Missionary Man by Silverfish ~:

The afternoon gently shone into the confines of the Honky Tonk café. Paul, as was his custom, was behind the counter with a newspaper spread wide, his attention apparently riveted on the latest exploits of the couple known only as 'J-Lo'. Ginji, for his part, was seated at the far end of the counter, his chin in his hands as he stared at the entrance of the café, feeling a strange sense of expectation.

"Ban-kun," Ginji said, "Do you think much about what brought us here?"

Ban shrugged, and turned his attentions back to the GetBackers ad he had placed in the local rag. They had misspelled their name, calling them GetHackers. They'd already gotten fourteen phone calls from 'reputable' businesses searching for their apparent expertise. The other seven thought they were system disk recovery specialists.

"I know what will kick us out," he said, moodily. "If I get one more phone call from some rich university student wanting us to fudge his marks…"

The front door swung open, letting in a shaft of shadow that covered the counter and Paul's newspaper briefly before falling away. Without looking up, Paul put down his paper and headed for the coffee pot. He poured it smooth and black into a white mug, and shoved it at their latest patron without a word.

Ginji and Ban could only stare on as they watched this 'customer' sip at the black liquid, steam getting caught beneath the wide brim of his black hat like a cloud. Akabane, also known as Dr. Jackal, smiled over his cup of coffee, his eyes well hidden from both of the young men at the other end of the counter.

"Ginji, it is good to see you," he said. He sipped at his coffee again, leaving a considerable silence in place of words. Ginji could only glance at Ban, and seeing his friend's unhappy expression he helplessly shrugged.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Ban said, cutting his eyes at Akabane with no small amount of contempt. "I didn't think the clientele of this place could get much lower, but I guess I was wrong."

"Considering you two are the most frequent customers here that's not exactly a wise statement," Paul interjected.

There was a considerable uncomfortable silence at this, disturbed only once by Ban's slightly annoyed 'tch'. He turned his back on both Akabane and Ginji to concentrate on what he was going to do to the idiot at the ad office who couldn't spell. Maybe the moron needed a good dream. In the corner of his eye he could see that Ginji hadn't turned away from Akabane as he had, and in fact was giving him a blatant, curious once over. It irritated Ban, though he couldn't quite decipher as to why. What Ginji thought about Akabane was really none of his business-Though truth be told, he hated the way the creep kept slinking his way around Ginji, like he was some prized possession he was longing to have.

Bastard, Ban thought. Maybe someone else could use that dream. Someone who wore long black coats and stupid wide brimmed black hats.

"I enjoy it here," Akabane said, out of the blue. Paul, who had returned to his newspaper, looked up quickly only to return his gaze to the gossip section once again. Ginji jumped on the bait immediately, a fact which irritated Ban no end.

Ginji gave him a wide, innocent looking smile, egging him on into conversation. Ban seethed in silence, his own eyes sliding sideways over Ginji in pure irritation. "Paul makes excellent coffee," Ginji said.

"It's the quiet. It's rare to find a place with the proper ambiance," Akabane said.

Ban was unimpressed. "I'd think someone who is obsessed with being entertained in the way you are would prefer noisier, busier places," he said. "I would have thought if you were looking for quiet you'd find yourself a church of Satan, maybe. Have a nice, subdued little ritual sacrifice to take care of a dull afternoon." He chuckled at this himself, thinking about Akabane riding a witch's broom, and thinking that the image suited the man well.

Akabane was unsmiling now. There was an aura of coldness emanating from him that set the mood in the café ill at ease. Ginji gave the place a quick scope for possible disaster, but the café was empty save for himself, Akabane and Ban. Paul had already disappeared somewhere in the back. He was certainly no fool.

"You should not assume a person's past," Akabane said to Ban. He sipped at his coffee, and his mood seemed to shift, ever so slightly, into a lighter one. Like dark black into a vaguely lighter black. "I imagine there are things about you, Ban, that Ginji-kun would not be happy to hear about."

Ban shrugged. "I don't keep secrets, like some people." He narrowed his eyes at Akabane. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Akabane smiled again. "This tension. I find it interesting, don't you? Ginji-kun, perhaps you can tell me why it is this way between us, still. Have I not been more of a help than a hindrance in our mutual past? I'm thinking you are both more narrow in your views than you may project…"

"That's not it," Ginji said, offended. "I know everything I need to know about Ban. Whatever he may have not told me doesn't matter. He's proven to me now what he is, and that's enough. But you…I don't have that same feeling from you, I admit that." He sank a little on the stool, looking dejected. "It's not that I don't appreciate that you helped us, it's just…Your ways are alien to me. I don't understand your need to find a thrill inside of killing, for instance. I find no need for it."

He looked at Akabane, then, searching for a spark of soul inside of that cold, smirking smile. "I guess what I'm saying is that by not understanding you, animosity is easier."

