A/N: All disclaimers and warnings continue to apply; please refer to notes before the Prologue. Still sadly unbeta'd, any mistakes are my own, so please do feel free to tell me of them.

I had a long and possibly amusing note here about author-angst and never-ending wips and suchlike, but it all amounted to an excuse and apology as to why this chapter took so long, and the real reason is—I just found it difficult to write. So sorry for the delay and, once again, as the initial warning warn, but really and truly, thisstory and this chapter particularly aredark and disturbing, so please take heed. It's very much M—nothing explicitly graphic, but definitely not for the under-aged or the faint of heart for all of that. So if you are anywhere under 18, please do not read this.

Note also that I did go back and tweaked chapter 9 a little, since I had pretty much written in an hour and posted, and well, I never do that--but nothing significant or meaningful has changed. I just feel slightly better now. So if it looks different, now you know why.

And as much fun as it is to write fic, I really can't tell you how happy and thrilled I am, always, to get a review.If you'd like a reply, please sign your review, and I will.

Chapter 10: The Heart of Darkness
Aya, guys, now would be a really really good time for you to come get me ...

The door knob rattled.

Everyone in the room paused in what they were doing; everyone looked toward the door, tensing.

Ken raised his head, squinting through the bright light, through his bangs. His heart leapt. Maybe ... maybe ... Oh, God, he thought, desperately, frantically, please, please, please be Aya, Omi, Yohji, please ...

It wasn't Aya, or Yohji, or Omi. Ken felt himself swallow a bitter wave of disappointment. Things like last-minute rescues didn't happen in real life, didn't happen in his world, but ... for a moment, he'd dared to hope it would.

Idiot.

The man who did enter the room was much older--at least 60, with thinning white hair and fine wrinkles, slightly thick around the middle, and wearing an expensive imported suit. He had a soft, cultured voice, a calming manner, and a kindly air. There was also something about him that seemed ... a little foreign. Maybe it was the clearly foreign cut of the suit, Ken thought.

As he entered, everyone bowed respectfully in greeting, before resuming their previous activities.

The man walked up to where Ken was standing, bound to the bar. He inclined his head politely. "Hello, Mr. ... Siberian, is it?"

Ken didn't answer. Ken was gagged.

Ken certainly hoped the glare he was giving the man was as good as one of Aya's, though. Being around Aya so much, at least something useful should have rubbed off. He wondered, completely inappropriately, which of his traits Aya may have gotten in return. It would be too bad if ...

"Well, that's ok, lad," said the man, cutting into Ken's drifting thoughts. "I have no intention of telling you my real name, either. The difference is, under these circumstances, it won't matter, and I will likely find yours out anyway. It would just be easier for both of us—and certainly more polite--if you told me, and saved us some trouble."

Definitely an accent, Ken noted absently. What did it matter, really, was his next thought--but he'd been trained to notice these things, and now it was hard not to. He wanted to lie down.

The man spoke again. "I am known as Kobayashi-san." He paused a moment, before continuing, his tone still conversational. "You killed my daughter. My only child. For you, this is unfortunate."

The look in Kobayashi's eyes chilled Ken's blood. Suddenly, Ken was very much awake, and very much aware. Kobayashi paused for a moment, standing in front of Ken, before walking around him once, and then coming closer.

Kobayashi looked intently at Ken for a moment, and then raised a hand, and stroked Ken's hair. The touch was gentle, almost paternal. "You're a very good looking boy, you know," he said.

Despite himself, Ken cringed, and his skin crawled.

The look in Kobayashi's eyes was anything but paternal.

Friday evening.

Ken had been missing for over forty-eight hours.

The chances of finding him at all, much less finding him alive, were growing slimmer by the second.

They'd reported, by now, Ken's absence as well as their mission failure to Kritiker. Kritiker, for their part, had been extremely silent. None of them were sure what that meant.

So they were eating dinner. Eating dinner, because Aya had insisted on it—clinging to routine and normalcy because if he didn't, he'd go insane and drag the others right along with him. Or so he thought. They'd scoured the warehouse for clues, looked at all the possible sites, and Yohji had clubbed in all the wrong places while Aya had hung around the docks and ... nothing. He didn't know, not anymore, what to do—he didn't have answers, and never had. And selfishly, he wanted his teammates close. Wanted them both—needed them both—close. So he'd insisted they eat a normal, simple dinner, on this Friday night. He'd even cooked.

A Friday night on which Yohji was staying in and Omi wasn't chatting on the 'net and Aya wasn't reading in his room and Ken ...

Ken wasn't here.

And none of them were actually eating.

