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

Author's Notes: I know it's been a really long time since I posted anything for this. I probably should have warned everyone that I was going to go on hiatus for a while to prevent spring quarter from kicking my butt. The problem is that by the time I figured this out, I was already on hiatus.

Blood Summons

By Rapunzel

Chapter 13

"Hey, Omi, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Omi looked over at Ken in surprise, but said, "Of course. What did you want to talk about?"

Ken cast a quick glance ahead of them to make sure their other two companions were out of earshot before he said, "About Youji."

Omi sat up a little straighter in the saddle, giving Ken his full attention. "What about Youji?"

"Well, I know you're mad at him because of what Ran said, right?" Ken said. "Look, just don't pay any attention to what Ran says about him. He and Youji have been arguing since I met them, and I'm sure half the things they say to each other aren't true."

Despite his reasoning, Omi continued to look disheartened. "I'm afraid that this was probably one of the times when it was true then," he said. "You don't know Youji as I do."

"You'd say that you know Youji really well, right?" Ken asked, determined to do something to end the silence between his traveling companions.

"Yes," Omi said, obviously confused by the question but still willing to answer it.

"Does he usually tell the truth when he's drunk?"

Omi gave him a funny look, but said, "Well, yes, if you can get him to hold a straight conversation. He has a tendency to ramble and follow his own train of thought without caring if other people can follow his reasoning."

"But he tells the truth, right?"

"Yes."

"Well then," Ken said smugly, "you can take it from me that what Ran said wasn't true. Youji didn't do anything with any barmaids. He told me so."

"He got drunk then, did he?" Omi didn't sound surprised, only resigned.

"I think it was just 'cause he was upset that you were mad at him and wouldn't believe him," Ken said.

Omi looked thoughtfully at the reins in his hands and didn't answer.

"Anyway," Ken said, "I just thought I should let you know."

When Omi only nodded vaguely in reply, he decided to take it as a good sign.

/-/-/-/

All in all, Ran thought, it was amazing how little the road leading to his house had changed over the years. The forest that skirted it still stood silent and imposing, just as it probably had long before his birth. The setting sun cast the shadows of the trees across the road before them and the light came through the leaves in small patches, dappling the horses and riders alike with blotches of orange interspersed with shadow. Even the patterns, ever changing as they were, seemed familiar, reminding him of times when he was very young and he and his parents had ridden through these very trees, trying to reach the house before dark.

Nostalgia trip aside, Ran was glad to be there. He was very tired after having ridden all day trying to make the estate before nightfall. Originally he had thought to spend another night at an inn and complete the trip in the morning, but had decided that they could make the rest of the journey in one day if they pushed. When he'd put the idea to his companions, Youji and Omi had both been fairly indifferent, and Ken had seemed strangely taken with the idea. So they had pushed, and now everyone in the group seemed to be tired and silent and anxious to be there.

At least the silence was a more comfortable one now. Whatever issues they'd had between them, Youji and Omi seemed to have resolved them to their satisfaction and were now on speaking terms again, for which Ran was grateful. He had brought them here to look for clues about Aya, and to do that he needed a functional team, and having the two members who had known each other the longest not talking to each other did not bode well.

Looking ahead, Ran noticed that the road curved slightly in front of them, hiding the path they would soon travel from view. With a start, he remembered Aya calling him boring and riding off, rounding the bend and vanishing from his line of sight. Just here... just beyond that curve was where they had taken her.

Once there had been a time when he had ridden past the place almost daily and had become almost desensitized to the memory. However, having been away from home for so long chasing after her had left him unprepared and it all hit him like a tidal wave. As he rounded the bend, he could see the spot in the trees where he had chased after her. Foolish of him, to let himself be disabled so easily and let them get away. Foolish of him to have let her go out that day in the first place.

He hadn't realized that he had stopped his horse and was staring blankly into the trees until he heard Ken's voice beside him asking, "See something?"

Ran started and whipped his head around to stare at the young man. Ken had pulled his horse to a halt beside Ran's and was alternately peering into the trees and looking back at Ran in confusion.

"No," Ran said, his voice cold and distant even to his own ears. "It's nothing." He shook himself out of his daze and continued on. Ken looked back into the forest once more before shrugging and following after him.

/-/-/-/

His guardian was waiting to meet them when they arrived. Ran assumed that someone must have seen their approach and alerted her to their arrival, since she couldn't have known exactly when they would get there. When he had written to inform her of his imminent return home, he hadn't provided her with a specific date, which was just as well, given all the delays he had faced. Nevertheless, there she stood, looking calm and unsurprised to see him and the company he had brought.

