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[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz or any of the ~three~ character designs used. I'm just using the manga descriptions, since they're the original ones. I'm also sure you can go figure out who does own Weiß if you wanted to.

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Blau

Partings

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Schuldich stormed out of the room, out of the hall, and out of the building. Brad Crawford looked after him for a moment before tuning his steely gaze to Nagi. "The shipment?" he reminded not-so-subtly.

"They said it wouldn't be in until tomorrow," Nagi said.

"Check anyway."

Nagi sighed and left. He didn't slam the door quite so hard as Schuldich had.

One person left to go. But as Crawford turned to him, Farfarello shook his head. "Ye're not gettin' me out o' here," he said gruffly. "Ye really dunna think we'll survive?"

"You're not supposed to be this bright," Crawford groused.

"Ach, deal wi' it. Schwarz has been the closest thing to a family in a long time. I'm not lettin' it go wi'out a fight."

"As you will."

Farfarello grinned.

There was a creak of the door opening, and the two men tensed themselves for the last fight of their lives.

~~~-~~~

Not two blocks away from the nearest bar, Schuldich stopped and cursed himself for a fool. He'd been so bloody angry he hadn't even wondered why Crawford wanted him out of the house. Throwing his senses back where he had come from, he could feel the particular blankness that was a shielded mind. And another. And another. He counted… Damn! With that many, not only was there no hope of his teammates surviving - except for Nagi, who he could feel some distance away - but a telepath almost his equal was with them, one that had been resting and preparing several months. He ~could~ have taken the other one out had he been as rested, but they had been fighting so much recently that he was no match. Damn, damn, damn! He turned abruptly and ran back to their `headquarters' in Japan.

He threw open the door and stopped in his tracks. Blasted. The entire place was blasted. There had been fires, and there had been guns, and there had been many deaths. But all the bodies had been cleared out and a blood-trap had been laid by the door. If he took even one step in, his footprints would stand out clearly where no others existed. Cursing under his breath again, he cleared his mind to sort through the psychic impressions left by death. His heart wrung itself like a dishtowel and at the same time he felt proud. Twenty-seven men had died here, from shortly after Nagi left to only a few minutes before he arrived. Unfortunately, the last two to die had been Crawford and Farfarello.

He scrubbed an errant tear from his eye before taking a step back and vaulting over the blood-trap to go collect his things, Nagi's things, and mementos of his comrades. To remember Farfarello, he took the straight jacket and wrapped in it those knives that remained. To remember Crawford, he took a pair of matched handguns - one enameled black, one polished to a silvery-steel shine - and a monogrammed handkerchief. Everything collected, he carried it all to his car and pulled out, leaving the rest behind.

After parking rather innocuously in a random shopping mall parking lot chosen for its proximity both to Nagi and to Schuldich's own destination, he sent a weary thought out to warn the telekinetic of what happened and made his way to a particular church.

~~~-~~~

Ken stiffened. Something wasn't right. It felt like a killer had just entered the church. He turned away from the flowers he was replacing and looked around for anything suspicious.

He started forward angrily when he saw the green-haired man, but the slightly-pained serenity of his face stopped him short. Ken rubbed his eyes and looked again. Schuldich ~never~ looked like this. What the hell was going on?

He whapped himself for swearing in a church, even in his thoughts, started forward again.

"What are you doing?"

Schuldich turned and smirked. It was one of the kittens. "I ~was~ talking to Ruth, before you cut me off mid-thought."

"Ruth?" Ken blinked. "But she died. Farfarello killed her."

"That doesn't mean I can't talk to her." He tapped his head meaningfully.

Another blink. Idly, Schuldich wondered if those were eye-exercises, and if they did him any good. "I guess," Ken said, nodding slowly. "What about?"

Schuldich smirked again, and this time he looked tired. "I could say that it's a secret… But," he shrugged, "I don't feel like it. I was simply telling Ruth that her son has died."

