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

Blood Summons

By Rapunzel

Chapter 12

Finding Aya was not nearly as difficult as Nagi had anticipated it would be. For once, the girl was actually where she was supposed to be, in her room. He could hear her moving around inside. Two quick taps on the door provided all the warning he was willing to give her before he opened the door and slipped inside. Aya glanced up at him and pursed her lips in annoyance.

"Have you come to make sure I'm behaving myself?" she asked in an oddly cheerful voice which didn't quite manage to conceal its note of bitterness.

Nagi didn't bother to answer. They both knew why he was there.

Aya threw herself down into her desk chair and scowled at the books that covered the wooden surface of the desk. "Fine, I'll be good and study. Not that it makes much of a difference. You'll never let me see my brother, will you? I'm almost starting to think he's escaped from you."

Still Nagi stayed silent, keeping his face impassive to avoid giving anything away. Fortunately, since that was the expression that most often graced his features and Aya was not a mind reader, she noticed nothing.

"Oh, I really don't want to study anymore," she whined, giving the books a distasteful push away from her. "It's not like it will really help much."

"But I hear you didn't do well in your practice examination this morning," Nagi said, trying not to look too much like he was interested. He actually knew very little about the examinations, since Takatori insisted on conducting them himself. He knew that the most recent one had not gone as his employer would have liked, but not why.

Aya made a face. "I did just fine, mostly. I know all the vocabulary, but my pronunciation is off, apparently. Though really, I don't know how he expects me to learn that from a book."

"You have a book which shows you the phonetic spellings of the words, do you not?" Nagi said. So that was why Takatori had been so irritated this morning. Crawford might be interested to know that.

"I do," Aya sounded as though the admission had been dragged from her.

She rifled through the books on her desk until she located the appropriate one. Pulling it out of the pile, she opened it and glanced at it for a moment, the abruptly shut it again and hurled it at the wall. The book sailed across the room, pages flapping wildly, but stopped just before it struck the wall. It froze in midair for a moment, then closed itself neatly and glided back across the room to hover about a foot from Aya's face.

Once upon a time, such a display would have alarmed Aya. The first time Nagi had done it, she had screamed outright and tried to bat the book away. Now, however, she was used to such things. Sometimes Nagi thought she threw her books almost as a game, testing his reflexes to see if he could stop them before the actual impact. The poor girl must be very bored indeed, he reflected, if she was resorting to such things.

Aya reached up and took the book reluctantly. "I hate studying phonetics," she said petulantly. "Why is the actual pronunciation so important anyway? It's not like anybody except for Takatori and maybe one or two other people actually speak the bloody language any more. I can read and write it just fine, isn't that enough?"

Again Nagi kept silent. Speaking was actually the most important part, but if he told her that, he would have to explain why, and that was not something she was supposed to know.

Aya set the book on the desk, opened it, and made a great show of looking over one of the pages for a moment. Then she abandoned the pretense and slumped across the desk, looking incredibly glum as she fixed her dark, melancholy eyes on him.

"I just want to see my brother," she said. "Is that so much to ask?"

"No," Nagi said, not asking why she bothered to tell him such things. He had long ago realized that what Aya desperately needed was someone to talk to, and as the least intimidating of her captors, he seemed to be it. She was going to spill all her thoughts on him, whether he bothered to answer her or not.

"Then why won't he let me see Ran?" Aya demanded. "Telling me I need to fix my speaking skills first... Hmph! I had half a mind to tell him exactly where he could stick his bloody speaking skills."

The corners of Nagi lips twitched slightly at that as he imagined Aya actually saying such a thing to Takatori's face. All he said, however, was, "That wouldn't have been very lady-like of you."

Aya snorted. "I've given up being lady-like. It's not as though there's anyone here who really cares if I am or not anyway."

Nagi couldn't really argue with that.

Sighing heavily, Aya picked her head up off the desk and gave her book a listless glance. "Oh well," she muttered resignedly, "I suppose I'd better get to it then. I do want to see my brother some time this century, after all." She paused to shoot Nagi a glance. "Could you please leave? It's difficult to study with you hovering there like a vulture, watching me."

"I'll check in on you in a bit then," Nagi said. To make sure you're doing what you're supposed to, was the unspoken threat.

Aya just nodded and waved him away. Satisfied that she was, for the moment at least, suitably compliant, Nagi slipped out of the room and quietly shut the door behind him.

/-/-/-/

Crawford was sitting in his own private study staring in distaste at the plate in front of him when the knock came. Welcoming any excuse to put off his next task, he called, "Enter."

Nagi came in and stood quietly near the door, waiting to be addressed.

"Well?" Crawford was not one to waste words. Obviously the boy had something he thought worth reporting, and it was best that he simply report it and be done with the matter.

"The girl is getting restless," Nagi said.

Crawford grunted. "That's nothing new. Should I send Schuldich down to visit her?"

Nagi shook his head. "She's behaving for the time being. But she's begun to suspect that we don't really have her brother captive."

"Wonderful," Crawford muttered, rubbing his head wearily. The news didn't surprise him really. Aya was a fairly intelligent girl and had probably guessed a while ago; he was only surprised she hadn't started questioning them earlier. Still, it might prove problematic.

"I also learned what went wrong with her examination earlier," Nagi said. "Apparently her pronunciation is off."

"I gathered it must have been something like that," Crawford said. "It would be speech she has trouble with. It's always the most important part that goes wrong."

Nagi nodded, then paused when he caught sight of the plate sitting on the desk before Crawford. He frowned slightly. "Again?" he said, nodding slightly at the plate.