When he and the others had dismounted and drawn close enough that talking was feasible, the woman gave Ran a small smile and raised one of her eyebrows a bit. "I was beginning to wonder if you would ever return home again," she said.

Ran inclined his head at her. "You're looking well, Manx."

"I'm perfectly well, thank you," Manx said. "And before you bother asking, no, there have been no new developments here as far as your sister is concerned."

Ran nodded. That didn't surprise him much. There were never any new developments at home, but he always made a point of asking as soon as he arrived back from any trip. Perhaps the eternal optimist in him which he hadn't quite managed to crush was still holding out for some news of Aya.

"I'm afraid I don't have much to report either," he said. "Only that I've enlisted some help in the search."

Manx eyed the other three men with interest. "So I see," she said, her tone full of curiosity. Ran couldn't really blame her for wondering about these three. In six years, while he had employed outside help, he had never brought anyone back to the estate. He wondered if it was a good or a bad sign that he was doing so now.

Shifting her gaze to the others, Manx addressed them. "Gentlemen, I'm not sure how much Ran has told you, but I'm Manx, Ran's former guardian and caretaker of his estate while he's gone."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Youji said, sidling up to her with a winning smile and bowing low. "I'm Youji Kudou, and these are Omi Tsukiyono and Ken Hidaka. Ran did tell us a little bit about you, but he failed to mention your beauty."

Manx calmly ignored his comment, while Ken rolled his eyes and leaned over to Omi to whisper, "He's flirting again."

Omi just shrugged. "Trying to get Youji to stop flirting is like asking it not to snow in winter. You might get what you want for a little while, but the results aren't always nice, and in the long run it's a futile wish anyway. I don't care if he flirts, as long as he doesn't pursue other activities beyond that."

"I don't think you have to worry about that now," Ken murmured. "This lady looks like she's not going for it."

Sure enough, Manx had managed to ignore most of Youji's comments, slide her hand out of his before he could kiss it, and dexterously sidestep her way out of an attempted embrace. Having thus dealt with Youji, she turned her attention to Omi and Ken. "Gentlemen," she said, "please make yourselves at home."

/-/-/-/

The first thing Omi did after stowing his things in the bedroom provided for him was to seek out the library. It was a massive room, filled floor to ceiling by books with a few south facing windows to provide light. For a few minutes, Omi simply wandered around, staring up at the books in awe and wondering where he should start.

He was startled out of this contemplation by the sound of the library door opening and closing softly. Turning around, he saw that Youji had decided to join him.

"I thought I might find you here," Youji said. "Starting research already?"

Omi laughed. "Actually, I was just looking and thinking if there was anything I'd want to read for fun. I hadn't really considered researching anything, mostly because I don't know if it will do any good unless I have a direction. At the moment, I wouldn't even know where to begin."

Youji considered that. "Well, starting tomorrow, I plan to poke around this place and ask Manx a few things. I might be able to come up with something for you to look into. Until then, you could try looking for anything that might confirm those rumors your uncle told you about."

"Magical history, you mean?" Omi shrugged. "It's a start, I suppose."

"At the moment, it's all we've got, pathetic as it is," Youji said.

"You're bound to find something else soon," Omi said reassuringly.

Youji made a soft affirmative noise, but he looked distant.

"This lack of leads is really bothering you, isn't it?" Omi asked. "But cheer up. Now that we're here, I'm sure you'll find something."

"It isn't just the lack of leads that bothers me," Youji said. "You want to know what really bothers me? Motive. Or rather the lack of it. Ever since Ran came and told me about the whole thing, I haven't been able to figure out why that girl vanished."

"Takatori kidnapped her," Omi said simply.

"Yes, but why? Kidnapping someone and holding them captive takes a lot of work. You have to make sure you aren't found while keeping your captive from escaping at the same time. Usually, if someone is in Takatori's way, he simply has them killed. Why take the girl alive? It obviously wasn't for ransom, since he hasn't demanded anything. But if she were dead, surely someone would have found her body by now."

"It could be that her body has been found and word simply hasn't gotten back to Ran yet," Omi said gravely.

"I've thought of that," Youji admitted. "In fact, when I first started, I was almost sure that must be what had happened. But that was before I really started working with Ran. Given the way he's been tracking Takatori for the last six years, I find it unlikely that he would have let something like a body slip by him unnoticed."

"Maybe they killed her and hid the body," Omi suggested.

