Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ Waiting ( Chapter 6 )

Naturally, because he called it home, Michael was the first to arrive at the STN-J offices. He was there with coffee already brewed, a snack cake half-consumed, and music already blaring. It was early, however, so he was sticking to the purely ambient: the latest Massive Attack, he decided, was a good option. Once in a while, the American boy in him still wanted English-speaking music in the wee hours of the morning.

He watched the rest of the team slowly trickle in. Of them, Magarethe Bonn looked by far the most awake and chipper. The rest wore dark, tired looks. Nervously, their eyes flicked from Michael to the floor to their work stations. All sat down slowly, even Doujima who arrived (as usual) quite late, bearing a grande mocha from Starbucks. Each of them, apart from Bonn, stared at their desks, faced away from the new member of their team.

“Michael,” Margarethe began, sighing, “have you pulled up the data that I asked for?”

“It's on your monitor,” he answered, nodding slightly to her work station.

Margarethe didn't move. “What did it show?”

The tension increased by a few degrees. So, she had known already what the data would say. And now, when they were lacking in sleep and their defenses were at their weakest, she was going to take issue with it.

“The data showed that the last known Witch in the Tokyo area to possess the Fire Craft was Robin Sena, formerly of STN-J,” Michael said stonily. “It also divulged the details of her death, as well as that of her partner.”

“What details?” the senior Hunter wheedled, on top of her game. Sakaki fidgeted in his chair. Karasuma and Doujima stared at the floor. Michael blinked at the screen in front of him, willing the pricking behind his eyes to go away.

“They died in the fire,” he explained roughly. “Neither of them made it out of Factory alive.”

“A fire, you say?” Michael gulped down his mingled fear and anger at Margarethe's mocking tone. “Robin Sena, a potential S-class Witch, a Fire Craft user, perished in a…fire?”

Silence settled over the office. Michael decided it was time for honesty. He turned placidly to Margarethe, who stood with her arms crossed smugly, leaning against the back of a chair. “No one wants it to be a lie more than I do,” he stated simply. “Robin was the kindest person I've ever met. And Amon was an…irreplaceable…member of this team.” He watched Margarethe's blue eyes spark briefly at this last statement, and felt a bittersweet rush of exultation, momentarily grateful that he could hurt her feelings. He took a deep breath.

“The fact remains that they're dead,” he continued. “No one likes it, but it's true.”

Margarethe paused briefly, as though choosing her next words carefully. Perhaps she was merely translating them from German into Japanese. “Michael, if you discovered that they had deceived you, would you be so loyal, then?”

“Neither Robin nor Amon ever did anything without a good reason,” Michael answered tersely. “Even if we were that lucky, and they did survive, their refusal to surface must have been something they agreed on together, because it was the right thing to do.”

“Was Amon's Hunt of Robin something that they agreed on together, do you think?”

“That's enough!” Sakaki snapped. “You never knew either of them, and you're defacing their memories to our very faces! I don't have to take this, and neither does anyone else on this team. You think she's alive? Fine. Go look for her yourself. But we have other Witches to catch. Live ones.” He launched himself from his chair, grabbing his jacket on the way out. Doujima slurped the last of her mocha noisily, threw it despondently into a wastepaper basket, and left the room. Michael stood as well, and wandered out of the office, careful not to look at Margarethe. Miho stood. Margarethe locked eyes with her.

“Robin Sena wasn't just the only in the Tokyo area to possess the Fire Craft,” the German Hunter intoned. “She was the only one in all of Japan. Her partner neutralized the only other one in this country, Aki Yoshioka, when she advanced on Robin.”

Miho looked at the floor, and back to the senior Hunter. “You would be wise to be more tactful about this subject, Ms. Bonn.”

Margarethe made a face. “The evidence is there, Miss Karasuma.”

“What is there is a lack of evidence,” Miho said, with some asperity. “There is a void space in the case, into which any Witch could step and fill. Even Solomon's database is limited in scope. We like to think it has every Seed and Witch on the planet, but it doesn't, as previous cases have proved. There may be another Fire Craft user in Tokyo.”

“One who had had previous involvement with Single-Eye?” Margarethe countered. “It's a bit too much of a coincidence, don't you think?”

Miho's patience expired. “It isn't a Witch Hunter's job to raise the dead,” she hissed. “Michael's right; it would be wonderful if they had lived. Wonderful. But they didn't. They died, with Factory, and with Zaizen.” And with that, she turned, and left the office.

