Circle of Blood

Disclaimer:


Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, Hellsing and/or their characters do
not belong to me, I just wish they would. Whatever they might end
up doing in this... thing I\'ve written are just a consequences of
my highly twisted thinking. If you have problems with that...
flame me all you want, it’s cold in here where I live. ^_^

"..." Speech
//...// Thoughts
:: ... :: Telepathy

Warnings: Nothing really bad in this one I guess, mild sexual
innuendos and bad/twisted attempts of humor aside. Well yaoi of
course but you might expect that if you’ve read this far,
don’t you think? ^_^;

==============================================

Circle of Blood - Interlude 1 (Points of view in black and white)
By: Azrael\'s Wing

==============================================

It was a Saturday morning at flower shop Koneko\'s, the home and
base of the vigilante group known as Weiss. The fact that it was
also known as bishonen central for the local school girls and
beyond was something that the boys in question would have been
happy to forget.

Unfortunately it could not be done as it was 9 o\'clock in the
morning, only one hour of peace left for the men living in there,
after that... squeal and giggle time. The Koneko\'s would open at
ten, bringing the giggling Mongol... correction, the schoolgirl
horde to their door, easily preventing any further sleep.
Therefore, in a perfect world the florist/assassin quartet would
already be up and preparing against this invasion of cuteness.
Then again, there isn\'t such a thing as perfect world and as it
was, the only one up was the nominal leader of the group, Aya
Fujimiya.

His mood at the moment was quite irritated, facing a possibility
of having to face the horde all alone was not a pleasant one
after all. In fact, it was at the same time annoying and puzzling
situation for the redheaded assassin. It would be nothing new for
Yohji or Ken to oversleep, for different reasons one could only
hope, but for Omi not to be up in time, that would require
something out of ordinary. Even if suffering a hangover, Omi
would none the less be amongst the first up, a fact that would
partly explain the puzzlement Aya felt right now.

He was after all likely the only other one aware of Omi\'s nightly
activities, something Omi himself was probably aware of as well.
Neither of then had mentioned anything to other about it, but
there seemed to a kind of silent understanding between them. That
aside, Aya suspected there to be even more hidden aspects within
Omi, under the skin of the genki teenager they thought they knew.

He didn\'t pry though, he respected Omi\'s privacy as he wanted his
own to be respected. In a way perhaps, under their different
masks they perhaps were most alike of the group, a thought that
would have shocked the other two if they only had known to think
it...

As the clock on the wall ticked and time passed, none of the
others seemed to be getting up. A fact to forced Aya to resort
moresticstic measures, something of a necessity when waking up
Ken... and really needed for getting Yohji up on time. He went to
pick up the necessary equipment from a closet and fridge, then
walked up the stairs to the second floor, armed and ready for his
mission.

In there, behind the first door would be Ken, perhaps the easiest
to wake but an annoying chore none the less. After banging the
door almost in half, Aya had to resort to far more drastic
measures, something he had resigned to anyways. Using a lockpick,
he opened the door to reveal the sight he expected: drooling Ken
Hidaka slumped in front of his portable TV, sleeping in a
position clearly not intended for humans. It was indeed a clear
example of the dangers of an all-the-night marathon of regional
football.

Aya just groaned at this annoying sight as he stepped in to the
room, his hands itching to do the job he came in for. Putting
down the other piece of equipment, he opened the bottle he had
with him and poured nearly a liter of ice water on Ken, drenching
him with it...

Its effect was nearly instantaneous, causing Ken to scream loud
enough to wake the dead and make him almost jump through the
ceiling.

After few moments of disorientation and shivering, annoyed Ken
turned to face Aya. "Aya! What the did you do that
for," Ken whined at him, giving Aya a annoyed look, somewhat
ruined by the pout on his face however.

Aya just glared back at him furiously for a while before
answering. "Isn\'t it obvious Hidaka? I\'m not going to face
those girls while you and the others are sleeping," He
finished shortly, managing to sound quite pissed off. In fact,
pissed enough to make Ken happy that Aya didn\'t have his katana
with him at the moment, else he might have gotten a split
personality.

