Day of grey sky
Night of dead light
Friends of mine
Trees of old
Dragons of time
Companions of mine
Heart of stone
I alone
Am a friend of mine
(Ningengirai, 1997)
The car would not be found until ten years later, its sole inhabitant frozen to several blocks of solid ice, cells forever keeping their secret. How the man had died, nobody would ever know. Doctors would marvel at the force that must have ripped the man apart, but they would not be able to tell who had wielded that force. Eventually, the corpse would be forgotten, left to rot in an unmarked grave or burned, for who knows what a graveyard will look like in ten years.
Someone once said, if the dead would all be buried, and not burned, the planet would be one great graveyard in a hundred years; the soil polluted by bones and clothes and all the trinkets given to keep mankind company on its way to eternity.
From dust we come, to dust we return. What we do in life echoes in eternity - a brief moment of fame, a fire blazing once then dying under the eyes of the Gods, before all that is left of us is a memory, and even that will fade with time.
Snow began to fall, covering the metallic blue hood of the car as it lay amid the sea of white, catching the last rays of the dying sun. The footsteps that lead away from the car soon faded filled with snow, blown away by the steady wind. The droplets of blood, accompanying the footsteps for a while, crystallized in the bitter cold, turning to rubies that shone for a second in the failing light before they, too, became past and memory.
Memory engraved in Farfarello's mind.
He had taken his 'driver' apart as soon as they had reached the base of the Finsteraarhorn, the road before them suddenly ending in a wall of snow. By the time the car had come to stop, the man behind the steering wheel had already been bleeding profusely, his voice giving out, a wheezing sound escaping from the gap in his throat, bubbling out with his blood. Farfarello had had no mind for it.
The Finsteraarhorn shot up into the afternoon sky, its snowy peak hidden behind fat white clouds. Two days, and now that he was at the end of his journey, it was strangely relieving to see the mountain, to know it was there, and not something he had once dreamed about. Standing in hip-high snow, the Irishman stared up at the mountain.
And it stared back at him.
Taunting.
"I will cut your name into their flesh!" Softly spoken and yet a promise, given twice now, Farfarello's voice trailing away with the wind, travelling over the white, white planes. He looked back: the tire tracks left by the car were already vanishing, the car itself a miniature dot of metal in the snow.
The odd sound of flesh on stone. The liquid splash of blood as veins lying close to the surface of the skin opened under the onslaught, marking the terrible journey red; red tracks on a map of grey, the concrete patiently sucking up the blood. He almost looked away. Almost.
He did not know how long he had been sitting there, pressed against the wall, his fingers clamped into the cloth of the straight jacket, staring with revulsion and fascination as the body of the young woman moved towards him; slowly, slowly, like a mole follows its nose blindly, but determinedly. Forgetting his surroundings, Schuldig stared at Moriate, his mind racing.
Virus?
Almost there. He shuddered as a blood-streaked cheek pressed against his ankle, the cloth soaking up the blood immediately, the skin underneath warmed by sudden stickiness. Grotesquely, as if she had forgotten how to use her hands and legs, Moriate used Schuldig's body for leverage, raising herself to collapse, boneless, against his chest, her mouth and cheek colliding with the exposed skin of his neck. Lips moved over his skin, moist and warm, but there was no intent behind it, there was only the long, agonized breath she drew, followed by a string of words.
"Must not...get caught...with her...must no let her...in." Another breath, this one more shallow than the first. "She...behind the mirror...she is the crack in the mirror...she..."
He turned his head and looked down at her. Her eyes closed, her features relaxed, soft mousy hair hiding the ruined side of her face; Schuldig wanted to push her away and hold her close at the same time.
Funny how the human mind works.
"How did she get you?"
A dry laugh sounding like a cough.
"Trust," Moriate said, her voice fading.
The door to the room opened, the burly statue of a guard filling the doorframe. Schuldig looked into the man's eyes and saw nothing, no human emotion, and no sign of mental awareness. Behind the guard, he could make out the plump, age-ridden silhouette of the old woman leaning on her walking cane.
The guard moved into the room, dispassionately staring at the scene presented to him, taking in the blood on the concrete without really seeing it. The old woman, a long, grey shawl wound around her shoulders, shuffled in, her eyes narrowing as she saw Moriate.
"Take the trash out," she ordered tonelessly. "Bring her to the safe house."
Dee Moriate whimpered as a large hand closed around her neck and drew her up. Hanging like a rag doll on the end of the guard's arm, her feet dangling a few inches above the floor she had bloodied and marked as hers forever, her eyes never left Schuldig's as the guard turned and walked out of the door. Her lips moved, briefly, and he felt how inside his mind the knot of their connection weakly attempted to flare. But no words came. No last good-bye.
"Where are you taking her?"
The guard gone, his heavy boots echoing down the corridor, here and there interrupted by a soft sound of pain, Schuldig was alone with the old woman. He could not decide if he should feel sorry for Moriate or not for whatever fate awaited her, she seemed to have decided to meet this fate alone. A few brief touches on their connection told him she had erected feeble walls around herself; perhaps to spare him the experience of whatever would happen to her, or perhaps to save the last shreds of her dignity. He decided to leave her that dignity.
"She has served her purpose. Her fate is none of your concern, Schuldig."
"Where is Nagi?"
"Around. Don't worry, you'll meet him soon enough." The old woman moved to the bed and sat down on it with care, the bones in her knees cracking. "He is part of the plan, too. Such an easily influenced youth doesn't come along every day."
"Influenced because you had Moriate fuck up his mind!" Schuldig hissed.
"Oh yes, she did a pretty good job, didn't she? To use the inner noise of your climax to cover her tracks was an ingenious move on her part, I have to give her credit for that." She cackled, lifted her walking cane and pointed it at him. "And you, my dear son, did a pretty good job too! If you hadn't bonded with Moriate in Tokyo, I'd never have even considered you valuable. You have to thank her for your life, my dear."
Schuldig frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, we have been keeping tabs on you Schwarz for a while now. We weren't too surprised when our representative, may she rest in peace, or should I rather say, pieces, requested Moriate to help with issues evolving around the death of our client's daughter, Ouka Takatori. Schwarz always were a troublesome little group of assassins. I had to get Moriate from the other end of the world to send her to Tokyo, you know?" Conversationally, the old woman smoothened down the rumpled sheets of the bed. "All my other hunters, all my other little pets, were occupied elsewhere, and I am not one to let an opportunity go to waste."
Another piece of the puzzle slowly fell into place.
"She was under your control back then, wasn't she?"