***

“Syungi,” Doujima said, from the front door of Nagira's law office. His feet were propped on his desk, and he smoked idly up toward the ceiling. For once, his secretary was speechless, looking at the streaks of mascara on Doujima's face. Her usually perfectly-kept face was red and puffy. She held out her arms. Instantly, Nagira swung his feet off the desk, and ushered her into another room, ironically enough the one they had hidden Robin in. It was dim and stuffy there, but Doujima clung to him anyway, shoulders shaking.

“I can't do it,” she sobbed. “They all think she's dead, and she's not…”

“The new Hunter is asking questions already,” Nagira surmised.

Doujima nodded. “Michael is so sad, Syungi, he was practically crying, and then Haruto, he's so bitter and angry, and Miho's trying so hard to be strong…”

“I know you want to tell them, Yurika, but you can't,” Nagira murmured, stroking her hair. “They'll be in even more danger, that way. Solomon is watching the STN-J with eagle eyes. What if you tell them and the new Hunter finds out? She has no loyalty to you. She will report you all to Solomon, and then…” he broke off, then placed his chin on her head. “Then what would I do, huh? Sit in your apartment all by myself?”

Despite her tears, Doujima had to giggle a little at that image. “You wouldn't come rescue me?” she teased. He stiffened. She wondered if she'd said something wrong, gone one step too far. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean-”

“Anything,” he interrupted. He brought her chin up with a finger, so he could stare down into her eyes. “Anything, Yurika. You didn't know that?”

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, and again she hid her face in his chest, trying her best to crush him in a hug. “Hey, now, that was supposed to help you stop crying, not start all over again…”

“I'm crying for a different reason, now,” she murmured, and, if possible, hugged him tighter.

***

Their apartment was somehow even more stiflingly hot now that they couldn't leave it. Amon tried to read books about doomed expeditions up to the snows of Mt. Fuji, to cool himself down. They began taking two showers a day, one to wash with, and the other to cool down. It was abominably hot in the night; both of them lay awake sweltering, and he could hear Robin twisting uncomfortably in bed across the hall. Somewhat to his chagrin, she began wearing even tinier pieces of clothing (he and Doujima were having words the next time they met, he had decided) around the apartment. He began seeing the same denim cutoff shorts, the same barely-there camisole tops. What was worse was that he couldn't exactly decide what was so unnerving about it to him; plenty of girls Robin's age wore short skirts daily; they were more commonly known as high-school students. Robin was the fruit of years of labor by an advanced geneticist, the proclaimed Eve of Witches, possessor of the ultimate technique of the Craft and 400 years worth of Craft knowledge. But he still couldn't just look at her bare arms and bare legs. Perhaps because he suspected she'd ask why; she was so attuned to him by now that she felt his glance before he was conscious of giving one, turning to face him silently, expectant. He wondered if this was a boon of the Craft, or simply too much time together.

Then there was the gelato.

Both of them suspected a setup, and knew STN-J was in upheaval over them (a phone call from Nagira had dispelled that mystery), so each of them were extra careful to watch through closed blinds for lingerers and suspicious characters. But of late, he noticed Robin's eyes following the train of sweat-glossed customers leaving the Italian restaurant below them with little paper cups full of a substance called gelato. He wasn't exactly sure what gelato was, aside from the fact that it was like ice cream, originated in Italy, and apparently contained a powerfully addictive substance, for the sighs of deep longing Robin gave when she saw other people walk away with it. At times she looked almost pained, watching it leave her vicinity. She was like a cat forever trapped behind a glass window, watching a group of birds flutter safely on the other side. She would kneel on the couch, coiled up and ready to pounce, her hands placed on the backrest of the furniture, her eyes at a level with its topmost point, staring avidly through the blinds, while he tried to read. Occasionally she would brush his bare feet with her legs, but both of them pretended not to notice.

It was then that they both noticed the man in the summer suit.

He arrived each day in the afternoons, curiously contemporaneous with the hour Robin finally exited her room. He had many summer suits, in lightweight gray wool, soft alpaca, or even a creamy vanilla white one, but he wore a straw fedora with each, and carried the same mahogany walking stick. He ordered many kinds of gelato and Italian sodas every day, and each day, pulled one of the little wrought-iron outdoor tables with surprisingly great ease to a point from which he could smile enigmatically up at Robin and Amon's kitchen door. He wore an immaculately trimmed silver mustache and goatee.

“Why is he always watching us?” Robin asked one afternoon after a week of such observation, her voice betraying her discomfort. She squirmed inside her white tube top and clingy pinstriped pencil skirt.