Still almost half asleep Ken mumbled back in response, "Sure
sure, just give me a minute or two..." but suddenly he was
perked up by an evil thought that crossed his mind. "Hey,
can I wathen hen you wake up Yohji, can I?" Ken was now
acting like an eager puppy... or a kitty with the malicious
thought of Yohji suffering running in his mind, it\'s not nice to
be the only one to suffer after all.

Aya just snorted as he left the room to find his second victim...
err, co-worker, Ken following him right on his heels grinning
happily.

Repeating his previous efforts on the door of Yohji\'s room, it
gave no better response than the last time, something Aya had
dreaded and expected at this point. Using his picks once again,
the door opened and the sight revealed behind door number two
wasn\'t a surprise by a long shot, as much as Aya might have hoped
it to be one.

In a huge bed in center of the room, surrounded by floor
decorated with enough discarded clothing fit to whore house, was
a certain blond playboy. Totally unaware of the world and its
worries, Yohji was snoring away like a piece of industrial
machinery. For those of sadistic inclinations, it was a situation
perfectly primed for what followed.

Walking next to slumbering Yohji, Aya put a powerful megaphone to
his lips and yelled right into Yohji\'s ear: "THIS IS THE TPD
VICE SQUAD, COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" This enabled Yohji
to repeat Ken\'s previous leaping feat, even managing to top it
with several inches.

After few moments of frantic thrashing Yohji finally relaxed,
finally noticing that it was Aya standing next to him with slight
smirk on his lips, not a member of the Tokyo police department.

"Man, do you have to remind me that? It was only once after
all," Yohji complains while trying to deal with his infernal
hangover with his nice and pleasant wakeup call. \'That\' in
question being a certain incident involving Yohji, a-not-so high
class brothel, enough booze knock out a herd of elephants on
rampage and a Tokyo PD\'s vice squad. An incident that had ended
with Yohji in a cell with all the hookers of the place, police
apparently unable to tell them apart.

Ever since the incident, rest of the team had taken a habit of
mentioning this to Yohji whenever his habits would get out of
hand, something bound to happen almost once a month at least.

Having taken care of the usual suspects, Aya still had Omi to
worry about, something that was quite unexpected. Oh sure, Omi
could oversleep like anyone human, but to hide his nightly
activities he always woke up earlier than the others, apart from
Aya that is. That was the main reason he was aware of those
activities after all, not even as good actor mi cmi could
completely hide effects of a hangover, especially just after
waking up.

Keeping his worries to himself for now, Aya walked to Omi\'s door
and knocked into it loud enough to make Ken and Yohji wince. He
continued this for a while, pointedly ignoring the whimpers and
groans he got from those behind him. Seeing that his efforts were
giving no results, Aya once again picked the lock, this time
though really dreading of what he might see inside.

After taking a quick look inside the room, it was pretty obvious
what was wrong in it. The bed there, all right, like everything
else normally found in a bedroom. Omi himself though was nowhere
to be seen. The bed itself was all nice and tidy but quite empty
as well, a fact that that was as surprising as it was shocking to
the visitors.

The three members of the Weiss all reacted differently seeing the
lack of Omi’s existence in the room. While Ken seemed to
enjoy walking in a circle and babbling about what could have
happened to Omi, Yohji got into detective mode and stepped in to
for clues of what might have happened to Omi. Whatever his
daily... or nightly habits were you couldn\'t say that Yohji
didn\'t know his former job, being a detective that is, not a
playboy. The latter being his fulltime job without a doubt.

Aya on the other hand observed all this with outwardly cool
detachment, thus creating a quite impressive impersonation of a
human iceberg. Inside though, he was quite worried about Omi
disappearance, something that he really didn’t wish to admit
to the others.

Things might have gone on like this even longer but fortunately
Ken\'s legs had grown tired with all the running around in
circles, forcing him to take a little break... and therefore sit
on Omi\'s bed. Still agitated though, he managed to kick at a box
under the bed, making it slide out of there... right un Yoh Yohji\'s nose.

"Hey, watch it with those legs Ken! Do you want to face
Omi\'s wrath when he finds out that you\'ve wrecked his room? Chibi
can be pretty scary when he wants to, you know..." Yohji
said, smirking at panicking Ken as he started to push the box
back where it came from.