"Oh yes, she was. As is every hunter. Moriate was the best. I figured, would you survive her, you would be worthy of my plan. Unfortunately, your leader, Crawford, did not survive her. I had actually counted him in."
The image of Crawford's body, splayed open against a wall, made Schuldig swallow.
The old woman went on, "Moriate has been doing that for some years - meeting gifted we, Eszet, have set up all over the world. She was...the test, so to speak, the hurdle the gifted had to go over to be included in the plan."
"So those investigations weren't really investigations, were they?" Schuldig closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, they were spitting green poison. "You sent a gifted to weed out the gifted, you rat."
She feigned surprise and hurt. "Honestly, what should I have done? I am an old woman; do you think me able to fly from one city to the other? I never would have survived all the damage you managed to inflict upon Moriate in the brief time she was with your petty little group; do you think me stupid?"
"I think you're a rotten piece of shit."
"Well, thank you. Maybe, in a not so far away time, you will understand the grandeur of the plan, and think differently of me then."
"Rot in hell."
"And join your lover?" She laughed. "Don't you think I'm a little too old for him?"
Farfarello squeezed himself between two snowdrifts, raising the binoculars he had found in the trunk of the other car to his eye. He had been trudging through the snow for hours on end, following tire tracks he had discovered soon after leaving a dead man in a car behind. The tracks had been fresh, barely covered by the still-falling snow. Night began to fall, but the white planes reflected the last light, enabling him to see. He had no idea what time it was or where he was, for that matter. Moriate had been the only one who knew the way to the Eszet base; with her gone, the Irishman had been left with only one option: going around the base of the mountain until he came upon the low, flat building Schuldig had once shown to him.
Instead, he had come upon tire tracks.
There was a lake at the foot of the Finsteraarhorn, frozen, its surface as flat and even as a mirror. A little away from the lake, parked amid a group of firs, stood a white jeep, the driver's door open. A tall man got out of the jeep, dressed in white and grey, a semi-automatic in one hand. Following the man with the binoculars, Farfarello watched him kick at a tire.
A tourist? Unlikely in this region, this silent solitude of white, white, white.
The man stepped back from the jeep, looking to and fro between the car and the lake. Then he walked around the car and opened the passenger door, placing the semi-automatic on the roof. He heaved something out of the car; Farfarello was too far away to see any distinct features, but he could see it was a small body.
The Irishman began to move.
The guard stopped at the edge of the frozen lake, dumbly staring at it for a few long moments. He did not notice the weight on his arms, his mind, what remaining mind there was, occupied with the by far more important task as to how he was supposed to drown someone in a lake that was frozen. Perhaps, if he put enough strength in it, the body of the young woman would shatter the ice. It would save him time.
Gingerly, he set a booted foot on the frozen water. It creaked slightly, but held. He frowned. The young woman was light. Too light. She would not shatter the ice.
That meant he had to walk back to the car and get the axe stashed in the trunk. Dumping his burden, the guard turned around and walked into two blades. One pierced his heart, the other his throat. He stared dumbly as the hands that held the blades slowly turned, deepening the gashes in his flesh. Blood ran over those hands, those white, white hands, his own blood, white clouds like breath in cold winter nights, the sudden stench as his bowels emptied, and he died.
Farfarello stepped out of the way as the man fell, letting the body's momentum free his twin blades. Sliding them back into the sheaths hidden under the sleeves of his winter jacket, he walked over to the other body and knelt down at its side. The face was pressed into the snow, limbs tangled, and frost already clinging to the strands of light brown hair. The Irishman sat still for a moment, staring. Then, calmly, he took hold of one shoulder and turned the body around so it lay on its back.
"Thought I'd never see you again." He snorted. "But I guess you would say the same to me, wouldn't you?"
Dee Moriate did not answer.
Farfarello looked at her for a few minutes. She was breathing, albeit shallowly, the breath leaving her in a slow, dry, almost sighing sound. The Irishman's thoughts went in circles, contemplating the fact that the man had actually tried to drown Moriate. Were they stupid? Did Eszet not know that killing Moriate would most likely result in Schuldig's death?
Or had their connection been shattered?
He hoisted her up and out of the snow. Moriate's skin, where it touched his hands, was cold and clammy; she was dressed in a thin t-shirt and jeans, the cloth darkened by bloodstains here and there, the shirt ripped over one shoulder, showing a deeply purple bruise. Weighting his options, Farfarello turned and walked to the abandoned car. One of the tires was flat, but that did not matter; a car would attract too much attention in this barren wasteland anyway. All he needed now was a little warmth.
Moriate moaned under her breath as the Irishman deposited her in the passenger seat and slammed the door, walked around the car and climbed in on the other side, closing that door, too. Her eyelids fluttered, the whites showing. Rolling her head on the car headrest behind her, she blinked a few times, her gaze finally coming to rest on the Irishman's face.
There was no perceptible emotion in them, those watery eyes, those shallow oceans, as they opened fully. Moriate attempted to speak, licking dry, cracked lips.
"You owe me," Farfarello remarked conversationally. "I'm sure you don't like that, but I guess you'll have to put up and shut up."
"Kiss my ass. Stupid guard, that's what you get when you leave it to robots to do your bidding. Asshole. Trying to kill me. Should have put me in the safe house." Her voice was small, strained, something bubbling in her chest as she spoke. Farfarello raised an eyebrow, leaning a little closer to her. "I want to go."
"Go? Die, you mean."
"Yeah." She coughed. "S'not worth it anymore."
"Ah, but what ever is worth it?" He reached out and traced the curve of her cheek with the tips of two fingers, then grabbed her chin and turned her face towards him. "Where is Schuldig? Where have you taken him?"
"Mainframe base." Defiantly, even as broken as she was, Moriate met the amber gaze of his single eye calmly, silence and stone settling over her features. "They should be breaking him right now."
Something in his chest tightened at her words, something that stung and shivered as it took in the meaning behind the syllables. Farfarello snarled, gripping her chin harder, feeling the skin move over bones and flesh. Moriate uttered a small sound of pain, yet kept staring at him.
"You'll show me the way to that base."
"You'll have to carry me."
"If I have to, I will. We can always dispose of you later."
Later. A soft, whispered voice spoke inside his mind. There might not be a 'later'.
"I have a better idea," that same voice, though now loud, much louder than what a broken body should have been able to put out. Though her face was distorted by his iron grip, she managed to smile; a dead smile, wilting like a flower hungering for water. "Merge with me."
He almost let her go, surprised. "What?"
