like the book," Nagi sighed. "It says so much about humanity. I just can't read it and I don't deal with frustration well, I guess."

"No, you don't," Jei grinned. "Perhaps you should have started with something a bit easier?"

"Read it to me?" Nagi asked suddenly. "Please?"

Jei picked up the book and started to read aloud.

"O me! see that one, how he grinds his teeth;

Still farther would I speak, but am afraid

Lest he to scratch my itch be making ready."

And the grand Provost, turned to Farfarello,

Who rolled his eyes about as if to strike,

Said: "Stand aside there, thou malicious bird."

* * *

Brad opened his eyes carefully, annoyed to find his eyelids were sticking together. His throat was parched, his back was sore and he had a pounding headache. It all added up to hangover, but somehow that just didn't ring true.

Two pale faces met his eyes, one with hair the colour of blood, the other a chlorine green like tarnished copper in the sunshine. One had amber eyes, the other blue. One was wrapped in bandages, the other in a tatty green coat and a yellow duster holding his hair out of his eyes. Brad's heart lurched at that yellow rag.

"So, you're awake," Schuldig said softly. "You took your time about it."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Brad said firmly. "And you can't get past my shields."

"You taught me to read," Schuldig pointed out triumphantly. "Oh the irony."

"You read like most five year olds," Brad aid scathingly. "You even run your finger beneath the words and sound them out aloud. I don't doubt that Jei is a little more literate, but it would take the two of you years to get through those documents."

Schuldig shook his head. "You see this?" he held up a needle.

"Oh, you didn't!" Brad gasped, before realising what Schuldig was implying. "Oh, you didn't. That's for me, isn't it?"

"I'm not an idiot, Crawford," Schuldig sighed. "The drugs are behind me, for the most part. My system is already pretty much permanently affected, and the guys in the Labs say they can't predict what would happen if I ever did any again. You however, are nice and clean."

"So you don't know what they'll do to me," Brad pointed out as reasonably as he could. "Some people react very badly to certain drugs, and once is enough to kill them. How do you know I'm not one of those people?"

"Can you foresee yourself dying any time soon?" Schuldig asked.

"No, but I can't see anything at the moment, which could well imply I'm going to die."

Schuldig rolled his eyes. "I guess it's just a risk we'll have to take. If you die, someone else will fill your place in the summoning. Or they would, except if they do we won't be there, so we're going to burn the manuscripts and bugger off before the can do anything about it."

"You can't run from Rosenkreuz," Brad warned. "You tried, remember? There are too many people with too many resources for you to escape. Nowhere is free from their grasp."

"Fiji," Jei said unexpectedly. "There aren't any operatives on Fiji."

"Right then," Schuldig said briskly, trying to ignore the fact that despite having nothing to base that claim on, Jei was probably right. He usually was, about these things. Schuldig figured it was something to do with the way he thought. He was a zealot, the Ancient ones were zealots.

Brad stared at him. "You can't," he murmured. "Schuldig… Schu?"

Schuldig plunged the needle into Brad's arm, carefully avoiding looking him in the eye. Brad's eyes rolled and his spine arched, and Schuldig found himself in the neat corridors and ordered shelves that were Brad's mind.

* * *

"If they kill him..." Hertz growled at Madame Dubois.

"They won't," Silvia interjected calmly. "Schuldig loves him."

There was a pause. "We haven't exactly seen much evidence of that," Dubois said cautiously.

"No, you wouldn't have," Silvia replied. Hertz scowled at her. "Schuldig is the one you should be frightened of, not Bradley. He hates authority, and he revels in doing the unexpected. Love takes many forms, and right know he wants to hurt Bradley as much as possible."

"So he might kill him," Hertz said coolly.

"Not that kind of hurt," Silvia smiled wickedly.