Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ SECOND STRINGERS ❯ Behind the Scenes ( Chapter 4 )

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

SECOND STRINGERS

Chapter Four --- Behind the Scenes

(This chapter is for Schu-Schu Baby, thanks for coming back and for all your help you gave us in getting this chapter done! Danke!)


‘Mental thoughts’

Everyone continued to sit around the cluttered mission room staring at Sünde, each to a different degree. Manx looked like she wished she could just kill the girl before she said whatever she was going to say. Persia was going to kill her for this anyway. Ken was staring at her with wide eyes, and a little drool forming at the side of his mouth. Omi looked at her with honest interest on his face. Apparently Kritiker was keeping secrets from everyone, not just him and his messed up 'family'. It intrigued him. Yohji’s green eyes were completely gazed over with hate and jealousy. She was using his whole stash, which was a hell of a lot too, and was draped over his iceberg of a boyfriend. 'Aya wouldn’t let me hang on him like that, this bitch is just street trash, how can she without getting a katana run through her.' He thought bitterly. Aya wasn’t really looking at Sünde, but in front of him where most of her was draped. His face was more down cast then normal, amethyst eyes glazed over by a sadness rather then a cold hatred, and he was doing his best to hide it. Sünde herself just continued to sit, or more appropriately lay , on the couch, which was again technically Aya. It had been a good twenty minutes since she said she’d tell them most of what they wanted to know. She hadn’t done more then work her way further in to a drug filled haze though. She hadn’t said a single thing. Just staring off, as if contemplating how best to go about this. Yohji was ready to just jump up and smack her till she started talking, and maybe a little more just in spite. Sünde’s eyes flashed to him and stayed there for a second as he glared back at her. ‘Ready to burst in five, four, three..’ she thought to herself. As her mental count hit one, Yohji started to stand.

“Kritiker only told you about Esstet recently didn’t they,” she stated, more then questioned. And also forced Yohji to for go his ‘beat the shit out of her’ plan, for the moment anyway.

“Yeah, just before that whole burning women cult thing or whatever,” Ken told her, picking his tongue off the ground at moving his eyes up far enough to actually see her face. “Why?”

“They knew about them since before that,” Sünde continued to talk despite the worried death glare that streamed out of Manx.

“What do you mean?”

“What, when?”

“How long?”

“Since Schwartz first showed up?” all the members of Weiß, minus the ever silent leader, hurriedly asked her. All previous thoughts of hate, lust, jealousy, and confusion were thrown out the window by her one simple statement. She had known that would do the trick. That had been her goal all along.

“They knew about Esstet since the day they first came in to existence.” Now even Aya gawked at her, as much as the human iceberg could, with a look close to horror, but they were all still totally confused.

“They were originally both part of the same organization,” she finished for the moment. Turning to another joint, and letting that information sink in to them for a second. Final after the initial shock wore off, it was Omi who first spoke.

“Manx, is that true?” he turned to the red haired woman in horror. The woman didn’t meet his eyes, or any of their eyes. She was intensely fascinated by her hands that rested in her lap at the moment.

“Manx?” Yohji questioned harshly, green eyes burning with a new fire now.

“Yes.” She sighed softly. The truth was out. 'That little bitch had blown the biggest kept secret of them all. Why couldn't I have just killed her?' Manx was beginning to wonder. It would have made her life easier, and she wouldn’t have to worry about the ulcer she KNEW this was going to create. The looks and exclamations of horror and disgust and surprise instantly filled the walls of the mission room underneath the Koneko. Questions went flying every which way, one on top of another in a steady stream of hows, whos, and whats. Sünde began to lightly shake on the couch, as if she was slightly cold. Her breath then caught in her throat and she held her head in her hands.

“ENOUGH!” Sünde’s voice echoed through the place, instantly silencing everyone. She glared out a look of rage that even put Aya to shame. Then, slowly, she again laid back on to, a very startled and uncharacteristically concerned, Aya’s lap and lit up a fresh joint, seriously wishing Yohji had a LOT stronger stuff, or at least a lot more of it. A needle sounded great right about then.

“No questions,” she said softly.

“Nani?” Ken asked, not quite understanding what she meant.

