Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ SECOND STRINGERS ❯ Trying To Tame Chaos ( Chapter 9 )

SECOND STRINGERS

Chapter 9 --- TRYING TO TAME CHAOS

//mental talking//
‘mental thoughts’


The light blinked on bright, directly over her head. It hurt, badly. Bright lights over a beat body, and a head that was screaming from a very, very severe hangover. And she was on a bed, she hated beds, but at least she didn’t have to worry about that problem for very long as a pair of firm hands yanked her up, off of it, and in to the middle of her room. It helped the whole ‘bed’ problem, but not the fact that her stomach was now lurching seven different ways.

“Verdammt! Don’t you fucking people know how to say good morning!” She spit out as she hit her knees in a feeble attempt to stop the world from spinning and hopefully not hurl the very slim contents of her stomach. Before she even managed to stabilize herself she was hoisted back up and shoved roughly forward. She went flying in to the hallway, which unfortunately for her throbbing head, was brighter then the room had been. She toppled forward and threw her hands out to stop herself from going headfirst in to the floor. The shooting pain in her wrist made her realize that that was most likely a bad idea. With in a split second she found herself lying on her back, on the very cold floor, with the pajama pants someone had given her, from Nagi's closet, twisted around her legs in a very uncomfortable way, and the thin tank top riding up to show off part of her smooth stomach. Her wrist was clutched to her chest with her good hand. Her long midnight purple hair fanned out around her now too pale face. Her eyes were closed tightly and her features were scrunched up against the light, the pain, and the impending nausea. 'What a great morning this is turning out to be.' She was very clearly remembering the reasons that she never woke up till after noon.

“GET UP!” A dark voice sounded above her. She didn’t recognize it. 'Who would be…Mauro, who the hell was…..an Esstet trainer, why wa….they wanted her back in condition, how did….complete retraining, condensed. This was not going to be fun.'

“I said, GET UP!!” Mauro snapped at her again, this time accenting his sentence with a sharp kick to her side, hitting ribs that barley had begun to heal.

“AHH!!” she rolled over to her other side, away from both his foot and that shinigami damned light.

“FUCK YOU!” she snapped back at him, in English. 'Wow, this is a bad morning. I just swore in English. I NEVER swear in English. Not even when pissed, or high, or drunk, or in the middle of...well I just NEVER do.'

“NOW!” another kick to the middle of her back.

“Esel, knock it off! She’s already been beat once!” a heavily accented nasal voice said from the background. Schuldich. 'His room was next to this one, the noise must have, no, DID get him up.'

“What do you care? You were the one to do it to her.” Mauro turned his wrath away from her for a second to turn and face the intruder. That gave Sünde the chance to struggle in to a sitting position with the wall bracing her. She kept her eyes tightly closed against the swirling that made her insides both heave and contract at the same time. The only problem with that plan was that it made it impossible for her to see the foot that knocked in to her shoulder and tossed her down to her side again.

“Stand up!” was all that he could yell at her. She mildly wondered how in the hell he expected her to be able to stand up when all he did was keep knocking her down.

“Knock it off!” Schuldich yelled at him again. He understood the same line of thoughts that she was on and was attempting to give her the opportunity to stand up. She tried to take the chance, she didn’t feel like getting kicked anymore. It wasn’t working very well though. Early morning withdrawal, bruises and breaks from a, no two now, beatings, and a damned head that kept over flowing with answers to questions she couldn’t comprehend, made it nearly impossible to stand up. She leaned her head back against the wall behind to try and get things under control. The wall moved. 'How in the hell….a door…Nagi’s door…his room is across the hall…the only other one on this side of the wing…Farfie’s is in the cells…Braddy’s is…AHH SHUT UP!!' she screamed at herself in order to stop the endless flow of answers. It didn’t work any better then her attempts to stand up had.

“Can you stand?” a calm, unmoved voice asked from near her ear, so that the others wouldn’t hear. She turned slightly and saw Nagi crouching down next to her by the small gap he had caused when he opened the door. 'What did he care if…oh, that’s what, I COULD stand, but his idea is better.'

“No.” she whispered to him and let her eyes slid shut again. Nagi stood and slowly sighed.

