Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ New Rules, New Ruler ❯ Chapter 27 ( Chapter 27 )

Part Twenty- Seven

<I'm seeing this passing thirty before I finish. Damn. Is it just me or are these parts getting shorter and shorter? That might be the problem, now I come to think of it >

"Damn," the girl muttered. She sat up and stared at them.

Crawford's shame was unending. He'd not noticed that his sudden, incongruous acceptance of Schuldig's death, his own pleasure that it was over with, wasn't real? He'd accepted it and been ready to move on, whistling some happy little tune, probably about Lumberjacks? He felt sick inside. Then he felt the guilt lift a little.

"No. Stop that." The murderous look on his face startled Tash, and the chemical alterations settled back into their usual patterns. "You don't get it, do you? You can't meddle with people like that."

"You do it all this time!" She protested. "Well, Schuldig did. Meddled with what people thought, what they dreamed, what they did. How is what I'm doing any different? At least I'm trying to help."

"It's not."

"What?"

"It's not any different. Tash, we aren't nice people. We don't do nice things. I've seen Schuldig make someone walk off a cliff before, and he enjoyed it. What you're doing is no different to hat we do. We just admit it's wrong."

"Oh." Tash stared down. "That's not going to make me stop, you know. You're killers, you are malevolent. I'm benevolent."

"Like hell," Nagi snarled. "Do you have any idea what you've done? I know what it's like to suffer the sheer guilt of being glad someone society expects you to love is dead. And I liked Schuldig, dammit. I don't want to be happy he's gone." She felt a bone pop in her arm.

"Daft bint," Farfarello muttered, and slapped her across the back of the head.

"I was trying to help," she growled.

"So help. Put Schuldig back in his bloody body!" Farfarello absentmindedly started rubbing the skin at his elbow. Trickle of blood promptly appeared, and when he flexed the arm a sliver of silver poked through the now constant rivulet. He dipped his fingers into the wound and drew out a razor blade. Even his teammates were a little shocked.

"No wonder we couldn't get you through customs without setting that damned machine off," Nagi murmured.

Farfarello held the blade up to her throat. "That which does not kill us makes us strong," he told her. "How strong do ye wanna be, pet?"

"I can turn the pain off," she told him bravely.

"Forever?"

Nagi stared at her. "You can't, you know," he told her. "You can alter our feelings, alter your own, or put up your shields. Since we're all pretty good at shielding, the first's out, and you won't be able to alter your own feelings with your shields up."

There was a pause. "Shit," she said faintly. Nagi's face curved in a predatory grin.

"Is it true? About Schuldig?" Tash shrugged. "You don't know?"

"I know he's not in his own body," she told them, "I guess he could be in Farfarello's. We'd have to knock him out. I could tell when he's emotionally quiet, Schuldig has a pretty distinct emotional signature of his own, but if Farfarello entered the dream cycle it would fuck it all up again."

"Wow," Farfarello emitted wryly, "a real cuss word from the li'l lassie." She glowered at him. He pressed the knife deeper.

"How would you get him back?" Crawford asked softly. The other's turned to look at the previously silent man.

"I don't know."

The group fell silent. Inside, Schuldig's body was equally quiet. Crawford would have liked to attribute that to the high levels of shielding, but he knew that Schuldig's life force was fading fast without a personality to sustain it.

"Ye're an active men'al," Farfarello began hesitantly, "Right?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

"So, ye can pick stuff up from people, and force stuff onto people?"

"You could put it like that. Don't think I don't see where you're going with this, Jei, but I wouldn't know where to begin."

"So, I'm out for the count, right? That just leaves Schu. Ye pick up Schu's signature. Could ye, I dunno, copy that signature? Force it onto Schuldig's body?"

"It wouldn't be Schuldig. I would have to actively maintain the signature. And it would just be emotional."

"Schuldig could just be emotional for most of the time," Farfarello grinned. Nagi flinched. How can Farfarello be so blasé? he wailed internally.

"He's coping, Nagi, that's what people do. He's remembering the good things."

"Tash?"

"Yes?"

"That was a thought, not an emotion. And my shielding is pretty high. Schuldig, perhaps, could have seen through it, but…"

There was silence.

"Tash?" Crawford coughed politely.

"Uh-huh?"

"Anything you'd like to tell us?"

"Not really."

"Anything you're going to tell us regardless of whether you'd like to or not?" Farfarello pushed the knife in deeper, to emphasise the sharp edge to Crawford's tone.

"…I picked it up they mustn't know I can't believe I made that mistake I absorb oh shit oh shit that's Schu in there isn't it oh shit I'll have to kill them all-"

"Not an option, bairn," Farfarello traced the knife down her chest. "We can't kill ye, but we know how te make ye scream," he promised. He licked the trail of blood with his tongue before it healed over.

"I think it's time to take you inside, ne?" Nagi lifted her easily, and her screams went unregarded as she was floated into the cabin's main room and trussed up in Farfarello's spare straightjacket. She glowered at them through a facemask not dissimilar to Hannibal's by the time they were done.

"So, this is Schuldig's body. In there is Schuldig's mind. Now what?"

"You think I'm going to tell you?"

"You think we weren't serious? Nagi?" There was an audible crack. She whimpered. "Do you know how many bones an adult human has? Over three hundred. That will be one a minute until you co-operate. And, of course, with your accelerated healing, which I now am extremely suspicious about, we could keep going indefinitely."

"Suspicious?" Nagi raised an eyebrow.

"She picked up telepathy from Schuldig. Somehow I don't think the healing is innate either. Nor, in fact, is the telempathy."

"It's my talent," she sighed. "I absorb. I knock the person from their body and their power becomes one of my own. Technically, I'm a possessor, but I can't leave my body without killing it." She smiled to herself behind the mask. Schuldig's body trembled slightly, but said nothing. "I'll co-operate," she offered.

"Good."

"We need to knock Farfarello out. Bordering on coma out."

"That's easy," Nagi scoffed. "He does that to himself all the time." Tash's eyebrows raised.

"Oh."

"Then what?"

"I guess I'll locate Schuldig. I ought to be able to oust him from Farfarello's body relatively easily. The question then is getting him back into his body."

"It's open," Crawford pointed out. "It's been doing nothing but receive since he left it."

"Yes, but Schuldig will have no sense of time or space. He may not know where his body is."

"He will," Crawford stated confidently. Now he had something to do, something to take charge of, he was feeling better. He was in charge, he was Bradley Crawford, he was the head of Schwarz, he was a ruthless leader who made what he wanted to happen happen.

Nagi looked a little disappointed. "I was expecting something a little more, well, a little more poetic."

"Romantic, you mean," Tash grinned. "Yeah, it should all be heartfelt kisses and pledges of true love, but it ain't. Nothing Crawford can do will help in the slightest. Really, it's up to Schuldig."

"Nothing?" Crawford smirked. Raising the lock Nagi had blown from the bathroom door, he clubbed Farfarello. "I seem to be helping."

Tash bit her lip. "You know, I had wanted a little more time to prepare. For a start, it would help if Farfarello and Schuldig were touching. Can we wait for him to come around and do it again?"

"We don't have that time. This is our one shot," Crawford told her sombrely. Suddenly, Tash was glad she'd never absorbed any pre-cognition.