Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz and its characters sadly do not belong to me.

Warnings: AU, eventual yaoi (it might take a while for me to get there)

Pairings: Eventual Ran/Ken, Youji/Omi

Author's Note: This story is set in a world that is entirely of my own making because there will eventually be elements of fantasy in it.

Blood Summons

By Rapunzel

Chapter 2

The bartender at the White Mare Inn eyed Youji warily as he sat down. Unperturbed, Youji ordered his drink and gave the man a disarming smile. He knew why the fellow was so cautious around him. He and Ran had been heard arguing. Again.

There were times when Youji wondered why he'd chosen the profession he had. The work was fun, but some of the people he had to interact with were less than pleasant. In this case the problem came from Ran. While Youji had to admit that the redhead was not the most unpleasant person he'd ever worked for, he certainly wasn't one of the nicer ones. He wasn't mean so much as particular, and his standards were starting to wear on Youji's nerves.

When he'd taken the job, he'd envisioned himself working alone. That was his usual modus operandi these days, and he'd become accustomed to it. Of course he'd realized that Ran would have to enter the picture, but he had figured that the redhead would only appear for regular progress reports. Not so, as it turned out. He'd failed to realize one very important thing: Ran was a perfectionist. His philosophy in life was that if he wanted something done correctly, he either had to do it himself or supervise.

So here Youji was, a week into the job, and he wanted to bang his head repeatedly against a large, immovable object. It wasn't that Ran was useless or couldn't carry his own weight. He was very good at gathering knowledge in his own field. Put the man in a library, and Youji was sure he could find almost any piece of information one might want to look up. But his methods were rather limited to the straightforward approach, and some of the finer subtleties of human interaction seemed to be lost on him. Also, he had very specific ideas about the way things should or should not be done, and he tried to impose those same standards on Youji, which annoyed the blond to no end. While he understood that the job was very important to Ran for personal reasons, he refused to have someone else tell him how to do his job.

Just that evening, Ran had gotten on his case for being overly friendly with one of the serving girls at the inn they were staying at. He'd given Youji a lecture about separating work from play, and only seemed to get even more angry when Youji had told him that in this case, business and pleasure really were mixed, since serving girls often provided a wealth of information. Ran had rather acidly asked what would stop the same girl from providing information about them later, implying that Youji was indiscrete, and had then reminded Youji that he was only the third person Ran had chosen to employ to help him find his sister, and that the first two had failed. The way he said it made it clear that he expected Youji to meet the same fate, and Youji very much resented that. A shouting match had ensued, during which Ran had called Youji an immoral scoundrel and Youji had called Ran a pompous bastard. Ran had stalked off in a huff to the room they were sharing (Ran was too cheap to get separate rooms for each of them), and Youji was left to nurse his drink and question his sanity.

Had this been a normal case, he would have dropped it long ago. Youji was not a man who was accustomed to letting other people interfere with his work, and he wondered why on earth he was allowing it this time. His common sense told him he should have told Ran to piss off and find someone else several days ago. But on the first night they'd shared a room together, Youji had watched while pretending to sleep as Ran pulled a small bracelet out of his pocket and sat staring at it. After what he'd been told, it hadn't taken much to figure out that the trinket must have belonged to Ran's missing sister, and seeing the sorrow on the man's face as he fingered it made Youji feel a stab of sympathy. It also made him curious about the girl who had owned it. So whenever Ran got on his nerves by acting like an ass, Youji tried to remind himself that even if he disliked his client, there was still the young girl to be considered. He knew from experience that Takatori could be merciless, even to women, and he could not in good conscience just leave a young woman in his clutches, even if he had never met her personally.

'I just hope that if I do ever meet her, she's nothing like her brother,' Youji thought sourly, his thoughts one again returning to the redhead who was probably still sulking in their room.

Ah well, Youji thought as he successfully caught the eye of a barmaid walking past him with a tankard of ale. Let Ran sulk if he wanted to. But for him at least, the night was still young.

/-/-/-/

If there was one thing Ken hated, it was waiting.

This was rather unfortunate, as at the current moment, that was all he had to do. He was supposed to sit still and wait for Kase's signal, which probably wouldn't come for another hour or so yet. Being stuck lying on his stomach in a thicket of bushes was hardly what he would call a pleasant way to spend the evening. To make matters worse, it looked as though it might rain before the night was out. In fact, Kase had deliberately picked a night with heavy cloud cover, since there would be no moonlight through the clouds and therefore less chance of being seen. While Ken agreed with him on an intellectual level, he did not relish the idea of being soaked on an already chilly night.

