Roses in Rain
a Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Part 7 – Beauty and Stupid

"Pale," Manx said cryptically as Rain stepped from the changing rooms.

She was already used to the way heads turned as the beautiful young girl headed unhurriedly across the lobby to join them, as if Rain had absolutely no idea that five other people had been waiting impatiently for her to show her face for the last fifteen minutes. She was already used to the way conversation died, how Youji stopped trying to attract her attention in favor of staring at Rain, like a fourteen year old boy who'd just realized that actually, girls didn't have cooties. She was no longer surprised by the way that even Aya looked distracted.

She was expecting the girls' jealously turned backs and spiteful sidelong glances, the way they started whispering behind their hands – bitch, snob, slut, tramp, Americans are so trashy, probably a prostitute, who does she think she is? Expecting the men to stop what they were doing and stare, struck dumb and stupid by the presence of such unearthly beauty.

All she has to do is exist, Manx thought, and all the boys love her for it…

Rain was pale, yes, and her hair hung loose and dead straight about her shoulders as if she had never got it wet. The tips of her razor-cut bangs were dyed, much like the ends of her hair, a deep purple, and a pair of pink and purple tinted sunglasses rested atop her head. She wore a pink, purple and white striped polo-neck tank top, over which she had buttoned a cropped black jacket, cut in such a way as to reveal her pale shoulders. Her full black short skirt had a design of a butterfly embroidered on it with silver thread. Below the lace hem of her skirt Rain had on sheer ripped stockings with black lacy tops. A pair of black calf-high socks with two purple stripes at the top and heavy black lace-up boots completed the ensemble. She wore a pair of chunky purple bracelets about her left wrist, a silver star necklace on a fine silver chain graced her slender throat and, in her left ear, she had placed a single long earring with a heart-shaped pendant at the end.

Going by the expression on his face Ken thought she looked utterly ridiculous. Manx, though she hated to take sides, had to admit that the boy had a point.

Pointedly adjusting the shoulder strap of her own print dress, the redhead gave Rain a narrow look which the girl pretended not to notice. Going by the slight smile that played across her lips, Rain had probably taken Manx's stare for jealousy… well, let her think what she wanted to think. Manx saw no reason to set her right.

"The Hell, Rain?" Ken said incredulously. "That wasn't what you were wearing when you came out!"

Rain simply looked at him. Flatly, uncomprehendingly, her beautiful face disbelieving. "But of course it's what I was wearing when I came out."
"No it's not," Ken said simply, but with a kind of quiet conviction that was, in its own way, damning. "You had jeans on. And your hair was curly. What do you think you're playing at, Rain? What the fuck have you done – what are you doing to my friends?"
"Ken-kun," Omi said warningly. "These stupid accusations are going a bit far—"
"What do you mean, what am I doing?" Rain cut him off, her voice incredulous. "I'm not doing anything!"
"Then why are you wearing that stupid goddamn outfit?" Ken demanded. "And why am I the only one who remembers you weren't wearing it when you left the shop? Why have you dyed your fucking hair, Rain?"
"I haven't!" Rain cried in righteous indignation, her beautiful violet eyes brimming with sudden tears under her defiance. "How could I have done anything of the sort?"
"I don't know!" Ken shouted. "That's why I'm asking you! Why has your hair gone purple?"
"It's always been purple! Why," Rain asked, her voice growing paradoxically quiet, "can't you trust me? Ken!"
Ken laughed. "Trust you? Mother of God, Rain, how am I supposed to trust you? I don't even know what you look like!"

(And there were the boys, gazing at Rain in terrible empathy, but, Manx thought, what on Earth was with the women? The girls, the same girls who, bare seconds ago, had been turning their backs on Rain, gossiping maliciously with their friends about what she must have done to have so many boys chasing after her, were now staring between Rain and Ken in some dismay. He's so mean. How could he yell at that poor girl? She's so cute!)