Suddenly though his movement stops as he gets a peak of what\'s
inside the box, his eyes widening at the sight. Not quite
beliving his eyes Yohji opens the box fully, thus revealing
exactly what is hidden in there.

The contents of this box were not exactly what some members of
the Weiss would have normally expected from ’their’
Omi. There was a large collection of porn, mostly of qay variety,
and another collection of hentai manga. The box of condoms and
tube of lube were just the icing on the cake in this nice
revelation, guaranteed to shake the foundations of the innocent
little Omi image Yohji and Ken might have had in their heads. For
Aya, this wasn’t really such a shock though he was impressed
of the collection none the less.

Rest of the material in there was somewhat harder to classify
though. How had Omi got Reiji Takatori’s katana, he could
only guess, but there it was. Wrapped in a red cloth, it was
obviously well kept, and beside it was an empty sheath for a
matching tanto. Looking at the similarities in their appearances,
it was clearly the sister blade of the katana, and Aya had a
pretty good idea where Omi had got that one. From Persia himself.

There was also a folder, holding a collection of articles and
pictures from newspapers. Taking a closer look, it soon became
clear that they were all related to their past missions, showing
bloodier results of their actions and what information had press
found about them. For a some reason, Aya couldn’t decide
should he be worried about this collection or not, its existence
was slightly disturbing to him due its hidden nature, making him
wonder just why Omi had it.

Now wasn’t the time for these questions though, it would be
later and preferably from Omi himself when they’d find him.
Now they had no idea where Omi would be, a disturbing fact in it
self, but they could do nothing about it at the moment. Right now
they should take care of more pressing matters such as the
business downstairs. This in mind Aya dragged Ken and Yohji out
of Omi’s room, thus rousing them from the shell shocked
stupor the contents of this box had invoked in them.

"Hey, what’s the big idea! Shouldn’t we think
about Omi’s..." Yohji complained as he finally managed
to make his brain work once again.

"You can think about Omi’s sexual preferences while you
work, and we really don’t have any idea where Omi might be
right now, e? He? He might as well have overslept at some lover
of his as far as we know. So right now we’re going down
there and face those girls, after we have dealt with them we
think about Omi. He obviously does seems to be old enough to
handle himself for a while. Understood?" Aya finished with a
tone of voice that left no room for arguments, especially since
there WAS a katana in the room...

Following behind his hastily moving teammates, Aya tried in his
mind convince himself of what he had told the others. That this
was nothing else but an accident, that Omi just sleeping off a
really bad hangover at some friend of his, but somehow he just
couldn’t do it. He had a bad feeling that this was only a
beginning for something bigger, but for what he had no idea.

And so, these doubts in mind Aya Fujimiya went to face the
giggling horde of schoolgirls, hoping that afterwards they would
find out that all these worries had been for nothing and that Omi
would just appear late at Koneko’s apologies ready.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be so simple...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere in Tokyo another group of assassins, or in this case a
pair, was also waking up. The other half of the assassin group
Schwarz was slowly awakening, in fact quite naked and in the same
bed.

It really was a mystery just how had Schuldich and Nagi ended up
together, their personalities being so different among other
things. Maybe it was just a case of opposites attracting each
other, rest of the Schwarz had no idea. Then again, since that
other half of the team was ’composed’ of a precognic
manipulator and raving psychopath it really wasn’t a that
big deal.

As the things were, the couple was waking up in a cheap hotel
room in a not so nice part of the city. A consequence of Brad
Crawford wanting to use his bed in the safe house to its
traditional purpose. That is to sleep, not to stay awake in the
night and listen headboard slam in the wall right next door.

After hearing Crawford muttering about finding new imaginative
uses for Farfarello’s large knife collection if he’d
lose another hour of sleep because of them, the pair had decided
to find another place for their ’entertainment’. Losing
some yen for a room would be preferable over losing a body part
for their irate leader. Especially since there was no knowing
just what part it would be...