“NO questions. At all. None. No interruptions either. I’m gonna say what I’m going to and that’s it. After I’m done I might be nice and clear up a couple of points or two, but NO questions. AT ALL. You start asking, I stop talking, that simple,” she told them sternly. A voice that didn’t match the attitude they had seen her display up till now. None of them trusted their voices to talk much at this point anyway, so they simply nodded their heads in agreement.

“All right then. Here goes, again,” she sighed and took another long hit. She knew exactly what they wanted to know, down to the last detail, but there was no way she was going to give all that up. So she would give them enough to shut them up, and stay out of her way. She again took her fair time in answering them though. She enjoyed pushing buttons, and this was doing it very well for her.

“Damn it all already, just spit it out will ya?” Yohji snapped at the young woman. She looked blankly at him for a brief moment. Then in a near singsong voice, and an evil twitch of her lips she spoke.

“Why Yohji, after tonight, you of all people should know, I swallow.” And again she let her own silence raid in. And only her own. Ken was choking on his own spit, Omi was making pitiful squeaking noises and trying not to let his eyes pop ALL the way out of his head. Manx looked like she just might get a nose bleed. Yohji was a full shade or two redder then Aya’s hair and trying to disappear in to the chair he was sitting in. Aya himself tensed up at her revelation, and let out what was meant to be a snort, but came out softer and more hurt. Sünde knew one thing for sure, Aya hated the idea of being cheated on. Being treated like he was second class to someone else, the same someone else who just happened to be his own significant other. It hurt him a lot, and that idea alone was why it had taken him so long to even start his relationship with Yohji. Kudo Yohji, the great romancer and king of one-night stands, had a bad reputation in Aya’s head, and it wasn’t an un-called for one either, Yohji did his best to live up to it. And it was the one thing that still caused a slight rift between the two of them once in a while. Sünde instantly felt sorry for even beginning to hurt Aya again and decided the best way to get his mind off of that, would be to finish saying what she was going to from the start of all this. Finally speaking the truth everyone had worked so hard to hide.

“Esstet and Kritiker were the same place once. They both strived to ‘make the world better’. The thing was that they decided to go about it two separate ways. So about 30 years back or so a certain faction of the main Esstet branch became large enough to break away completely. They became known as Kritiker. At that time Esstet easily saw what was going on, and who was still loyal to them. They were still bigger, and still in control. Kritiker was a mess, trying to build from nothing. Kritiker didn’t, couldn’t tell who was loyal to them or not.

Esstet from the start of time used psychics to help them gain what they wanted. After the break, most of the psychics stayed loyal to Esstet. Kind of like a ‘If you can see the future, you wont fuck it up’ type of thing was used to blackmail them to stay. If any went along with Kritiker, they were young and inexperienced. They were too fresh and couldn't be much help. But Esstet doesn’t do anything halfway. In order to keep Kritiker under wraps, Esstet placed several of their best field agents undercover within their ranks. A few psychics, but for safety and cover reasons, they made most of the agents normal humans to try and stay concealed. Esstet held the thought that within a year Kritiker could be taken down. That wasn’t the case though. Instead Kritiker grew incredibly strong. Strong enough to begin to rival Esstet themselves. And they did it in a very short period of time considering everything.

They simply worked like that for a long time. Constantly trying to take one another down, neither to much avail. Then about seven or so years ago Esstet realized that they needed to keep a better watch on Kritiker. Kritiker was just too large, and inflicting too much damage to Esstet. And on top of that nearly all but a select few of their undercover agents had been found out. So they decided to send in a last resort. One more agent to try and help them once and for all destroy Kritiker form the inside out. They knew that Kritiker would have its suspicions, but then again if they played there cards right, the new agent would be fine. And their 'right card' could help take Kritiker down. Their ‘right card’ was me. I was taken out of the outfit I was working with in Esstet and placed in to the ranks of Kritiker. It wasn't that they trusted me, because really they didn't. They never let me work alone, always having at least one Kritiker agent with me. But they couldn’t prove anything. I was trained and I KNEW how to keep my cover. They couldn't get rid of me.” She paused there a second to grab yet another joint, it was the last one too, and to give everyone time to digest what she'd told them so far.