Rain didn't dignify that with a reply. Her eyes slipping as if by accident across Aya's shocked, pale visage, she gave Ken an enraged glance that had Ken backing up a pace and bracing himself – he remembered what had happened last time the girl looked at him with such naked fury – but this time her heliotrope eyes shone not with anger but with her own unshed tears. It was only by biting down hard that she was able to keep her lower lip from trembling. Even now, though, her unasked-for audience was left in no doubt as to her defiance. I won't cry, the look in her tear-filled, shining orbs was saying. I won't be seen to cry because of someone like you.

She said to Aya, it would take more than that to hurt me now. Because I'm stronger than that by far.

To Ken, she said because you are nothing.

And she turned and fled from them, whipping free from Aya's grasp as the redhead reached out for her, slender fingers merely brushing her bare left shoulder. Ignoring the way Omi called her name. Come back, Rain… The great glass doors of the foyer swung silently to behind her. Heads turned as she ran blindly down the shallow flight of steps at the front of the building and across the busy road, two cars coming to a sudden screeching halt as the distressed girl darted out in front of them. Rain didn't seem to notice, didn't even break stride. Her slight figure was soon swallowed up by the late afternoon crowds.

"This is your fault."

Aya. Aya, fixing Ken with a look so poisonous it should by rights have struck the boy dead. Death, Ken thought, would have been preferable. At least it would have been a reprieve from Aya's eyes, from the naked fury they contained. Sure, he and Aya had their disagreements, some of them fairly serious, but he'd never come in for a look like that. Ken didn't think he'd ever seen Aya look like that when confronted by anything that wasn't a target or a Takatori or both. In the context of a Hidaka and a housemate who Aya should have known better than to introduce into the equation in the first place, it seemed rather an overreaction.

"My fault?" Ken demanded. Without really meaning to, he glanced at Youji, and then at Manx. The young woman simply sighed wearily, shaking her head as if she could hardly believe Ken hadn't seen this coming. "What'd I do?"
"How could you be so cruel to Rain?"

He turned away, erasing Ken with the contemptuous turn of his back. And then he was off and running too.

"Ken," Youji said.

Sunset. He caught up with her in a small park, almost deserted due to the hour. For a single horrible moment, back there on the streets, Aya had thought he'd lost the girl altogether until – his heart leaping – he'd spotted a familiar lithe figure in the distance, ducking through the gates and into the quiet park.

Suddenly energized, calling out the shapely girl's name, Aya redoubled his pace, pushing past a startled couple in high-school uniforms and nearly knocking the boy down, scattering a cooing clutter of pigeons, tearing across the scuffed, stubbled grass and through the middle of a group of small boys playing a scratch soccer match on a pitch which existed only by virtue of a few piles of bags and coats marking out goalposts, a number of whom stopped what they were doing to gaze after him in some confusion. All, to Aya, were equally irrelevant. All he could think of was Rain.

There. He stopped short, struggling to catch his breath.

"Rain!"

Sat on a swing in the deserted play area, the lovely young girl was gazing abstractedly into nothing at all, a gentle breeze gently tangling her long, purple-streaked midnight-black hair. One pale hand, holding her hot-purple iPod, rested lightly her lap, the other held the chain of the swing. She wasn't crying, but tear tracks scored her alabaster cheeks and her beautiful face was set in an expression of unutterable sadness. Her amethyst occuli, which normally sparkled with life and playfulness, were dulled with melancholy.

The girl hadn't heard him approach. Lost in her own world, one leg outstretched to allow her to slowly swing back and forth, Rain let her mind wander with the music. She had forgotten herself so completely she was singing along with it in a voice like that of a mourning angel, a voice which betrayed how much the beautiful young girl had suffered in her short lifetime.

He knew it was wrong to watch her like this but for a moment Aya could only stand and stare, enchanted by her angelic face and the captivating power of that beautiful, sorrowful voice.