After few moments of stretching, Nagi Naoe, the telekinetic
Prodigy of Schwarz rose from the bed, leaving his semi-comatose
lover behind. He tiredly made his way to his discarded cloths and
slowly started to put them on, trying to shake the drowsiness
from his head. This task finally accomplished, he turned his
attention to still sleeping form of Schuldich and ways to wake
him up.

"Schuldich, get up already! We’re supposed to meet
Crawford at 9 o’clock and I don’t want to listen his
complaints because you didn’t have enough stamina. If you
don’t get up at this moment, I’ll have to do something
drastic." Nagi yelled at Schuldich but his efforts didn’t
get but a groggily muttered, "...just another minute. I’ll
get up in a moment..." which was just followed by Schuldich’s
continued state of sleepiness.

"Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you then,"
Nagi said with a slight smirk on his face. Having said that, he
grabbed the still sleeping form of Schuldich with his telekinetic
powers and carried it into the shower. Then he dropped it to the
shower floor and used his power to turn the water on, full
strength and freezing cold.

The spectacular scream and reaction it invoked from Schuldich
were sight behold... and hear, almost making the other residents
of the hotel wonder had these two started once again. This was
not the case though, as the shivering man raced back to the
bedroom, looking for his hopefully warm clothes.

::Fuck, what did you do that for?:: Schuldich grumbled mentally,
still trying to stop his shivers while pulling his pants on. ::I
wouldn’t have pegged you for a sadist, giving this kind
of surprises to your lovers.::

"Ok, you could have then explained to Crawford why we would
have been late for the briefing." Nagi said in response with
a deadpan voice.

Schuldich response to that was quite articulate considering the
state he was in, "Shit!" which in fact did sum that
probable situation pretty well, considering their leader’s
anal-retentiendeendencies.

"Exactly. So you better dress up and get ready, otherwise we’ll
have to endure another lecture anyway."

Seeing that Schuldich was finally done, Nagi then dragged his
still zombie like partner out of their room. Not really resisting
this, Schuldich only chuckled on the way as he commented,
"Heh, who would have guessed you to be in charge of two of
us..."

"Well Schuu, you do need someone to keep a leash on you. You’re
completely irresponsible you know," Nagi said rolling his
eyes.

"But it’s all part of my lovable nature, don’t you
agree Nagi?" Schuldich said with smirk.

"..."

Silence was his only answer as Nagi had continued walking,
leaving smirking Schuldich briefly behind.

"Hey, don’t ignore me Nagi... I’m right, aren’t
I? C’mon, answer me Nagi..." whined Schuldich, running
after silently walking Nagi.

Sometime later, after a long trip at subway and an encounter with
a pair of early morning muggers, now a pair of cooling corpses,
Schuldich and Nagi finally arrived at the Schwarz safe house.

There was something of when they arrived though, things that didn’t
seem to match up. Like the heavy tracks of a truck in front of
it, or like the newspaper still lying in front of the door,
especially since Crawford always wakes up early and reads the
paper. It was almost as if their sixth sense was giving them an
early warning, which wasn’t really that improbable since
they were psychics after all.

"Schuldich, can you sense anyone?"

First giving the area around the house a light scan, then
scanning it more thoroughly, Schuldich finally grimaced as he
answered to Nagi. "There isn’t anyone there, absolutely
no one."

"That’s good... Wait a minute! What about Crawford...
or Farfie for that matter!" Nagi demanded, hopihat hat he
had misunderstood the telepath’s words.

"I meant what I said. There isn’t anyone in or near the
building besides us. Not Crawford, not Irish, no one. This place
is dead..." Schuldich said to Nagi, his apparent irritation
betraying his unease at the situation.

"So what are we going to do now? Nagi asked, hoping that
Schuldich would have some rational idea of what to do.

"What to do? I for one am going to go inside and see what
the hell is going on. There’s no one here but I hope they’ve
left some clues, so that we can find out where the bastards have
gone," Schuldich said, running to the back door of the
building and leaving Nagi behind.

"What! What bastards? Nagi yelled at him, running after the
German telepath muttering about impulsive redheads.

"Brad and Farfie... or the bastards that have done something
to them. Either is fine by me!" was the only answer Nagi got
before Schuldich had opened the door and gotten inside. Seeing no
other option, Nagi followed right on his heels and stepped into
the empty building, dreading of what they might see in there.

