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Die Fürsprache (bait and switch)	By : quietladybirman Category: Weiß Kreuz > General Views: 2405 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Die Fürsprache

(bait and switch)

a Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

________

+ apostate

Half-drowned in nothing but air he leans on the door, head back, and waits, trying to control his own almost frantic gasps for breath as he desperately snatches at quiet and calm. He knows his hiding-place to be pathetically inadequate, that salvation will come only in silence and silence as the only weapon he has left. Almost without meaning to he closes his eyes, holds his breath. An adult amplification of a child’s game and he’d never been very good at hide and seek. It hadn’t used to matter. Maybe it still doesn’t.

It sometimes occurs to Ken that to survive at all is merely optional.

The target is down; he knows the rest of it isn’t really what counts. Getting out alive and in one piece is strictly a secondary objective and important to nobody but himself and, of course, the team. He owes it to the team to live but Ken has always known deep down that he, they, all of them are disposable. When it comes down to it Kritiker doesn’t care if Weiss live or die as long as they take those they came for with them. They are replaceable. The survival instinct is only a habit he can’t quite find it in himself to break. Always competitive, he can’t see the point of a victory which nobody can celebrate; he never could. Ken is getting good at living.

He waits in the empty darkness for the sound of nothing at all. For the return of silence that tells him his pursuer has given up the chase, gone to find more interesting and amenable prey. Single-minded though his perversely pale shadow, the scarred and smiling Schwarz lunatic, has proved up till now Ken can’t imagine a creature like that will have the patience for an extended hunt. A twisted psycho like that wouldn’t care whose blood he spilled as long as someone was hurting, surely? He can’t believe a man like that will lose too much sleep over losing him.

Always the simple ones, he thinks sarcastically. What is it about simple missions, why is it they always turn out like this? On paper they make sense, logical and neatly numbered as any pedant’s To-Do list, but just try and do them and watch it all break down. It should have been so easy. Get in, get the target, get out; one, two, three.

Part one and part two have, of course, been no problem at all. Survival is the sticking point.

Nobody had mentioned Schwarz. They knew the target was well-connected – aren’t they all? It’s an old story and a tired one, one Ken has heard a hundred times before – but, or so he supposes, the guy’s friends must be one Hell of a lot more powerful than they’d thought. Nobody had even hinted at the possibility they might have been compromised but someone must have known they were coming. That same someone was now going to be heartily pissed that the target, their friend or associate or whoever, was dead. Someone, Ken knows, wants Weiss to pay for it. Killing their employer’s killers will be one way for their former target’s guards to recoup some small measure of success in the face of failure… they were left no choice but to scatter, to end up smeared all over the goddamned map; the comm. went eerily silent some half an hour ago. Ken believes the others are still alive because he doesn’t know what else to do. They should have left it, should never have gone in. Not that they’d ever had any choice in the matter. Twenty-twenty hindsight, huh?

Silence insinuates itself back around him, closes in on him, becomes stifling and oppressive. Even to breathe in this empty, echoing space seems to be to invite betrayal. Quick, furtive, anxious, Ken glances back over his shoulder at the closed door he has bolted through, palpable mainly by the thin line of light seeping around its edges. He knows without having to ask that he is alone. He closes his eyes briefly, feels tension break and himself relax. It feels like coming up for air, a brief blissful moment of warmth and light and calm before he willingly slips under again, losing himself in chaos.

Instinct tells him to head forward; Ken gives instinct its head. There is nothing but havoc at his back. If he were to go forward instead – wherever it takes him it will be away from where he came. Away from the guards and their wheezing, prancing dogs and that pale madman whose face promises nothing but pain and Aya shoving him forward by the shoulder and barking at him to run…

—that’s an order, Siberian!

And Aya, or so Ken tells himself, will be all right. He can look after himself. They both can.

He stands, he realizes, overlooking what appears to be a neglected back staircase, illuminated only by the inadequate light falling from a skylight set into the ceiling. He hasn’t really noticed the thrum of a fan, grinding and scraping in a low and endless undertone somewhere above his head, before now but now he notices it and it irritates him: like glass chafing on glass or the squeak of markers on paper, it sets his teeth on edge. Stray sound is caught and amplified by vast, echoing space, a sound it isn’t quite possible to ignore completely and which Ken thinks he could very quickly grow to detest. A stale space, this, dust-thick and clogged with snared, decaying air.

Somewhere in the background, the trapped and furious dissonance of men’s voices, both unobtrusively familiar. But distant, too distant yet for Ken to catch anything other than the tone of their conversation, the undercurrent of anger and thinly-veiled threat.

He isn’t even a circumspect halfway down the stairs – treading carefully, trying by caution to negate echoes and keep his presence a soft secret – when he hears the shots. Bang bang bang each one coming hard on the other’s heels as if, how strange, as if the gunman has suddenly realized he has somewhere better to be and then a cry, a cry more of surprise than it is of pain or fear. Youji’s voice.

Youji.

Youji has been shot.