"Without a soul," she was singing, soft and low and mournful, "my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold. Until you find it there and lead it back… Home. Wake me up inside, wake me up inside…"

The girl's exquisitely lovely voice, the heartbreaking sorrow in her big lavender eyes and the mournful look on her sweet face as she sung those evocative words made Aya shiver. It sounded as if Rain had been singing her sad song just for him, hoping against all expectation that he would hear her calling, come and rescue her from the darkness she was lost in and lead her back to light and to life. Lead her back to love.

"Rain," he breathed again, his own amethyst eyes full of warmth and compassion.

As if she had, felt his eyes on her, or somehow sensed his waiting presence, the young girl slowly raised her head and looked up, her voice tailing off as a rose-tinted flush bloomed across those pale, tear-streaked cheeks. A look of desperate embarrassment and pain flitted across her face, to be replaced by a look of sudden anger and resolve. Tearing off her earphones with one hand, Rain sprung to her feet in one sudden, elegant motion, one hand tightly clutching the iPod and the other balled into an angry fist. Aya had followed her!

"Go away!" she cried, her angry orbs blazing her furious defiance. "How dare you!"
Aya took a pace back, surprised by her sudden anger. "Rain?" he said tentatively, one hand outstretched toward her. "What's wrong? Why are you—?"
"How dare you!" the girl cried again, breathless with indignation. "How could you stalk me like this? Do you have no respect for my privacy? I would have expected this kind of selfishness from a playboy like Youji—" Her eyes flashed scornfully as she said the young man's name: a player like that would presume his very presence would be enough to make her forget Ken's callous allegations. She wasn't like all the empty-headed bimbos that blonde flake normally chose to pursue; she could never be fobbed off with a meaningless kiss! "—but you… you, Aya! I thought you would have had more decency!"

Aya opened his mouth to retort, but found he couldn't speak. The girl's words had silenced him completely. It had never even occurred to him that Rain might not have wanted to see a friend of the boy who had so abused her, and so soon after the insult. He had been presumptuous, desperately so, in coming after her.

"I…" He let his hand fall, lowering his head in shame. "… I understand. I'm sorry."
"And so you should be!" Rain retorted. "How am I supposed to respect you if you won't even respect my privacy? If you'll… if you'll stalk me like, like a…" Her words were angry, but her voice shook slightly and she broke off, a haunted look creeping back into her eyes. Aya knew that look, and to see it on Rain's face made his heart ache. She shivered, folding her arms across her chest and hugging herself as if she were cold. "How could you?" she said, and now she sounded horrified, as if she had forgotten he was there – no, as if she were seeing someone quite different. "I thought I was – that I could…"

It was all too much for Aya. Though the redhead could be a little cold he wasn't heartless, especially not where girls were concerned. He reached out and clutched Rain firmly by the shoulders, pulling the delectable and delicate femme in front of him into his strong arms. Gasping, she tried to pull away, but his grasp was too strong. She could only gaze up at him in helpless fury at the presumption of this man – but God, the look in his violet eyes! He looked so angry, and – hurt? She had never seen the icy Aya gaze at anything with even a fraction the passion with which he was now gazing on her. She felt a crimson flush rise to her face.

"Rain," he said in a low, charged voice, "that's enough! It's not like that! I could never have wanted to harm you!" Quite the opposite. How could he tell this girl – could he tell Rain that he had come after her only because he wanted to see that she was okay? That, in a few short weeks, she had already made it onto the short list of people he would die to protect? "I just wanted you to come back quickly! I was worried. We were all worried, Rain! I never want to see you hurt as badly as you were when I found you, not when I – we can protect you. I promise we can protect you."
Rain gazed up at Aya in confusion, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. What – why was he saying such strange things to her? Why, when she could have easily killed any man who dared to try and touch her, couldn't she push him away and free herself from the snare of his arms? Why was her heart pounding in her chest? "But…" she stammered, "But Aya, I thought… your friend…"
"Forget Ken! He's not important!"
"How can you say that?" The girl demanded, her violet orbs flashing as she pressed back against his firm chest, struggling feebly to break free of the inadvertent, unasked-for embrace. "How can you value me over your friends? How can you want me to come back? I'm just a burden to you, Aya! I'm—"
"Ran," Aya said, his voice husky, passionate… loving? "My name is Ran."

