I was, um, in Japan and the computers hated me. So I'm sorry for being so late. I will start to regularly update from now on.

"Aya, are you okay?" asked Yohji.

Aya blinked over at him. He didn't seem very focused at all, his eyes narrowed in an obvious effort to think through the pain. He sat huddled in the chair, the blanket that Yohji had given him earlier pulled tightly around his shoulders. Pale fingertips were visible clutching the blanket in a weak grip.

"What did you say?" he asked in a quiet and subdued voice. Yohji watched worriedly as he pulled both of his feet up and off the floor and folded them under him, tucking the blanket in completely. It wasn't a defensible position. Yohji had thought before that Aya had felt cold but maybe he hadn't realized just how cold.

"I said 'are you okay?'" Yohji kept his own voice low. The atmospheres felt quiet, like being in a library.

"Before that," replied Aya in a stronger voice. No louder, but firmer, more commanding. Almost the voice he had during missions.

"He asked about why we're here," commented Ken. There was an almost mocking quality to his voice. "Weren't you paying attention?"

The inactivity was obviously getting to Ken. He sat in his chair fidgeting, tapping his heel on the floor, his eyes flicking from person to person.

When his eyes settled on Yohji he said, "That's what you said, right?"

Yohji frowned at him, "No. I said, why are we here in this freaky mansion?"

"But-" Ken started and was cut off by Omi.

"You said, 'So, Aya, you wanna tell us why we're in this freaky mansion?' Now can you both concentrate? We need to figure out what to do next." Omi had his own mission voice that he now used unmercifully. Yohji suddenly felt a little guilty.

"Sorry," said Yohji. He was echoed by Ken, who had shrunk down into his seat and finally found a comfortable position.

"Aya?" questioned Omi.

"Kritiker is unaware of the Shiro Kaze," Aya answered the question that Yohji had forgotten for a minute. "Whomever is leaking information won't be able to tell there masters about this place."

"Won't they be able to find it some other way?"

"They had better not," grumbled a low voice from over in the doorway.

Yohji was up and pulling the wire out of his watch before he could think. Ken had placed himself in a fighting stance in front of Aya and Omi held in one hand a ballpoint pen that had been on the table and a glass paperweight in the other. Yohji was disgusted by how unprepared they were for an attack, he wouldn't even have his watch if he hadn't forgotten that he had been wearing it, instead of taking it off like he usually did after a mission.

Though he would never admit it out loud—and probably never to himself either—the man in the doorway made him nervous. He wasn't sure if it was the situation in general or the fact that he had been able to open the door and step in without any of them noticing.

"What?" the man said, giving them a puzzled expression.

It was that desk clerk from downstairs, except now he wore soft, unglossy, brown leather pants accented by a deep green long sleeve shirt. Embroidered on the shirt, where someone usually placed a breast pocket, was a small depiction of a snake entwined around an old-fashioned European oil lamp. The exact same picture that Yohji remembered seeing carved into the front doors.

"Please don't answer me all at once," he said. He nodded over at Aya. "Fujimiya."

"Murata," Aya greeted.

"Long time, no see," said Murata. "You want to tell your friends to relax? I'm not gonna do anything."

"Kudo, Hidaka, Tsukiono, put the weapons away and sit down."

Omi glanced questioningly at Aya, then put his impromptu weapons down and sat back quietly. Ken slowly followed suit. Yohji stayed standing, keeping his defensive stance, but he did let his wire curl back into the watch.

Murata studied Yohji with cool eyes for a second and then said, "Well, this might be interesting. You guys have particularly bad timing, I have to leave, there's been a bit of an upset and I have to go deal with it. The thing is, you're gonna be having some guests. There're headed up as we speak. The door off to the side in the kitchen leads to a second set of rooms, but you'll have to share the living room and the kitchen." He turned directly to Aya. "It's Crawford and his group. And while I know you've never met the guy, you at least know he's a friend of Sora's, so be nice."

Yohji watched as Aya stared at Murata for a couple of seconds before giving a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

"Good. Enjoy your stay. It's 27181." Yohji was still staring, trying to figure out the numbers, when the door shut softly behind the man.