"Merge with me," Moriate repeated, struggling to sit up in the seat, one hand coming up to weakly grip his wrist. "It's the only real chance you have. They have your lover, and your little telekinetic. I can show you the way, but can you keep me alive?" The young woman's voice dropped, the bubbling behind the words more clearly audible now. "Can you make sure I'll survive the day? Can you ever really be sure you'll win?"
The Irishman recoiled from her, unable to understand her line of reasoning. What possible difference would that merge make? And how could he, a mere psychopath, ever withstand someone as strong as Moriate? He was not a telepath. She would shatter him, her mind sucking his in like a hurricane sucked in houses and animals and people.
"I am dying, Farfarello."
Quietly spoken, the inflection hiding nothing, her eyes, as she looked at him, offering him everything she was. A lamb on the way to the slaughterhouse. There was pain in these eyes, and suffering and yet, there was also anger, and hate, and a hunger for revenge that seemed to outdo even Farfarello's hunger for revenge against God's lies and God's ways.
This was not the Dee Moriate he had met in an abandoned warehouse filled with dead bodies. This was someone he did not know and could not estimate; and on top of it all, this someone seemed to be on the verge of death.
"I cannot trust you." He moved closer again, looming over her. "You planned all this. You nearly killed me. You took Schu. And now you want to take me too."
A snort. "I may not know how to handle a gun, but I do know how to kill. I also know how not to." A fine line of pain creased her brow. "Everything I am will go into you. My memories, my dreams, my life. My connection to your lover - all that will be yours."
Farfarello blinked, mind going a mile a minute. He remembered the discussion he'd had with Schuldig, about what the connection between the redhead and the young woman meant. A shared life, two minds battling for domination.
"I won't fight."
Fight, fight, what did it matter? What did it matter if her presence in his mind would be enough to shatter him, and keep her alive? One body, two minds. One would win, absorbing the other. What would be left of him? What would be added?
"You're reading my mind as we speak. Why should I even consider trusting you?"
"Do you see any other way?" she asked quietly. "I remember now, you know. All that happened. She kept it from me, but she can't keep it from me now."
"She? What are you talking about?"
"You'll see. I'm not asking for your trust, Farfarello. I'm asking for my death. You are so quick in dealing out eternity, why hesitate now?" Another breath, the bubbling turned into a rattling sound, the words followed by keens. "I'll be dead before we reach the base. Make up your mind. Do it fast. I'm too tired to do it for you."
They locked eyes again, watery blue, beginning to cloud over, burning amber, suddenly filled with indecision and worry. Worry for Schuldig, worry for his own fragile mind. Farfarello attempted to bring his connection with Schuldig to life, but it was dead, or dormant; either way, he was alone. Seeing Moriate in the shape she was in did back up her story - if she had been the mastermind behind the plan, then why had that guard tried to kill her? Why was she here now, with him, in a car somewhere at the base of the Finsteraarhorn, while his lover was in some place he could not, would not find until it might be too late? For a moment, something in Farfarello reared its head and whispered to him.
Leave. Now. What do you care about what happens to Schuldig, about what happens to Nagi?
But...
Leave. He was never meant to be yours in the first place.
Shut...
Are a few heated words of love and a few fucks worth your mind?
Up...
She will mangle your mind.
GOD...
"God?" Moriate laughed. A trickle of blood ran out of her left nostril, over her pale lips. "Is God worth Schuldig's life?"
No. No, God wasn't worth Schuldig's life. God was a whisper compared to the song that was Schuldig. God was a liar, compared to the honesty he saw in Schuldig's true face, the face that appeared when the mask of the snake was shed and the bare bones of life and self were exposed.
Even if Moriate was tricking him, even if she was trying to merge them to take over his body and destroy what God's lies had left behind even then, it would mean Schuldig would live.
Another decision to be made.
"Do it."
Colours burst behind his eye the moment the last word left his mouth. Followed by a wave of pure, breathtaking silence so deep it was ear shattering, the colours danced for a few moments, resplendent in all the shadings of the rainbow, battling against his mind, demanding entrance. At first, the Irishman was too shocked, too overwhelmed to allow them inside, closing himself off in his mind, deaf to the silence. Blind to the colours.
They branded against his walls, each surge stronger than the one before. There was the taste of metal. He had bit his tongue, blood on his lips.
Then there was nothing.
He opened his eye, not finding, as he had expected it, the interior of the car and Moriate, but a wide, empty plane. Farfarello turned once and found, behind him, a mirror, hanging suspended in the empty air. The mirror was simple, a black wooden frame and a flat silvery surface.
I am the mirror, cracked inside the frame.
Schuldig's words came back to him; spoken in a soft voice, and they were back in their kitchen in Tokyo, and Moriate was lying on the kitchen table.
But this mirror was not cracked, its surface whole, unblemished. Farfarello walked towards it and stopped a few paces before it.
Instead of himself, he saw Moriate's face where his own reflection should have been.
The young woman in the mirror smiled, no, it was more a sneer, as if to say: I give myself for you, but I am not sure why, nor am I happy about it.
Then she turned and walked away.
His own face stared back at him.
He blinked; once, twice, the light from the strange place changing to the more natural descending darkness of the night outside the car. Nothing had changed. Everything was different. For a long moment, he saw the world with Moriate's eyes, the colours changed, values shifted, believing in childhood dreams not his own. The feeling was gone before he could grasp it...fleeting was the touch of what might have been, of what might have happened. Pale and waning, the brief moment of a face seen in a mirror, a face not his own Farfarello felt like he was falling, inside, crashing hard into his own self again, shattering cobweb-fine strands of someone else clinging to his life.
It was there. It was beautiful. He held on to it as long as he could, that feeling of knowing how a telepath thought, how a telepath conceived the world. Thoughts, dreams, wishes they all had a taste to them, each unique, each perfect. He could feel the roar of the wildlife around them, insects and birds, hares and deer living in these deserted lands, singing their song to the arising night. Life and death merged, creating a never-ending circle that could not be broken. He was part of that circle for a moment. He would never forget that moment.
It ended all too soon. The feeling dulled, leaving him again. Bits and pieces of images were flashing before his eye - not his own, yet strangely intimate: Moriate's life, merging with his, immediately subdued by Farfarello's horrors. She sank without complaint, sighing as one who lies down to sleep. Knowledge and experience clicked into place, abrasive for a moment before smoothly running together like quicksilver.
He sighed.
Nothing had changed.
Everything was different.
Alone and yet not alone, Farfarello looked at the telepath in the seat next to him. Moriate's eyes were closed, her face slack. As he looked at her, her chest rose once more, drawing a soft breath. Exhaled, gently with exhaust - a prism of red and yellow exploded to life in his mind the moment she died.