"But again, you have to wonder why," Youji said. "Most of the people who've died because of Takatori have simply been left where they were. That man obviously isn't afraid of leaving evidence behind, either because he's managed to implicate someone else, or because he knows he's powerful enough to get away with it."

"But if she is still alive," Omi said, "that implies that there's something special about her that makes it worth his while to hang onto her."

"Exactly," Youji said. "Unfortunately, I haven't got a clue what that something is, and I don't think Ran knows either. That's why I want to talk to Manx about it as soon as possible. She's been their guardian since their parents died; she might know something about it. Or she might not, in which case we're screwed."

"Don't say that, Youji," Omi said, making a face. "We're the invincible team, remember? Between the two of us, we're bound to find something."

"I hope you're right," Youji muttered.

/-/-/-/

True to his word, Youji began the next day by talking to Manx, who, despite resisting all of his attempts to charm her personally, was nevertheless willing to tell him whatever he wanted to know. He started by asking about Aya herself, trying to find out more about the girl than the scant bit Ran had told him. Manx described her much the way Ran had, as a sweet, good natured girl who was inclined to be a little headstrong at times. However, there didn't seem to be anything particularly extraordinary about her, aside from the fact that she'd had Ran wrapped around her little finger, something which Youji was sure no one else would ever really manage to do.

Dissatisfied with that particular line of inquiry, Youji shifted his focus to include the family in general and was then treated to a rather lengthy lesson on the history of the estate and the Fujimiya family. Most of it was fairly boring, and despite wracking his brain, he could think of no way in which any of it might be pertinent to Aya's disappearance. Still, he sat politely and listened to Manx's accounts and even asked a few questions to make himself feel like he was doing something.

It seemed that the Fujimiya family had come into the land by displacing the previous owner (who, from Manx's accounts, had been a tyrant, but Youji thought that might just be family bias intruding into the story). They had lived on the land ever since with no major incidents or scandals that Manx could recall. Probably the most shocking thing that had happened before Aya's disappearance was Ran's father marrying a woman with no particular family connections. About Ran's mother, Manx was fairly vague. Being herself a distant relative on the Fujimiya side of the family, she knew little about the woman except her name and the general impression that she had been a pleasant person.

Question her as he might, Youji could not come across anything that seemed to him particularly important. He found it extremely disheartening, but decided to talk to Omi before he got too discouraged.

While Youji had spent most of his day talking to Manx, Omi had been sequestered in the library, and it was there Youji found him, still pouring over one of the books he had selected.

"How goes it?" Youji asked, sliding into a chair across the desk from the youth.

Omi sighed heavily. "I'm not sure. I've been looking into the history of magic, like you suggested, but so far I haven't found anything that might relate to the rumors my uncle mentioned. I thought I might be onto something when I came across a book that mentioned several families that were associated with various magical talents, but it didn't pan out."

"Magical talents?" Youji asked.

Omi nodded. "Apparently members of those families, even if they possessed very little in the way of magic, excelled at whatever their family was associated with. They had a family of healers, for instance, and a family that could manipulate the weather, even one that was associated with summoning demons, as horrifying as that sounds. It was fascinating, but I found no mention of Takatori in there anywhere."

"You didn't find anything else?" Youji asked.

Omi sighed and shoved a volume across the desk. "This one's on great magicians of history. Again, no mention of anyone named Takatori. Same as with the book on prominent names in magic. I've been trying to find any mention of the family, since if all magic was supposed to have died out ages ago, it would make sense that any that remained would run in families and be a closely guarded secret. But so far I haven't found anything to suggest that Takatori is related to any of the people I've been reading about."

"He might be related to one of them through a female relative and the name got lost when she married," Youji said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and contemplating. "Or he might have come from a family that wasn't prominent enough to make the books. Or it might not be a family thing at all. Or the rumors are just that, rumors that probably arose from all the horrible things he's done and there's no magic involved anywhere, in which case I've just wasted quite a lot of your time. You can decide which of those ideas you think most likely."

"I like any of the ones that don't involve me wasting my time," Omi said.

/-/-/-/

Unfortunately for Omi, Youji wasn't sure that they weren't both wasting their time. Over the next few days he talked to as many household and staff members as he could about the family in general, Aya in particular, and any events that had occurred before her disappearance. As with Manx, he received a wealth of information, none of which seemed terribly helpful. When Omi told him that the research into the history of magic didn't seem to be panning out, he asked the boy to start looking into the Fujimiya family history instead, hoping that there might be something helpful that Manx, for all her knowledge of recent history, didn't know about.