Cautiously, he shifted his weight until he was lying in a slightly more comfortable position. He moved carefully so that not even the faintest rustling of leaves would betray his presence to anyone who might happen to be passing by. Not that he supposed anyone would be, since he was concealed in the garden of the large manor house, and it was hardly the evening for a romantic stroll through the flowers. Still, it never hurt to be cautious. He couldn't afford to be caught. Quite aside from whatever physical punishment would be meted out to him, he didn't think he could stand the shame. He'd had quite enough of that already, thank you very much.

Ken scowled, not at all pleased with the direction his thoughts were taking. Over the past three months, he had tried very hard to forget or at least ignore what had happened to him, but somehow his mind always drifted back. Back to the way things had been before, when he'd had a job and been respected. Back to when he'd been the arms master and trainer of a well-to-do and respected family. Back to when he'd had students, the two young sons of the house, who'd admired and looked up to him. At least they had before everything had come crashing down.

Of all that he had endured in his life, that was one of the things that hurt the most. To be disgraced and wrongfully accused in front of the two boys he had worked so hard to train. Never would he forget the look of shocked disbelief on their faces when their father had made the accusation. Theft. The thought of it made his lips twist into an ironic little smile. He was now what he had been accused of being then, but at the time the accusation had flabbergasted him. How could anyone think that he would steal from the very family that kept him on and provided him with a job that he loved and two wonderful young students whom he enjoyed mentoring? But his protestations of innocence had fallen on deaf ears. Whoever had actually pilfered the money had been very thorough in making sure that all the evidence pointed to Ken, and nothing he could say seemed to do any good. In consideration of his many years of service, the matter had not been taken to the authorities, but he had been stripped of his job and tossed out to fend for himself.

Ken remembered that day all too well. It had been one of the few times he was actually glad that his parents were already dead. At least they had not been there to see their only son lose his home, his job, his students, and his reputation all in one fell blow. It was his loss of reputation that had hit the hardest in the weeks that followed. Word got about, and no one in the town was willing to provide him with employment. Nor could he leave the town to seek work elsewhere; he hadn't the money to travel. Only Kase had believed his protestations of innocence, and ironically enough, the only job with which Kase could provide him was as a partner in crime.

Ken almost sighed heavily, but caught himself in time and stifled the noise. He supposed he ought to be grateful to Kase, really. The man was his friend, and had stood by him when no one else would. Maybe if this job went well and proved to be as profitable as Kase had made it sound, Ken would finally have the money to leave this place and go somewhere where no one knew him or the accusations made against him. A chance to start over, that was all Ken wanted out of this.

Ken's head snapped up as he jerked himself out of his reverie. He thought he'd seen light for a moment. He waited in silence until he saw it again, three brief flashes of light. Kase's signal. Hoisting himself up as quietly as he could, Ken left his hiding place and loped silently towards the house.

/-/-/-/

Youji was a little disappointed upon stumbling into the room to find that Ran was still awake. The redhead was seated at a small desk, apparently bent on ruining his eyesight by trying to read by the light of a single candle. Violet eyes glanced up at him and narrowed suspiciously.

"Are you drunk?" Ran asked, his tone radiating disapproval.

"Not quite," Youji answered.

The glare intensified. "I don't believe you."

Youji decided he didn't feel like arguing anymore, and so tried to change the subject. "Why are you still up?"

"I'm checking something," Ran muttered, gesturing vaguely to the many sheets of parchment spread out in front of him.

"Checking what?" Youji asked, moving a little closer and peering cautiously over Ran's shoulder.

"A list of possible places that Takatori might be staying. I'm trying to eliminate as many as I can without actually visiting any of them."

Youji rolled his eyes. "For goodness' sake, Ran, can't that wait until morning? It's got to be past midnight already, and you're the one who wanted to make an early start tomorrow."

"An early start won't do us much good if we don't use the time efficiently," Ran said, not looking up from the list he was perusing.

"Well, I for one can't operate efficiently without sleep," Youji retorted.

"Then why the hell do you insist on staying up so late with your conquests?" Ran asked acidly.

"I'm going to bed," Youji announced, neatly avoiding an answer and another argument.

Ran ignored him and continued to read over his list.

/-/-/-/

Ken stared around the large room in amazement. What astonished him wasn't its size or grandeur or expensive furnishings, but the ease with which he'd entered it.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" he asked Kase in a hissed whisper.

"Of course," Kase whispered back gleefully as he fiddled with the various locks and bolts on a small side door leading to the room where the money was supposedly being kept.

"But where are the guards?" Ken asked.

Kase would have rolled his eyes if he could have spared enough concentration to do so. "I told you, they're outside the manor. That's why we got here early, so we could be in place before they took up their watch."

"But how did you know that that would work?"

"Because I've been keeping an eye on this place. It's called planning, Ken, and sometimes it works," Kase answered sarcastically.

"This is going awfully smoothly for something you didn't have much time to plan," Ken observed.