He did not know how, but he did it. He latched onto the once-again living connection to Schuldig, seeing it glowing in his mind like a red path.
Rage.
Fury.
Schuldig had never known such hate in all his life. He was surprised to find it within himself; he had not known he was capable of such burning hatred.
He opened his mind's gates and threw everything he had at her. He became the eye of the storm, open to the outside and yet locked within himself; thoughts, screams, images, all coming from within the walls of the Eszet base, all rushing into him, through him, channelled at the old woman who sat on the bed across him.
A maelstrom of lives, focused on her mind. Pain, worry, sorrow - plenty to find within these walls. The residue of whoever had occupied this cell before him was sucked into the eye of the storm and joined the attack.
Did the thoughts linger, long after the person who had born them died? He did not know. But it felt like it could be so.
What was Schuldig was lost immediately within the storm. What remained was a gathering point of energy, an inferno of thoughts. Schuldig, trapped within his own self, screamed.
The last thing he saw was the old woman on the bed. Unaffected by his attack, it seemed, one hand playing with the handle of her walking cane, she sat there and smiled.
He realized too late this was what she had wanted him to do.
The telepath's body shook hard, fighting against an unseen attacker. An ordinary mind could not have grasped what was going on. In the other rooms and hallways of the Eszet building, telepaths from all corners of the world, telepaths who had been trained, who had been waiting for just this occasion, sighed collectively, feeling their minds turn away from the outside world and gather inside. The Elders had told them what would happen. They had prepared them, counselled them, making them ready to be what Eszet wanted them to be, a collective.
Some of them mourned quietly as they felt the passing of one of their own: Moriate. Her mind flared briefly before it faded into the background noise of the world as it came crashing in on them; some noticed the flaring, and the dying of the flame, as well as the fire that began to burn immediately afterwards, but they wrote it off to too many minds being forced into one.
All of them, though, looked at the prism they knew to be the strongest telepath on earth. He was the mirror into which they looked; he was the vent, the one point and the end in existence of Eszet's dream. He would bring the world a new era. Through him, they would reach every telepath on the planet. Through him, control would be executed over the lesser beings of the world.
And they would love him for it.
In the cell, slumped on the ground like a broken doll, Schuldig breathed deeply and evenly. The end of a walking cane poked him in the shoulder; he twitched and opened his eyes before sitting up. Standing, he looked at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. He did not pay attention to age-ridden fingers as they opened the clasps of the straight jacket, nor did he notice the guard that stood in the door, the guard who took him by the shoulders and moved him out of the cell and into the hallway. Eyes unseeing and yet knowing everything, the prism of Eszet walked past locked doors.
The old woman remained in the cell, alone. She looked up briefly as the other two Elders joined her; three old people in the cell now, all of them bowed yet standing like kings and queens on the day of their victory.
"It is done," the old woman said with a small sigh. "The world is waiting."
"The night is full of strange sounds," one of the old men replied, drawing a pattern on the grey floor of the cell, as if mapping out the future with his walking cane. "Let us begin to empty the night of everything unwanted."
The second old man nodded. "Let us begin the Hollow Night."
He stared at the wall. It was taunting him, telling him: you cannot escape me. They have put you here, and here you shall remain until your time has come. Beneath those thoughts ran the steady undercurrent of something he could only describe as alien; his mind shied away from it every time he tried to touch it.
Nagi felt cleaved in half, the one side disconnected from the other by that undercurrent. A part of him wanted to tear down that wall and run. The other part wanted to stay where he was, safe in the embrace of the comfortable room they had set him up in.
Outside, the world that awaited him had neither eyes nor ears for his life, for his worries, for his feelings. Here, he was safe. Here, amid people who knew what he was capable of, he was home.
Schwarz had known what he was capable of.
The thought was gone before it festered; yet, it left a sour taste in his mouth. Schwarz had been his family.
No, no, no, that was not right, Schwarz was not his family, Eszet was. The mainframe kept him warm and safe, far away from the kings and queens that dwelled in the mountains outside his comfortable room.
Tossing and turning on the large bed, the Japanese youth finally sat up and cradled his head in his hands, his eyes resting on the bed sheet, satiny, soft, not on the blank nothingness of the wall opposite the bed. He was dressed in a dark green pyjama, and there was a pair of soft house shoes standing next to the bed. A small light on the single bed stand cast a warming light over the cream-coloured furniture; the desk, the closet, the carpet; even the door to his room, a door that opened with the hydraulic hiss of locks sliding back and forth, was cream-coloured.
He wondered briefly if his shoes would be standing outside the door; just as street shoes had always been standing outside the door when he had still been in Japan, and known nothing of kings and queens frozen in snow and ice.
Japan.
His memory did not serve him well; fogged, undone, the ties severed, nothing he could use, nothing reliable to tie in with his current situation. He was fighting against an army of shadows, drowning in waters he could not swallow nor see.
She had done something to his mind.
Well, perhaps, only perhaps, he did deserve whatever she had done. He had raped her, after all. Nagi had met women during his time as assassin that killed for less. If such a thing as rape could even be described as "less."
Nagi rose from the bed and walked to the large window that covered half the wall to his right. It was dark outside. Night. The window was cold as he put his brow against it, soft bangs tickling the sides of his face.
"Are you out there, Dee?" he asked softly, his breath clouding the glass. "Or are you in here?" He turned and looked at his room. The seconds ticked by slowly. He shivered, the cold radiating from the window drawing a chilly finger down between his shoulder blades.
Shuffling footsteps outside the door caught his attention for a moment, but they moved on, soon faded, replaced by the sound of his own heartbeat.
An old woman had come to him, during the first day of his homecoming. She had not spoken to him, only stared at him. Her presence had unnerved him, and fascinated him at the same time. In a way, she had reminded him of Farfarello whereas the Irishman was a young predator who attacked whenever he got the chance, the woman had been an old predator, her weapons something other than teeth and claws.
After the old woman, only guards had come to bring him food.
Nagi sighed, turning once more to put his brow against the blessed cold of the window.
The night opened her jaws and swallowed him a second later. He did not feel the impact on the carpet.
Farfarello stumbled and nearly tumbled headfirst down a snowy slope. A fir tree halted his descent; he clutched the tree with both hands, breathing rapidly for a few long moments.
Something inside of him seemed to give way and swim down a current of cold water. The Irishman gulped down air as a starving man might, his heart racing. Thoughts about Moriate lying came to him of her, in him, slowly taking over his body, his thoughts, and his self.
