Part 5

Nagi ran, blinded by the tears he couldn't shed, heedless of the sight he must have presented to passersby. The sun was setting, hovering on the edge of the wester horizon; he ran away from it, following his shadow in an odd game of follow-the-leader.

He couldn't hear the shouts of the people he shoved past, or the blaring horns of the cars that almost hit him whenever he crossed a road. He couldn't even hear his own gasping breaths - all of it was drowned out by Aya's accusations ringing in his ears.

Worthless... should never have come here... how dare you... what makes you think you deserve... why should we even care?

The swordsman was absolutely right, Nagi realized miserably now. He never should have come to Weiss for help. This was what came of trying to make his own decisions... now Omi and Youji were in trouble, their teammates were furious with them, Schuldig and Crawford were probably dead, and it was all for nothing. With all the trouble he'd caused for them, Omi and Youji were probably regreting the day they'd ever met him. And without Schuldig, he would only become more of a burden as time went on... they would feel guilty and obligated to help him, even to take him on as a sub to protect him, and that would only cause even more problems.

Aya was right... he was worthless, and he didn't deserve their help. He hadn't been able to save Schuldig or Crawford... hadn't even been able to save himself. Then he had brought more problems to the only other people in the world who had ever cared about him.

He collapsed into the dirt of an alleyway, unable to run any further. His broken ribs were sending sharp stabs of agony through him with every breath he took, but he welcomed the pain. He hoped he had punctured a lung... he was better off dead. With all his heart he wished that he'd died during the attack, rather than living to make more trouble for the people he loved.

A new pain shot through his chest, his heart spasming as his telekinesis clamped down on it, responding to his desperate desire for death. He gasped for breath, vision going grey as his heart struggled to beat and was held motionless by the power of his own mind. He clutched at his chest, the tears finally welling up and spilling over his cheeks to trickle into the grime of the alley. He hadn't realized it would hurt so much to die... but at least after this one last pain, it would all be over. And if there was any kind of merciful god in the universe, perhaps he would be reunited with his Gebieter on the other side.

But what if he's not dead? his subconsious whispered insistently. Omi said if they had intended to kill Schuldig and Crawford, they probably wouldn't have taken them in the first place. They'd have left them like they did you and Farfarello. What if he's not dead?

He tried to convince himself that it didn't matter. When it came right down to it, he'd always been a burden to Schuldig. The German had tried so hard to teach him to think for himself, and although he had improved, this last day proved beyond a doubt that he was still far too dependent on his Master. Without him, Schuldig would be able to move on, to find someone who could be the partner he'd always wanted.

Unless he's waiting for you to rescue him, that horrid voice whispered again. It was fading now, along with his vision, as the blood slowed in his veins and oxygen starvation started to set in. You're the only member of Schwartz still alive and free. Weiss obviously isn't going to rescue them. What if he's out there somewhere, clinging to the hope that you'll remember everything he's taught you, and that you'll be able to rescue him?

Nagi felt the last gasp of life slipping away from him, and at that moment something deep inside him rebelled. No, he said, though there was no breath left in his lungs to shape the word. No, I will not die. I will not give up. Schuldig needs me. He always believed that I could rise above myself some day, and I WILL NOT PROVE HIM WRONG!

Deliberately he released his control on his powers, feeling them swell and break within him. The massive jolt to his system restarted his heart as they burst out of him, smashing into every solid object in his vicinity with all the destructive force of a hurricane gone mad. He gasped for air, clinging to consciousness with the tenacity of a terrier, forcing his battered body to function.

His lungs drew breath, and he expelled it again immediately in an agonized scream. Every nerve was on fire as his telekinesis poured through him, trying to wash him out of his own body. It was worse than when he'd lost control over Tot's death, much, much worse - his abilities had gotten a lot stronger since then. He was vaguely aware of the walls around him crumbling beneath the onslaught, carried up and around in a whirlwind of destruction centering on him. Half hysterical, he realized that the method he'd used to save his own life might very well be the death of him - if the outburst of power didn't kill him, the fall of the debris when his telekinesis was finally exhausted just might.

Omi sped through the rapidly darkening streets, straining his eyes for any sign of Nagi. When Ken had called him to tell him about Nagi's disappearance, he hadn't believe it at first. The idea that Nagi would have just taken off like that was inconceivable; even beyond the fact that it just wasn't like the pet to make a decision like that for himself, where would he GO? Omi was his best hope of finding the rest of Schwartz... even if Schuldig had suddenly regained contact with Nagi, Omi couldn't believe that the German wouldn't have contacted him as well.

But Ken had insisted, relating his search and the footprint he'd discovered outside the door, facing AWAY from the shop, and Omi had been forced to believe him. He'd contacted Youji as well, and now all four of them were out scouring the streets for any sign of the psychic. It had already been over an hour since Nagi had vanished - he could have been almost anywhere by now.