“I could have earned more of their trust though, but as it was whenever I went on a mission, I would get the target, and normally several Kritiker agents would ‘accidentally’ die. They knew it had to be me, but couldn’t directly tie it to me. I figured I didn't need anymore of their trust. I was doing fine as it was. I just had to deal with always being teamed up with one group or another. And that was fine with me.

“Then 4 years after I first went undercover, I decided I wanted out. I simply got up and dropped the facade and walked out of Kritiker and back to Esstet. Only by then I didn’t really feel like working with them either, things had changed and I didn’t WANT to go back to my original team, which had been my first thought. And if I didn't go back to them, I felt there was no point in being in Esstet either. So I left Esstet altogether as well,” Sünde stopped and waited. The room still sat perfectly still for a second before they realized she wasn't going to say anymore.

“Umm….” Omi started to try and ask, but then remembered Sünde’s ban on questions.

“What’s that got to do with now?” Sünde said for him. “After the incident involving the Esstet elders, mainly you guys killing them all off, both of the organizations are in a lot of turmoil. Everything is up in the air and no one quite knows where it’s heading. So because of that, it’s a mad search for any and all members they can find. I happen to be one. Despite the fact they lost a lot of people to me, I still did a kick ass job at what I was supposed to do.” Her voice had a harsher tone setting in to it. The drugs were wearing off way to quickly, things would get bad soon, and she hoped she could get them to shut up before that.

“I still don’t get it. Why us then, why Weiß?” Ken asked. To confused to even remember the ‘no questions’ thing. He was met with a glare of death that seriously could have given him a heart attack. The odd thing was that for once it wasn't Aya who was giving it to him, it was Sünde.

“Because of me.” Everyone’s jaw was now politely resting on the floor as they all turned to look at Aya, and tried to comprehend his words. Even Sünde looked at him slightly shocked. Even she hadn’t expected him to speak up, and that was saying a hell of a lot. Sensing the tension of the room, and bewilderment over Aya’s words she decided wisely that she should be the one to clear up the confusion, and save Aya from any further talking on his part. Though it didn't look like he was planning on saying anything else anyway.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” she said simply, and proceeded to snuggle closer to the man she was already draped on. Glad to see that her earlier comment about Yohji had slipped from his mind.

“Just why in the FUCK is that?!” Yohji growled out at the two of them. 'Before it had been bad enough with the little tramp hanging all over MY boyfriend, but now to hear him defend the girl, and say HE is the reason she’s here to begin with.' It was too much for him to take.

“During my time undercover the last Kritiker group I worked with before I returned to Esstet was the Crashers.” Sünde told him in a simple tone that made everything she said sound mundane, it was also a tone Yohji was beginning to hate. Everyone continued to just stare at her as if they were waiting for her to say more. She looked back at them blankly, she had said all she was planning to for the moment, nearly forever too. Finally it was Omi who made the connection in his head.

“Crashers? Wasn’t that the name of the group you were part of Aya-kun, before you came to Weiß?” he asked the stoic leader of their small group. He looked back at Omi with the same blank look as Sünde had, and a deadly glare added to it.

“Yes. It was.” Manx spoke up at last. “Kritiker thought that since Himura, excuse me, Sünde, already had past connections with him it would be best for her to be brought in to the same group as him. That way he would already know the cautions that came along with her, and hopefully she would feel comfortable enough with Abyssinian to remain here until we could reassign her to a more appropriate post.” Manx then stopped and looked at Yohji as if to dare him to contradict her words. He wisely seen the look she was giving him and didn’t say anything.

“Not gonna happen, haní. I don’t belong here, or to Kritiker. Never have never will,” Sünde replied in a tone of voice that was quickly changing from her drugged induced playful one to one that more resembled Aya on a good day. If he had any of those.

“Your sitting here in the middle of a Kritiker base, surrounded by four agents of one of their top lethal units, and saying your giving your loyalties to Esstet instead. How stupid are you?” Ken asked the girl, baffled at why she would do something like that. 'It’s as if she has a death wish or something.' he thought.

“Iie. I never said I was going back to Esstet. I’m not. Esstet does not hold my loyalties any more then Kritiker does.” Sünde’s voice was getting colder and colder with each word she said. The drugs were fading off too fast, and her head was beginning to hurt with more then just a hangover. She was not in the happiest of moods, and doing her best to make damn sure the entire fucking room knew that.