At first there didn’t seem to be anything out of ordinary,
it was dark and silent of course but that was to be expected of
the place, being as empty as it was. Suddenly though Nagi heard
some heavy German swearing, indicating that Schuldich had indeed
found something and whatever it was, it wasn’t nice.

Following the sound of Schuldich’s swearing, he found
himself in a hallway near Farfarello’s room, or perhaps cell
would be a better word. There he saw Schuldich, staring at thloorloor in front of it. Taking a closer look at the spot he was
staring, he saw that there was a bloodstain on it, already dry
due the pass of time.

"It seems that some idiot made a personal contact with our
favorite psychopath, leaving little pieces of himself
behind." Schuldich commented, an evil smile on his face.

"But where is he then... Farfie I mean, and what about
Crawford?" Nagi asked.

"Don’t know, I guess we’d better find out,"
and that said Schuldich followed the bloody trail to Crawfords
bedroom, Nagi right behind him.

What they saw there answered to as many questions as it opened
new ones. There were signs of fighting, from Farfarello or
Crawford, they couldn’t tell. There were also some
tranquilizer darts littering the floor, giving a hinting that
their teammates might still be alive.

"Darts? You don’t think..." Nagi started but was
soon interrupted by Schuldich.

"...Weiss? Nah, this isn’t their style. If they’d
been here and survived, we’d just have a pair of corpses...
or more."

"Who then... Esset? Kritiker? They’re supposed to be
down, both of them. Takatori’s are dead as well. Who’s
left?" Nagi wondered, mostly of himself.

"Hell should I know, you’re supposed to be the smart
one... Prodigy. I’m just a simple assassin." Schuldich
cntednted with a slight smirk on his lips. "As far as I
know, it might be someone from Brad’s past. Someone we have
no idea of..."

"Yeah right, and I’m a happy little schoolboy,"
Nagi muttered in response to Schuldich’s comment.
"Anyway, of so humble assassin, try look some clues for what
this mystery group might be. Crawford should have seen something
beforehand, maybe he wrote up something."

"Yes, oh master," came Schuldich leering response,
causing Nagi to blush slightly as he began to search for clues.

Searching the room from top to bottom they didn’t find
anything, that is until they decided to look through Crawford’s
thrash bin. On the top of the usual crap, such as empty bottles
of painkillers, used pez dispensers and old tabloid magazines was
a piece of paper. On it was written, in Crawford’s precise
handwriting, the words ’OCEAN RED...’. Rest of the
paper was filled with random scribbles, clear sign of Crawford’s
powers causing the man headache. Literally...

"Ocean red? What the hell is that? A person, an
organization, his private sex club... what?" Schuldich
muttered, his brains working overtime trying to decipher this
puzzle.

"I don’t know but I think I can find out." Nagi
said heading to his room.

"Whatever do you think you can find out in your room? Aren’t
there better places to search for clues?" Befuddled
Schuldich asked, looking after disappearing Nagi.

"Baka, I do have a comr...r... with a internet connection!
Ever heard of that, I am a hacker after all." Nagi shot
back, his irritation at his partners outright stupidity in such
matters raising beyond the normal levels.

A silent "Oh..." was the only answer Nagi remembered
hearing before zoning everything else off and vanishing into the
sea of information, franticly hoping to find something to give
them a clue of their teammates fates...

TBC... in Chapter 4 (The escape, from the Abyss into the
Purgatory)

==============================================

Author notes: If you’ve read this far, you’ve noticed
that this so called ’interlude’ is indeed a somewhat
more lighthearted piece of work. In a way this was an attempt to
see what kind of ’humor’ I could write for this fic...
and at the same time give a peek to other characters besides Omi
and Co. The story does seem to center around him/them otherwise.
^_^

There will be at least still another interlude later. The title
will be almost same but with different people, I think you can
guess who they are... Reviews and comments wanted!!! Really, I
mean it... Please! =^-^=

- Azrael’s Wing

"You\'re young, you\'re drunk, you\'re in bed, you have knives;
shit happens."

"Good angels go to heaven. I go everywhere else."
Fallen Archangel