“Fine.” He said as he shut the door. At that same second though a pair of gentle hands helped to boost her up in to a standing position. She had to walk on her own, but at least she was semi stable being held up, and kept up.

“Shut up. I’m standing.” Her voice sounded as hard and cold as ever, despite the fact that her face was still caught between pain and nausea. The two men who had been bickering during that short time stopped. Mauro stormed off, expecting her to follow. He didn’t notice the unusual way that Sünde was standing. Schuldich smirked as he took note of it. He didn’t say anything about Nagi holding her up though. He knew if he did Mauro would come down harder on her, and he still felt guilty about being the one who helped put her in that position.

Nagi continued to help support her weight as she followed Mauro down the hall. At the main juncture Crawford met them. He too instantly saw what, luckily, Mauro still missed, Nagi holding her up. Crawford quickly grabbed her arm in what looked like an attempt to hurry her up. In truth, he was taking over for Nagi. 'Why, is he being caring…no, just didn’t want Mauro to find out,…why…he’d have it in for me then…maybe he did care..no..yes..part of him…what..'

“AHH!” the pain shot through her head again, worse now. It was a good thing that Crawford had her arm, her knees gave out from under her.

“Your not even dressed.” He told her in a cold voice. Ignoring everything except the fact that she was only wearing pajamas.

“No shit Sherlock.” She mumbled as she tried to regain some balance and stability so that she didn’t need to rely on Crawford to hold her up.

“Why not?” he asked her in that same demanding cold voice, it made it more of a demand then a question. He was standing there in a perfectly pressed three-piece Armani suit of a delicate cream color, and disgusted she wasn't in something similar.

“Cause I had a rough night, all right Braddy.” She shot back at him as she was able to finally detach herself from his grip and stand on her own. She didn’t want anything to do with him at the moment, and it was a good thing too. The moment that the word ‘Braddy’ fell from her mouth, he released the hold on her arm voluntarily. Part of him wishing she would fall. He shot her a look of pure hatred for daring to call him something like that in front of a direct Esstet employee. He looked sharply from Sünde to Mauro, the light that reflected off his glasses when he did so didn’t help her headache.

“The first thing you need to do is get her clean. A junkie is of no use to Schwarz, much less Esstet.” And with that he stormed off down the opposite hallway towards his office.

“Humph. Come with me.” Mauro snorted in Sünde’s direction as he walked down a different hallway towards the mission/training rooms. She stared after Crawford for a brief second before she struggled down after Mauro.

“Baka.” She mumbled under her breath. No, this definitely wasn’t a good morning, and she already knew, there would be no ‘quick fix’ this morning, or any other morning ever again. 'Why did I come back again?….Him, and her to a lesser extent, but it was him, lot of good that’s doing!'

“Baka.” She mumbled again, this time more at herself then anyone else.

*~*~*~*~*

She hurt. Bad. Worse then before, and it was only the beginning. She hadn’t had any drugs, or even alcohol for that matter, in over two days. That normally wouldn’t be so bad, except a week ago it had been hard for her to go 15 minutes between hits. On top of that the trainers were relentless. They put her through heavy-duty martial arts workouts, true in her earlier years she had been the best at it, but she hadn’t done anything of that sort in over three years. The mental drills that they had her jumping through had been hard when she was in her prime, with that golden silence, her 'calming wind', to fall back on, now though they were murdering her. The only silence she had recently obtained was drug induced, and even that hadn’t helped much. This, this was really pushing her limits. Crawford stayed close by, to offer her the same refugee he had Schuldich, and even her many, many years back. A calm wind in the storms of her mind. Just like everything else, he couldn’t block the answers from coming, they were from within her own head and not someone else, but he gave her a silence to concentrate on, to focus with, to comprehend. But now she did her best not to accept it. She didn’t want anything to do with him, or at least part of her didn’t. The other part of her insisted she needed to stay at least partly sane, and sometimes retreated in to his world of calmness. But not very damn often.

Of course at moments like this she didn’t need his quiet to concentrate on to lessen the burden of her ‘gift’, the pain did that for her. Nausea, cramps, fever, and just general hellish pain. That was something to concentrate on, even if she didn’t want to. It also made it impossible to sleep. She had been tossing and turning for the last 48 and a half minutes on the floor. The pile of blankets and pillows that laid next to the bed, and what she used as one, had become twisted and tangled around her. Finally she was able to come to a position that wasn’t too bad. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but maybe she could just lie there for a few minutes…no seconds, three seconds to be exact.