Surprisingly, after a minute or two had passed, his strength returned to him, and he could let go of the tree. A feeling of sudden sickness passed before it could persuade his stomach to revolt. Wondering what had just happened, Farfarello shook his head once, his hands coming up to briefly massage his temples. His head seemed to be brimming with energy.
Like a glacier in tropical waters, some small part of his mind fell to pieces and swam away. It did not affect him otherwise, so he curiously studied the feeling until it was gone; again not knowing what had happened, the Irishman wrote it off to the recent merge and trudged on through the knee-deep snow. He had been walking for two hours straight, lead by information that once had been lodged firmly in Moriate's brain, information that was now his to use. It felt alien - he was walking on ways he should not have known, and yet he knew them as if he had walked them a thousand times already.
His way had taken him away from the lake, where Moriate now resided in the icy waters. First, he had wanted to leave her corpse in the car, but it just had not seemed right; Farfarello had had no means to justify his giving her 'rest', yet he had done it. In the middle of the lake, the ice had been thin. Moriate's hair had been floating around her face like seaweed, her open eyes staring at the sky overhead as she slowly sank to the muddy grounds of the lake.
He had found an axe in the trunk of the car and taken it with him. The guard's gun and ammo would find their use, too. Searching the corpse of the guard had presented him with an ID card he had pocketed as well.
Farfarello walked down a slope, resting at the bottom for a moment, scanning his surroundings. Trees everywhere. Pale moonlight casting odd shadows, the oddest his own. An elongated sprawl behind him, mixing with the darkness. Each of his steps was loud, snow and ice cracking beneath his boots.
The prism stared sightlessly ahead of himself, seated like a king in the middle of the empty room. They had fed him and bathed him, combed out his hair, as if they wanted to present him to the world looking as good as possible. The chair he sat on was made of stone, ankle straps and wrist bindings holding him immobile. The only free thing about him was his mind; and yet, it was not free. Like a drop of water dances over a hot plate, his mind darted to and fro, connecting and disconnecting with every living being inside the Eszet building. Some of the minds he met were empty of thought and emotion, devoid of life. The others were filled to brimming; welcoming his touch like a flower welcomes a gentle spring rain.
One of those minds caught his attention. It was young still, and yet old beyond its years. Experienced, memories showing pictures painted in blood. The prism caressed that particular mind, coaxed it to open to him.
A mind lock had been exerted upon that mind. As he stroked memories and thoughts, the prism felt that lock give way. Chaotic thoughts tumbled over, as the youth behind the mind was flooded with his own self again. Briefly, the prism considered a lock of his own making.
But then, he decided against it. This young mind would fight him. He was a telekinetic, strong. Too strong to be made a robot. He also was young, his emotions chaotic. He would always be a liability. An obstacle.
An obstacle that had to be removed.
The minds joined with his own listened to his decision and welcomed it.
Nagi vomited until his stomach was empty. He crawled away from the puddle and collapsed on his side, breathing hard. For a few minutes he lay like this, gasping like a fish on dry ground, his eyes screwed shut so tightly tears were leaking out at the corners.
Too many things came rushing in on him at once; nearly enough to shatter his fragile hold on reality the wave soon passed, making way for anger so hot and burning it seemed lodged like a ball of fire in the middle of his heaving chest. Moriate. Eszet. The forest, Schuldig and Farfarello fucking somewhere while he tried to awaken the female telepath from whatever funk she was in. Then, nothing. A wide stretch of grey, here and there pierced with jumbled thoughts and impressions. The greyness became whiteness; snow, the sun glittering on the empty stretches of a landscape he did not remember passing through, and yet he had passed through it, Schuldig and Moriate next to him.
His thought process came to a screeching halt as he realized his current situation wherever it was, and he knew it must be some place run by Eszet, he should by all means be a thousand miles away from it.
His mind friendlily supplied him with the fact that since they had been on the way to he mainframe base, he most likely was in the mainframe base.
"Shit, shit, shit," Nagi got up from the floor, sweeping the room quickly. His thoughts briefly skittered, wondering where Schuldig was, where Farfarello was.
He had to get out of here.
The clothes he found in the closets fit him, and he was not surprised by it. One glance at the door brought the lack of a door handle to his attention; well, the window would have to do. If Schuldig's description of the building had been correct, the room he was in should be on ground level surrounded by high electric voltage fences. Getting out of here should present no problem; and once out, he would deal with whatever situation presented to him.
The staccato sound of heavy boots on the corridor outside his room made him froze in his tracks. They were still far away, but there was no doubt that they were coming closer, closer, coming to get him.
Run, little boy. Amuse me.
The voice inside his head was silken and poisonous. For a moment, Nagi thought it was Schuldig talking to him, an answering thought almost leaving his mind. But then he noticed the way the voice was layered; it was not Schuldig's voice, and yet it was, and beneath the German's nasal voice were a thousand other voices, whispering, creating an otherworldly background. A waterfall of shivers ran down the telekinetic's spine as the words slowly faded from his mind, leaving with what could only be described as a gentle caress.
He had no time to lose. The sound of feet outside this creamy pale nightmare of a room was very close now. Taking a deep breath to clear his head and calm his racing heart down, Nagi turned to the window and held both hands out in front of his body, palms facing the velvet darkness outside.
Shattering glass. The sound rang through the cold clearness of the night, freezing everything in its tracks for a second. Everything, except one Irishman.
Farfarello arrived at the top of yet another snowy slope and stopped there. Below him, just as he had once seen it in Schuldig's mind, lay the Eszet base; a flat, long building pressed against the snow, its walls painted white, high fences surrounding it. A warm feeling began to pool in the Irishman's stomach. Schuldig was down in there somewhere.
The echoes of the shattering glass still hanging in the air, Farfarello saw how a good part of the electric fence on the east side of the building was suddenly blown away by what seemed to be an unnaturally strong gust of wind. A small figure, clad in dark blue, exploded through that opening, running in a straight line away from the Eszet base. Gunfire replaced the shattered glass. Explosions of snow trailed the running person's path, each one coming closer and closer to the escapee.
Nagi, Farfarello thought. His suspicion was confirmed as the running person abruptly lifted off of the ground, the light, frail body carried by forces not seen by human eyes. It only lasted for a few seconds, but this move on the fugitive's part seemed to disorient the pursuers, for the gunfire stopped suddenly.
"Nagi!"
