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 3

Ken made his way out of the gardens much more slowly than he had entered them. This was partially because he was weighed down with his spoils, although not nearly as weighed down as Kase had been, since he had taken most of the goods. Ken could hardly begrudge him that, however, since he had done most of the work as well. Besides, Ken knew the actual dividing up of their gains would take place later, when both of them had reached their meeting place. If they both reached their meeting place. For some reason, he was still nervous about being caught. The feeling that something was dreadfully wrong would not leave him alone. It had been bothering him ever since he had set foot in the house, but he wasn't sure exactly what was causing it. So far, all he could point to definitely was the feeling that the whole thing had been entirely too easy. He'd only done a few jobs with Kase, but in his limited experience, the ones that generated more income tended to be more difficult. This run, on the other hand, was the easiest one they'd done so far. It didn't add up. Still, he supposed he shouldn't complain. Easy was a good thing, right?

Ken's thought were still running along these lines when he reached the wall that surrounded the house and its gardens. It was not a particularly high wall, it was barely higher than he was, but burdened as he was, he figured that trying to simply jump up, grab the top and hoist himself over wouldn't work as well as it had when he'd entered. So instead, he found himself feeling for minute toeholds on the stones that made up the wall. After a moment, he found an area he was sure he could climb over with reasonable ease. Once he had clambered laboriously to the top of the wall, he swung his legs over and allowed himself to drop down easily on the other side.

He landed right next to a pair of stationed guards.

The nagging feeling he'd had all night was probably the only thing that saved his skin. Because he was already on his guard, he was able to react more quickly than either of the two startled men he'd just landed beside. Almost before they realized what was going on, he was in motion, knocking over the small lantern they were using and zigzagging his way off into the darkness. Behind him he heard startled cries and other voices answering. Great. Just fucking great. Now every guard in the place was going to be on his tail. His only consolation was that Kase would probably encounter few problems.

Over the next several minutes, Ken found that he was in need of consoling thoughts. Though he was fast on his feet, the terrain was not well known to him, and his night vision had suffered from exposure to the guards' lantern and was not as good as it might have been. Several times he stumbled, and a few times he almost fell. Behind him, he could heard shouts and people crashing into things in the dark. Apparently, the guards were also suffering from a lack of night vision, which helped to even the score a little, but not much.

It was with great relief that he reached the grove of trees where his horse was tethered. The bay stallion whinnied in surprise when he came scrambling up to it, but Ken ignored the sound. Ripping the reins off the branch where they had been tied, he didn't even pause to make sure the girth of the saddle was tight before throwing himself into it. Desperately, he kicked at the animal's sides, inducing another startled whinny. The horse broke into a reluctant trot for a moment, then slowed to a walk and stopped altogether. Ken tried to urge the creature on, but it refused to budge. Somehow, between the time he had left the animal with Kase to be tethered here and the time he returned for it, the horse had fallen lame.

Ken barely had time to curse his bad luck before the first of the guards was upon him. A large hand grabbed the back of his coat and pulled, dragging him out of the saddle and hurling him to the ground. The fall momentarily knocked the breath out of him, and he lay still in the dirt for a moment, trying to get his bearings.

"I've got 'im, Sir!" A triumphant voice yelled above him.

"Good!" another voice nearby answered. "Hold the scoundrel there while we bring the light."

Ken panicked. He couldn't let them bring the light; light would allow them to see his face, and then he would be doomed. In desperation, he did the first thing he could think of. Taking one of the bags he carried, he swung it upward with as much force as he could. The man above him let out a pained grunt as the sack collided with his chin, and both man and bag went down. Ken was up and running before either could hit the ground. Later it would occur to him that he had left behind both the horse and a very valuable sack of plunder, but at that moment he didn't care. Technically, the horse was Kase's responsibility anyway, as Ken didn't have enough money to keep a horse, and given a choice between keeping the loot or keeping his freedom and what little was left of his good name, the decision was obvious.

As he ran, he could hear the agitated voices behind him. Apparently, the others had stumbled upon their fallen comrade. Ken wondered briefly how badly he had hurt the man before deciding that he had more important things to worry about at that moment. Not all of his pursuers had stopped to exclaim over the downed man, and he could hear one at least behind him who seemed to be gaining on him. As the man approached him from behind, Ken felt more than saw the blade in his hand. Apparently, his attack had convinced the guards that he was dangerous enough to warrant such measures.

Years of teaching weaponry and even more years of practicing it himself had Ken in the habit of never traveling unarmed. He was grateful for that habit now as he pulled out a long dagger and abruptly spun about to face his opponent. Most would probably have dismissed the knife as useless, but Ken preferred fighting with short blades when he could. A sword one could see coming easily, but a knife could be concealed until the last moment, then unsheathed like a cat's claws. It was perhaps a somewhat devious way to fight, but at that moment Ken had no qualms about employing it. He slashed viciously at his pursuer, cutting a large gash across the man's chest before he turned and hurried on, not bothering to see if his opponent was truly down. So long as the fellow was unable to continue chasing him, he didn't care.