“Perhaps he enjoys the view,” Amon spoke without thinking, instantly shutting his mouth tightly. Luckily, the remark soared straight over Robin's head. She looked at him, confused.

“But, there's nothing pretty here,” she said, adamant. “There aren't any mountains behind our building, or gardens, or anything like that.”

Amon put down his book. “Then, he is most likely a spy.”

She frowned. “How can you be so calm about it?” she asked.

Amon shrugged. “It's a waiting game. What is he going to tell his superiors? If we stay here, eventually he'll leave. He will be recognized as useless when he has nothing to report.” Robin's face continued to betray her fretting. Amon softened his tone. “He wants to pressure us out of the apartment, Robin,” he said. “It's a very old game. And it's exactly why we can't give in.”

He should have known that the moment the words left his mouth, he'd be proven wrong. As it happened, that evening's dinner (mercifully cold soba noodles and raw vegetables) was the occasion for his comeuppance. As Robin cleared the dishes, careful to let her hands linger under the cold water, a soft knock was heard at the door. Instinctively, his eyes found Robin's.

“Who is it?” he called out, knowing that their lights were on, and they couldn't pretend to be away from home.

“A friend,” a polite voice answered. Amon's eyes remained on Robin, sorting out the problem. She watched him for further instructions. Finally he nodded toward her room, which had the fire escape. If she heard anything go wrong, she could always make a break for it. She quickly and silently padded toward the room and softly shut the door. Amon stood to answer, picking up a well-balanced santuko blade on his way, not even stopping to wonder how his method of answering the door would look to the casual observer.

The old man stood at the door, wearing his white suit. He bore a Styrofoam box cradled in his left arm. “Oh, hello,” he said, smiling, and making a little bow. “You can tell the little miss to come out, now. I have a present for her.” He opened the Styrofoam box, and revealed many paper cups of gelato. “Now, be a good young man and let your elder in the door.” He eyed the knife in Amon's hand. “And, my goodness, put that thing down.” Almost instantly, the blade iced over completely. Amon stared at the blade. The ice was not his own. He looked up at the old man. The man in the summer suit smiled at him with white teeth. “Let me in,” he said.

***

Even before spies, Robin was shy. “Thank you,” she murmured, her eyes more grateful than her voice, as she slowly and lovingly unpacked each little cup of the dessert.

“Don't eat that,” Amon ordered dully.

“Oh, I can assure you, it's not poisoned,” the old man said kindly, as though Amon hadn't just insulted his character. He stood in their kitchen as though he belonged there and had not intruded. “I don't know the first thing about poisons, aside from the usual things about not ingesting household cleaning products. And if there were something wrong, Miss Sena could easily sniff it out; her nose is very acute.”

Robin froze at the use of her surname. “How do you know my name?” she asked.

The old man made a face. “Come now, Miss Sena, don't ask silly, obvious questions. Put your present in the freezer.”

“Who are you?” Amon growled.

“I am exactly who you think I am,” the old man replied airily. “I am a spy, sent here by a certain organization of Witches, which is very interested in you two.” Their visitor looked at the condensing gelato on the kitchen table, and languidly stretched a hand over it. Slowly, the drops of moisture on the cups froze into hard, bright ice crystals. “Really, if you don't freeze it right away, it will cause such a mess…” He smiled at Amon gleefully, eyes glittering. “Unless, of course, you'd like to do it yourself…?” he mocked.

Taunted, the ice storm inside Amon lashed about, looking for an outlet. He seethed, but did not bring the power out. Amon merely stared the old man down while he continued to laugh under his breath at Amon, eyes dancing. “Stop it,” Robin said clearly. Both men turned to look at her, surprised.

“You're behaving like a child,” she told the old man plainly. “State your business, or leave.”

The old man blinked a few times. “My, my,” he murmured. “No funny business with you, is there?” Before Robin could answer, he held a single hand up. “You're absolutely right, miss. I should stop acting like this. It does no credit to me or my position. Please forgive me.” He eyed Amon. “Both of you.”

In answer, Amon merely brought his stare to the intruder in their home once again, and slowly folded his arms. The other man sighed, and straightened his posture. “My name is William Neville,” he said, nodding at both of them. “And as you may have observed, I am a Witch.” His blue eyes flicked between them. “An English one,” he continued, “from a long line of inbred blueblood colonialists.” His mouth twitched at his own little joke. “I am a representative from the afore-mentioned organization of Witches, sent here to make you an offer that, hopefully, you will be unable to refuse.” He looked at both of them, estimating the effect of his speech.

“Make your offer, then,” Amon ordered.