Two seconds later Rain and Aya were entangled in a passionate, flaming lip-lock.

"Do you think I'm going crazy?" Ken asked Manx an hour later.

It had, of course, been Rain's idea to go ice skating. Let's do something American, she had said eagerly, when she and Aya rejoined their teammates by the entrance to the pool. As opposed, Ken had wondered, to what – tea ceremony? That fussy ikebana Aya had picked up from God knew where and might as well not have bothered for all the interest there was in it? I saw an advert in the papers this morning – let's all go ice skating! Omi had been delighted with the idea, shyly confessing that he'd been wanting to take Rain to the skating rink himself… Hell, even Aya had been keen. Leaving Ken, who'd been rather hoping they'd go see a movie and thus be spared the thankless task of socializing with one another, with no choice but to grudgingly acquiesce.

(She'd mentioned, just briefly, something about going skating with her younger brother, who'd – then broken off, giving Omi's pert profile a brief, troubled glance then lapsing into another of her equally troubled silences. It was the first thing any of them had heard about a younger brother.)

"We're all going to skate, aren't we?" Rain had said when they reached the ticket booth.

Aya had been about to answer for all of them when Ken presented his soccer tutees, preparing for an upcoming tournament, with all the frantic triumph of a man playing a Get Out of Jail Free card. Besides, his idea of a good time did not involve spending two hours falling on his ass. (Someone else could be the comic relief and foil to Rain's obscene perfection.)

Manx sat out likewise. She was, after all, the only other attractive young woman in the party, and she had made no secret of her quiet distaste for Rain's company. Any attempt to compete with the girl in any way, shape or form would, Manx was sure, only lead to her being effortlessly outclassed and, inevitably, humiliated – the more publicly the better. The only thing she could do (if she wanted to avoid looking like a jealous, conniving witch who couldn't stand being eclipsed by Rain, Earth-dwelling goddess that she was) was keep a low profile and quietly observe: that, as it turned out, was more than enough to keep her occupied.

Youji, discretion as ever being the better part of admitting he didn't actually like ice skating, immediately inserted himself into a bouquet of college girls hovering by the rink wall and began to Make An Impression. He was just about good enough on the ice to drift idly round the edge of the rink with his arm about a girl, and once he'd finished here that was all he'd have to do. Omi, much to his own relief, discovered he was a natural, was in no danger of making an utter spectacle of himself, and was actually rather enjoying himself. Aya of course turned out to have gone skating before.

Rain, no less predictably, could easily have competed professionally.

All of which conspired to leave Ken, who'd once borrowed his sister's roller skates and spent half an hour discovering new and interesting ways of falling down before getting bored and going to watch Gundam, extremely glad he was quite literally sitting this one out. Not that he minded, when it meant a chance to compare notes with Manx without anyone else butting in.

Rain, though she was being sugar-sweet to him in front of the others, had smirked openly at him as Aya, hovering protectively over her with one arm an inch or so above her shoulders – which was about as close as the redhead was ever going to get to a public display of affection without Darkness Descending Upon Them All – guided her out onto the ice. The look in her eyes was obscenely triumphant: just for a moment, she didn't look pretty at all. Well, didn't our little plan backfire.

Nobody else appeared to have seen a thing.

(But Ken had forgotten, and Rain had never known, that Youji noticed far more than he would ever let on.)