“Oh, shit,” Ken says, and his own voice is full of hushed, understated horror. Startled into complete immobility, he catches himself staring at the scrupulous blankness that is the white-painted wall in front of him in frozen shock, one hand grasping the balustrade beside him as if he hopes to steady himself on it. A pause to think, but Ken isn’t thinking. Acting only on the intuition that something is hideously, unbearably wrong, he starts forward, taking the rest of the stairs at a run, jumping the last half-flight and finding himself, dizzy and slightly disoriented and too angry to care, standing in front of a half-open door revealing a small slice of a basement room barely any better lit than the stairwell he waits in. His pause, momentary though it is, is for breath and not for thought.

Because Kritiker doesn’t care for Weiss; Weiss cares for Weiss. Ken will not let another team down.

He shoves the door open with vivacious force. The thud as it is caught up short by the bare wall and swings back toward him is too loud and yet anticlimactic after the report of the gun. The noise is a betrayal in itself and, were he to allow himself the luxury of thinking about it, Ken would be infuriated with himself for giving himself away. Subtlety would have worked better but he is far too angry to think of that.

Ken doesn’t think. He can’t afford to. Two paces and he stops short, wide-eyed and staring in furious incomprehension into the room.

Wide, damp, echoing space, this room. Its cluttered metal gallery is supported by a flimsy arrangement of girders that spans its length, the concrete walls cracked and stained with streaks of damp, the dark spatters of encroaching mold and Christ knows what else. The far end of the room forms a low balcony of sorts, trapped pointlessly behind guardrails raised a few feet off the floor, presumably to keep it largely dry. It looks like a movie set, perhaps, or something out of a computer game – something pointlessly sinister, designed simply to be obstructive and not somewhere that should ever possess a purpose (what is this place? Warehouse, loading bay, observation suite?). The air smells damp and tainted. Nobody, Ken realizes, comes here if they can avoid it. High above his head something drips soft and rhythmic to the floor; incidental music, it serves only to add the final touch of absurd melodrama to the scene. Already he wants to get out of here.

Schuldig stands casual and eerily out of place at the end of the room, holding his still-smoking gun by his side and gazing, his expression full of nothing but bored imperturbability, over his shoulder at Ken, as if his arrival in this clammy, half-forgotten place were only to be expected. And Youji lies sprawled on the balcony at Schuldig’s feet, thick trails of blood, glistening moistly and malignly in the dim light, smeared across the concrete wall behind him where he has fallen.

For a single horrible moment Ken believes Youji is dead only to see him take a single shuddering breath, and that’s almost worse than his death would be. There is no danger in death. Unconscious? Maybe. No way of telling. No way of knowing, not with Schuldig here— he’s gonna kill him, Ken realizes and, though he feels no surprise, he is appalled. He can’t kill Youji, Ken thinks furiously. I won’t goddamn well let him!

“Get away from him!”

Schuldig sighs. He irritably quirks one eyebrow even as a slow, languid smile traces its lazy way across his lips. His grip on the handgun tightens subtle but sure as he turns to face Ken, raising the gun and grinning furtively at him down its length. His grin is a conspiracy. It is as if he and Ken are sharing a furtive, awkward secret, a secret Ken cannot trust him not to tell. Ken scowls resentfully, tensing.

“What’s it worth?” Schuldig asks.

He hasn’t been expecting Ken to listen to him, not yet, though he gives a soft yet theatrical tsk and shakes his head in resignation at the way the boy moves, darting toward him, all furious life and surprisingly graceful motion. Something strange and elegant about it, about that display of unthinking physicality. Schuldig’s smile doesn’t falter as his finger tightens on the trigger of the gun, its single soft click easily eclipsed by the harsh, sharp crack of the single shot. It is nothing but a warning, its purpose only to bring the boy up short; Ken, uninjured, uninterested, barely notices it. Small wonder, Schuldig realizes. This is Farfarello’s kitty, isn’t it?

Ken has lashed out at Schuldig before he really realizes that is his intention; he aims a blow at the man’s chest which Schuldig, smirking, darts easily clear of, meaning the blow manages little more than to shear through the lapels of his jacket. Before Schuldig can recover and react Ken has already drawn back, his eyes full of frustration, instinctively raising one arm to protect his face. He is furious and looks it; acts it, too. Schuldig can tell Ken isn’t really thinking about what he is doing. He only acts, reacts, and trusts it will be enough. Too trusting by far. Schuldig makes a grab for his wrist only for Ken, cursing softly, to hastily pull clear of his grasp, slipping back and out of reach. He is faster than Schuldig were expecting and considerably more agile; yes, Weiss are good, Schuldig thinks idly, but never quite good enough. Ken is too instinctive. At the mercy of his own emotions, he leaves himself wide open and never even realizes it.

… Perhaps pain will do, then.

A single fluid motion has Schuldig, smiling as if at some secret surmise, raising the gun again and firing almost before Ken can comprehend that he has moved. Ken cries out briefly as the bullet catches him in his side, the impact knocks him from his feet. Wincing, he lands heavily on his back, pressing one arm protectively over the wound and glaring up at Schuldig in frustrated opposition as the man comes to stand over him. He is already trying to get to his feet as Schuldig turns the gun on him again, aiming it at a spot just between his brows.

