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), some violence

Pairings: Eventual Ran/Ken, Youji/Omi

Chapter 6

Nagi was waiting outside with Farfarello to greet Crawford and Schuldich when they returned to the manor with Takatori. He seemed very relieved to see them.

"I've given up trying to deal with her," he told Crawford as they walked towards the house, Schuldich and Farfarello a pace or two behind them. "She never listens to a word I say anyway."

"That's because she's not scared of you," Schuldich informed him condescendingly. "If she were, you might find it easier to deal with her."

Nagi frowned. "Of course she's not scared of me," he said. "I can't do anything to her."

"I'll admit that our employer's insistence that she not be damaged in the least is somewhat hindering," Crawford agreed as they all entered the house and made their way upstairs towards the private rooms.

"Why?" Schuldich asked arrogantly. "I seem to manage just fine. All it takes is a little finesse."

"Well, I obviously don't have your talent, now do I?" Nagi ground out.

Crawford shot Schuldich a look that told him in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut. Turning back to Nagi, he asked, "Since threats don't work, did you try cajoling?"

"Yes," Nagi answered disinterestedly. "Though I'm not very good at it. For a while it looked like it might work, until he interfered." He paused to send a scathing look in Farfarello's direction. Farfarello merely returned the look with one of his weird little smiles.

Crawford too turned a dark look on his pale companion. "Why do you harass the girl if it does no good?" he demanded.

Farfarello shrugged. "It's something to do," he answered as if he didn't really care. "And the Gods hurt when she cries." He smiled darkly to himself.

"Next time you leave," Nagi said, addressing Crawford, "either ask me to keep an eye on the girl, or on him. Not both of them at the same time."

"What's the matter?" Schuldich taunted. "Are the two of them too much for you?"

Nagi scowled again. He was not in a good mood. Crawford had left him with a task to perform, and the fact that he'd not only been unable to do it, but had also had to send for help, rankled.

"Schuldich, shut up," Crawford commanded firmly, though without malice. He stopped in front of a hardwood door, knocking against it once, more a gesture of habit than an indication that he really cared whether or not the room's occupant wanted to see him. Throwing the door open, Crawford entered a small but well furnished bedroom. The bed was neat and made, and lacy curtains fluttered in a breeze from the open window. A fancy gown was draped over the back of an armchair, ready for later use. There was a small desk on which several books were stacked, some of them open as though they were in the middle of being read. Other than Crawford, however, the room had no occupant.

Crawford turned to face Nagi, who was watching him silently from the hall. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"She hasn't left the house," Nagi answered. "Other than that, she could be anywhere."

"She's supposed to be up here studying," Crawford ground out through clenched teeth.

Nagi gave him an apathetic stare. "I told you I'd given up on her, didn't I?"

They found her a few minutes later sitting in the study. She had been folding some of her study sheets into odd shapes and stacking them on the desk idly. When Crawford entered with the other three at his back, she rose to her feet and turned to face him, a defiant look on her face.

"You're back then," she observed.

"Aya," Crawford said, his voice quiet but warning, "why aren't you upstairs in your room studying?"

Aya Fujimiya threw one of her dark braids behind one shoulder and stuck her chin out. "I want to see my brother," she demanded, ignoring Crawford's question.

"We've been over this," Crawford said, sounding like a man who was losing patience. "You'll see your brother when you've completed your studies, and not a minute sooner."

"Why not?" Aya asked haughtily, her violet eyes flashing. "You've been saying that for years. If you have him, then let me see him."

Crawford gritted his teeth in annoyance. "Schuldich," he ground out, "reason with her, will you?"

"Gladly," Schuldich answered with a feral smile.

Aya took a step back as Schuldich moved towards her. Uncertainty and even a hint of fear flashed through her eyes. "I want to see my brother," she repeated, though this time she sounded less sure of herself.

"Now, now," Schuldich said smoothly, taking her by the shoulders and steering her over to a nearby chair. "Let's just discuss this, shall we?"

Crawford motioned to Nagi and Farfarello, and the three of them left the room, closing the door behind them. Schuldich would handle the situation.

It was odd, Crawford reflected, that he gave over the task with so little protest. Normally he preferred to do things himself so as to ensure that they were done correctly. However, he found himself faced with an almost insurmountable challenge in the form of Aya Fujimiya.

She hadn't been so hard to manage when they'd first brought her back all those years ago. A frightened girl, separated from the only family she'd had, she had been almost too easy to intimidate. Takatori had told them to make sure she studied hard and flawlessly learned the ancient language he'd set her to learn, and they had done so. It was simple.

At least it had been simple. But Aya's will had proved to be stronger than they'd anticipated. After the first few weeks, she had begun to question her captivity and refused to study, demanding to be set free. Crawford had tried beating the girl to make her comply, only to be brought up before his employer for it. Takatori was not pleased with his treatment of the girl, insisting that physical punishment would only make her resentful and cause her to deliberately mess up the plan. The fundamental problem was that the plan involved Aya's learning of the language, which could not be accomplished against her will. Aya had realized this, and was quick to use it to her advantage.