"27181? What's up with that?" asked Ken. "And who is that weirdo? Did you see? He was bare foot."

"Yeah that was a little odd," remarked Omi.

"The floor in the hallway is hardwood," Aya calmly informed them. "Shoes would have made noise."

"Can we get over the shoes!" Yohji snapped. He was suddenly frustrated, angry. He had no idea what was going on, why they were here, why someone had tried to kill them, who was trying to kill them and what had gone wrong with Kritiker. He knew nothing about what was happening and so was absolutely helpless to do anything about it. Absolutely helpless.

"Look, what the hell is going on!? We don't know what's happening, somebody's trying to kill us, we're all so off balance that we didn't even notice the guy coming through the door!" Yohji cut himself off, sucking in breath after breath of air, trying to get himself to calm down. Aya, Ken, and Omi were all watching him with the same look people wear when they se someone getting ready to jump off a building. It made Yohji nervous, which just made him yell louder. "And all you can talk about is some guy walking around barefoot!" he finished.

Yohji wasn't sure how he expected them to react, but he was never able to find out. At that exact moment the door to the hallway was flung open, slamming with an echoing bang against the wall.

Nagi wasn't quite sure what he expected when they were allowed into the hotel that Crawford had sent them to. The hulking mansion wasn't on the list of expected things, but as he could imagine Crawford living in such a place it wasn't too shocking. What was shocking was opening the door to their rooms to find two members of Weiss and their leader, who was curled up in a chair, staring rather blankly at the fourth.

At the sight Nagi reacted instinctively, using his powers to pin Bombay to the floor. Balinese spun around almost to fast for Nagi to see and threw his deadly wire at him. Siberian lunged at Schuldich, who hadn't seemed to have figured out what was going on yet. Farfarello, carrying Crawford, seemed at a loss of what to do with their leader cradled in his arms.

Nagi was easily able to halt Balinese's attack, but Schuldich wasn't so lucky. Nagi watched, unable to do anything to help, as Schuldich was flung into the wall and Siberian turned to attack Farfarello.

Farfarello defended himself, not even bothering to pull out his knives as he blocked the attack. But the movement lost him his grip on Crawford and their leader dropped heavily to the ground.

"Crawford!" Nagi yelled, forgetting about his own struggle. He felt wire begin to slip over his head, intent on chocking him to death, or slicing his throat to shreds. There was nothing he could do to stop it from constricting, tightening until he couldn't breathe, couldn't get any air into his lungs…

And suddenly it was gone and he was left kneeling on the ground, coughing, trying to breathe through the pain.

Nagi looked up, expecting to see Farfie or Schu standing over him, only to see Abyssinian, the leader of Weiss, holding the dripping bloody wire of his teammate in his bare hands.

Nagi?

Nagi had the presence of mind to send back, I have no idea, to Schuldich, but beyond that he couldn't think. The cold, angry leader of Weiss had just saved his life. Was even now standing over him, protecting him—from his own teammates.

"What the hell are you doing?" snapped Balinese. He must have released the wire because it now hung loosely between the two.

"Aya?" questioned Siberian.

Nagi wasn't sure quite what he felt when Abyssinian ignored his two teammates in favor of turning around slightly to ask him a question. After hearing the question he wasn't sure if it, or the whole situation, shocked him more.

"Which one is Crawford?"

Nagi wordlessly picked up a shaking hand and pointed at his leader.

"Oracle?"

Nagi nodded mutely.

"Oh, hell no, Aya. We are not—there is no way—we can't!" shouted Balinese.

Abyssinian just turned to stare stonily at Balinese. His expression clearly stated that he would not tolerate argument. It made Nagi shiver and look down at his hands.

"But Aya they're…" Siberian trailed off. Small white slippers appeared in Nagi's line of vision as Bombay strode forward to plant himself in front of Abyssinian.

"He's the one that knows the person that you used to know, too, right?" asked Bombay in a neutral tone of voice.

"Yes," was the quiet reply.

"Then we can't kill them."

Nagi felt Schuldich's astonishment flare like a supernova inside his head.

The next chapert will be up really quickly, as I've already finished it.

10/23/06

8:08 PM