“Hands where I can see them and don’t move, Weiss.”

And what choice is there, when any attempt to fight back would kill Youji too? Placing his hands by his sides Ken freezes, trying to ignore the blossoming pain in his flank as he watches Schuldig suspiciously. His posture betrays tension; he holds himself aptly catlike, all coiled strength poised to spring. Waiting, but waiting for what? What good will it do him? Oh, Christ, Ken realizes, I'm going to die— and he feels only frustration and anger and a furious resentment, directed at himself as much as it is at Schuldig. Mary Mother of God but he’d been stupid!

By the looks of things Schuldig has been thinking along exactly the same lines. Knows what he is thinking. “That wasn’t very clever now, was it?”

“Go to Hell,” Ken retorts. Terse, instinctive response, camouflaging fear with anger.

“Oh, dear. Not very polite, are you?” Schuldig says teasingly. “You’ll get yourself into big trouble one of these days if you don’t learn to watch your mouth.”

Ken says nothing, refusing to rise to it. As if he weren’t in big trouble already! He wonders if he can risk calling in to the others, radio silence be damned, only to realize that at some point during the all-too-brief clash he has lost his comm. He’d always said they needed to improve the design on the bloody things. All he can do is glare at Schuldig, hoping he looks a lot braver than he feels, and waits for the man to get on with it – get on and kill him. He knows he is going to die here. They both are, Youji and himself… Ken wants to kick himself. How could he have been such a goddamned idiot? And all Schuldig does is watch him, cool and uninterested, as if he doesn’t really matter. He won’t matter, not to Schuldig…

He almost flinches when the man speaks again. “Well?”

Ken blinks. He can’t help himself. “Well, what?” Why, he wonders, has Schuldig started talking to him?

“I asked you a question.” Schuldig speaks patiently, as if he can’t believe how obtuse Ken is being. “You want me to leave Balinese over there be, don’t you? So then, Kenken… what’s it worth to you that he stays safe?”

“What?” The question is born only of surprise. Is, Ken wonders, he thinking what I think he is? But that’s insane! Isn’t it…? No need to ask what Schuldig means. Ken can at least guess at the import of it. He already understands – doesn’t he? – the meaning behind Schuldig’s collaborator’s smile, though he can hardly believe he’s correctly guessed at its import.

(Okay, where’s the catch?)

“What’s it worth, Kenken?” Schuldig asks again. Mocking, challenging, a spiteful adolescent goading a classmate into unthinking action. Kenken. The boy winces slightly. Where’d Schuldig heard that? As if he doesn’t quietly loathe his nickname at the best of times, as if it doesn’t sound bad enough from Youji’s lips. Youji— has Schuldig planned this?

Call it a proposition, Kenken. Call it a pact. The hideous presumption of it leaves Ken astounded, disgusted, furious. What is this, some twisted way of killing time? And then for Schuldig to assume that he’ll just nod and smile, play along… he should tear the bastard’s throat out on general principle and he can’t. Christ, what a stupid situation. Ken Hidaka strikes again.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Ken demands. “Do you really think I’d ever bargain with you?”

“Do you really think,” Schuldig echoes playfully, turning the question on its head, “that you’ve got any choice?”

No escaping the threat in his voice. Do you want to die, Siberian? Do you want your teammate to? That was the only real question, barely even half-concealed behind Schuldig’s politician’s smile and his playfully baleful teasing. What’s it worth to keep Balinese here alive? But it was one thing to be asked that question for all it may have remained inarticulate (unvoiced and therefore only too easy to ignore completely) in the heat of the moment; quite another to be asked it, and out loud, in circumstances such as this. It would, Ken knows, be simplicity itself to sacrifice himself unknowingly for a teammate, without really realizing that was what he was doing; it would be harder by far to gratuitously and knowingly throw his life away simply because he had to.

It’s me or the both of us, Ken realizes. What choice does he have?

“You see, I'm not crazy, Kenken. I’m giving you a choice here. Of course, if you’d rather I killed you both…” Schuldig leaves the sentence unfinished. Leaves the thought hanging in midair. A life for a life, isn’t that the way it goes?

“You wouldn’t let him go,” Ken says softly, frantically. He realizes, all of a sudden, that he is frightened.

“No, maybe not,” Schuldig replies calmly, and gives Ken a lopsided smirk. “You want to take the chance that you’re wrong?”

Because Ken has already decided and Schuldig realizes it just as plainly as he does himself. Because there is absolutely nothing else he can do. This one, Schuldig knows, is a fool for his friends; he fears for their well-being in a way he has long since ceased to fear for his own. Ken needs to see Youji safe. He needs to know he hasn’t betrayed these men too, in the way he betrayed the others. He doesn’t care or rather, Schuldig notes with a sardonic smile, he thinks he doesn’t care what the cost to himself might be. It makes his decision nothing but an inevitability.

So they wait, but they await nothing but the confirmation of what they both know to be unavoidable. Another part of the same game. What, Ken wonders, am I doing?

“Okay,” Ken says into the suffocating silence, and his voice is already resigned. “What do I have to do?”
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Die Fürsprache (bait and switch)