"Look, will you just keep quiet and stop asking me questions?" Kase hissed, sounding both irritated and anxious. "I'll explain the details to you later if you still want me to, but now is not the time!"

Ken fell silent and paced nervously across the room, his eyes darting back and forth between the door to the hallway and the large window through which he and Kase had entered. Kase had told him to keep watch, and for once he had no qualms about obeying orders. Every hair on the back of his neck seemed to be standing on end, and he was jumpy and agitated. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

"Kase, hurry up with that, will you?" he said anxiously.

"Why?" Kase asked, totally unconcerned. "We can afford to take our time; this is easy."

"Too easy," Ken muttered.

"Relax, will you?" Kase asked. "I know you find it hard to believe, but there are actually times when everything comes your way."

"Yeah," Ken replied. "And it usually means I'm about to be run over."

Kase simply concentrated on a particularly stubborn lock, and didn't bother answering.

"Why did you even bring me here?" Ken asked, suppressing a shiver. Something about this job was giving him the creeps. "You obviously don't need my help."

"Nonsense," Kase said encouragingly. "Of course I need your help. I'm counting on you to help get me out of here, and if nothing else, I'll need you to help me carry stuff."

"Great, don't I feel special," Ken muttered sarcastically.

"Look, if you really want to do something, you can grab that medallion type thing over there on the small table," Kase said, gesturing with one hand to a circular object lying on a small writing table by the door. "I noticed it when we came in; it looks pretty valuable."

Ken walked over and picked it up, observing that it did indeed appear to be some sort of medallion. It was roughly palm sized, and appeared to be made of silver with a design on it in gold, although in the dim light in which they worked, he couldn't be absolutely certain. The gold was in what seemed to be two shapes, and holding the item closer to the small dark lantern Kase was using as a source of light, he observed that the pattern was actually of a wolf and a predatory bird of some sort fighting each other. The eyes of the animals glowed red, and he wondered if those were small rubies set into the precious metal.

"What on earth are they doing, leaving something like this just lying around for anyone to find?" Ken wondered.

"Who knows?" Kase answered. "Rich people are always careless with their stuff."

"Not always," Ken murmured vaguely.

Kase didn't answer as at that moment, he managed to get the last of the bolts to come loose. Pulling the door open, he eagerly seized the lantern and held it up to illuminate the contents of the room he'd just finished breaking into. For a moment his breath caught, then he let it out in a little laugh of triumph.

"Look at all this!" he whispered excitedly.

Ken was looking, and his eyes were wide with wonder. Never in his life had he seen so much wealth in one place. Most of it was in the form of gold or coins, but there were also some precious stones as well. Swallowing, he managed to say, "You were right, Kase."

"Of course I was right," Kase said, grinning like a lunatic. "C'mon, help me gather and pack it, will you?"

Ken nodded and moved forward to help his friend stuff their findings into several large, canvas sacks. They had to be careful not to fill the sacks too full, lest the weight cause the bottom to rip out. Finally, when they had all they could carry and the room was almost entirely cleared out, they straightened up and hefted their load up.

"What about this?" Ken asked, holding up the medallion.

For a moment, he thought he saw something glint in Kase's eyes at the sight of it, but dismissed it as a trick of the light. "You hang onto that," Kase said easily. "We can decide what to do with it later when we divide things up."

Ken nodded and stuffed the item into a pocket inside the breast of his coat.

"You remember the rest of the plan?" Kase asked him as they slipped out the window.

Ken nodded. "We split up to reduce the risk of being seen. You go to the east, and I cut through the gardens and scale the wall to the south. My horse should be waiting in the small grove of trees to the west of the road. If all goes well, we'll meet up at our usual spot before sunrise."

Kase nodded and beamed at him. "You're pretty good at remembering stuff once you decide to pay attention."

Ken snorted. "Oh ye of little faith. You be careful, okay? I'll meet up with you later."

Kase nodded and slipped silently into the shadows along the wall of the house. Ken waited a moment until he was sure his friend had gone, then took a deep breath and silently took off through the gardens.

Tbc…

Author's Note: Well, it's a good thing that I have the next several chapters of this already written, because otherwise I wouldn't update for the rest of the quarter. I've been dropped into science boot camp, only it's more fun. But please humor me if updates are slow. And I apologize to the other Ran/Ken authors out there if I haven't been reviewing. It doesn't mean I'm not reading.

keishin: While constructive comments are always welcome, I appreciate that you reviewed at all. I'm glad you like the characterizations, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story. Thanks for commenting!

HeatherR: I'm glad you're liking the story so far. Yes, this is turning out to be an epic, which worries me just a little. I have written very long stories before, but mostly I stick to oneshots. I'm flattered that you think it's well written, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. And thanks for your well wishes with the program. It's turning out to be a lot of fun so far, even if it is a lot of work. Thanks for commenting!