"Maybe I am crazy," Ken said, idly agitating the tea he hadn't wanted when he ordered it with the spoon he hadn't needed. "It would explain a lot, right? I could have sworn she didn't have a skirt on or any of that purple crap in her hair when we left, but nobody else seems to think it's weird…"
"You're not crazy," Manx said with a sigh. She sat hunched over, a mug of coffee in both hands and her fingers spread to get the warmth. "I clearly remember her hair being longer than that by the poolside, and her skin was tanned. That degree of change… well, it's improbable but not entirely impossible, even in the time she had. What is impossible is that it should go entirely unremarked."
"But nobody is remarking on it." Ken replied simply. "And when I do, they act like I'm nuts."

Dropping the spoon, he sat back in his chair and looked out across the rink, to where Rain stood with Aya and Omi. She appeared to be talking Omi through some minor point of technique while Aya stood by and watched. She placed her slender hands, now encased in a pair of black leather gloves, on the boy's shoulders and gently coaxed him to straighten his back. Omi had colored slightly, an uncertain smile on his face. Ken couldn't see Rain's own face, but he could imagine her kindly smile.

Ken had no difficulty finding her entire performance repellant, and Omi's willingness to be gently patronized nauseating. Pulling a face, he turned back to his tea, gazing intently into it as if he had seen a slowly circling shark's fin poking up above the surface.

Manx placed her coffee down on the table before her, sitting back in her chair. "Do you want my opinion, Ken?"
"Huh?" Ken started, raising his head as if he were surprised to still see her there. "Sure I do."
"I suspect that's exactly what she's counting upon."
"She's counting on me going mad?"
Manx permitted herself a small, fleeting smile. "Not entirely. She's counting on your team thinking you are. Before I saw her in action, I suspected she was planning on infiltrating, then betraying Weiss. But now… from the way she's treating you in particular, I'm sure that's not what she was sent for."
"Me?" Ken blinked at her. "What do you think now?"
"That's obvious," the young woman said. Quite calm. "Rain is trying to destroy you. And she'll manage it, if nothing changes."
"What?"

You heard, Hidaka. Rain is going to destroy Weiss.

It was absurd. Impossible. For better or worse Weiss were a team: they were better than that. Surely after all this time, the fighting and killing, the narrow escapes and the near-death experiences, all the I-watch-your-back-you-watch-mine-so-nobody-dies, they had become better than that. Stronger. It would take more than a woman to pull them apart, right? They'd battled dark beasts both metaphorical and literal together, they'd escaped from the buildings that always seemed to end up blowing up or collapsing around them together… Hell, they'd sold flowers to teenage girls with unfathomable hormone complexes together and still managed to refrain from murdering one another in their sleep, though Ken had to admit he'd come pretty damn close to it where Aya was concerned…

And enter Rain. Rain who, with little more than a flick of her artistically tangled shampoo-commercial hair and a come-hither look from her ridiculously purple eyes, was supposed to be the thing that tore them apart. Ridiculous. And yet… She and her poser-goth perfect wardrobe didn't look like any kind of nemesis to Ken. Unless, of course, she was supposed to annoy them all to lunacy or death, whichever came first.

"That's ridiculous," Ken said, and even as he said it he wondered what made it so bizarre.
"You know what makes any team work, of course."
"Trust."
Manx nodded. He hadn't even had to think about it. "You have to admit, Ken, there's already a lot less trust between your teammates and yourself than there was before Rain showed her face. If things carry on the way they have been doing this evening, that girl is going to pull Weiss apart. Something's got to change."
"What, though?" Ken asked urgently. Leaning forward. From a distance, he and Manx might have looked like lovers having a tiff – and no surprise, in a couple so wildly mismatched. "What can we – I mean, the others, we've got – but Rain, they'll tell… shit! Shit! It's just me, isn't it? I… this is goddamn— I shouldn't…" Why do I have to do this? He closed his eyes, just briefly, sighing in frustration. "Okay. Okay. What can I do?"
"For now," Manx said, "nothing. At least, nothing to arouse her suspicions any further than they have been. I'm going to try and find out who sent her. I'll need you to report back to me about her behavior. Since Persia's her Number One Fan, our case is going to have to be absolutely watertight if we're going to get her out of Weiss and away from – oh, Lord."

