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Part Two: Gelegenheit
By Saaye Kage no Ansatsusha
Omi sat in front of the computer, continuing a search that he knew by now was hopeless. There was no real special characteristic of the stranger for them to identify, after all. He finally pushed himself away from it, half in defeat and half in disgust.
"Omi-kun?" Ken's voice came down the stairs. "What are you doing here so late?"
"Still looking for her," Omi replied. "I give up."
Ken sat down on a chair near him. "I saw her again just now."
"Saw who? When?"
Ken ran a hand through his head of dark hair. "The young woman we ran into at the Eastern Hesperos Company. She was the one who set off the alarm at our target's tonight."
"What was she doing there?"
"I didn't ask," Ken replied, remembering the warm hazel eyes that smiled as she shook his hand. "She told me her name. Akiko."
Omi slumped onto the table exaggeratedly. "There are more than a dozen Akikos from my school alone, Ken. It's a common name."
"Shirokami Akiko."
"Hmm, that ought to make it easier." Omi began typing another set of commands into the computer. "How did you two meet, anyway?"
"She got into some trouble with the bodyguards, I helped."
"So that's why your jacket was ruined." Omi turned his attention back to the computer screen. Shirokami… His optimistic feeling gradually disappeared as he stared at the list of names on the screen. He hadn't thought that it was such a common surname. But there was no Shirokami Akiko in the records that matched the woman they had met. There were two records of Shirokami Akiko, certainly, but one was a six-year-old child, and the other a businessman's wife, age forty-something. No young woman by that name; perhaps it was an assumed one. "No matching data. You are sure that it's Shirokami?"
"That's what she told me."
"No luck."
Ken sighed. "I think I'll go up. I have the morning shift tomorrow, and then a soccer session with the kids. You'd better go up soon too, Omi-kun."
"Thanks. Good night, Ken," Omi replied. He searched through the data files once more before he gave up and turned off the computer. He had school tomorrow morning-no, make that today, he amended to himself, glancing at the clock.
"You met them again," Akira guessed the moment she came in.
She nodded. "The one who used a bugnuk."
Akira scanned through the bare info Akiko had gathered after days of sitting before the computer and calling in favors from various members of other assassin groups whom they had contact with. "Siberian?" she hazarded.
Akiko nodded again. "And Hidaka Ken. That's the name he gave me, too." "And you gave him yours?" There was nothing Akira couldn't read about her friend.
"I don't think they can trace me from Shirokami. My name was still with my father's before I erased it; it had never been linked with my mother's in the official records, after all." Akiko leafed through the data of the assassin group called Weiß. The description the guerrilla leader, an acquaintance of theirs, gave, did not do Hidaka Ken any justice. His hair was almost as black as hers, and his eyes were frank. There had been such genuine concern in those dark eyes, and she had seldom seen warmth in any assassin's eyes. Not even Akira smiled that often. But Hidaka Ken did. "Do you think there's any way for us to find their contact point? Or their headquarters?"
Akira chuckled dryly. "Quit that, Akiko. You are interested in Hidaka Ken?" When she did not reply, her friend chuckled even more. "There might be some clue somewhere. Remember the case of the Minister resigning? Weiß was behind it."
"I know that. According to both Skean-dhu and the Viper, they finished off the group that were after the girl who possessed the diskette with all the information."
"Where?"
"At the lodge at-" Akiko broke off. "Right! That's a good place to start searching."
"You want to do it now?" Akira asked. "It's two in the morning."
"So?" She switched on the computer and started checking under real estate for the statistics of the lodge where Weiß had acted. From there she traced to a flower shop in the city, called Kitten in the House. There were four workers there: Tsukiyono Omi, Hidaka Ken, Kudou Youji, and Fujimiya Aya, in order of how long they had worked there. "Kitten in the House…Siberian, Abyssinian, Balinese, Bombay…Hidaka Ken…gotcha!"
"Found them?" Akira's voice came from the door.
"I thought you'd have gone to bed."
"While you are working? Not likely." Her old friend came in with two mugs of steaming tea. "Drink some. It was considerably cold out there tonight."
"Thanks." She took a sip of the tea. "I've found them, I think."
Akira leaned over to look at the Ministry of Commerce's records regarding Kitten in the House. "Flower shop? Not exactly what I expected, but it takes all kinds."
"Like us," she grinned. "And people wonder how this pet shop survives with so few workers and almost no customers. If Schweigen can masquerade as pet shop owners, why can't Weiß pose as flower boys?"
A wry chuckle was all Akira made in reply.
Another day at the flower shop, another batch of school girls watching their every movement. Youji was enjoying the attention. He was the only one doing so.
Omi grumbled. Aya glowered. Ken was away teaching kids soccer. In short, it was a classic example of "just another day at the shop" for Weiß "I want to buy these lilies," a pretty girl with blue hair came up to the counter. "For Omi-kun."
The three young men sighed. This was the finishing touch to a perfectly tedious day.