Omi had assigned the other three Weiss members wedge-shaped grid sections of the city to search, while he started at the Koneko and spiraled outwards. Nagi had broken ribs and a sprained ankle, but Omi was willing to bet that wouldn't slow the telekinetic down for a good long time.

As it continued to darken, he flipped his visor up and slowed the bike. He didn't want to turn the headlight on, because then his nightvision would be spoiled and he wouldn't be able to make out anything outside the headlight's arc. If he didn't find anything soon, he was going to go back to the Koneko and get his nightvision goggles to help him search.

His cellphone rang, and he pulled over to the side of the road and answered it. "Omi," he said shortly, praying it would be one of the others with news that Nagi had been found. He didn't like to think of his friend alone outside after dark; Nagi was incapable of saying 'no' to anyone who came off as dominant, and that could get him into a hell of a lot of trouble if he ended up in one of Tokyo's many seedier areas.

"Omi," Ken's voice came over the phone. "There's been a report of a massive explosion in one of the industrial areas. They're tentatively labelling it as a wharehouse accident... but I thought, if Nagi had gotten into trouble..."

"He might cause something like that if he got scared enough," Omi agreed grimly. "Where is it?" Ken reeled off the address, and Omi quickly placed it on his mental map. He whistled. "That's a lot farther from the Koneko than I thought he'd get... but it's not an impossible distance. I should be closest to that area... I'll check it out. Keep looking - this might be a dead end."

"I will," Ken agreed, and hung up. Omi shoved the phone into his jacket and gunned the bike, spinning around and heading back to the last major intersection he'd crossed. He flipped his visor down again, hunching over the handlebars to give him better aerodynamics and more control over the bike. If this explosion HAD been caused by Nagi, then the boy was probably in trouble, possibly a lot of it. It had already occured to him that whoever had attacked Schwartz might just take this opportunity to finish the job they'd botched by killing Nagi while he was alone, without protection.

It wasn't hard to find the site of the explosion - long before he got near it, he could hear the sirens. A column of smoke rose into the darkness of the night, lit eerily red from below by the flames that fed it. Omi skidded his bike to a halt just outside the ring of curious onlookers and rubberneckers, joining them in craning to see into the centre of the blast zone.

One look told Omi that the cause of the explosion was almost certainly a telekinetic, if not Nagi himself. Not only had debris been blasted outwards, but it had been picked up and smashed around repeatedly, forming a spiral blast pattern that couldn't be achieved by any chemical explosive.

He swore quietly under his breath as paramedics carried a stretcher to the waiting ambulance, and he made out Nagi's huddled form. There were police cars and firetrucks everywhere - Omi wasn't going to be able to get him out of there without raising a hell of a lot of questions. The last thing they needed was to have attention drawn to them. If the psychics who had attacked Schwartz hadn't realized before this that Nagi had lived, they would certainly know it when they saw footage of this explosion. Right now it was possible they didn't know about any connection between Schwartz and Weiss... If Omi went in publicly to claim Nagi, it would be simple for the assailants to track down where Nagi had ended up.

He pulled out his cell again as the ambulance drove away, sirens wailing. Punching a number on the speedial, he waited as it rang twice before being picked up. "Manx," he said immediately, not even waiting for the woman to answer. "It's Bombay. I need a favour."

"Omi?" Manx replied, sounding surprised. He could hear the sounds of many conversations behind her - it sounded like she was at a restaurant or theatre. "What's going on? You don't have any work right now." Her oblique references told Omi with certainty that she was in public, and he cursed his bad luck.

"This is a personal emergency," Omi replied grimly. "And before you tell me that personal problems don't get solved using Kritiker resources, let me just say that if this problem gets much bigger, it's going to become a problem for ALL of us."

There was a long pause, and Omi agonized as the ambulance got further away - and closer to whatever hospital it was headed towards. "All right," Manx said at last. "I trust you to know your priorities. But I want a full report first thing in the morning."

He winced; he'd been afraid she'd ask for something like that. There was no point in even trying to write a report that left anything out - when Manx said full, she meant full. "You'll get it," he promised, watching his career with Kritiker wash down the drain. There'd be no salvaging it after this. "So you'll help me?"

"Just a moment," she said, and he heard the sound of the talking in the background cut off abruptly. "All right, I'm in private. What do you need?"

"I need you to divert an ambulance before it reaches the hospital," he said, rattling off the number of the ambulance. "I don't care what it takes, it MUST NOT reach the hospital. I can knock the paramedics out long enough to retreive the passenger."

"Has once of Weiss been injured?" Manx's voice sharpened. "There's no need for you to retreive them, I can just have the ambulance diverted to the police hospital, as usual..."

"It's not one of Weiss," he cut her off. Drawing a deep breath, he figured as long as he was sacrificing himself for Nagi's sake, he might as well go all the way. "It's Prodigy. From Schwartz. And if he wakes up alone in a hospital, there probably won't be a hospital left a few minutes later."

Another long pause, while he counted the heartbeats, praying she wouldn't refuse to help him. At last she answered him, her voice very dry. "This had better be a VERY good report, Bombay," she told him crisply. "Give me a few minutes - I'll call you back when I've got the location." She hung up without giving him a chance to acknowledge.

