I found myself a new, wonderful Betareader. Thank you so much, Kittyluv, for volunteering. I'm so exited to have you for help. Thanks!!!!
Chapter 8
When Hyoga came back to the kitchen, Ivan was already waiting for him, sending him furious looks and tapping his left foot impatiently.
"What took you so long? You don't get paid to stroll the grounds. The dishes still need to be washed, boy."
Hyoga just nodded without reply, brushed passed the big man and went back to his chore.
Some time later, he saw Alexei sneak around the corner from the main-part of the kitchen, checking that he wasn't observed, first, then strolling as casually as possible towards him.
"Hey Mikhail," he whispered. "Is it true? You had to help the Saint?"
Hyoga's face stayed unexpressive and he shrugged, his hands never stopping as he soaped up and rinsed some clipped, white plates. "Yes, why?"
"Oh shit. And I wasn't here!" Alexei groaned. "Maybe Ivan would have sent me if I had been here. That's so unfair." He groaned again for show and put on a miserable face, which didn't last long as he grinned broadly at Hyoga.
"Did you talk to him? How is he?" he started to ask, when Ivan's shouting voice was heard, calling for him impatiently.
"Oh, shit. We'll talk tonight." He stared the younger boy down sternly. "I want a full report, you hear me?" With those demands, and a grin which rendered his stern words kind of useless, he rushed away.
Hyoga chuckled inwardly. He really liked Alexei. His roommate reminded him a lot of Isaac. He would definitely miss the Russian boy, but what he regretted more was that he would not be able to explain his sudden leaving when the time came.
He chased those thoughts away for the moment.
"So tell me?" Alexei practically radiated glee, while he dug into his roommate with an excited voice. All workers had gone to bed and silence had fallen over their part of the castle long before.
"Tell you what?" Hyoga asked in an innocent voice. It had been impossible not to notice the anxiousness of Alexei, while he waited until it was safe to have this discussion.
"What was he like?"
"He is just a normal, nice guy."
Alexei snorted. "Yeah, right. What did you talk about? Did he say anything at all? C'mon Tovarish, tell me. Don't make me beg you."
Hyoga chuckled. "He didn't say much. Just some small talk," he lied.
Alexei propped his upper body up on his elbows, looking over at his neighbor. "Why didn't you ask him to show you his power, or at least ask him what powers he possesses? You could have asked him. Didn't you think of me, and that I would want to know?"
Hyoga still looked up at the ceiling, like he had been since the beginning of their conversation, but an amused smile played around his lips. The mock insulted tone of Alexei's question only fueled his intention to play along in this little bickering "I could have asked him for a signed Photo, so I could make you a wall-paper to hang over your bed, and then you could dream about hmphh…." His last word was swallowed by a pillow, which flew into his face.
"Oh just stop it, Mop-head," Alexei growled, offended but with a slightly amused gleam in his eyes. "And to think I called you a friend," he said, reaching over to grab back his pillow.
Hyoga's smile vanished from his lips. Alexei had called him a friend. He would never have considered finding a friend here on his mission. A friend who made it so easy to be with and trust, like he'd hardly ever had before. He had played with the thought today, telling Alexei the truth in a letter, which he would leave him. But if he did that, he would have to tell him everything about his betrayal to Athena. He had thought before that Alexei would have the right to know what he had done and why, since Alexei admired the Saints so much. But now, he couldn't tell him anymore.
Before, as somebody Alexei just knew, he might have understood the reasons, even though he would not approve them, but as a friend he would feel betrayed as well. So he would never know who Mikhail really was, and he would just disappear one night.
Ivan would tell them some kind of excuse. Natasha would hide the truth, since almost nobody knew that she had kidnapped the Andromeda-Saint.
It was better to let Alexei live with that lie, than with the bitter truth.
And still, somewhere in a dark, selfish place of his heart, Hyoga was happy about Alexei's friendship. He had lost everything by his own will, and knew that he would lose even more, once the others would realize what he had done. But this one friendship might still last if Alexei would never know the truth. It was a little comfort and warmed the empty place in his soul, where his Cosmo had once burned so brightly.
He had slowly gotten used to ignoring the cold, empty feeling in his heart and soul most of the time. But in those silent moments before falling asleep, where nothing distracted him, he felt terribly cold and alone and sleep brought him nothing but nightmares. But never did he remember any of those. Alexei knew about them, and witnessed some himself, waking his roommate, but never asking him anymore what it was about, respecting his privacy.