The smile on Akabane's face widened, and it was a tad frightening for Ginji, especially since it seemed made for him alone. Now, that was an odd thing to think. He wasn't sure what was more unsettling, the fact that he thought this smile was some special gift from Akabane, or the possibility that his instincts in the matter were true. "You are a surprising man, Ginji-kun," Akabane said, muddying the matter ever further with his compliments. "It's why I like spending time with you. Even in quiet moments like this, you aren't boring." He raised the brim of his hat, a sliver of eye taking in Ginji in all its sinister amused sentiment. "Do you know why I am here?" he asked.

Ginji's first instinct was to say 'To kill me', but he refrained and simply shook his head. No.

"Today, is my birthday," Akabane said.

"Oh!" Ginji said, instantly relieved. Another day to avoid death after all! "Happy Birthday!"

"Sagittarius," Ban mumbled. "It figures."

"It's a day more for condolences," Akabane said, his smile never wavering. "You are wrong in your assumptions. This is not a day for celebrating."

The white porcelain cup hit the saucer. It emitted a sound not unlike a meditation bell. Akabane was more pensive than usual this day, and though his smile was unmoving, it was a false mask. With no small amount of surprise, Ginji realized he just might be seeing the slightest shift of this man's armor. It felt like a terrible responsibility to be given.

Akabane's voice echoed in the confines of the Honky Tonk café.

"This is not the day I entered the world."

"This is the day I became Dr. Jackal."

He sipped at his coffee, enjoying the encroaching uncomfortable silence immensely, Ban could tell. He 'tch'd' at Akabane's obviousness and turned back to fretting over his misspelled ad. "If you want to go spilling your history, that's up to you. I'm not going to be your audience."

If he was hoping for an ally in Ginji, however, he was at a loss. Ginji instantly brightened in interest at Akabane's revelation and actually went so far as to leave his stool beside Ban to go and sit closer to the black clad figure further up. Ban could only stare at him, shocked.

"What was it about this day?" Ginji asked, wide-eyed and intense. "What made you decide to alter your body in such a terrible way, to be a sheath for countless blades?"

Akabane actually chuckled at this. "Ginji, you are a strange guy. It's so funny…You thinking this was about choice." He cast an almost affectionate glance at him through the slit in his huge hat. "Perhaps I can tell you this story…"

Ban wanted to shout out a word of warning, but Ginji was already starry eyed and dying for more. He gave up, and turned his back to both of them. Fine, let Ginji give that vile pasty faced pincushion all his attention. What did he care?

Still….He simply had to eavesdrop….

///
Akabane's voice filled the Honky Tonk café with all the softness of feather down. Its cadence gave off a calmness that did not belie the information it was relaying. Although it was mid afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly, the café seemed to cloak into shadow as Akabane talked, his words painting a picture of a man they had never had the chance to meet:

"It was a long time ago," Akabane said. "But that does not take away the impact of these events. If anything, I am finding that as time goes on, it only deepens the wounds. Perhaps these are things you yourself can understand, Ginji-kun, on some instinctive level. When you elevated through your rage into the Thunder Emperor, and found your true power-It is that kind of pain I live with through each day. This is not an attempt at pity-after all, I have always been a man more interested in action rather than words.

It is that trait that brings you to my story. I was not always Dr. Jackal. I was once a young man, who was well educated, and fashioned by faith. These clothes I wear are not part of some silly costume, they are a memory of what I once was.

In the hearts of places where even the worst of imagination can't touch, I was a missionary.

Yes. A man of God.

Such things are not impossible. Wasn't Barbaras himself converted after he had been freed, and the populace laid waste to their saviour? Ah, but I wasn't a lawless creature, not then. I had a heart full of faith in the great Destiny that guides us, and for me there was no better service to the world than to be the spirit of those who were lost in darkness. This is what I thought, then. I was a man of light, I would change the world into a place of peace and understanding, no matter what continent I found myself in.

Such thoughts are for the foolish and ignorant.

Picture, if you can, a place devoid of any religious thought or social law-At least, that was what my ignorant belief at the time was. I was wholly confident that there were no other forces that I had to deal with in my travels other than to spread a good word, do a good deed and then be on my way. It is perhaps a lazy kind of way of having faith. I accept the fact that I deserved the price of that flippancy.

It was in the darkest recesses of the human world that I found myself. A place so cut off from the rest of society they still believed that the rivers talked and the sky was, in fact, a giant creature that lay across the world like a blanket, it's sparkling body indicative of its presence. I laughed when I was first told this story by one of the little girls in their village. I was rebuked for it, but I did not regret it.

They were an interesting people, Ginji. I think you would have liked them. They enjoyed singing and dancing, and once a week would gather at the ceremonial table for a feast dedicated to the gods of earth and sky. I, for my part, would offer them some suggestions as to why their beliefs were heathen, and then, my rote done, I would enjoy the festivities with them. I made no converts, of course, but they tolerated me, and for me that was enough. Their leader was a frail looking old man who had difficulty walking, and had to be aided by his two nephews when doing his travels in the tiny village. "You should take my daughter's eldest," he had said to me. "She has an eye for you, you know." I only blushed, knowing I could not in conscience do such a thing, even if the thought of her flattery pleased me."