“Then just where do your fucking ‘loyalties’ lie?” Yohji questioned sternly. He did NOT like this little whore, and he was making sure the entire room knew that as well.

“With Schwarz. They always have and always will. That simple,” she responded. Everyone sat in a slightly stunned haze as that information sunk in. A brief flash of pain could be seen to pass across the brick wall that made up Aya’s facial expression before he settled back in to ice cube mode. Omi’s mind went on an overloaded surge now. He had wondered from the first moment that Manx said it was Schwarz looking for her instead of some basic recovery squad. Now that the girl, though really he couldn’t call her that, technically she was older then him, blatantly said that her only loyalties laid with Schwarz, he had even more questions about just who and what she really was. He didn’t have much of a chance to contemplate his thought as Ken snapped out of the daze he was in and continued to interrogate her.

“Well then does the same thing go for that other girl? Are her loyalties there as well? Is that why she already went back there?” he droned off in a whirlwind of thoughts as he motioned the folder lying open on the table in front of the couch. The green haired girl’s photo stared back from it.

“Iie. She doesn’t swear her loyalties to things like that. Not places, not things, only people. Person to person connections. She would only swear her loyalties to people. And then she only truly swore them twice,” Sünde politely explained, giving them more information then she felt they deserved, but at the same time hoping it would shut them up quicker. Her head was beginning to actually burn it hurt so much.

“Then who did she swear them to to make her go back to Schwarz?” apparently Omi was oblivious to her motives as he continued the painful questions.

“Simple answer, me. She knew I’d be coming back, so she went ahead. She always trying to beat me to the punch line. Normally, it doesn’t work.” She knew the real reason that Tinkerbell had gone back, but was defiantly not about to try and explain all of that to them. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Truth was, saying Tinkerbell went back for her was the simple answer to all of it. Mentally she added to herself, ‘And for the love of shinigami I hope she fucking keeps that damn promise.’

“Well, now I think…” and again, for what was becoming a regular habit of the night, Manx was cut off. She was getting very used to it, though it still made her anger flare up even more at the girl.

“Iie. No more anything. I told you everything I’m going to say. I told you more then you deserve to know. Nothing else. I will be returning to Schwarz. It’s that simple. I can give you the assurance that I’m not about to rat any of your dirty little secrets out to them. Just like I won’t rat theirs to you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need some sleep. It’s been a LONG night.” And with that Sünde stood up from the couch, and Aya whom she had been using as a couch, and walked up the stairs to the flower shop above them, presumably leaving. Not bothering to ask for directions, much less permission, to do so. The rest of the room was left in slight shock after her last confession. It took a minute or two for everything to sink in to the five people still in the room.

“I do believe that this mission was a complete failure. What now Manx?” Ken asked as he too stood up and stretched out the cricks in his body. The lose jersey he wore slid up his tanned abs slightly, but not enough to actually consider it a show of skin, before he relaxed again.

“Now, I don’t know. Make sure you stay on your toes now that she's back in play again. It has the distinct possibility of getting very dangerous very fast. Other then that, I can’t issue a kill warrant out on her. Despite everything, she could still be useful in the future. I’ll leave it at that. Goodnight gentlemen, and again watch your backs around her. Especially you Abyssinian,” Manx spoke as she got up and headed for the door. Her work was done for the night. It had been a complete failure just as Ken said, and there was nothing more that she could do except to go back to Persia with her tail between her legs and pray that he understood.

“Goodnight,” Aya responded as Manx left. Then he too got up and headed for the stairs without a second look at anyone else. If he guessed right, he would have his hands full once he got to his room anyway. He didn’t want to stick around and try to explain anything else to the rest of Weiß, especially not Yohji. The rest of the men exchanged worried looks and slight shoulder shrugs. Finally after a few more minutes Ken and Omi decided that it had been a long night for them as well and they also turned to head up to their rooms and catch a few hours of sleep before morning. Yohji stayed in the basement fuming and smoking nearly two entire packs of cigarettes. Fuming about the little tramp, his boyfriend’s odd behavior, the fact that his stash was now gone, and the fact that there wasn’t nearly enough alcohol down there to get himself good and wasted to name a few. 'And I still have the smell of fish about me.' It had been a long night for him as well, but it was still just the beginning.


TBC…..