"Who-?"

"Farfarello. You didn't know?"

"I was there, but it was so confusing..."

"Tch. How can you be a good assassin if you're so slow on the uptake?"

Ken gaped at him.

"Don't worry, there's no one within hearing distance. And yes: Farfarello and Crawford died about-" he checked his watch "-twenty minutes ago. Twenty-two. It would seem that some of our ex-cohorts didn't take to the death of their leaders at their hands too well."

Ken continued gaping. "Wh-Why are you telling me this?"

"Same reason we never killed you." Schuldich stepped by him and walked to the door. "I'll see you again sometime. Maybe next time we'll even work together." And with a wave of his hand over his shoulder he was gone.

/Huh,/ Ken thought as he turned back to his arrangement a little later. /Huh. Odd./

~~~-~~~

Nagi and Omi had been giving each other wary looks from the arcade they had somehow met at when Nagi suddenly looked shocked and turned away. When he saw a tear seeping down the other's cheek, Omi came hesitantly to his sometimes-friend, sometimes-enemy and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"No."

"Okay. Let's go sit down somewhere, alright?"

Nagi nodded and let himself be lead to a bench in the corner of the arcade, dark because no lights shone in its direction. He sat a little unsteadily and buried his face in his hands.

Omi rubbed Nagi's back and watched on a little helplessly as he tried to contain his emotions and deal with whatever had bothered him. He was almost relieved when Schuldich entered and took over the task of soothing Nagi.

"What happened?" Omi asked at last.

"Ask your grandfather," Nagi said bitterly. "It's his fault."

"Crawford-"

"Brad."

Schuldich sighed. "Brad and Farfarello got killed by members of a group whose leaders we took out under the elder Takatori's orders."

"Grandpa?" Omi said.

"But of course, ~Persia~. We've always worked for the same man, if occasionally on opposing sides."

"But why would he set us against each other?"

"Eh, he's perverse old psycho, like the rest of the family. Your father thought he was saving you from the madness by making you an assassin instead of someone in charge, and it seems he may have been right. If he was, it'll have been the first time in… way too many generations to count right now."

"How do you know?"

Schuldich rolled his eyes. "I'm a ~telepath~, katzchen. I carry the memories of my predecessor, who carries the memories of ~his~ predecessor, and so on until the beginning of the line. It's quite fatiguing."

Nagi finally pulled away and straightened himself. "Why are you being so talkative, Schu?"

"Because Mr. Takatori wants us to join Weiß."

"What!" Omi and Nagi whisper/yelled at the same time.

"He knows? You told him?" Nagi hissed.

"Nein. It's just always been his plan. If Weiß falls, stick `em in Schwarz, and vice versa. And you ~know~ what he's like about orders."

Both Nagi and Omi shuddered.

"Come on, Nagi. I've got our stuff. Shall we go find out if Fujimiya's hair really is red, and his eyes really are violet?"

Omi snorted. "And we'll find out if your hair is really green too, I suppose?"

"My eyebrows are green," Schuldich said, raising one of them for emphasis.

"You could have dyed them too."

"Even though they tell you not to," Schuldich mused. "I should know: I thought about going copper-red for a while…"

"Schu!"

"Coming, coming. See you soon, Omi." And they were gone.

Omi's thoughts were very similar to Ken's.

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Okay, at the time of writing this (Spring of '03) not many people reading this will have seen even bits of the second season of Weiß Kreuz (Glühen) but I have, so nyeah! I'm going to use it in this story anyway. I have no idea just exactly when this story takes place in the regular timeline, and that's how it's going to stay.

And for those of you who have seen or heard of Glühen: the word has to do with glowing, tempering, and smoldering. It is by no means `The Last Mission,' no matter what the secondary title may be. [Last, as far as I can tell, would be `zuletzt,' and mission would probably be `der kampfauftrag,' but since I don't know German, I can't be sure.]