A flash of purple-and-black had caught her eye; Manx and Ken turned in time to see Rain skate toward the clearer ice at the center of the rink, one leg stuck out behind her like a ham bone. Stopping just shy of dead center, the girl straightened, twisting a purple-hued lock of hair about one gloved finger, coloring charmingly. Then she hesitated, looking for a moment as if she were about to bolt. Her lips moved – no, I can't do this! Omi grinned at her, calling out encouragingly: no doubt he had been the one to coax her into this performance. The wheeling crowds about the edge of the rink, guessing something was about to happen, turned their heads, falling silent.

Whatever Olympic-standard piece of flash Rain was due to perform, Manx thought she could live without seeing it.

Another crowded venue, another pounding, bass-heavy pop tune. Another circle of admiring young men gathered about a slender girl clad in black and purple, an angelically beautiful girl whose willowy grace and obvious curves betrayed her foreign blood and whose long raven hair with lilac streaks swirled about her as she danced, eyes closed, in the middle of the crowd. Lost in her own world, she danced like a dream, entirely oblivious to their admiring glances.

They might as well, Ken reflected, not have bothered leaving the skating rink. The only difference was he'd lost Manx: the woman, pleading pressure of work, had left after dinner.

Any minute now, he thought, some drunk pervert would accost Rain so she could prove she wasn't just a pretty face by administering a needlessly vicious verbal and physical beatdown. Not like a bastard like that wouldn't have had it coming, but far better to have it coming from the cops than from Miz Wonderful. What would she do, really? She'd just piss the guy off, make it go all the harder for the far less special girl they cornered next, who wouldn't be able to fight free…

The tune changed and Rain stopped dancing, shaking out her hair and opening her eyes. A crimson blush spread across her cheeks as she noticed the applauding crowd gathered about her, and it was not a flush of exertion. Blushing to the roots of her hair, the girl muttered an 'excuse me' and ducked off into the dancing throng, over toward Aya. Never one for dancing, the redhead had colonized a cluster of upholstered chairs and sofas in the corner of the room. Ordinarily Ken, who didn't much like dancing either, would have joined him, but tonight that would have meant Rain. So he'd stayed away.

He might as well not have bothered coming out at all. All he'd got from it was damp hair and the beginnings of a headache.

Across the room, a drunk pervert had accosted Rain.

"Hi there, beautiful," he said, placing one hand on her upper arm, utterly ignoring Aya's scowl as the redhead got to his feet, muscles tensed for action. "Saw you dancing. You look like you're pretty wild. How about you come and have fun with us?" And, as his friends laughed drunkenly, he leered openly, trying to pull her over toward him. She shuddered in disgust.
"How about no?" Rain said crisply, pushing him away. "Sorry, not interested." And she tried to pull away, but the drunkard's friends closed in about her, separating her from Aya. "Hey, I said I wasn't—" She broke off as the man curled an arm about her lithe form, pulling her to his chest. "Get off!"
"What's the problem?" One of the friends asked maliciously. "We'll show you a far better time than Red over there."
"You're American?" The pervert bent toward her, his beer-laden breath hot against Rain's pale cheek, backing her against the wall. "I love American girls. They're so spirited." And, rubbing his body against hers, he placed one hand on her breast. The girl cried out in shock, her eyes going wide.

Aya shouted Rain's name and tried to force his way toward the corner the girl had been trapped in, but unbeknownst to any of these men, they had picked entirely the wrong girl to try and harass. Years of training came to Rain's rescue and, breaking free of the man's embrace, the lovely young girl drove one knee into his gut and, as he doubled over, followed it up with a fist to his face, neatly breaking the pervert's nose and sending him flying to the sticky floor. His companions fell back, gazing in awe-struck shock at the slight young girl who had so effortlessly decked their muscular boss, stood with one heavy boot pressed to the back of his neck, her beautiful lavender eyes blazing with fury.