“AHH!!” and the light came on again. Still right overhead. The small part of her mind and body that wasn’t screaming in pain told her she should pull that damned bulb out. But then again, she was too short to reach it, maybe Tink could..

“UP!” Yoko’s voice screamed at her. 'Who the hell was…another trainer…. Mauro’s boss…a step up.' Despite everything, she was improving, and moving ahead at fast.

“Uh, Don’t you people ever learn, NO MORNINGS!” before the whole of her sentence had come out, and she could turn away from this new presence, the thin blank that was half under her, and still half tangled around her was whipped out from under her. Her body twisted in protest and she ended up sprawled across the floor, her head cracking against the bottom leg of her bed. 'Great! A new form of torture, at least she isn’t kickin..'

“OW Scheiße, I’m up, shinigami verdammt.” She tried to stand. She honestly did. But the cramps in her body chose that moment to remind her of there presence. She very soon found herself folded over in a ball of pain on the floor. She was ready for the next kick, hit, whatever Yoko was going to throw at her. The gentle hands that were helping her up came as a shock to her. 'Who, Nagi, no, to strong, there real. Gentle, that rules out Braddy, then it was, but why…'

“You’re interfering. Leave now.” Yoko snapped at the man helping her to her feet.

“Nein. She’s in pain, she’s on a serious withdrawal, give her a fucking day off.” Schuldich responded, still helping Sünde stand. 'Why, he cared...no he still felt guilty and why was...he did care…no not…yes…but then…and no….but yes…if I….and then….he didn’t know…I couldn’t…but….'

“SCHU! Get away!” Sünde snapped at him, pushing him away from her. His faced crossed over in to a hurt expression that just didn’t look right on the normally cocky red head. Sünde didn’t see it. Her eyes were still squeezed tight and she was holding her head to try and stop it from spinning out of control.

“I…”

“I know, but it’s making it worse.” She told him, standing, almost, steady on her own two feet.

“All right.” He said gently as he turned and left he room. As he passed by the door, Crawford walked in. More and more Sünde was beginning to realize the importance of a decent lock. 'Of course with Nagi around…'

“Ahh.” She cried out as the new set of answers that were flying around in her head met up with the searing pain spreading through her veins. She was on her hands and knees again before she knew it.

“He’s right.” Came the cold voice of Crawford, echoing in the small, mostly empty room.

“NANI?!” Yoko turned from the crumpled form of the girl to Crawford. Framed by the light of the hall behind him, making him look even more intimidating then normal.

“Crawford, you know that Esstet needs her mission capable as soon as possible.” Yoko snapped at him.

“Yes, but it will do no good to put her through this today. It will only hurt our future cause.” He spoke in that same overly cold voice. She wondered sometimes how he managed not to form ice in his mouth. It certainty could have formed in the air.

“A vision?” Yoko asked, backing down a bit already. Crawford just stood there and glared at both the occupants in the room. Apparently that was his way of answering. At least Yoko took it as a ‘yes’ and left with a small huff and a promise of starting again tomorrow. Sünde couldn’t wait. Once Yoko was gone from the room Crawford spoke again.

“Get back in bed and rest. Tomorrow I expect you to be dressed before the training session if nothing else.” He then spun on his heel and marched out. Shutting the door and flicking off the damned light as he left. 'Had it been a…no…then why…STOP THINKING!!!! That train of thoughts wont do anything but hurt.' she yelled at herself. With that she fell the rest of the way back down in to the mess of blankets on the floor and tried to capture some sleep, no matter how uneasy it maybe.

*~*~*~*~*

She had had enough. Two weeks and four days and she couldn’t take it much more. Getting the shit beat out of her ever morning, cursed at all through the day, and the same drills again and again. Between Mauro and Yoko, it was a surprise she was even still alive. Plus, they had not made withdrawal a very kind experience for her. She had had enough. 'and in five, four, three, two,...' The light blinked on.

“AHHH!!!”

“OWWW”

 220;Fuck, what the hell!!!”

“HEY! Watch it!!”

“DAMN IT ALL!!”

“NO!”