Hyoga enjoyed the next days as much as possible, spending time and long night talks with Alexei, knowing it would be the last time they would speak to one another.
Saturday night. He kept the conversation on till late, hoping that Alexei would be too tired and sleep too sound to hear him leave later.
After Alexei had finally fallen asleep, Hyoga stayed awake in his bed. He was too nervous to sleep anyway. He had gotten precise instructions how to enter the program and Kavolsky had even given him the password to enter the file necessary. Hyoga had no idea how the man had gotten the knowledge of the program or the password. Taking into consideration his background, his ways must have been highly illegal at best. But Hyoga didn't care. His only goal was to save his best friend. No matter what.
At two o' clock in the morning he sat up on his bed and began to get dressed as soundlessly as possible. He was just tying his shoes when he heard a noise from the neighbored bed.
Alexei moved and blinked sleepily a few times. "What are you doing?" he mumbled sleep-drunken.
'Shit,' Hyoga thought. He moved quick and struck his extended hand onto a precise point at the side of Alexei's neck. The older boy was out cold the second Hyoga hit him, slumping back onto his pillow like dead weight.
At a very young age, Hyoga had learned every vulnerable spot on a human body, and where to hit to get a desired effect. Alexei would wake up with a headache from hell, but he would not be hurt seriously.
Hyoga had hoped he could avoid such hard measures, but he could not risk being caught and stopped now. Shun had tried to hide it from him, but Hyoga had perfectly well seen the deep desperation in his friend's eyes.
People often underestimated his ability to read other humans, since he was often so cold and closed up on himself and didn't let his own feelings show to the outside. It was a necessary ruse he had learned to hide his too big emotionality from his enemies.
He looked down on the other Russian and felt stinging regret in his heart and reached out to straighten Alexei's head, which lay at an uncomfortable looking angle.
"I'm sorry Alexei. Have a good life my friend."
With those words and a last pat of the unconcious boy's shoulder, he exited the room, taking with him only a thick coat and some gloves.
Taking a careful glimpse down the hallway, where the servant's rooms lay and convincing himself that it was empty, Hyoga hurried towards the exit.
The former Saint got out without being disturbed and found the entrance of the main house luckily unguarded.
He had memorized the layout on the plans, and found the door Shun had described easily enough. He opened it carefully, listening intently for any traitorous squeak of the old hinges. But all remained quiet and with a relieved exhale, he closed the heavy wooden door behind himself and hurried down the long stairwell behind it. He stayed on his guard and moved silently until he reached a heavy modern-looking doorway. There was no handle but a dial-mechanism beside the metal door-panel. Other than that mechanic security-system, no one was guarding the door.
In her arrogance, Natasha didn't think it necessary to put up more protection. She clearly didn't expect an attack from within. And even if such an attack were to occur, nobody would get past that door without the right code, even if someone were foolish enough to try. Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for Hyoga, Kavolsky was no usual 'someone' and had somehow found out the code and the computer-passwords.
Hyoga approached the panel and typed in the code, looking with uncertain eyes to the blinking red light on top of the panel. The red blinking continued for a few seconds before it switched to a green steady one, and the door opened with a hiss. Hyoga let out a breath he hadn't been aware he had been holding and stepped into the room.
He found himself in a large area, filled with monitors and machines. In its middle the blond Russian spotted a huge computer on a large desk. He approached it and sat down in the heavily stuffed chair behind the keyboard and 21-inch Monitor. Reaching down to turn on the Computer, he tried to relax and calm his wildly beating heart. He was nervous and he wasn't denying it. Hyoga preferred an open fight over this sneaking around in a strange house. He felt like a thief and really uneasy, even though he would be able to defend himself even without Cosmo, as long as they wouldn't use firearms or he wasn't too outnumbered.
He had joked about it with Shun but the truth was that his computer skills were not the greatest. Not that he didn't like working on them, or even that he was not good at learning the skill. On the contrary. Saori had insisted that they all would learn how to use those machines, and his teachers were amazed how quick he absorbed everything - It has been one of his strong points ever since he was a child. One circumstance which allowed him to learn other languages, like Japanese very fast and learn to adapt quickly - but the problem was simply lack of time. Between his fights and his time in Siberia and lately often in hospitals, he just didn't have much time left to get deeper into using a computer.