He hoped he wasn't wrong, not giving into his instinct to keep searching, keep looking, keep going. Hoped that this wasn't the moment he should be out, or Omi should be hacking, or ... but no one else knew what to do, either. Because right now, Omi had reverted from calculating tactician to scared shitless teenager, and Yohji ... Yohji was never one to make decisions. So he'd had to, and hoped it wasn't wrong.

He just hoped.

"Hey, Omi, pass the soy sauce, will you?" Yohji's voice was lazy and casual, and likely sounded forced only to Aya's sensitive ears.

"We don't have any. Ken was ..." Omi's voice trailed off, and then became quiet. "Ken spilled it all last time he was cooking, and he said he'd pick some up after the mission."

"Ah. Doesn't matter. This is good without. Thanks, Aya."

Aya didn't respond, and then there was silence.

"Yohji-kun?" Omi's voice was too loud, too thin, too broken in the awkward not-eating not-speaking void. Too knowing. No school kid should sound like that, thought Aya.

"Yes, Omi-kun?" Yohji's voice was patient, calm; the man was as placid as a lake in winter. Aya had never appreciated Yohji enough before, he thought.

Omi fiddled a little more with the soup in front of him. "Do you ... if there's a ransom, do you guys think we could just pay it?"

"We'll find him, Omi. Don't you have every computer in the house running endless search patterns? You'll find him." Yohji's voice was steady, certain reassurance—nothing of the careless, indolent playboy, and everything that made him Balinese, and the asset he was to Weiss.

"I know. But if it came to it ... we'll just do what they ask, right? Anything they ask, to get him back?"

"Kid ..."

"I'm not a child, Yohji. I just need to know."

"Of course, Omi. If necessary."

"Even if it means going against Kritiker?"

"There's no need to be over-dramatic, Omi. Kritiker wants Ken back as much as we do." Aya broke in harshly, and knew even as Yohji turned sympathetically reproachful eyes to him that he hadn't meant to be so harsh. He just couldn't deal in what-ifs, or with Omi's hysterics. He just ... they needed to stay grounded, and focused. That was the only thing that would get Ken back, whole and healthy. He'd already had his moment of panic anyway, much to his humiliation. Further panic would accomplish nothing. They all now needed to focus. They had to get Ken back.

Aya wouldn't, couldn't allow anything less.

" ... just so you know, I've got savings, and it was ... it was my fault ... " Omi's voice was determined.

"What?" That startled from Aya.

Omi faltered at Aya's gaze, staring at the counter. His voice, when he spoke, was flat, the voice of someone confessing a sin for which they would not be forgiven. "You were distracted. You could have saved Ken-kun, you could have, if you hadn't been distracted by me. If the mission had been planned better. The money doesn't matter, Ken-kun matters now."

"Omittchi. Isn't that your college fund?" Yohji's voice was gentle.

"I didn't really plan to go anyway," Omi muttered dismissively.

Aya and Yohji exchanged a glance, but Aya didn't let himself get distracted, while making a mental note to discuss that with Omi another day. They really ought to have paid more attention to the kid sooner, but as it was, they had other issues. And they'd both assumed Ken had likely talked with Omi. Ken was like that.

"It doesn't matter," said Aya. "You know this. The kind of people that have him ... this is not a kidnapping. They won't ask for a ransom. Money will not get Ken back."

"But," said Yohji, "if it ever came to that, for any of us—if it's any choice, and whether or not Kritiker has left us on our own—we'll do what it takes, Omi. You know this. We're Weiss. And ... it wasn't your fault, Omi. It wasn't anyone's, except those who took him. It had nothing to do with you. If anything, I was supposed to be watching him. If there is anyone to blame, it is me."

"Yohji-kun! Certainly there was nothing you could have done—I had video surveillance, it was impossible to predict ... "

Yohji broke in impatiently. "Fine. So no one is to blame, but Ken is still out there. Kid, we're going to do whatever is necessary to get Ken back, but we're getting nowhere fast right now. Eat your soup."

But all of them were also thinking what none of them would voice. That wasn't what Kritiker would say. It wasn't what any of them had been trained to think. The official position would be ... It was Ken. His fault, and his alone, given that his teammates had all accomplished their portion of the mission. Ken. He was careless. If you're good, you don't get caught. "If you get caught," Aya remembered the words admonishing him to "think on his sins", remembered the hard, unforgiving tone, remember his anger and confusion and guilt as he lay gravely wounded in a hard, skeleton-staffed hospital bed, hurting and alone, "you deal with the consequences."He'd certainly had that much drilled into him, and if Kritiker hadn't made the simple edict abundantly clear before he'd finished his training, during that hospital stay after Crashers, Persia certainly had.