Neville sighed. “You will excuse me, young man, if I address my little pitch to the one in whom the real power lies.” Abruptly he turned to Robin. “Within my community of Witches, it is a well-known fact that you possess the Arcanum of the Craft, and knowledge of the so-called ultimate technique.” When Robin opened her mouth, he again held up a hand to silence her. “Don't attempt denying it to me. There are many who know. When Methuselah allowed herself to die by your power, she passed the Arcanum to you, just as she had intended to do. But what she could not pass to you was experience in how to use the Arcanum's secrets to their fullest potential.”

He folded his hands neatly before him. “It is less widely known that you are what your father Toudou called the Eve of Witches, the mother of a new breed among us. However, this fact combined with Methuselah's power gives you a startling degree of advantage among other Witches. In fact, it was your ability to bear other Witches that decided Methuselah to give you her gift. She knew that you were unique. Born a Witch, gifted with two rare powers, one in your womb and the other in your Craft, raised by Solomon, and yet symbolic of everything the Witch world has desired for centuries.”

“She knew…?” Robin whispered.

Neville nodded, his eyes drifting. He went to stand nearer the kitchen window, gazing into the night sky. “Four hundred years is a long enough time to gain the trust of a few well-placed informants,” he said. “She waited, patiently, for you to arrive in Japan. Spies within Solomon had told her of Toudou's research. She knew he was brilliant enough to accomplish the so-called Devil's Child Project. All that was required was more time, which she held in abundance.”

“And now the Walled City is looking for a new leader, isn't it?” Amon suggested darkly. He saw exactly where this speech was going, and hated every part of it.

Neville shook his head softly. He seemed almost sad, turning to Amon. “Not merely the Walled City,” he said. “All of Witch-kind.”

“She isn't your savior,” Amon snapped. His fists clenched.

“It isn't your decision to make,” the old man answered. He looked back at Robin, whose uncertainty was written across her face and radiated from her. “It's yours, my dear,” he said to her. “You are a Witch with an uncommon degree of power—some would call it an impossible amount. You can do what no other Witch on this planet can do: bear other Witches consistently. You are the mother this nation of orphans has been crying for,” he leaned closer to Robin, advancing on her, “a mother so well-versed in the tactics of the enemy that she will see their attack coming from far away.”

“Leave her alone,” Amon murmured roughly. He wasn't certain if they heard him. Mother. Robin. His mind was spinning with the effort of keeping those words separate from one another. Unbidden, her face rose before him in perfect clarity, the smiling face, rich brown eyes and silken black hair, the affection, just as a softer, pained voice within whispered the word Orphan. “Get out,” Amon growled more forcefully, directing his frustration at the other man.

William Neville blinked at him, then focused his attention on Amon's right hand. “Is there a reason that the table-top needs a coat of frost?” he asked. Amon's eyes bolted to the table, where he'd left an outcropping of ice crystals. Neville spoke again, quietly. “If Miss Sena chooses to investigate this opportunity, I will teach you how to master it,” he said. “Your gift, our gift, is a powerful one, and rare. Not quite as rare as the Fire Craft, but it has its uses. Do you not wish to control it?”

If Miss Sena chooses to investigate this opportunity. Amon silently looked across the kitchen at the old man with pure hatred. With that kind of stipulation, Robin would certainly be unable to refuse. She would take on leadership of whatever ragged band this man represented, if it meant helping him. Anyone who knew her would understand that; she couldn't do anything but wish to help. And most certainly, this man had done his homework on Robin, knew her weaknesses. Amon's anger gave him clarity, and he remembered that Robin was an orphan too—and what the word “mother” meant to her: that woman, Maria, called me her hope.

“Your rhetoric is not welcome in our home,” he hissed. “Leave.”

Neville did not quaver under Amon's loathing glare, only held it for a moment before turning to Robin. “Please let me know your answer soon, Miss Sena,” he said, before picking up his walking stick and hat, and leaving the apartment.

***

Unable to stand in the same room much longer, Amon had quitted the kitchen for the black living room. Now he sat in the shadows, watching Robin slowly putting the gelato cup by cup into the freezer. She moved methodically, but without concentration. Her mind was obviously elsewhere. Robin put the last bit of dessert into the appliance, and shut the freezer door. She made a quarter-turn, looking at the kitchen door. She was silhouetted in the dim light, her back to him. Her hand slipped to her abdomen suddenly, pressing inward gently.

“I never thought,” she began, her voice catching, “that I would be allowed to have children.”