He watched the screen come to life and started to type on the keyboard to enter the requested program. When he attempted to open the first file, the program requested the password.
He entered the word he had learned from Kavolsky, and to his relief, the program granted him access readily.
As soon he finished changing the program after Kavolsky's instructions and disarmed the bombs for good with a virus, he closed the program and shut the computer down. The virus would take them weeks to dissolve. By that time, they would have destroyed the bombs for good, with the help of Shun who knew of their locations.
Hyoga pushed off the chair and walked to the door.
Just as he reached toward the opening mechanism, the door opened and he came face to face with Igor.
The big man stared at him with wide, startled eyes and an open mouth.
Hyoga freed himself from the surprise first and without thinking, only reacting to the survival instincts of a warrior, rammed his fist into the bigger man's abdomen.
Natasha's guard doubled over slightly, but didn't go down.
Hyoga tried to pass beside him, but a strong crushing grip on his arm hindered him and stopped him in mid-movements. 'Damn' he thought, trying to free himself, to no avail.
"You little shit, you're not getting away. What have you done here?" the big man yelled at him.
Hyoga, instead of trying to break free anymore, moved forward and stepped close to Igor, into his personal space. Igor took a surprised step back, and Hyoga used this moment of inattention and closed the distance between them, reaching with one leg behind Igor's knees and pushing him over it. The big man lost his balance and fell heavily to the ground. While he fought for his equilibrium, he lost his grip on Hyoga's arm.
Hyoga didn't hesitate and delivered a well-placed blow to the others' temple.
If he had still had his Cosmo, the blow would have been fatal, but as it was, it was still enough to render his opponent unconscious.
Hyoga turned and hurried out of the room and up the stairs. He didn't know how long Ivan would stay out, but they had to hurry even more now than they had thought at first.
He found Shun, waiting by the front gate, just like they had agreed on.
"You made it. You have no idea how worried I was," Shun greeted him.
"We have to hurry, Shun. They will soon be following us," Hyoga answered, pulling his friend with him. As they exited the front gate, Hyoga saw two unconscious guards lying in the snow.
Hyoga took the lead and hurried towards the first line of trees while putting on his gloves. He directed his pace to the hollow tree and crouched down in front of it, moving the branches aside and pulling a duffel bag out of the hole.
"What is that?" Shun asked.
"Our supplies. We will need to travel for several days to the border. I packed everything we will need to make it there."
Shun shook his head. "Saori thought of everything, didn't she?"
Hyoga ignored the comment, swung the bag on his back and walked deeper into the woods, Shun by his side.
They walked at a fast pace, without talking for several hours.
Hyoga stopped his companion only after the pale sun had long since risen.
"I think we have put quite some distance between us and them. Let's slow down a bit."
Shun nodded looking at his friend worriedly. "Sure. Are you alright?"
Hyoga smiled. "Yes, why wouldn't I be?"
"I just thought you'd be having trouble keeping up without your Cosmo."
"Our endurance is training, not Cosmo, Shun. I'm fine."
Shun nodded and kept on walking. Hyoga knew that Shun worried easily, and he had to admit that he cherished that compassion from his friend.
In fact, he started to feel the cold creeping up on him. His feet hurt and so did his fingers, despite his thick boots and gloves. He knew that he was in danger of getting a serious frostbite, but he ignored the pain and the danger. There was nothing to be done about it anyway.
But what did worry him was Shun. He was unusually closed off and there was a deep shimmer of pain in his eyes. Something was bothering him, tearing him up inside.
"What about you?" he asked quietly.
Shun turned his head, stopped and looked at him, startled. "What do you mean, Hyoga?"
Hyoga closed the distance between them and halted a step before his friend, looking deep into those expressive eyes for a moment, trying to read him. "What is wrong with you, Shun?"
Shun's eyes widened, a flicker of fear flickering in their depths for a second, before it disappeared again.
"Nothing is wrong with me. I'm alright," he answered in such an unprovoked gruff voice, it just didn't feel right coming from gentle Shun's mouth. "Come on, we have to keep moving." With those words, he turned his back on Hyoga and walked on.
Hyoga sighed and followed him.