Consigned to Fire
(five easy pieces)
a Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

+ heterodoxy

The day he left the unit, the woman with no face smiled at him.

Ken didn't know what had happened to her, or what she used to look like, or how long she had been there. He didn't even know how old she was, this individual with the countenance of a melted doll and the skin stretched taut and unyielding over the ruined planes of her face, who was young and female only by her clothes. He simply knew her name (Noriko) and that sometimes she sold newspapers, and she made him feel desperately ashamed. The closest they'd come to conversation was the day they exchanged forenames, and Ken had blushed because he was sixteen years old and there was nothing visibly wrong with him.

She bared her teeth at him as he sat, fully-dressed in clothes he couldn't remember owning and looking more like a visitor than a patient, on one of the couches in the day room, and he understood that was all that remained of her smile. Ken realized she could hardly have been that much older than he was and that once upon a time she might well have been pretty, too pretty to look twice at a boy as entirely unremarkable as Ken, and he wondered what she would have had to say to him if he hadn't been too embarrassed to look at her, still less try to talk. Who was she?

He didn't speak when Erika arrived. He wanted to tell her he'd changed his mind and, when she stooped and picked up the plastic bag resting by his feet, he nearly didn't get up and follow her, but what else was there for him to do? Ken didn't have any choice and he knew it.

It couldn't have worked out neater if it had been planned deliberately and who knew, perhaps it was.

(And he hadn't used to be a conspiracy theorist but honestly, what was he supposed to think?)

This woman was beautiful, in a rather hard-faced way. She had long red hair that constantly threatened to tumble into her face and was an invitation to some man, any man – not Ken; he already knew there were some girls guys like him didn't even aspire to – to reach out and brush it away, exposing her porcelain complexion and a face so lovely it could have been painted by an artist, yet her brisk, maternal manner immediately discouraged it. In spite of her curves she was angular. She was, Ken knew, a hard woman and she frightened him a lot more than the woman with no face could have ever done.

He wanted to duck back into the unit and hide behind the young nurse with the plump forearms who reminded him of Sister Anne though she wasn't even on duty that day – and, now that he finally came to think about it, it worried him that he saw the nuns in the nurses and it never even occurred to him to try and find his mother there.

Erika smiled and it was beautiful and something dark and primal whispered at Ken, run.

(She smiled like a succubus – or was it an incubus? He couldn't remember which one was female. It occurred to Ken that what Erika was offering him was a seduction of sorts, and just briefly he caught himself thinking of Kase.)

Ken grinned at Erika only because she mustn't know how much, at that moment, he hated her.

Though she was giving him only what he wanted. He knew, he just knew it was really none of his business; it wasn't his place to judge, he should leave it to God to sort out (if there was a God, if he'd even believed all that crap in the first place, if Ken Hidaka had ever been the kind who could live for the promise of jam tomorrow) but he couldn't do that. Couldn't just stand idle while . Yeah, so it would be sorted out eventually (perhaps, perhaps), but it would be kind of nice to think there was some kind of justice out there on Earth, too…

Of course Ken knew temptation when he saw it. He understood that Erika was playing with him just as her bosses played with her, but at least he knew she was and that made all the difference. Better to be manipulated knowingly and Hell, at least someone out there still thought he was useful, worth manipulating in the first place. It wasn't like Ken had anywhere else to go. Have you ever heard of an organization named Kritiker?

It wasn't like there was anyone much to miss him.

What about my family ?
We'll make sure they have something to mourn.
Promise?

So he stood, and brushed non-existent dust from the seat of his jeans, conscious as he did so that they hung far too loosely about his hips (he must have lost weight in hospital), and let Erika take him away. Stepped forward blindly into – what?

(Ken had no idea about that. He still wasn't sure he believed a word of it. It sounded too ridiculous for words. How could the world think he was dead when here he was? As for all the rest of it, as for the Kritiker bit – come on, secret societies with silly names, vigilante justice? It sounded stupid, like a kid's game or something out of some bizarreo manga that he could only half-believe in while reading it, and not at all on cold reflection…)

But what else was he supposed to do? He could hardly have turned Erika down and there was, Ken supposed, nothing wrong with mutual manipulation. They had something to offer him, too; parable of the stick and carrot. Erika couldn't give him his life back but she could give him something (because he had to belong somewhere, everyone had to belong somewhere) and maybe if he hung on, if he asked the right questions and looked in the right places and had patience – and he could learn to be patient – he'd find out what had happened to him and why. They, whoever they were, had ruined him: turnabout was fair play, right?

And there was Kase, too. No, the nurses had said, they brought you in alone. They didn't find anyone else, just you. What were you doing there, honey? And maybe, Erika added as if it hardly mattered at all, with the playfully knowing smile of someone promising a child a surprise before bedtime, you'll find out what happened. It's the kind of thing we specialize in. All you have to do is say yes, Ken. Trust me, you won't last five minutes alone. The way things stand, it's in your best interests to stay dead. Kritiker can see to it that you do…

He hardly believed it— but someday, Ken promised, for both of them. Someday, he would find out how, and why, and who.

And, someday, he would make them all pay for it.