The volume of the shouts behind him was steadily increasing, and to his alarm, he heard the distinct thunk of a projectile of some sort hitting the ground near him. A moment later, something struck the back of his left shoulder, piercing through clothes and flesh and causing him to stagger violently and fall to his knees. Reaching around with his other hand, he pulled out the crossbow bolt that had hit him and tossed it to the side. Stumbling to his feet, he hurried onward, now running not only for his freedom but for his life.

Ken was in trouble, and he knew it. His legs were beginning to burn and he was gasping from all the running he'd done. He could feel the blood from his shoulder wound soaking his shirt and coat, but he dared not stop to bind it. When he'd fled, he'd done so with no thought as to direction, and consequently he had absolutely no clue where he was. All he knew was that there were still men behind him, hunting him, and that if they caught up with him or even managed to get close enough to get in a decent bow shot, he was doomed.

Abruptly, the ground seemed to disappear from under his feet, and he pitched forward, landing on his injured shoulder and rolling down an incline until he hit water with a splash. At first, he couldn't even move after the shock of the cold water hitting him, but then instinct kicked in and he swam to the surface. When he came up gasping for air, he realized what had happened. Somehow, he'd managed to run far enough to reach the river that ran along the edge of the town. This was no mean feat, as the house he'd burgled was set apart from the rest of the town by a good three miles or more, and he seriously doubted that the path he'd taken had been a straight line. Somewhere on the bank above him, he could hear the cries of his pursuers, but none of them seemed to have spotted him in the water yet. Things were starting to look almost manageable again. If he remembered correctly, the place was also upstream from the town, which meant that if he could simply manage to stay afloat, the river would carry him where he needed to go.

Unfortunately, staying afloat was harder than it seemed. It took Ken a minute to realize why. In his adrenaline driven haste, he'd almost completely forgotten about the stolen goods he was carrying. The bags of coins weighed heavily on him now, however, and his already tired body protested the extra weight. Desperate to stay afloat, he loosed the bags one by one and let them sink to the bottom of the river. That done, he concentrated on keeping his head above water while he let the river carry him home.

/-/-/-/

Ran rubbed his eyes as he fought off exhaustion. It was long past the hour when he should have gone to bed, but he refused to do so. He'd tried sleeping before Youji had returned, only to wake up with a nightmare of his sister being taken. He'd had that dream before, and sleep was usually a long time coming after he had it. So he'd decided to try to do something productive with his time. He figured that he needed to be productive because Youji certainly didn't seem to be. It was one of many things about the man that irritated him, but he had to grudgingly admit that he wasn't entirely useless, and Ran would have been hard pressed to find anyone else willing to take on the job.

As he stared at the lists he'd been going over, Ran's vision blurred slightly. Definitely no more reading for the night, he decided. Still, he did not want to go to bed. He had a feeling that sleep would prove just as elusive as it had before, and besides, Youji was snoring slightly. Ran was seriously beginning to think that it might be a reasonable expense to simply get the two of them separate rooms.

Sighing, he pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up. If he wasn't going to read any more for the night and he still couldn't sleep, that left him with precious few options left. The thought of simply sitting in a room with Youji and staring at the wall while the other man slept was not an appealing one. Ran decided that a walk was in order, so he headed towards the door. His movements were quiet, but to his surprise, they still managed to wake his roommate.

"Where are you off to?" Youji muttered sleepily, cracking one green eye open to survey Ran.

"I'm going out for a walk," Ran said.

Youji eyed him for a moment longer, then snorted. "Fine," he said, "just put that candle out before you go."

Obligingly, Ran blew out the single candle he'd been working by and quietly slipped out of the room.

/-/-/-/

By the time Ken reached the rooftop where he usually met with Kase after a job, he was a mess. The water had not done good things for his shoulder wound, which refused to stop bleeding. Every muscle in his body was aching in protest and he was sure he was sporting a few bruises from being thrown to the ground as well. To top off everything else, he was soaking wet. When he'd dragged himself out of the river, he'd been too tired to bother wringing out his clothes, and water still dripped off of him. His hair was still wet and plastered against his head with his bangs constantly falling into his eyes and trying to stick there. Despite the cloud cover, the night was bitterly cold, and it seemed even colder to him, soaked as he was. He couldn't seem to stop shivering. So all and all, he made a rather pathetic sight when he finally managed to find his friend.

Kase was standing with his back to Ken, staring out over the rooftops and into the darkness. He seemed to be contemplating something and hadn't noticed Ken's arrival. When Ken hailed him, he spun around to face him so quickly he nearly lost his footing and fell.