Schuldich ran in the room at brake neck speed. Every morning he had been coming to the rescue of the girl he had beat at the start of this whole endeavor. The sounds of the poor girl who was suffering the before said beating, withdrawal, and gods knows what else at the hands of those fucking trainers. Being pulled very roughly from her room and forced in to training he honestly thought she couldn’t handle, psychically or mentally. Ever morning, despite how ever late his night was, he would come in and try to rescue her. Part of him said it was just that he was the one to have started this, another part of him knew better, but that’s what cold showers were for. He WASN’T straight. This morning he figured he would have the same routine. Pull the two Esstet assholes off of her. That wasn’t quite what he found.

The doors to both Sünde’s room and Nagi’s were wide open. Nagi was standing there gaping in awe with his mouth, literally, hanging open. Sünde was lounging against the side of her door frame She was wearing a pair of Nagi's pants that were sagging down, extremely low on her hips to show off a pair of Nagi’s boxers as well. It was amazing how large the Japanese teenagers clothes were on her, when you considered how small he was to being with. The pants hung well past her feet though, he was considerably taller then she was. Her top wasn’t hers either. It was a crop top of Schu’s that hung like an over sized tank top on her. Her hair was pulled back it to a fairly neat and tidy ponytail. The biggest shock though wasn’t to see her in fairly good condition, it was to see the heap of battered and bloody trainers behind her. Alive, but definitely going to be in pain for a long time to come.

“Nani?” she said, as if confused by their looks. “I felt better, so I thought they might like some of there own medicine.” With that she took off down the hall to where she knew Crawford would be waiting for her. Schu and Nagi still stood transfixed where they were.

A moment latter Tinkerbell bounded up the steps from the cells below. She had been offered a real room, but had opted to take a cell with Farfie instead. That had caused a moment of relief from everyone, except Sünde who trusted the manic for some reason. The idea of a cell that could be locked form the outside was a reassuring thought to the rest of them. Though it really didn’t matter too much, after all her time on the streets, a simple lock wasn’t enough to stop her. As she passed Sünde’s room, she paused and gave a small look to the two trainers rising from their crumpled pile on the floor.

“Jep’s feeling better. That’s good.” She chirped happily as she continued to bound down the hall with her neon green ponytail bouncing to the rhythm of her steps.

//Well Nagi, I think you got your excitement. How do you like it?// Schu smirked in to the back of Nagi’s thoughts. His laugh tickling like spiders in the boys mind.

“Shut up.” Was all the kid could respond with as he retreated back in to his room.

*~*~*~*~*

“Okay, begin now.” The slightly strained, due to a broken nose, voice of Yoko called out. Sünde sat in a chair in the middle of one of the mission rooms. She was hooked to electronics and computers, and a lot of other high tech equipment. All of the wires ran in to the joining room on the other side of the glass divider. Every wave of brain activity, every heartbeat, every everything was being watched by the two trainers, and Crawford. After her little incident a week ago, they had gone easier on her. They quite the martial arts training all together, she had more then proved to them that she was capable of that. They decided to forgo the weapon training, assuming that she knew it already. In truth they were just scared as hell to hand her a katana or gun and say ‘see what you can do’. They didn’t know that she had a dagger concealed on her from day one. She managed to hide it almost better then Tink. Tink was the one who had showed her how, hell she was the one who had given her the dagger. When she had given it to her she had told Sünde that if she ever needed one again, it would be easier to have her own, rather then track Tink down to steal one from, which was what she had just done at that moment in time.