"A priest," Ban scoffed in the background. "What kind of a fool does he think we are?"

"Hush, Ban-chan!" Ginji scolded. "Go on, Akabane. What happened at this village?"

"He probably killed them all in a fit of boredom," Ban said, and yawned.

"Ban-Chan!"

"It's alright, Ginji," Akabane continued, smiling sweetly at him. "This story is not for him, anyway. It is one I am telling you. You are so attentive-The village, was a place I enjoyed for many months. I became quite the fixture in that small, claustrophobic place in the center of the world's darkness. As a missionary, I also had a great deal of medical knowledge. The people there began to look upon me as a healer. After a while, some of them were thinking about the things I was telling them, and I would answer them in the most honest way I could. They would ask about faith, and I would tell them. Faith is what you believe in, without question, without hesitation. They were seeing how sound such a concept could be, for wasn't their own religion based on such thoughts?

Faith is a generally universal concept, Ginji, when taken in that context.

It wasn't until I was there the seventh month that things began to go horribly wrong.

People were getting sick.

At first, there would be a general feeling of malaise, which would last about two days. After this, a fever, accompanied by boils and open sores. Within a week the patient would be completely consumed by fever and sores, and death was frequent. The village was deteriorating so fast my scalpels could barely keep up with the need. I would lance the boils, hoping to drain the infections, I would apply all manner of medicines. The sickness would eat at their limbs and I would have to amputate. Toes, fingers, hands, legs, arms…Black flesh cut off from healthy skin. The village was turning into a place full of half formed people with missing pieces. The village was dying.

It was when I'd treated the old man's youngest niece, a girl of five years old, that an emergency meeting was called.

They had gathered around me, the little girl on the ground, a simple sheet of woven wool covering her. Her face already had the waxy sheen of death on it. I was about to cover it with the wool blanket, when the old man held out his carved walking stick, and prevented me.

"You've done all that you can," he said to me. "Now, you must let us have our turn."

I shook my head. "There is nothing left."

He looked down on me, stern. He pointed at me and then the dead little girl in front of me with his carved stick. "Ask her," he said.

I sighed. "I cannot ask her anything. She is dead."

"Ask her why this has happened," he said.

I felt so helpless. I did love these people who had welcomed me so easily into their society. I could only cry, at that point, all the sorrow in my heart so complete it tempted the concepts I had of faith. What could I have faith in? I could have faith in the fact that people die, and there is no recompense for their lives lost.

"Ask her," he said again. "She will answer."

It tore me apart to do it. I could see all the expectant eyes boring into me, these people broken and missing pieces of their bodies due to the sickness. I was their last hope, and I was to be the one to shatter their faith. How fittingly ironic.

I bent low to the dead girl's body, and whispered in her ear. The question was more for God than her, but it begged to be answered. "Why did this happen?"

A croaking sound. Then rasping, like sandpaper on stone…

"You brought it in…" she said. "It's all because of you."

I couldn't believe, at first, the words she'd said. She was a dead girl, her face already waxy, her body rigid in mortis. And then, as the villagers began hurling insults at me, I knew…I had not imagined, they had heard her too.

"Monster!" the old man shouted at me. "Demon!"

He called upon the sky, his faith so strong it was pulling it to the ground. I could see the stars as they came closer, the eye of Something bearing down on me. My bag of scalpels lay at my side, in the doctor's bag I carried with me…

I cannot describe to you, the nature of that physical pain…"

As had become custom with Akabane around, there was yet again a discomforting silence pervading the place. Ginji was still staring at Akabane in wide-eyed expectation. Akabane simply sipped at his coffee.

"Hey, is that the end of that story?" Ginji said.

Akabane shrugged. "It's told, what more do you want?"

"It doesn't sound very truthful," Ginji said, doubting. "You mean to tell me you're full of scalpels and knives because some god of the sky got pissed at you for bringing in a plague? I'm too old for such fairy tales!"

"He lost me at the thought of him being a priest," Ban said.

Akabane smiled. He finished his last drop of coffee. "It doesn't matter what you believe. Whatever you have faith in, that's your Truth. Myself, I no longer put my trust in such altruism. I believe only in what each moment gives me, and whether or not it will be a pleasure. I try to make it so, no matter what the circumstances."

"Akabane," Ginji said, looking sorrowful. "I think you told me a sad story."

Akabane pushed his cup away, and turned to put Ginji in his sight through the small slit in his hat's brim. Without warning, he reached out, and slid his hand down the length of Ginji's arm. It was an unnerving, intimate gesture from a man like Akabane. Ginji found himself blushing in spite of himself.

Akabane left the stool and made his way to the front door of the Honky Tonk café. His words were for Ginji alone as he left.

"Whatever you believe, Ginji-kun…"

END