"Our employer seems to think it necessary," Crawford said, a note of disdain entering his voice.

Nagi rolled his eyes but all he said was, "Shall I tell the others that you don't want to be disturbed?"

"They already know," Crawford said. "Now go and keep an eye on the girl and make sure she sticks to her task."

Nagi nodded obediently and left as quietly as he had entered, leaving Crawford to once again contemplate the dish in front of him. He stared at it, scowling. The plate of mushrooms still looked back at him, unaltered for all the ill will he was directing against it.

Mushrooms. Crawford had come to hate the damned things over the course of his life. It had been purely by accident that he had first discovered the effect they could have on him. He still had vague memories from when he was very young of his cousin apologizing profusely for very nearly poisoning him and everyone else in the family. Why the boy had offered to go out and collect mushrooms in the first place when he had no idea of how to identify them was a mystery, but he had, and the results were something Crawford would never forget as long as he lived.

Fortunately, or unfortunately he sometimes thought, the mushrooms his cousin had fed him had not been poisonous. They had, however, caused almost everyone who ate them to hallucinate. For Crawford, the effects of the mushrooms had merged with his inborn abilities and had given him some of the most vivid and horrific visions of the future that he had ever had. Sometimes he wondered how he had managed to retain his sanity through the experience.

However, once he knew of their effects, the mushrooms had become a tool he could use, if he was careful. If eaten in moderation, they would heighten his gift, allowing him to see more visions that he normally would have. It was useful on occasion, since his gift could be sporadic, showing him nothing at all for long periods of time. When he needed the knowledge his abilities could provide him with, sometimes he had to force the visions.

There were drawbacks as well. Crawford was almost always ill after eating them, whether from the food itself or the things he saw, he wasn't sure. Also, mushrooms did inevitably cause him to hallucinate a little, and sometimes he had difficulty picking out what had been a vision from the products of his own imagination. Usually he was fairly successful, but on a few occasions...

Feeling that the costs outweighed the benefits in all but the most dire situations, Crawford usually preferred to leave well enough alone and let his gift provide him with its brief glimpses of things to come when it would. However, once Takatori had found out about the effects the fungus could have on him, things had gotten complicated. Patience seemed to be something his employer lacked, and when he felt that things were not going quite as he would have liked them to, he often demanded that Crawford use the hated method to try and see something useful. Which was why Crawford was currently eyeing a forkful of the vile things.

He didn't especially want to eat them, but there was nothing for it, so he choked down the first mouthful, then the second, and on and on until he had finished them. Shoving the plate aside, he let his head rest against the surface of the desk as he waited for the effects to hit. It wouldn't be long now...

/-/-/-/

Crawford wasn't sure how much time had passed when he finally managed to pick his head up off the desk. Hours and hours, it felt like. His neck was stiff, and he felt cold and a little ill. Night had fallen while he'd been lost in his visions, and the room had gotten rather chilly.

Standing up slowly, he allowed himself to lean on the desk for a brief moment. He felt horrible, but at least it hadn't been for nothing. One of the visions he'd had would interest Takatori greatly, he was sure. He cast his mind back to the scene, the red-haired boy he'd met all those years ago, grown to a young man now, entwined with a brunet Crawford did not know. Yes, Takatori would be very interested in that, he was sure.

Crawford frowned, remembering some of the other things he had seen. Most of it had simply been colorful dreams brought on by the mushrooms, but there had been one near the end that he wasn't sure of, and it troubled him. Schuldich, he remembered, it had something to do with Schuldich, and that concerned him greatly. That young man had been his companion for a long time now, and he had watched the redhead change from a brash, sarcastic and overly confident teenager to a brash, sarcastic, and overly confident adult. Seven years of company was not something even he could brush off lightly, and in his weaker and more honest moments, he might even admit to being a little frightened at the idea of losing his friend. Which was why he fervently hoped that whatever he'd seen had been a dream and not a prophetic vision.

Whatever it had been, it had been terribly short. Just a glimpse, really. So brief that he couldn't remember it very clearly now. All he really recalled was that it had involved Schuldich, Takatori, and a hell of a lot of blood.

/-/-/-/

Takatori leaned back in his chair, staring at Crawford consideringly. "You're sure of this?" he asked.

"Quite sure," Crawford said.

Takatori frowned. "Well, he'll never have children if he insists on bedding another man."

"Precisely," Crawford said. "That being the case, is it really worth it to leave him at large? The girl has been demanding to see her brother for some time now. Perhaps if we had him in hand, we would have an easier time getting her to cooperate. It would give her a little extra... incentive."

"There's something in what you say," Takatori admitted. "I'm starting to think that some of her failure to perform is due to deliberate stubbornness and not because she couldn't speak properly if she wanted to. But I have no way to know for sure."

"Then with your permission, we'll obtain her brother and see if we can't find out," Crawford suggested, a rather cold smile crossing his face.

Takatori considered for a moment more, then said, "Very well. I was going to let the boy go his own way in hopes of securing the bloodline just in case the girl falls through, but I suppose if he'll never have children on his own, there's no point in that. Bring him here, but try not to damage him."

The smile did not leave Crawford's face as he bowed slightly and said, "Just as you wish."

Tbc...

Author's Notes: Yes, another Schwarz chapter. It was necessary for the plot to advance. From here on out, however, I don't think there will be any more chapters with just them. Also, in the somewhat unlikely event that any avid Crawford fans are actually reading this, hopefully they won't lynch me before I manage to finish the story.