"Ken!" he cried in shock, his face white. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing here?" Ken asked, bewildered. "You told me to meet you here, remember?"

Kase nodded, seeming to regain some of his calm. "I did, but I wasn't expecting to see you back here. I heard the guards going after you; I thought you'd been caught. I thought you were dead!"

Ken gave him a tired but hopefully reassuring smile. "No, it took me a while to lose them, but I got away. Unfortunately, I had to dump most of gold to escape. It's probably sitting at the bottom of the river somewhere right now. Sorry for letting you down."

Kase's face was still pale, but he appeared to be reining in his shock and regaining his composure. "What about the crest?" he asked.

Ken blinked in surprise. "Crest?" he repeated, not understanding what Kase was asking about.

"The medallion," Kase said insistently, taking Ken by one shoulder and shaking him slightly. "Have you still got it?"

Ken couldn't understand why on earth his friend would ask about that, and he was a little disappointed by the question. Shouldn't Kase have asked about his well being first? Still, he dutifully cast his mind back and tried to remember what he had done with the medallion. After a moment, he recalled that he had stuck it in the breast pocket on his coat and not in the bags he had had to drop. "I've still got it," he answered.

"Good."

Something in Kase's voice hardened with the one word, and that was all the warning Ken got before he felt the knife plunge into his side. Ken jerked in shock and shoved Kase away from him, instinctively staggering back to put some distance between them. His mind was in a shocked frenzy. Kase had just stabbed him! Kase, who was his friend, had been his friend for years, had tried to kill him! What the hell was going on?

Ken put a hand to his side, glancing down in astonishment at the blood that welled up through his fingers, then looking back at his supposed friend. "Kase, why?" he whispered.

Kase, in contrast, seemed annoyingly calm. "They have to catch someone," he said simply.

"Why?" Ken repeated, a little more forcefully this time.

Kase tilted his head and regarded him, still with that annoying air of composure. "I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "since you are going to die, you might as well know why. You see, they have to catch at least one of the thieves, otherwise Takatori might be implicated. I told you the money we stole was his, but that wasn't quite true. The house we burgled wasn't his, he just happened to be staying there to collect a debt owed to him by his host. I steal the money, with a little help, of course, his host is humiliated and ruined and has to pay double, then I secretly give Takatori back what's his in exchange for a percentage of the goods and a nice, high rank position. But the scheme only works as long as the hosts don't suspect that Takatori was involved in the theft. In other words, we need a scapegoat. They'll find you, or at least your body, and the crest you stole, and they'll know you must have been the thief, even though none of the goods are found with you. They'll assume you must have hidden the loot before you died, and they'll never find it, and that will be that. In fact, this actually works out better than I had planned. I thought I would have to sacrifice the stuff I sent with you, since I couldn't carry it all myself, but this way, I can just retrieve the bags you left in the river. It all works out beautifully, don't you think?"

Ken was slowly edging away, shaking his head, unable to comprehend what he was hearing. Even as part of his mind was wailing that this couldn't be true, that this was all a horrible nightmare, the logical part of his brain was calling up all sorts of things that had seemed odd at the time, but now made perfect sense. The ease with which they'd entered the house. Of course it was easy, if Kase had inside information. His unfortunate encounter with the guards while taking the escape route Kase had picked for him. His lame horse, which had been left in position by Kase. Kase's insistence that he carry the medallion so that he could be positively identified as the thief, even if he was dead. It all reinforced what Kase was telling him, and yet he still didn't want to believe it.

"What's the matter?" Kase asked mockingly, seeing Ken's wide-eyed denial. "You're always going on about how important friendship, loyalty, and camaraderie are. Now you can live your ideals, or at least die for them. You'll die so that I can go free and enjoy the fruits of my labor."

"Of our labor!" Ken cried indignantly, disgusted beyond words that Kase could see this as a form of camaraderie.

"Our labor?" Kase repeated with a sneer. "You didn't even want to work with me, until I forced you to."

Ken's eyes widened at the implications. "You made me lose my job!" he croaked, unable to control the shaking in his voice.

Kase just shrugged. "Hey, I got money and a competent partner out of the deal. Unfortunately, a reluctant partner, however competent, is no good in the long run. Sooner or later, you would have deserted me, so I'm not really losing anything I wouldn't have lost anyway by doing this."

"Bastard," Ken hissed, his face contorting as shock took a backseat to rage. "Do you have any idea how much that position meant to me?"

"Because of your precious students?" Kase spat back. "I know you like kids, but the fuss you kicked up over the whole thing was really ridiculous. But it doesn't matter now," he said, his face once more assuming that look of strange calm. Only the odd gleam in his eyes betrayed any of his inner thoughts as he strode towards Ken, knife raised.