It took Amon a moment to remember that there was a vow of chastity that the Church embraced, and another moment to understand why she would be thinking of such a thing at that moment. “You were planning on taking the orders?” he asked.

Silently, she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, finally. “But, there was something more.” Imperceptibly, her fingers tightened across her own skin. “A Witch…who would want to give a child, to that? Who could want…?” She gestured vaguely at herself with her other hand.

Who could want you? He completed the thought. Realization echoed through him with a sharp pang. Amon was infinitely grateful she could not see his face. He knew that if she turned to him now, she would see the horror written there, the quiet understanding that Robin was consumed by a perfectly instilled self-loathing as powerful and hungry as her own flame. It was strong enough to keep her from wanting much from the world, strong enough to kill any desire within her for anything a normal fifteen-year-old girl would have rose-colored pipe dreams of. And all, Amon suspected, possibly part of a conspiracy to keep her from bearing more Witches. For if she never believed anyone could ever…then… He felt ill.

“Your father trusted your mother,” he reminded her, to fill the silence and quiet his rage.

Robin softly shook her head. “Juliano told me that Toudou only wanted her for a vessel,” she revealed. “He never really loved her at all.”

Rationally, he knew he should try to reason it out with her, try to make her see that her self-hatred was unfounded. But what he did instead was stand up, and cross to the kitchen, to stand behind her. Amon didn't need to touch her, their proximity was enough. “Be sure that the Witches in the Walled City do not want you for the same,” he warned quietly. “You may be the Eve of Witches, but,” where in the world was the tactful way to put this? “that doesn't mean you owe them anything, much less your own children.”

Robin turned to him then, her eyes and face full of confusion. “Shouldn't I try to do everything I can, to repair the damage I've done to their world?” she whispered. “I've taken so many lives with the Craft. Shouldn't I try to give some back?”

The question was at once so innocent and so misguided that it rocked him. It was a bit much, after a night like this one. “Not at fifteen, no,” Amon murmured after a moment. “You're young. Have you forgotten that?” Robin looked shamefacedly at her feet, and he tried to lighten things. “Of course, listening to that Neville character, you'll probably get your pick of the litter in a few years.”

Robin's face shot up from the floor, bright red. She covered her mouth and nose with both hands, showing just her two eyes to him. She shook her head silently, as though the very idea was impossible. “It's true,” he countered. “You're the one with the gift. You could…” he slowed down, realizing the import of his words, “you could have anyone you wanted, Robin.”

She continued shaking her head, but didn't look at him now, still modest. “That doesn't mean they would want me back,” she said quietly. “But you're right; it's silly to even think of such a thing.”

“Thank you,” he said. He made another gamble with humor. “Our troubles are enough as it is; the last thing we need is a line of gawky suitors looking to be the Adam to your Eve.”

Robin giggled, and something loosened between them. “Be quiet…that would never…”

“You've obviously never met boys your own age,” Amon said snidely, crossing to the freezer. “Do you want to try Neville's present?”

All awkwardness was wiped from her face. “Can we?” she asked.

“It's yours, Robin, you don't need to ask me,” he said, having opened the freezer door and peering inside doubtfully at the paper cups. “You just have to choose a fl-”

“Chocolate hazelnut.”

“Don't go agonizing over it,” Amon muttered, his hand finding the corresponding container and passing it to her. He shut the door behind him. To his great consternation, Robin had already peeled the lid from her gift and eschewed even her Western spoon, plunging her index finger directly into the confection with one curving swipe that landed squarely in her mouth, only to be replaced with two closed eyes, and a little sigh. She swallowed, and the sigh was followed by something deeper, like the sound of coming home after a long day. She brought the wet, shining finger from her mouth slowly, sucking off the last little bit of dessert, her tongue circling around her fingertip before exposing it to the air. She opened her eyes to him.

“What?” she asked. Realization dawned. “I'm sorry; I didn't even get out two spoons!” She put down the paper cup and rifled through the silverware drawer. Amon was only vaguely aware of this, wondering how in the world Robin could think herself undesirable after a display like that one.

“Here,” she said. He turned, to find himself facing a loaded spoon. He took it from her distractedly, mechanically putting it in his mouth, grateful for something cold. Think cold thoughts, he instructed himself. “Swallow,” Robin ordered. He did so, and the aftertaste, rich and multilayered, filled his mouth.

“Oh,” he realized. He blinked. “I see.”

They finished the carton together in the kitchen, standing over the one cup with their spoons, and he went to bed later feeling far less confused about everything, knowing nothing was solved, but unable to erase that feeling of ease despite himself.