Youji also tried questioning Ran again, having him describe the time Aya was taken and everything they had done that day. He even made the redhead take him to the spot where she had been kidnapped. He got nothing out of it except for a sullen and irritable Ran, who didn't like to be reminded of the day his sister had disappeared, and an appreciation for how bold her kidnappers must have been. Making off with the girl that close to her own house must have been risky, to say the least.

A few days passed in this fashion, and Youji still felt no nearer to any solution. What he was looking for, he wasn't exactly sure, but he couldn't avoid the feeling that there was something important that he was missing or overlooking. In desperation, he tried to talk to Ran about his family history again, only to meet with a closed door and an order of, "Go away!" when he tried the redhead's room.

"Ran, don't be an ass, I need to talk to you," Youji called to him through the door.

"What about?" came the grudging reply.

"Your family."

From the other side of the door, Youji heard Ran snort. "You probably know more about them than I do right now. Go away."

"All right, what if I said I just wanted to talk?" Youji said, getting frustrated with speaking to a panel of dead wood instead of an actual person.

"Go talk to Ken," Ran said. "He probably wants the company more than me now." There was a remorseful note in his voice as he said it that told Youji there was more to it than that.

"Coward," he muttered, wondering what exactly Ran had said to Ken this time to cause a falling out. "Sending me to deal with your problems."

There was no answer from the other side of the door, so after a moment, Youji gave up and went in search of Ken as Ran had suggested.

/-/-/-/

It was not as difficult to find Ken as Youji had anticipated it would be. The young man had somehow or other managed to locate the liquor cabinet and had purloined a bottle of something brown and alcoholic. Whiskey, Youji guessed. He hadn't bothered with a glass, but sat perched somewhat precariously on a windowsill in the study, taking occasional sips straight from the bottle as he gazed out into the gardens without really seeing them. All in all, Ken looked incredibly glum.

"You know," Youji said, sidling up and dragging a chair over so that he could sit down near the gloomy young man, "speaking from personal experience, it's usually not a good idea to drink alcohol if you're already feeling unhappy."

"That doesn't seem to stop you from doing it," Ken noted, not bothering to look at his newly-arrived companion.

'Score one for Ken,' Youji thought. Deciding to ignore the barb altogether, he said, "I'm guessing that you and Ran had a falling out of some kind."

Ken snorted. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"That fact that Ran is in his room sulking is a tip off," Youji said blandly.

"He's been sulking since we got here," Ken said, sounding rather bitter and a little angry. "How can you tell the difference?"

"Is that what this is about?" Youji asked.

Ken made an angry noise somewhere deep in his throat and turned around until he was sitting facing Youji. The somewhat clumsy nature of his movements made Youji wonder exactly how much of the bottle he'd emptied. He didn't have much time to wonder about it however, since Ken began speaking, demanding Youji's attention. "The minute we got here, he started acting weird. It's like he's a lake. He was starting to warm up enough that I thought I might like to get in a little deeper, and then he just suddenly froze over on me. And now, no matter how hard I stomp on the surface, I can't make a crack, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep trying."

Youji made a mental note to remember for future reference that Ken tended to get somewhat poetic and metaphorical when drunk.

"So I went to go talk to him today," Ken went on, unaware of Youji's thoughts. "I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help, you know? But he just blew me off. He was rude about it too. Asked what business it was of mine. What business is it of mine!" Ken repeated incredulously.

"You know," Youji said casually, "he might not ask such stupid questions if you would just let him know you were interested in him."

Ken jerked in surprise and nearly fell off the windowsill. "You know about that?"

"Who doesn't?" Youji said carelessly.

"Ran, apparently," Ken muttered darkly.

"So tell him," Youji said, making it sound like the simplest thing in the world.

"I can't do that!" Ken looked aghast at the very idea.

"Why not?" Youji asked.

Ken stared back at him, brown eyes wide. "What would I say to him?"

"What do you mean, what would you say to him? Haven't you ever told a man that you like him before?"

Ken ducked his head, but while his shaggy hair obscured his eyes, it couldn't hide the blush creeping up his cheeks.

As the silence stretched on, Youji began to realize the implications. "Ken, how long have you known that you... uh... were interested in other guys?"

"Since I was old enough to be interested in anyone," Ken answered, stubbornly not looking at him.

"And you've never once propositioned a man?"

"No," Ken answered, sounding as if the word was dragged from him unwillingly.

Youji couldn't help it, he gaped. "Ken, how old are you?" he asked.

"Nineteen," came the sullen answer.

"And in all that time, you never... not even once?"