Farfarello's voice carried over the distance, yet it did not reach the Japanese youth. Nagi's form twisted in the air, long limbs burning from being pushed off the ground again and again. The Irishman did not know a lot about the nature of Nagi's power; yet, he knew enough to see that each 'leap' took a lot of strength out of the Japanese youth. Nagi's telekinesis was meant to push things away from him, not to exert force upon his own body. How long he would be able to use them as a means to get away was anyone's guess, and Farfarello had never liked guesses.
Snow and ice crunched loudly as the Irishman threw himself forward and raced down the slope, towards the small group of people that had spilled from the hole in the electric fence Nagi had created.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani...
The prism let his head sink forward, his chin nearly coming to rest on his chest. His hands, splayed on the armrests of the chair he sat in, cramped, fingernails scratching over wood and leather. Around him, guards threw uneasy glances at each other.
In a corner of the room, standing nearby a window, three old people raised their heads, their brows furrowed.
"Trouble," one of them said.
The other two nodded thoughtfully.
He hit the snow so hard he saw stars. Breathing had never seemed so difficult as it did now; his body convulsing and thrumming with his own powers, Nagi felt the icy cold begin to seep into his clothes, melt against his skin where it was bare. The idea of sleep, of resting, became temptation.
He had to get away from here. Fast.
Muscles and flesh protested with fiery pain as the Japanese youth raised himself to hands and knees. He felt as though his insides were going to liquefy any moment, his stomach cramped, and he stared at the dark patches blooming in the snow before him for a long moment before he realized it was his own blood dripping from his nose.
He sank onto his haunches. The sky was alive. It seemed like moonlight, yet he knew it were searchlights scanning the vicinity of the mainframe building. He turned, expecting to see a crowd coming his way; yet, there was nothing.
Then there were screams.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani...
Farfarello's grip on the handle of the axe he had taken from the guard's car nearly slipped as the voice inside his head grew in volume until it was all he could hear. His arm rocked as the weapon collided with living flesh and sank into it; with a wrench of his arm and a twist of his upper body to the side, he pulled the axe free again only to bury it in a tall man's brow a moment later. Clouds of steam rose as blood spurted. The snow around the Irishman had long since been tinged in all the gaudy shades of carnage.
A vicious kick to his knees brought him down. A bullet; his blood mixing with that of the guards he had killed, and through it all, that voice, that taunting, so familiar and yet so strange voice telling him things he had only told Schuldig; things only the telepath could know. The Irishman screeched as images of his dead 'family' rose before his inner eye his sister, lovely still in her dress, her second smile red as cherries. Mommy on the floor, and no more music to which she would sing, ever.
Ruth, her head hanging from her rump by only a thinning thread of flesh, the tendons of her neck severed, the vertebrae of her spinal cord cracked. Unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling of a confession booth, staring up at a heaven that had no gates, at a God that had no ears; Ruth the Liar, the Mother of Monsters, one now with a God that had lead her to lie to a son who had been innocent.
Farfarello curled into a tight ball. Boots connected with his body, each kick rocking him.
Eloi, eloi-
SHUT UP!!
Why? There was an almost childlike curiosity to the voice. I'm just showing you what's in your mind.
It...
That's the truth in there, you know? That's all you are, all there is. Monster.
...hurts...
The truth always hurts, Jay McKinnon.
No...
Do you want me to tell you the truth?
Something collided with the back of his head. A boot, or a bullet, he did not know. He could not pay attention. All he knew was the voice in his mind, whispering.
The guard stood with his weapon drawn, the barrel aimed at the strange man's head. He looked around. His mind, though devoid of any personal thought, counted twelve of fifteen of his fellow guards dead, all of them lying in their own steaming blood. Also, he heard words, whispers, sometimes the fragments of an entire sentence. They did not make sense. His brain could not process those whispers.
He had been told to kill the young man who was now out of sight. He would be punished for that. And instead of the Japanese youth he had been told to kill, his weapon was now trained at another man, this one lying on the ground before him, curled into a ball. He had white hair.
The other three surviving guards stood as unmoving as the first one did. They had lost their weapons, and one was cradling the stump of his arm while he slowly bled to death. The Elders gave them no orders, no answers as what they were supposed to do now. So, they just stood and watched the strange man on the ground, on the bloody snow.
They had not been sent to kill this strange man with the scars and the eye patch. He had killed twelve, soon thirteen of them.
But they would not move to kill him unless told.
"Schuldig's gambler nature still shows through," the old woman said, her fingers smoothing over the shawl around her shoulders. "He is playing with this Irishman's thoughts."
She stood at the window now, her back turned to the room. "So this is Farfarello. What a beast." Studying the scene captured in the halo of one of the searchlights, the old woman sighed.
"Moriate did not kill him," one of the old men observed.
"It does not matter anymore." She turned from the window and regarded the prism, her lips pursed in thought. "Prepare the Hollow Night. We will start now. The guards can deal with this loony out there."
"What about the other, Naoe?"
"He ran away. We will deal with him later." She walked over to the prism. Bending slowly, she put her mouth near his ear, and whispered, "You might as well give up, Schuldig. Your friend ran away, and your lover will soon be dead."
The prism, if he heard her, did not respond to her words. His eyes closed, statuesque on the outside, he was waging war within his mind. The old woman said something to one of the guards standing nearby; it was trivial.
The youth, the first obstacle, had escaped from the building, but the prism could feel him; he was not far away, slowly edging his way back towards the base, towards the source of the prism's attention.
The Irishman's mind was interesting, to say the least. The prism stood in wonder at what he saw, at the past this one individual had; at the way he saw the world. There was not much Farfarello cared for. Survival, hate for God, and love.
Love?
The prism frowned at his newest discovery, silently turning what he had found over and over. Farfarello's idea of love was not much different from what the minds joined with the prism thought of love: a concept, an idea, thought up to claim, to have, to preserve. To own, and keep what he owned out of harm's way, and warm.
To get back what he loved, for the object of his affections was currently lost.
The prism frowned, leaving the Irishman's mind to look at himself and search for this object. He found it in a nearly drowned presence that hovered unsteadily among the others; nothing more than a weak, flickering light, this presence was nearly gone, nearly submerged in the storm of the others. Imperfect. This one mind clung to images the prism had seen within the Irishman's memory, bodies slung tight around each other, heated kisses, a promise given in the tunnels of some dark place: I will cut your name into their flesh.
The prism touched this mind.
What was left of Schuldig recoiled briefly and then exploded forth.
Amber. Burning.
The guard's arm twitched, the gunpoint wavering from the aim the man had on the Irishman's head. Farfarello lay on the snow, arms curled around his head. His one seeing eye was wide open; staring up at the guard with hatred so cold, it burned, hypnotizing in its intensity.