Aya wished the others would stop talking. Would Kritiker really block them from finding Ken? So soon? He couldn't think about it, and something in Aya wouldn't let him blame Ken, either, despite his training. Not yet. Aya knew he'd be angry, later, but for now ...

Let Ken come home, he prayed, to whatever gods were listening, let him come home, okay and in one piece, and I'll make sure he never forgets again. I promise. Just, please, let him come home first.

Please.

It was all a little surreal—the bright lights, the normal looking young men lounging around, the well-dressed business men.

Ken didn't want to believe it was real. Ken wanted to imagine he was somewhere else, somewhere far away from here, somewhere where there was Aya and no pain and Yohji and Omi joining them later. Except the man in front of him kept talking.

"I have been looking for you, you know. For you. It was all for you, my pretty boy. You are my gift. And you ... you shall scream for me, prettily, and then .. then you shall tell me the names of all your fellows, and I shall kill them too." Kobayashi smiled, and the smile chilled Ken's blood. Defiantly, Ken rolled his eyes at the man's overblown words.

But Kobayashi's smile didn't waver. "You don't want to right now, I know, and that's ok. If you told us now, where's the fun in that? We'll leave the gag in for a bit yet, so you don't have to. By the time we take it out, and after we hear you scream for a while, we'll let you tell us, then. In the meantime, we can get to know each other. You wouldn't want me to think you were too easy, would you?"

Kobayashi reached out his hand suddenly. Ken turned his head violently away, as much as he was able. It was no use. The man turned his face forcefully back, fingers surprisingly strong, digging painfully into Ken's skin, and tilted his chin up. "Ah, I thought so, so it was you, after all. That day, in our club. I knew there was something not right about you, which is why we waited you out. You must think we are amateurs, to fall for so blatant a trick. You work for ... ah, yes, Kritiker branch, who picks up the street kids and uses them up. Of course. I'll have to thank Persia later."

Ken had no idea how the man knew all these things about him, no idea, and what he meant by calling Kritiker a branch. If possible, his fear rose another notch.

"That does change things," said Kobayashi, his tone considering. "But first things first. Jiro?"

Ken could do nothing to prevent the ugly balding little man—Jiro, he was called, Jiro--from removing what was left of his dirty, stained clothes. The man was efficient, fully exposing Ken in minutes and leaving him naked and defenceless under the bright lights while Kobayashi donned a pair of latex gloves, gazing at him critically. There was nothing Ken could do, as Kobayashi looked at him, touched him. Saw things only his doctors and lovers had seen, touched him in places only Kase or Ran had ever touched before. The gorge rose in Ken's throat, and he tried to suppress it, terrified of choking; sounds from deep in his throat escaping him despite the gag.

Kobayashi's voice was assessing, and shivering from pain and fever and fear, Ken was trying not to think about what he was saying. "Oh, just look at those ugly scars. They really are disfiguring, aren't they? Hmm. Well, I guess you wouldn't have fetched top dollar anyway, although there's a certain type that likes scarring. Likes to think that you've been hurt, and can be again. They're sometimes even willing to pay a little extra for it, so you may even be of some value to us later. But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? We'll see how you do, first." Kobayshi took off his gloves.

"But otherwise, you really are quite good-looking." The kind, gentle voice seemed musing, and a fat, beringed finger drew a line down Ken's cheek, continued down the line of his neck. Ken shuddered away, still trying unsuccessfully to avoid the man's touch. "Ah, so young, so soft, just like her. Heedless boy, careless lad, you had no need to kill her. You young things today are always like that—no sense of responsibility. Well, you will need to learn consequence. So, since you have deprived me of my daughter, and since you won't do for the pure untouched sort ... do you think you may do to make it up to me for a period of time? It's only fair."

The man turned his hand suddenly, and the jagged edge of the brilliant green gem cut an unexpected, deep gash into Ken's skin. Ken would have screamed, if he'd been able, at the shock as much as the pain. But the only sound he could make was a tiny, startled and pathetically high-pitched squealing noise through the gag. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye.

The man smiled.

Emerald, Ken thought, remembering the name of the stone, because somehow, that was important. Emerald, like the earrings Yohji had once worn. But his thoughts remained scattered and vague even as, despite his terror and weakness, he tried unsuccessfully to gather them. He tried to breathe evenly. He failed. His heart was racing. Kobayashi spoke softly to the ugly little man beside him, before turning back to Ken, and smiling broadly.

Ken's vision had narrowed. He had no longer had any idea if there was anyone else in the room, no idea of anything else, because all he could see was that wide white smile. All he could hear was that voice. Fear was a live, choking force, cutting off his airways; fear was a sharp, acrid taste in his dry, swollen mouth. He saw everything happening, saw Jiro raise the whip, and he didn't have time to understand how beyond scared he was, he didn't have time ...