In desperation, trying to make the girl cooperate, Takatori had told her that he had her brother captive as well, and that unspeakable things would happen to the boy if she didn't stick to her lessons like a good girl. At first, the plan had seemed brilliant. Frightened of losing the only family she had left, Aya had been quick to cooperate. But the plan had one fatal flaw; they didn't have her brother. He was still at large somewhere, waiting for Takatori to decide if he would be useful or not.

As she'd grown older, Aya had begun to question the fact that in all her time in captivity she had never seen her brother. At first, her tentative requests to see him had been easy enough to push aside, but with age she had grown bolder. Also, she seemed to have figured out that she was too valuable to physically punish.

This last revelation on her part annoyed Crawford the most. Once she'd realized that he couldn't hurt her, she'd lost any respect she'd ever held for him. He had no authority over her anymore; Takatori and his damn orders had effectively stripped him of that. Aya could laugh off or ignore most of what he said to her, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Sometimes he was tempted to hit her as hard as he could, simply to prove to her that he was still capable of hurting her. However, he always reined himself in, knowing that such an action would probably prove counterproductive in the long run. And so she continued to ignore his orders.

Most of his team failed to have better luck with her as well. Nagi especially seemed to have a problem getting her to do as he said, possible because of his youth. Aya was less hostile to him than she was to the others, partly because he was younger than her, and partly because he was not especially hostile towards her. He was apathetic and often silent when in her presence, but he was often like that with other people, so she didn't take it personally.

Farfarello was a slightly different story. Aya was frightened of him, Crawford was sure. Farfarello was just crazy enough to ignore orders and damn the consequences, and Aya knew it. She could never be completely certain that he would heed Takatori's orders not to harm her, and so she stepped cautiously around him, worried about setting him off on her. But while Farfarello could scare her into silence, he could not scare her into submission. Only Schuldich could do that.

When they had first brought Aya back, she had seemed to almost look up to Schuldich. He was older than she was, but much closer to her in age than Crawford was. Those had been the days before Nagi had joined the team, and Aya had desperately wanted a friend close to her own age. Schuldich had red hair like her brother and was only a little older than the boy, and Aya had clung to that. However, it hadn't taken her long to figure out that Schuldich and her brother were nothing alike. Schuldich taunted and annoyed her, and Takatori had asked Crawford to keep the two of them separate after Aya had thrown a few temper tantrums and resorted to throwing her books at the offending redhead.

The ban on their interactions had been lifted, however, as Aya grew more and more obstinate. Oddly enough, Schuldich seemed to be only one who was still able to wield enough power over her to make her do what they wanted. He could use his powers of persuasion in combination with his mental gift to make her docile and complacent. Moreover, Aya seemed to sense that Schuldich had the power to make her not herself, and it frightened her more than anything else they could have done to her. Instead of seeing him as a possible surrogate brother as she had at first, she now regarded him with abject terror. Usually the mere threat of sending him to talk to her was enough to make her back down.

'He ought to be useful for something after all the annoyance he's caused,' Crawford though uncharitably.

The door to the study opened suddenly, and Aya emerged. Her violet eyes were slightly unfocused, and she had an altogether dazed look on her face. Crawford might have found the vacancy of her expression slightly alarming if he hadn't been used to seeing Schuldich's handiwork. As it was, he merely raised an eyebrow at the girl, looked over her shoulder at Schuldich, and demanded, "Well?"

"I'm going to go study now," Aya said flatly to no one in particular.

"Good girl," Schuldich purred, patting her on the head as though she were a puppy. "You do that."

Aya nodded slightly and shuffled off in the general direction of her room.

Schuldich watched her go, his lip curling up in an expression of mild disdain. "I'm beginning to think that girl is more trouble than she's worth," he said.

"I've thought that for years," Crawford admitted. "But that's not our decision to make."

Schuldich shrugged. "Sooner or later even Takatori's got to figure out that he's spending more time trying to make her learn than she's spending actually learning."

"I'll speak to him about it," Crawford said. He rubbed at his temples as if to dispel a headache. This was becoming rather trying, and his options were running thin. Takatori traveled quite a lot, and he liked to take at least two of his team of four with him. Farfarello had been banned from going on such trips, however, after a rather unfortunate incident with a business associate who had managed to irritate the psychotic man. Schuldich needed to be present to keep Aya in line, but leaving Schuldich and Farfarello on their own rarely proved to be a good idea. Left to their own devices, the two of them inevitably caused trouble of some sort. All this left him with a dilemma to solve before Takatori decided to travel again.

'I'll work something out,' he told himself. 'And in the end, it will be worth it.'

Tbc...

Author's Notes: Well, as promised, the wait for Chapter 6 wasn't nearly as long as for Chapter 5. I make no promises about the next one though...

Thanks to the people who reviewed the last chapter!

HeatherR: I'm sorry you had to wait so long for the chapter, but I'm glad you liked it. And he has gotten to Ran a little already, even if Ran would never admit it. Not yet, anyway... Thanks for commenting!

NekoAnime: I've always imagined Ken as being sort of noble at heart and having good intentions, even if things rarely turn out the way he thinks they will. Besides, even if he was just a bit character, I felt a little sorry for Katakura. Everyone seems to be awaiting Omi eagerly; I hope you're not too disappointed that he didn't appear in this chapter. He'll come in soon, I promise! Thanks for commenting!