Desperately, Ken stumbled back away from the man advancing towards him. His cold hands fumbled hastily for his own dagger, and his fingers closed around the hilt just as Kase reached him and struck.

All Ken saw was the flash of the knife as it descended towards him. When it struck his chest, however, instead of sinking in, it was deflected, instead sliding off to cut a long but relatively shallow gash down the lower portion of his chest. Kase barely had time to wonder at his failure before Ken struck back, sinking his dagger into the man's stomach and ripping upward before throwing Kase off of him.

Kase stumbled back, then fell hard upon the rooftop, his eyes wide and fixed disbelievingly on Ken. He opened his mouth, and blood came bubbling out, covering his lips and running down his chin. "Traitor," he managed to choke.

Ken straightened and stared down at the man he'd thought was his friend. "You're the last person who should be calling me a traitor!" he growled.

Kase's blood covered lips twisted into a weird little smile as his body went limp. "Traitors go to hell," he murmured, sounding almost thoughtful. "I guess... I'll see you there." His last breath gurgled slightly as it passed through his lips, and then he lay utterly still, his eyes still open and fixed on Ken.

Ken's knees gave out, and he sat down rather abruptly, dropping his dagger beside him to clatter against the roof. Almost as an afterthought, he reached up to touch the gash on his chest, following it with his fingers until he encountered an object in his coat that had evidently deflected Kase's knife. Pulling it out, he stared in mild surprise at the medallion he'd taken from the house. He'd forgotten about it, but looking at it now, the irony was not lost on him. His life had been saved by the very item Kase had meant to use to damn him.

A drop of water hit him, then another, and he looked up at the sky blankly. The clouds which had been threatening rain all evening had evidently decided to make good on the promise. He looked back down and watched with morbid fascination as little droplets of water spattered over Kase's dead face, splashing against his cheeks and running down from his still open eyes like tears.

It was that last thought that finally seemed to break Ken out of the shocked stupor he'd been in. With a harsh cry, he staggered to his feet and stumbled away from the grisly scene, breaking into a clumsy run as he headed towards the narrow stairs that would take him back to the street. He didn't seem to care that he left a bloody trail behind his as the rain water mingled with the blood from his shoulder, side, and chest. His mind wasn't capable of processing anything, not even pain. All he knew was that he had to get away, and so he reached the street and fled, heedless of his direct. He stumbled along until he could go no further and then collapsed, letting the darkness overtake him.

/-/-/-/

Ran hunched his shoulders against the rain and cursed himself for not thinking about the weather before he'd left. He had no idea how long he'd been out wandering around, but by the time it had started raining, he'd been far enough away from the inn that there was no hope of reaching it before he got drenched. Grudgingly, he'd turned his footsteps back that way anyway, thinking that he at least had dry clothes waiting for him in his room.

He hadn't been in this town very long, since the only reason he had come here was because he'd heard that Takatori would be staying somewhere in the area. Nevertheless, Ran had kept track of the distances he'd covered and the turns he'd made when leaving the inn, and he felt confident enough in his sense of direction to take a few shortcuts back. Nor was he worried about using back alleys; he'd been careful before he left to put on a long coat that did not broadcast his class for everyone to see, and he carried no money on him.

Ran discovered that the only disadvantage to using the narrow alleys was their lack of light as he tripped over something large and unyielding that was sprawled in his path. Cursing, he managed to regain his footing before he landed face first in the mud and kicked half heartedly at the object that had tripped him. It gave slightly under his foot, and he paused, half wondering what it was, half afraid to find out. Finally, curiosity got the better of him, and he knelt down on the dirty ground and reached a hand out for the thing. His fingers met with cloth, coarse and wet. He found a seam and followed it until the cloth abruptly ended and his fingers encountered the unmistakable feel of skin. Ran felt for a moment, then jerked his hand back when he realized that what he'd felt was a human hand.

He'd tripped over a body.

Tbc...

Author's Note: The chapters might start coming more slowly now, since I haven't been writing at all. Actually, that's not true; I've been writing tons, but somehow I don't think anyone wants to read my lab reports and paper critiques.

keishin: I'm glad you enjoyed that chapter. I figure that while Ken can be dense sometime, he's not that dense; he would notice something was wrong. But he wouldn't suspect Kase until the very end. I tried to keep it close to the series in that respect. Thanks for commenting!

NekoAnime: I'm glad you liked Youji and Ran bickering. I see those two as not getting along very well until they get to know one another better, since their attitudes towards life are rather different. As for what Kase did or did not do, this chapter should have cleared up any lingering doubts. Thanks for commenting!

HeatherR: I'm glad you liked the chapter! Hopefully Ran and Youji will eventually learn to get along. And Ken trusting Kase is enough to make anyone nervous. But they will all be united soon! Well, relatively soon anyway... Thanks for commenting!