The man could not move as the Irishman uncurled in a smooth move, nor could he react as one pale arm raised, hand holding twenty inches of glittering death. The searchlights glinted on the metal of the blade as it descended, sinking deeply into the throat of the staring man, the tip breaking through the skin on the back of his neck. His muscles tightened reflexively, finger curling around the trigger of the gun, but a hand had gripped his wrist and swung the gun to the side. An explosion of snow, harmless.
The two men standing behind Farfarello were blown away so quickly they whirled up snow. They sailed through the opening in the electric fence and collided with the wall of the Eszet building, each leaving a spider web of blood on the white stone.
Farfarello stared into the guard's eyes, his face a white mask of hate. He stared, and stared, until the man finally fell, the blade slipping free, fingers losing their grip on the gun.
"Farfarello?"
The Irishman turned his head, his arm still in the position where he had stabbed the guard, his other still holding on to the man's wrist.
Nagi stopped short as he saw the expression on the Irishman's face. The horrors, the insanity that had seemed gone as long as Farfarello was with Schuldig they were back, multiplied a thousand times. The telekinetic slowly raised his hands, palms outward, in what he hoped was a calming gesture.
"Farfarello, it's me. Nagi."
No answer.
Thou shall not kill.
Hack. Slash. Open them up like Christmas presents delivered too late to your door, with no care for the beautiful wrapping.
Thou shall not kill.
Rip. Tear. One by one, row after row, God's Army falls to oblivion, taken from the planet's face like flowers plucked from a field.
Thou shall not kill.
Dance. Turn. What does it matter if you are the sinner? God made you what you are, God gave you your gift, and now you present God with everything He never wanted you to become. The line between lamb and slaughterer is thin, the step needed to cross it never hard to make. Lift your foot and you shall receive the cries of angels, the pain of God, the blood of His holy hordes raining from the skies.
In the end, you will laugh. Because you once again hurt God, because you once again spilled the holy blood that Jesus gave to humankind days before they tore into him and laughed at him. Who is really the sinner here? The man who murdered these guards and integrated their matter into the stones and the snow of this forgotten land, or the God that let His son die on a cross, spread open like a whore for mankind to laugh at, spit at, throw stones at? If you look at it from this point of view, God threw the first stone, and it was a fucking big stone marked 'Lie'.
You are done. Tonight, there is nothing left here for you to accomplish. So you rise, the soles of your boots sucking at the floor as you walk to the door, turning one last time to behold the masterpiece you created tonight. Art can make people cry.
God would surely cry over this picture tonight.
Just as he would cry over every cut Farfarello was going to make in another human's flesh, slashing the beginnings of the letter 'S', the bow of the letter 'D'.
And if there was no God, then there was still Schuldig.
Fuck the rest.
Wordlessly, Farfarello pointed at the wall behind the electric fence, his eye still locked with Nagi's gaze.
The Japanese youth shivered as he literally felt the coldness radiating from Farfarello. It was colder, and darker, and a thousand times bitterer than the natural cold around them. Farfarello had never seemed so distant, so murderous to him before.
What would wait for them, inside these walls, other than death? Nagi did not know. But they had come so far, and endured so much, that they might as well go on.
The Eszet building shook under the force of the telekinetic wave as Nagi battered against the walls with everything he had. As if made of rubber, the solid walls bent inwards, forced to give way to a force greater than the stones they were made of. A deep, ripping sound filled the crisp air, soon replaced by the crashing of falling walls and the dry clouds of dust as nearly the entire east front of the building was blown away.
"I am coming with you," Nagi announced as Farfarello stepped forward and through the remains of the electric fence, carelessly walking over the corpses of the guards he had slain.
"Whatever," Farfarello replied. His mind was as clear as it had never been before. Things had never been as simple as they were now: he had a promise to fulfil. What the bodiless voice had tried to tell him about the truth did not matter. God or no God, he was going in there, and he was going to get Schuldig out of there. "Kill everyone you see. Don't ask questions."
"But what if it's Schu - "
"Kill everyone you see," Farfarello repeated, already a shadow in the clouds of dust. "We will know Schuldig when we see him. I will know him when I see him."
Nagi squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. Schuldig could be dead for all he knew. Moriate could be dead for all he knew. Whatever would await them in there would not let them go again unless they killed it.
But perhaps, this was the only way.
They had nowhere else to go.
The road had turned to dust under their feet.
What remained was a path of burning blood unrolling before Farfarello's inner eyes.
He remembered it now, the distinct feeling of clinical, sterilized surroundings, as his lover had shown him the Eszet building the first time, back in Japan. Empty, long, grey corridors, interjected with steel doors, the floor polished to perfection under cold yellow lights.
The reality was different.
The corridors he remembered, the corridors Dee Moriate had known, were dark, safety lights let into the wall at periodic intervals leading the way. The air was not cold and sterilized, but stuffy, old, a taste of mould and a smell of rot clinging to every breath. Every of their steps gave birth to an echo, but even those seemed different: as if their bodies had created an aura, the echoes were dim, their range short.
Farfarello gripped the handle of his blade so hard the bones in his fingers felt strung tight. He knew where he had to go, the information was in his head, his to use. Questions that had not found an answer yet would have to wait just a little longer.
He wanted Schuldig back.
Now.
Nagi kept close to the Irishman before him, the fingers of one hand hooked into the back of Farfarello's belt. The Irishman had shed his heavy winter jacket after they had entered the building; his pale skin reflected the dim lights of the corridor, taking on a reddish hue. He had expected an immediate attack upon entering, yet so far, they had walked unhindered. Were the guards gathered around some corner, waiting for them to step into their arms? Would they burst out of any of the many steel doors that lined these corridors?
"They are all dead."
Flabbergasted, Nagi nearly stumbled, and then he nearly bumped into Farfarello's back as the other stopped suddenly.
"Since when can you read my...oh."
Following Farfarello's outstretched arm, he saw a huddled bulk resting against the left wall of the corridor. Slumped forward, a weapon next to her curled hand, the female guard looked as if death had hit her before she had seen it coming. Nagi shivered as he saw that half of the woman's head was missing. He remembered what Moriate had done to the woman who had leaned out of the window in the street in Vienna; this did not look much differently. As they walked forward, something crunched under his boot. A fragment of bone, perhaps; Nagi did not look too closely.
He did not look at any of the one hundred and forty corpses they came upon in the corridors.
The smell of blood mixed heavily with the smell of rot the deeper they came into the bowels of the Eszet base. It seemed that the deeper they ventured, the more corpses they came upon. Someone laying down stepping stones on a map: Here There Be Monsters.