Another girl entered; that was common. She was not in school-uniform; that was not common. A slim tall girl with blue-gray eyes set in a face that could have came from a classic statue. Her shoulder-length blue-black hair was gathered in a ponytail. For a moment, as she stepped into the shop, those mysterious eyes flashed; then the piercing light was replaced by a commonplace look of infatuation.
Youji kept an eye on her as he carried two vases to the basement. He mentally evaluated her dating potential. The girl stopped him the second time he came up for vases. "Sorry to bother you, how much do the carnations cost? Individually, I mean."
He racked his memory, and gave the price.
"That's not cheap," the girl noted, still examining the flower. "But…they go so well with the vase, don't they?" Saying so, she fingered some of the deep blue porcelain vases. "I really like the combination; still-"
"Consider them as a present," Youji said immediately, picking up a vase at random. "From an admirer, if you please. Which carnations do you favor?"
"Why, thank you!" the girl smiled slightly. "I really don't know what to say, ah-"
"Youji," he introduced himself. "Kudou Youji."
"Kudou-san," the girl finished.
Youji smiled, posing for her. "Are you free tonight?"
"Maybe so, maybe no." She left before Youji could ask for her name.
Omi had watched the entire exchange-well, almost entire, he had been distracted in the beginning with Ouka-with barely disguised amusement. "Are you sure she's over eighteen, Youji-kun?"
"Opps," Youji muttered.
Even Aya's lips twitched slightly at that.
Akiko spent the next three days sitting at the radio transmitter. Her patience was finally rewarded on the third night when a mess of footsteps came from it. There was the sound of people sitting down, low, barely audible small talk, and then a click.
"Weiß, mission," a voice spoke. It didn't sound as though the man was talking directly to his listeners. He went into details regarding the young men's new mission. It was about the case of the stealing of organs from young people. "Akira!"
Her friend came in from the counter of their fake model agency immediately. She sat down beside her, listening intently as the speaker on the other end gave instructions for finding the trunk where the organ-removing operations were held. After the instructions were over, the four young men discussed their strategies. Finally, the radio quieted down to a buzz.
"Well?" Akira said.
"Well what?"
"How do you plan to help Weiß?"
"When did I-" she gave up, flushing.
Akira's eyes had half-closed in absolute concentration. "Personally, I think we ought to wait for further developments. There's not much point in covering the same grounds."
"You are the brain here," she agreed. "I don't like the idea of somebody exploiting youths this way, though."
"Of course. We help where help is needed and concentrate on our own missions otherwise, okay?" Akira went to the back and brought out two packs of food. "Eat, Akiko. You haven't been feeding very regularly, and we aren't really models, so we don't need to guard it that carefully. Hai?"
"Hai," she grinned.
In the end, it didn't need their help. Weiß accomplished the mission, smoothly and with minimum disturbance. The two of them watched as the target ascended the private airplane. They knew he would never descend it. Not alive, anyway.
Mithilfe called on them that evening. "Schweigen, there's a request from Verhangnis."
"Which is?" Akira asked.
"Regarding certain policies of Schweigen." The brown-haired young woman laid a file on the table. "Have you by any chance encountered an assassin group called Weiß?"
"Once or twice," Akira replied, passing the file to Akiko. She seized it and began reading. It was all there. All the information about Weiß.
"Verhangnis had been collecting their information for a long time now," Mithilfe explained quietly. "Weiß is under Kritiker, but their basic intention is pure. Verhangnis wants you to join force with them."
Akiko could hardly believe her ears. This was like a dream coming true.
"No," Akira said flatly.
Two pairs of eyes stared at her. Mithilfe's blue ones and her own brown, in absolute disbelief. "What?" Mithilfe asked very slowly. And with good reason; Verhangnis was a regular clients, as well as being one of the more valued ones. They had never refused his missions before.
"No," Akira repeated. "Schweigen will remain neutral. That's been our policy since the start, and it's not going to change any time soon. The only reason why we have assess to all the data no other single group possesses is that we do not take sides. You know how many times our safety had depended on nothing more than information from both sides. Weiß is the most extreme-and deadly-on one end of the balancing beam. Schweigen will not budge."
"Is this your final reply, Schweigen?" Mithilfe addressed both of them.
She nodded. Akira would explain later.
"What's the real reason?" she asked after Mithilfe had left.
"Do you know who's Weiß's-and more importantly, Kritiker's-prime enemy?" Akira asked instead. "It's Schwarz. The group working for Takatori at Este's orders."
She sucked in her breath sharply. "Schwarz?" That had to be the single most notorious name in the entire underworld. No one had confronted them directly and lived to talk about it, as far as anyone knew. Schwarz was Weiß's main enemy?
"Do you understand now?" Akira said. "You aren't up to handling Schwarz; I doubt if I could deal with them. If we lock ourselves with Weiß, that's it." She understood. Not very willingly, but she did. "We can help, but it's up to us, not Schweigen. Officially, we are still neutral."
"Exactly."
The monster roared, struggling futilely in the web of wires.
Ken ignored the cry that sounded incredibly human, a despairing cry of a lost soul, and held on to the wires tightly. Omi did the same from his end. "Speak! Who made you like this? Do you want other people to end up the same way? Where did they take you?"