Now most of her training was centered around mind drills. Figure out just how much damage she had done to herself, if any, and prepare her to keep a sane head without the aid of drugs to the best ability that they could. Every now and then they would throw in a general drill. See just how good her crude abilities were. She hated this. She knew she wasn’t going to get any better then she was right now, but they didn’t seem to realize that yet. Crawford did, but he kept his mouth shut and his lips pressed against Esstet’s ass. Today’s little drill was one of those crude everyday ones. See how well she could identify her comrades, enemies, and bystanders without the use of her powers. Well, at least without using them too much. Not to use them at all was an impossibility. She knew that from trying to do it for the 18 years she had been alive. As Yoko called out for her to begin, instantly the room was filled with heavy background noises. Everything from gunshots, to music, to construction, and in between it all was snips of voices, words, or even just sounds that she was expected to identify, without asking herself who they were, just saying the name. Every time she did forcefully use her powers, it would register as a spike on one of the many machines in the adjoining room. When it came to a point that it was becoming too much for her, Crawford would call it and give her a break before they moved on to the next set. Yoko and Mauro didn’t appreciate it, but they went along with it, realizing he knew better then they did. But at the same time, they were trying to push past the limits that both Crawford and Sünde had set for herself. In the grand scheme of things they wanted her broke completely down and rebuilt from scratch. But they knew that Crawford wouldn’t allow for it, even if they had the time to do so. Which they didn’t if she was to be mission capable anytime soon. And she still had to go through the final conference/testing level with a master trainer before that as well.

The tape was blaring away and Sünde was lazily listening to it as she shouted out the names that buzzed by. Annoying them the best she could and still getting away with it by simply refusing to use the appropriate code names.

“Omi, Ken, Nagi, Schuldich, Ken, Aya, Braddy, Farfarello, Yohji, Aya, Omi, Tink, Nagi, Braddy, bystander, shopkeeper, Omi, Nagi, Yohji, Ken, Braddy..” she spat out with dead on accuracy. Suddenly the tape hit a blank spot, the room was filled with complete silence, before her mind even caught up with her, Sünde answered.

“Aya.” All three pairs of eyes that had been looking down to fix the problem snapped up. None of them were amused. She looked up and in to the angry faces.

“Nani?” she asked, never allowing herself to register any emotion except mild curiosity at why they were displeased. “Sounded like him to me.” She said simply. Mildly in the back of her mind she thought that if Tink had been there she’d be laughing hysterically, and she didn’t even know who Aya was. And the look on Braddy’s face, that would have had her rolling on the ground giddily in tears. Tink hated Braddy. Sünde didn’t know why to a full extent, she had an idea though and for her that was more then enough. She didn’t need to know, Tink had her own reasons and that was good enough. She heard the mic click on near the window that separated her from the others suddenly.

“Stop messing around Jepardy.” Snapped Crawford’s voice across it. She could hear a loud beep from one of the machines in the room behind him before he cut the connection. Her mind and maybe, no definitely, her heart rate jumped in a brief flash of anger. She hated being called Jepardy. Only one person in the world had that right, and it sure as hell wasn’t him.

“And stop calling me Brad.” He hissed as it clicked on again. She had half a mind to tell him that she hadn’t been calling him Brad, but rather Braddy, but then she figured that wouldn’t help her situation much. 'No, I know it wont, it will just make things..'

“BZZT” another buzzer was going off in the control room.

“Calm your mind down.” Mauro coughed across the connection. He tried to hold the same authority he had before, but with a black eye, a sprained knee, and a broken wrist, it didn’t work very well.

“Easy for you to say.” She muttered under her breath. She could feel Braddy’s mind open up to hers. A small safe haven. She refused it. To her it was under the same category as selling your soul to the devil, and she had already done that once.

“We just want to run one more round.” Mauro was telling her. “While it seems that you’re getting them all right…”

“Duh.” Sünde interjected. Getting a small ‘humph’ from Yoko, a twitch from Braddy, and a dirty look from Mauro.

“Yes, anyway, you seemed to be accessing your powers more profusely when it comes to distinguishing Balinese's voice above that of the others.” Sünde kept her face a complete stone expression, not reveling anything as she looked in to the window and the glass-framed eyes of Brad Crawford as she spoke.

“Yeah, well, if this were a ‘taste’ test, I’m sure I would be doing better. I’d never forget something that sweet.”

“Begin now.” Yoko’s voice cut in just before the test started again. Sünde happily tucked away the small piece of information that Braddy had promptly stormed out of the room spouting curses in English, German, French, Japanese, and at least one other language. She knew that would get to him. She was so happy, she could have smiled, but she didn’t. That wasn’t who she was.