"What the hell happened here?" Nagi whispered. "They are all dead."
"I don't know," Farfarello said. "Did the prism talk to you, too?"
"The prism?"
"The voice."
"Yes...yes, I think I know what you mean."
"What did it say?"
"It told me to run away." Nagi frowned. "Was it Schuldig?"
"No. But I believe it was part of Schuldig." Farfarello's voice sank to near inaudible. "Part of the lie..."
"The lie?"
"Part of everything."
Apparently, Farfarello was not going to decipher his cryptic words for Nagi, for he stopped short again. They were in a long corridor that ended in another steel door. The Irishman sighed, as one who finally arrives home after a long journey sighs, and reached to the small of his back to unhook Nagi's fingers from his belt. Then, he laid his hand upon the handle of the door.
"Where is Moriate," Nagi asked in another whisper. "Is she dead too?"
Farfarello turned his head and looked at the Japanese youth. Nagi did not ask again.
Quiet like a graveyard in the deepest hours of the night, and maybe this was how the story was going to end, Nagi thought. Not with a scream, or with a curse, but with silence. The door swung inwards without a sound after Farfarello had pressed the handle down. It stopped opening soon, hindered by something that lay on the floor, out of their field of vision. The room behind the door was bathed in a soft, blue light, but as Nagi's eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed swaths of what could only be described as fog slowly meandering through the air. A sweet, thick smell pressed into his nose as he passed the threshold; it smelled like incense, yet it was more intensive, darker, and syrupy like bad honey. Nagi kept as close to Farfarello as he dared. The room was filled with power.
Nagi's heart clenched as Farfarello turned, and he turning with him beheld the centre of the room; seated in a throne of stone, ankles and wrists held by leather straps, head bowed so long hair was hanging to his thighs and pooling left and right to them on the stone seat Schuldig.
Something hit the crown of Nagi's head. He screamed, jumped to the side and around, but there was no one, no enemy left to kill. Farfarello, his back turned towards Nagi, seemed not to pay him any attention.
There. Another hit, this time on his left shoulder. It was coming from above. Slowly, Nagi raised his head to look at the ceiling. He had to look for a long moment to understand what he saw. At first, it did not make any sense; yet, he felt himself reminded of something as he stood there and looked up. A drop of something warm landed on his cheek, rolling down his face to vanish in the hair by his ear.
An eye stared back at him. There was an eye. His gaze wandered, coming to rest on ivory white - a bone. Patches of skin. Nagi's eyes widened.
"Fuck..." He covered his mouth with his hand, too shocked to really feel anything, not even revulsion.
The image of Crawford plastered to the wall of the warehouse came back to him how the leader of Schwarz had been opened up like a ripe fruit and spread far and wide, every bone in his body broken, every vein unearthed. It had been Nagi's doing, this, back then.
The Japanese youth became aware of steady dripping sounds. Droplets of blood and other fluids hit the floor upon which they stood, the corpses, raining down from the ceiling as if there were a field of flowers below. They must have been incredibly lucky not to be hit by blood coming from above upon entering.
As Nagi stared at the ceiling, the eyeball that had captured his attention first fell to the floor with a wet and sucking sound. A good part of the optic nerve was still attached to it; and it moved, or maybe Nagi was imagining it, the optic nerve moved like a snake with an overly large head; the single eye staring, lidless now, seeing all and nothing.
"Farfarello?"
Chunks of flesh began to rain from the ceiling. They plunked down on the corpses of what must have been guards. Nagi could not tell, the illumination too scarce, the absence of head or faces making it impossible to tell age or gender. He started as a part of a palm, two fingers still attached to it, fell to the floor right next to his foot. The fingers curled, chipped fingernails sinking into the flesh.
Farfarello did not move. His eye was fastened on Schuldig's bowed head, on the slumped shoulders, the pooling hair. A piece of blood-dripping flesh hit the Irishman's left shoulder and bounced off to land on the floor. Farfarello did not move.
"Schuldig?" His voice sounded strange to his own ears, nearly afraid. He had expected a fight; he had expected the blinding whiteness of a mental attack. Instead, he stood in front of Schuldig and could not move, could not bring himself to touch his lover. He did not know what to do now at all. He could see the gentle rise and fall of the German's chest. Schuldig was not dead. "Schu?"
The fall of hair shivered as the German moved his head, tilting it to the side and upward. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly parted.
Dimly, Farfarello heard Nagi shout as a larger part of whatever was stuck to the ceiling came off and fell to the floor. Liquefied flesh splattered against the Irishman's boots and calves.
"Farfarello! Quit staring at him and let's get the fuck out of here!"
Nagi's voice roughly jerked Farfarello out of his near-dreamy state. Still, it was with a feeling of unease that he stepped forward and began to untie the leather straps that held the German's wrists and ankles.
Not what you were expecting, is it?
The mental comment was calm, sad. Farfarello looked up from Schuldig's hands and met a distant, green stare. Carefully, the Irishman brought his hand up and laid his palm against the side of Schuldig's face, caressing him gently. The touch seemed so out of place in this morgue, this nightmare. Schuldig turned his head, his lips dancing, moist and warm, over the Irishman's palm, pressing a tiny kiss against calluses formed by years of handling knives and other weapons.
"What did you do?" Farfarello asked, returning his attention to the task of untying the leather straps. Something about the distant stare unnerved him. He could not place a finger on it, but it was there, a shadow lurking in the back of his mind. "Did you kill them?"
"I killed everyone," Schuldig replied, out loud, yet tonelessly. He looked down at Nagi as the youth scurried to Farfarello's side and began to work on the ankle straps. "But they are still here. Still with me. All, but one. Moriate."
"Dead," Farfarello confirmed, noticing Nagi flinch at his words, "She died from her injuries. Something inside her was broken, a punctured lung maybe. I don't know."
"You merged with her," Schuldig mused. Freed from his confines, he stood, wobbling, smiling as Farfarello wound an arm around his waist and supported him. "I felt it even though I was in there."
"'In there'?"
"Not now," came the whispered reply. "Not here." Schuldig lifted his head and looked at the ceiling, a smile forming on his lips. "I think I was not what they expected."
"They? You mean...?" Nagi pointed at the mess on the ceiling.
"Yes. Dead. Dead like the rest of them. Or, the majority of them, I don't know yet."
"Like what Moriate did, only a thousand times stronger..." Nagi trailed off and strode towards the door, impatience clearly visible in his step. "Let's leave. I don't want to be here when the authorities arrive."
"They won't," Schuldig smirked. "At least not for a very long time."