He heard the first blow smack across his skin long before he felt it.

Kobayashi's smile was moving. "Oh, I will enjoy you, I am sure. Three days. You may take a week—you are strong, and Kritiker's training is not bad, to be honest--but for most, three days is all it takes."

"Oh, Bombay, yes, please come in. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Omi nodded, bowing politely and smiling in greeting, but the smile was not genuine, and he didn't say anything. He didn't trust his voice just yet. He pulled a file from his backpack, and handed it over to this new Persia, this Persia he didn't quite trust.

"Oh, Omi. You are, you have always been, so very good. This is fine work. But ... I'm not sure ..."

"There was something wrong with the mission. There was something wrong with it, something Kritiker didn't know!" Even now, Omi wasn't sure if it was something they didn't know, or something they simply didn't say. He had become more and more suspicious of late. Normally, he would tell himself he was being paranoid, but now ...

Now his oldest friend, one of his teammates, one of his family, was missing. He no longer had the luxury of pretending. He had to know.

But Persia didn't at all seem rattled or disturbed by the implication, his voice remaining smooth and controlled. "My dear Bombay, there is always something I can't tell you. We only tell you what you need to know. You know that's always been the case."

Omi tried to remain calm, to remember everything his training had taught him, and everything it had not. "Yes, but this time ... Siberian was captured. And despite what Manx told us, as you can see from my research, Siberian is still listed as alive."

Persia laughed, and the sound did not appear particularly born of amusement. "Oh, my dear Omi—Mamoru—you are so hopeful. Always so hopeful. I'm afraid, on that point, your research is mistaken. Those files are Kritiker files—and because we simply haven't processed the paperwork yet, Siberian is listed as still alive and active, see? I'm sorry, my boy, to tell you this. But the unfortunate truth is that Siberian is quite likely dead, at least by now. I have had teams looking into this, you know—Weiss is a valuable team, and of course, Siberian is one of our own agents, and so young ... but I'm afraid our efforts have been ... Let me show you something."

Persia went to his desk, and from underneath it, pulled out a leather jacket. A brown leather, blood-stained bomber-style jacket that ...Omi couldn't help it. Despite his best efforts, he began to cry. He'd thought ... he'd been so sure ...

Persia's voice seemed as confident as ever, a note of practiced concern colouring it. "Please, don't carry on so. You are an assassin, as was he, didn't Persia raise you—train you--better than that? He was well paid—Kritiker pays well, as you know—and he was as well aware of the risks as you yourself. Rules of the game, I'm afraid. Dear boy, please don't distress yourself, do sit down." The jacket was pulled from his resisting hands, and locked again firmly in the cabinet.

"Please ... if you ... if you know anything ..."

"Mamoru-chan--you are upset. Your mission failed. I am very sorry for the loss of Siberian, but he will be replaced on your team. Even now, efforts are being made to locate a suitable replacement. Do not worry yourself. You didn't need to come here, particularly at what must be such a stressful time for you." Persia pressed a button on his desk, and Manx appeared, looking as unruffled as ever, but Omi could see the concern, the slight hint of fear in her eye. "Look, here is Manx. She will show you out."

Manx came up to him, put a hand on Omi's elbow. In her eyes there was a warning, and every instinct in Omi's body shrieked at him in unison.

Persia's eyes were suddenly on him, and the look in them was hard and cold. "Do you understand me, Bombay? Kritiker is taking care of the situation. Trust Kritiker. Let me handle it. If I were you, I would not ... worry about this again."

As he left, pushing open the heavy wooden door, Persia's voice called after him. "It is always good to see you, Bombay."

Ken had stopped counting the blows, had stopped trying to be brave, had stopped hoping someone would come, had stopped trying to do anything but wish it would be over, soon. He had prayed, he had begged, he had cried, and he had bled, and nothing seemed to help, to change anything, to make it stop.

He couldn't answer the questions they were asking. He wished they would stop asking. Even had they let him, it was the one thing he could not do.

He kept wishing it would stop.

Eventually, it did. They took the gag out, then, and cut him down. Dressed him. Laid him on a cot, and even gave him some water. Shaking, silently, he thanked whatever God had been listening, whichever God had heeded his prayers.

Someone was close by.

Hands were touching him.

Hands were touching him, and touching him, and he couldn't get away.

He couldn't get away.

Blindly, painfully, through his raw abraded throat, Ken screamed.

Ken screamed, and screamed, and remembered that he had died. He had died, in flames and agony, and God had hated him then, too.

Chapter 11 follows apace (okay, that maybe a little strong, but it will come eventually) ... in the meantime (hint, hint), reviews are always welcome ...