The monster that had once been a youth called Tetsuyo struggled one last time, then gave up, tears pouring down his shaggy face. Again, Ken had to suppress his instinctive urge to look away. Tears…they were human.
"Look out!"
Startled, the four members of Weiß looked up, just in time to dodge the attack from four colorfully clad people. They wanted to eliminate Tetsuyo. The fight that followed was not pretty.
Some point during the fight, the tide began to turn in Weiß's favor. Ken kept trying to steal glances at Tetsuyo, but the whip-wielding opponent forced him to keep most of his attention on her. His teammates were similarly engaged.
To his left, Omi gave a sharp cry, half of pain and half of surprise. His adversary, a girl with blue-green hair and using an umbrella, closed in for another thrust of her weapon. "Bombay!" He dived over to block her hand without thinking about it, inadvertently exposing his back to his own rival. Yet the whip did not come down. Having saved Omi from the imminent danger, Ken turned back, expecting to see the blond woman about to attack.
But she was otherwise occupied. With a masked woman in black with markings of silver. As Ken stared in stunned amazement, a low, painful cry came from Tetsuyo. The next moment, their four mysterious attackers all began retreating.
And that meant Tetsuyo had been eliminated.
"Kou…Kourin…" the monster human uttered before he died, the fatal blade still on his body.
The park was suddenly deadly silent.
"I-I’m sorry," Akiko spoke, a soft voice filled with regret. "I tried to stop her, but-I was distracted." Because she had to guard his back for him.
"Why?" Aya asked, a question that carried a million questions.
The young woman did not reply. She gazed at each of them in turn, her hazel eyes lingering on Ken, then she left. One moment she was there; the next moment-nothing.
"Akiko!" he shouted to the star-filled sky, which made no reply.
"Schreiend eliminated their target," was the first thing Akiko said upon entrance. "I warned them of their attack, but in the end-"
Akira frowned to herself. Schreiend-The four female assassin group formed by Takatori Masafumi; a deadly loyal organization, according to their sources. "How good were they?"
"Excellent," Akiko replied. "I turned my attention away from their target for one moment, and they got him. Very fast reflexes."
Schreiend and Schwarz did not get along very well, she noted. But both were Weiß's enemy, and that meant Schweigen was involved. Weiß versus Schwarz; Schweigen versus Schreiend. White and Black; Silence and Screaming. How appropriate.
"What are you thinking about, Akira?" Akiko asked.
"Names. We seem destined to be enemies, Schreiend and us." She did not tell her partner, but she had resolved to go along on these "assistance missions"; business with Weiß seemed to be very risky. Akiko did not need to know that Akira was guarding her back, though.
"No!" Omi shouted, even as the monsters of Masafumi's creation attacked him. "They are victims themselves! They were once humans!"
"Now they are monsters!" Aya yelled in reply. "They are no longer humans!" His katana flashed. Youji and Ken followed suit. They did not like it either, but Aya was right, and they had no choice. If they did not retaliate, they would wind up dead.
Schreiend acted after they disposed of the monsters. Talk about foul play. Ken found himself fighting the blonde woman with the whip again. Around him, three other pairings had taken place. Aya against the leader of Schreiend, Youji against the masked woman, and Omi against the one with the yellow umbrella.
A sharp, stinging pain shot up his arm as the whip wrapped itself around him. Ken gritted his teeth and lounged for the blonde once more. He could afford to hurt later, not now.
Sound of a helicopter approached; the four Schreiend members backed off and headed for it.
There were two figures barring their path. One was clad in black from head to toe, her face hidden by a mask and her hair confined in a tight scarf. Her attire was piped with silver.
"Who are you?" the leader of Schreiend asked.
"Schweigen," came the reply.
Weiß came up as well, surrounding Schreiend. The helicopter hovered overhead.
Another fight began, with Schreiend doing everything in their power to reach the helicopter, and the six assassins of assorted groups blocking them from all sides. The two young women were an enormous advantage. The circle around Schreiend started to tighten.
A series of bullets came down from the helicopter, firing around the four women. Everyone else dived for cover, out of immediate range of the rifle. Schreiend seized the opportunity and reached the helicopter, which took off immediately.
When Ken remembered to look around again, only one of the two women remained. She limped over to him. "Is your arm all right?" Akiko asked. "I'm fin-" Ken broke off as he tried to move his arm and another wave of pure agony shot up. "No, I don't think so."
Aya, Youji, and Omi came over. "Let's go back," Aya said. Youji was still staring in the direction the helicopter had left in.
"Asuka…" he murmured.
The Weiß members started to leave; Akiko turned to go in the opposite direction. Ken stopped by the door to look back. She's probably be gone, if her previous exits were any indication, but he wanted to take one last look. Akiko was still there. Kneeling on the ground, she was holding one calf in her hands. She had limped just now. "Akiko!" he yelled, running back to her.
"I'm fine."
Ken touched the black fabric of her legging lightly and found his hand covered with blood. "Baka, you got shot, didn't you? How do you expect to go back alone under such conditions? And why didn't you say anything? Come with us!"
She nodded.