*~*~*~*~*

When she walked into the room everything was just as she would have liked it. Quite, mentally anyway. Braddy was in his office, Schuldich was out, literally passed out, on the couch. Another night of drinking at the local club, trying to find someone to get his mind off Crawford. Nagi was sitting in front of a blaring television set, with a laptop blaring some J-pop song. Farfarello had moved the blender in to the room and was feeding it pillows, books, and anything else that would fit in it. Tinkerbell was perched on top of the baby grand in the corner, poking at he keys with one of her daggers. Farfarello knew about how Sünde’s powers worked, and respected her the best he could, in other words he never asked a single question of her. Ever. Nagi was too absorbed in the yaoi site he was on to think about anything else. Sünde laughed inside at that. Nagi, yaoi, who knew. Tinkerbell, well, even when she wanted to, Tink was the one person that her powers never worked on. Normally only family members would be immune from one anthers powers, and sometimes not even then. No one quite knew how it had happened, but those two girls had developed an immunity to one another. Tink couldn’t ‘soul drain’ Sünde, and Sünde couldn’t answer any questions of Tink. It made it easy for the two of them though. Neither one had to worry about the other affecting them.

As she walked in to the room she relaxed. It was nice to just relax once in a while. And lately thanks to all that shinigami damned training she hadn’t been able to. She threw herself down on the couch and stretched out. This was nice. Or it would have been nice if the fiery haired German on the couch next to her wasn’t snoring.

“Move it Schuldich.” She spat as she used her foot to kick him down to the floor. He fell in a pile and a slight ‘umpf’ left his throat, but not much else. She was just starting to settle back in when she could feel Nagi’s confused stare on her. She turned to the young kid sitting in the chair near her.

“Nani?” she asked him. So much for her peaceful relaxing time off.

“You’re not Japanese.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. But a confused one at that.

“I never said I was.”

“You look it, you sound it..” he started, staring at her, trying to find out how he missed any signs that might be there.

“I was supposed to. Undercover remember, I was trained to look the part. But tell, me, how do you figure it out?” She had been trained to be Japanese and with her powers to help her it was quite convincing, and she knew she had had him fooled at first.

“Schuldich.” He said, or tried to. The word would always get caught on his tongue and changed around. In fact it was nearly impossible for any Japanese person to be able to pronounce his name. Then she figured it out. She had just said it, perfectly.

“Ah, yeah. My German gave me away. I knew it would eventually.” She said with a smile, in fact she had thought about even saying that much in German. She had restrained herself though. Barely. Tink at this point had stopped playing the piano and was laughing at the conversation her friend and that damned brat were having.

“He doesn’t know what you are, does he?” she asked, and just for fun she asked in her native, but seldom used, Russian.

“Nein. I wonder if he even knows what Sünde means, or that it’s German too.” She replied to Tink, speaking to her in German for Nagi's sake alone. Though her eyes never left the more and more shocked look that was crowding in on Nag’s face. To say he was confused would have been an understatement. He was bewildered beyond normal conventions.

“Did she just speak in Russian?” he asked. If the girls hadn’t known better, they would have thought that he was on the verge of tears.

“Ja.” They both said in unison.

“Der koft tut weh.”(*1) Came a mumbled breath from the man still lying in a pile on the floor.

“Of course it does, Tinks poking it.” Sünde said nonchalantly as she looked down at Schuldich. Tinkerbell had moved over during their conversation with Nagi and was now sitting next to Schu, poking roughly at his head, prodding him awake. Nagi’s eyes went wide again. German, Russian, Japanese, the girl was a mystery to him, and was delighting in the fact that all of this was giving him a migraine. He just continued to stare at her and Tinkerbell in shock as they ‘helped’ Schu wake up and get to his feet. Neither one of them were very gentle in their means of doing so. Still it all appeared good old-fashioned fun. Then of course it all had to come to an abrupt end. Crawford stormed in to the room and towards the couch, though never getting to close to any of them.

“Just what the HELL do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed at them, though it was very obvious his comment was directed at Sünde. She mindlessly blinked at him and pretended she had no idea what he meant. Which of course she did, without even using her powers.

“Pissing off Schu and annoying Nag’s.” she told him calmly. Tinkerbell glared at him with furry in her eyes. Schu leaned back against the couch, stopping trying to get up. He knew better then to mess with a Crawford who was already pissed off. Nagi very quickly became devoted to his computer, pretending to ignore the impending fight that would surly emerge from this. Farfarello was still enjoying the blender, not noticing anything.