"I couldn't, okay?" Ken snapped defiantly, raising his head to glare at Youji.

"Why not?" Youji wanted to know.

"Because I'd have lost my job, that's why!" Ken shot back. "The man I used to work for didn't think highly of stuff like that. Do you think for one minute that if he'd known I was interested in other men he'd have let me stay on and train his two precious little boys? No! He'd have claimed I was a danger to the children and booted me out first chance he got!"

"Why? Are you interested in children?" Youji asked innocently.

"Ew! No!" Ken cried, looking affronted at the very idea. "But that doesn't matter. That's just how some people think. And knowing how my luck tends to flow," he added gloomily, "Ran is one of them."

Youji blinked and wondered how on earth he was supposed to keep up with Ken's moods. The young man had managed to go from angry to depressed in less than two seconds.

"Well," Youji said after a moment or two of silence, "You'll have to talk to Ran eventually. And sooner is better than later. I need to talk to him, and right now I can't do that because he's too irritated after whatever fight you two had. So just go and try to make up with him at least, will you?"

Ken grunted. "What'd you need to talk to him about anyway?"

"His family history," Youji said. "Because right now I'm out of ideas about other things to check out."

"Well, I can tell you a little," Ken said, setting down the bottle at last and giving Youji whatever the alcohol had left of his attention.

"You?" Youji was surprised.

Ken shrugged. "Ran told me some stuff about his family that week we stayed with Omi. Not much, but a little."

"Anything interesting?" Youji asked, thinking that this was likely to be a repeat of what he had already heard from other people.

"Not really," Ken said. "His father's lived here forever and he didn't know much about his mother."

That caught Youji's attention. "Ran doesn't know about his own mother?" he said.

"Well, of course he knew her, he just didn't know family history and stuff like that about her," Ken clarified.

"Really," You said, looking thoughtful. "That's strange. I would expect Manx not to know much, since she's from the other side of the family, but Ran..."

Ken shrugged again. "He said she didn't like to talk about it."

"Interesting," Youji muttered half to himself.

"You don't think it's important, do you?" Ken said, eyeing him dubiously.

"Maybe not," Youji agreed. "But it's strange. If nothing else it should probably be looked into." And he made a mental note to himself to ask Omi to do just that.

/-/-/-/

"Ran's mother?" Omi said, looking up from his current reading in surprise.

Youji nodded. "I thought that the lack of information I was getting about her was simply because she was unimportant, but now I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's because no one knew anything about her other than her name."

Omi's brow furrowed as he considered that. "Well, it may be nothing, but it is a little strange now that you mention it that no one should know anything at all about her. And if nothing else, I suppose we should look into her history just to be thorough. Goodness knows I've spent long enough researching Ran's father and his family. What's her maiden name?"

"I believe her family name before she married was Hanashite," Youji said.

"Hanashite..." Omi repeated, frowning. He looked at Youji seriously. "I've read that name somewhere."

"Really?" Youji said, trying not to let himself get too excited. Omi read an awful lot, after all. "So maybe she did come from a rich or prominent family after all."

But Omi was shaking his head. "I've read that name recently," he muttered. "I know I have. Now where was it?" And before Youji could say anything else, he was up and scouring the shelves, pulling down books apparently at random. Selecting a stack of them, he came back over to the table where Youji was sitting.

"These are the ones I've looked at in the past few days," he said by way of explanation as he threw the pile on the table.

Youji just nodded and slid his chair back a little to avoid the avalanche the books made as they slipped from the stack and cascaded across the wooden surface.

Throwing himself back into his seat, Omi attacked one of the books before him, flipping through it quickly for a few minutes and then discarding it abruptly, apparently not having found what he was looking for. He repeated this process with the next book, and the next. Youji sat quietly and watched, knowing that unless Omi directed him to a specific task, he would simply get in the way if he tried to help now.

Finally, Omi seemed to find what he was looking for. He paused on one of the books he'd grabbed and sat silently for a minute, reading intently. Then he raised wide blue eyes to Youji's. "Youji," he said, "do you remember how you said you thought there must be something special about Aya to make her worth holding onto?"

"Yes," Youji said, rising from his seat and coming around to look at what Omi was reading. The expression on Omi's face spoke to him of possibilities, of a breakthrough, but also of something potentially dangerous.

"I think I've found what you were talking about."

Tbc...

Author's Note: Yes, I know, a cliffhanger of sorts. Hopefully I'll have the next chapter up sooner. Of course, some of that will depend on whether or not I manage to find a job, so I make no promises.