"Pig," she spat contemptuously. "How dare you touch me like that!"

Ken decided to go home. He was most of the way to the door when he realized he'd abandoned his jacket on the couch beside Aya and would have to go back and get it if he didn't fancy trying to sleep on the balcony. Sighing, he turned and pushed his way back through the crowds toward Aya and the couch, and was mildly relieved to note, by the time he got there, that Rain was nowhere to be seen and Aya had been joined by Omi.

"Where's Rain?" he asked, more out of duty than any real desire to know the answer.
Omi shrugged. "She said she wanted a drink… are you going already? You're coaching tomorrow?"
"Come on, Omi," Ken said as he stooped to retrieve his stray jacket and swung it casually over his shoulder, "I'm damn near always coaching tomorrow. See you."

It was a relief to get outside. Hesitating in the entryway of the club to pull on his jacket, murmuring a distracted good night to the bored young woman on the door, Ken took a deep breath of the colder, comparatively cleaner city air and breathed a sigh of relief, closing his eyes. He wasn't wild about the walk to the station or catching the subway home – and Christ, what a rotten evening it had turned out to be! Knowing his luck, he'd get soaked as well – but God, it felt good to get out of that place and away from the smoke, the noise, and the godawful music. Not to mention the company. Bad enough when it was just his team, but it was far, far worse watching an entire club's worth of people transforming into little more than communicants in the First Church of Rain Akegata.

Which made Ken a heretic who'd just taken another big step toward getting burned at the stake.

Folding his arms and wrapping his jacket more tightly about him, Ken set off for the subway station. He needed some time alone. Needed some time to think. Rain was going to destroy them all and he could barely even make himself believe it…

Do nothing, Manx had said, but he'd gone too far already to avoid arousing that woman's suspicions. That smile, back at the rink, had told him that much. Rain knew it was open war: worse, she clearly knew that she was winning. Never mind watching Rain, he was getting the distinct feeling he was going to have to watch himself. That girl clearly had plans for Weiss's future, and those plans clearly didn't involve the irrepressible Agent Siberian.

Where's Rain? Said she wanted a drink… Rain couldn't have known he was planning on leaving, could she – she is tele-empathic, Manx said coolly, all her attention on the sheaf of papers in her hands – but of course she could. Tempting fate, this walk home; Ken wasn't a professional for nothing. But if she were to try anything (Ken walked far too slowly, head down and hands safely tucked in his pockets, and told himself – the picture of dreamy abstraction – he was merely cold and sleepy and disinclined to hurry) if he'd been attacked, even if it were her word against his…

You can't prove anything if you're dead, Hidaka. But surely, something inside him said – hope, for Ken, springing as always eternal – she wouldn't risk that. It'd be too obvious, there'd be too many questions. She's no idiot and I'd settle for getting me out the way.

(Quite the gambler, aren't you, Siberian?)

Weiss, Ken thought stubbornly, were my team first.

Felt something snap out and catch at his throat, wrapping itself painfully about it. He gasped and stumbled, head snapping backward; he wasn't even surprised. Ken clawed at his throat, gasping, twisted his head in a desperate attempt to see over his shoulder. Saw – and hardly knew what he'd expected – saw women. Little girl clutching a toy and smiling at nothing, a sweet, brainless little smile; a flash of blonde hair… and, leaning against the wall half-hidden in shadow, the figure of a tall, curvaceous young woman clad in black and purple. A woman with long dark hair, and the face of a marble angel.

"Got you," Ken said faintly, and smiled.

And a sudden motion, the hiss of fabric against fabric, a single moment of exquisite pain. And nothing but darkness.