“You know what I mean.” Crawford snapped at the girl again. She moved out from the couch and stood facing him, glaring him down the best she could, considering while she did look threatening, she was much shorter then he was and so glaring him ‘down’ was actually glaring ‘up’ at him.

“No, I don’t, enlighten me.” She was now just as pissed as he was.

“You are treating your training like its nothing. You are disobeying…” he started before she cut him off.

“And why the hell not, why the fuck do I even have to go through all this shit. Tinks already running missions..”

“Tinkerbell didn’t go out and make herself a whore, a junkie, and a trick. Esstet is trying to make you what you once were.”

“Well they’re the ones that made me a fucking whore in the first place now aren’t they Braddy!” At that an eerie silence fell over the room. Even Farfarello stopped the blender to listen to this fight. That last comment stilled any rebuts that Crawford had planed. The meaning of it was mostly lost on the majority of the room, but it had hit a sore spot in the fearless leader.

Sünde and Crawford just stared each other down, both fuming, barely able to breathe they were so angry at one another. Suddenly a dagger went flying past Crawford’s head and embedded its self in to the wall behind him. It had missed purposely, yet still came close. Both Crawford and Sünde turned their heads to stare at Tink. She was still on the floor by the couch. She held a look of confused innocence. As if trying to pretend she hadn't done anything.

“What, it missed.” She said plainly. Sünde growled, literally, and stormed out, slamming the door to her room so loud that the whole house echoed with it. Loud music then could be heard blaring from behind it. American music. Nagi groaned. Just another part of the mystery. Crawford growled out loud and retreated to his office at the sound of her music. He too slammed his door with enough force to shake the house. Schu mumbled something in German about that not helping his head. Tinkerbell retrieved her dagger and left the room, not giving any indication of where she was heading, and no one bothered to ask. If any one could, that girl could take care of herself. The silence that droned on in the living room was then finally shattered by Farfarello. He started up the blender again.

*~*~*~*~*

“Crawford?” Nagi asked as he looked at the man behind the desk. He’d just come in from school, a necessary discomfort he felt. He had to check in with Crawford after he came in. He always did, which he felt was pointless. Schu could sense if he was in the house or not, and Crawford would be able to see if Nagi did anything but come straight home. But he did as he was told. He stopped by Crawford’s office everyday as soon as he came home.

The man in question at the moment had a glazed over look on his face, and his eyes weren’t looking at anything, just gazing off in a daydream state. A state that was not a normal thing to be seen on him. His breath was also caught slightly in his chest. He was having a vision. At Nagi’s words he blinked, causing his eyes to refocus and his head to clear. Quickly he shut the laptop and stood.

“What is it Crawford?’’ Nagi asked again.

“Nothing, it doesn’t matter. Go find Jepardy and have her come to my office. Esstet has another training session for her.”

“Another one? That’s all she’s been doing since she came in.” Nagi shut up in his protest as soon as the glint off of Crawford’s glasses caught him.

“I’ll go get her.” He mumbled at the older man. Nagi realized as he turned and left that Crawford must be just as peeved about all of this as anyone else. He had a different look on his face. One that didn’t cross it very often. Nagi didn’t see it hardly at all, but had quickly learned to be watchful when he did catch it.

Crawford had had that same look on his face the day that Schwartz had plummeted in to the depths of the ocean, and again on the day Schuldich had attempted, and nearly succeed, to commit suicide. The look meant something bad. Nagi didn’t know Sünde that well yet, but he didn’t like the idea of something bad happening to her. He felt though that if it was too bad, Crawford would stop it from getting too far out of hand. Just like he had before.

Before Nagi even reached her door, he knocked on it. Before he had even finished the second rap, she answered.

“Come in Nags.” He instantly opened the door and a few seconds later when he finally reached it he walked right in. Sünde was stretched on the pile of pillows and blankets that she had gathered, and used for a bed instead of her real one. Her hands were pillowing her head. One of her short legs was bent up on to the real bed behind her bouncing to the beat of some unknown American song he couldn’t understand. He gently frowned at her in confusion.

Sünde was a mystery and a half to him. She looked, acted, and spoke the part of a perfect Japanese girl. Her name itself, which he had finally gotten Schuldich to tell him meant ‘sin’, was German. Also the way she could so easily speak and pronounce the German that troubled all Japanese with its harshness of dialect, that would make it seem that she was a German. Yet all the music she listened to was American, and half the books she read were in English. And to help completely confuse the young boy, she spoke better Russian then Tinkerbell did, and Tinkerbell WAS Russian. She had no background, and no feelings that could ever be displayed, much less read. It wasn’t fair. It annoyed Nagi to no ends. And on top of that she called him ‘Nags’. A nickname he hated, yet when she called him that, he couldn’t even tell her not to. He liked hearing her call him that. And that too annoyed him.

“What do you..ah man, again?” Sünde whined as she swung around and sat facing Nagi. She looked like she was almost ready to pout. “I’m sick of this.”

“Gomen.” Nagi told her as he closed his eyes for a brief second and simultaneously her radio snapped off.

“Danke.” She mumbled as slid, literally, up off the ground and stretched.

“At least this is the last one.”

“How do you..” he started before being shot an almost smirking glare.

“Nags, you really are more naive then anyone gives you credit for.”

“Your not as out of control as you think you are.” He told her, taking into a count that despite everything she had done, and the way she tried to present herself, she knew what she was doing. Not many people could take down three Esstet trainers, piss off Crawford at every given chance, AND stay alive. He allowed himself to return her smirk with one of his own. Neither one of them were actually very good at showing feelings, so the unusual ‘smirks’ they were giving each other would have made anyone watching this show crack up laughing. They weren’t real smirks, or real smiles, hell, not even real expressions, just something on both of their faces.

Then Sünde turned and stretched out the creaks that had settled in her limbs. Her shirt, or more correctly Schuldich’s crop top, that had the look of a normal tank top on her, crept up across her flat stomach. Her skin had a naturally darker tone to it then most Japanese. Her pants, no, wrong again, Nagi’s pants, slipped easily down a few inches on her slender hips, showing off a pair of baby blue boxers with pink flamingos dancing on them. Nagi briefly blushed at that fact, realizing that they too were his. She hadn’t even realized that this little show of hers was in fact a show. Nagi realized that to her, this was just stretching. It wasn’t the blatant show of skin and skill that she did in front of Crawford to get a rise out of him. Nagi wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she was trying for whenever she did that, but she normally got anger. But then again Schuldich got that same reaction. No, this was just stretching. Yet damn, if she kept this up much longer she was going to get a ‘rise’ out of Nagi. 'Hell, I'm closer to her age then Crawford is anyway and…Oh my gods what in the HELL am I thinking!' Nagi screamed at himself, trying to stop those thoughts. The only comfort he had was the fact that at least she wasn’t a telepath.

“You’d better get going, Crawford’s waiting in his office.” Nagi finally managed to say to her, and quickly turned around in a manner as if to leave. At this very moment he didn’t give a fuck if Schu had used all the hot water in the shower, he wouldn’t be needing it anyway.

“Let him wait.” Sünde replied, yet she still followed him out of the room and started down the hallway that led to Crawford’s office. Nagi openly smiled, or at least the best attempt he could manage of a smile, at this. She liked pissing Crawford off yes, but she still followed the simple rules for self-preservation. Make Crawford wait, piss him off, don’t show up, die. He needed Weiss alive for his plans to work, his own group, they weren’t as important. Nagi watched, almost against his will, as she walked slowly to his office, swaying her hips side to side gently. Left over from her days on the street, Nagi knew it was hard to get some things out of your system from personal experience, but still, wow. ‘God I need that cold shower now.'

“Why head all the way to the shower when I’m right here?” Schuldich purred from behind him. His mocking seductiveness was marred only by the fact that the red-haired German was practically shaking with laughter.

“I’d go to Farfarello well before you Schuldich. At least I know where he’s been.” Nagi shot back, trying to sound firm and insulting but blushing intently at the idea of Schu picking up his thoughts about Sünde. Schu just smirked and turned back into his room.

“Remember Nagi-kun, you wanted it to be more interesting. Now you got it.” He called out behind him. Nagi just groaned and headed down to find that cold shower.


*1: My head hurts. (German)

Anything else that was in either Japanese or German that you didn’t recognize was either a word of affection, like love, dear, honey. Or it was a curse word. You should have been able to guess that though from the content around them.

TBC.............