Hanging on to the phone with one hand, he cruised slowly in the direction the ambulance had gone. There were only two hospitals nearby in that direction, and only one of them had an emergency room, so it wasn't hard to figure out where they were probably headed. He did some quick calculations in his head - it was fifteen, maybe twenty minutes from here to the hospital, and it had taken him at least ten to convince Manx to help. If they reached the hospital, there would be nothing Kritiker could do to make Nagi disappear without any records, at least not without a lot more effort than Manx would probably be willing to go to for someone who wasn't even an agent, let alone someone who was an ex-enemy.

At last his phone rang, and he snapped it open before it had finished the first ring. "Bombay," he said.

"We've diverted it," Manx told him, and he sighed audibly with relief. She gave him the address, and he sped up, cutting across two lanes of traffic to make an abrupt left hand turn to get to the location. "I'll expect that report in my email first thing in the morning, shall I?"

"You'll have it," Omi swore. "Assuming we're not all dead by then, of course. Thank you, Manx. I owe you big time."

"You certainly do," she replied, making him wince again at her tone of voice. "Good luck, Bombay, and hurry... I wasn't able to delay it for more than a few minutes."

He hung up without acknowledging, stuffing it into his pocket and pouring on the speed. He zipped recklessly through traffic, uncaring of the laws he was breaking or the danger he was putting other people in. The only thing that mattered now was reaching Nagi before the ambulance took off again, or before the telekinetic woke up.

He saw the flashing lights ahead, and pushed his bike just a little faster. The ambulance had taken a side street that was a shortcut towards the hospital, and had been brought up short by an accident that sprawled over the entire street. It had attempted to back out, only to be stopped by a dumptruck that had backed into the street and stalled. The truck driver and the paramedics were currently in the middle of a shouting match, gesturing and swearing at each other.

He slid to a stop just behind the truck, and caught the driver's eye, giving a hand signal that identified him as a Kritiker agent. The man nodded slightly and gave the correct counter sign, as did the drivers of the two cars that had blocked the road ahead with their accident.

He grabbed two of the tranquilizer darts that he always carried with him in case of emergency, and seconds later both paramedics were slumped on the ground, sound asleep. After that it was a moment's work to open the doors, and the medic who had been riding in the back with Nagi was unconscious as well. Omi climbed up inside, noting the equipment hooked up to his friend and sometime lover. There were defribbrilator burns on Nagi's chest, and the medic had been holding the paddles ready - the telekinetic's heart must have stopped at least once. That made Omi nervous about taking him away from proper medical help, but the readouts said he was stable enough now, and he really didn't think leaving Nagi in the hands of strangers was a good idea.

Now the only problem would be getting him home - there was no way he could transport the unconscious telekinetic on his bike. Omi glanced around, cursing himself for not contacting Youji before he'd arrived. There was no telling how far away the playboy was, or how long it would take him to get here. If the ambulance didn't reach the hospital soon, people would start looking for it - they couldn't afford to wait.

"Bombay, isn't it?" one of the car drivers involved in the 'accident' appeared at the door. Omi blinked and nodded, surprised the man knew his codename. "Queen told us you might need transportation... neither of the cars is actually damaged, you can take either. We'll get your bike back to Kritiker, and they'll return it to you."

"Thank you!" Omi replied, grateful that somebody at least had been thinking ahead. "I appreciate it. Can you help me get him out of here?"

Working together, they slid the stretcher out of the ambulance and got it wheeled over to one of the cars. A boy about Nagi's age climbed out of the backseat of one and held the door open, smiling at them both as they lifted the telekinetic inside. "Here," the other driver said, tossing Omi the keys. "Take good care of her, she's an old friend."

For a moment Omi was confused, and then he realized the man meant the car. "I will," he promised. "So long as you take good care of my bike!"

The blond man who had first addressed him laughed and clapped him on the back. "We'll treat it like it was our own firstborn child," he replied. "You'd better get going. Oh, and tell Ran that Crashers send their regards."

"My God... Lukas?"

Leaning against the bars of his cage, Lukas blinked at the stunned tone in Brad's voice. The older man sounded like he'd just taken the recoil of a fully automatic weapon dead center in his chest. "Yeah?" he responded, concerned. "You okay, Brad? You sound like you're having a heart attack or something over there..."

"I think I am," Brad replied wryly, voice shaking. "I never thought I would ever talk to you again."

THAT confused the hell out of Lukas. "You were talking to me just fine before you asked me what I remembered," he pointed out. "Who the hell did you think you were talking to?"

"Lukas... take a moment, and take stock of yourself," the other psychic told him. "Don't argue," he added as Lukas opened his mouth to do just that. "Just do it."

Lukas sighed and closed his eyes, beginning the self-check they'd all been taught as a method of keeping their powers under better control. Immediately his eyes flew open again. Where the buzzing of every thought in the area should have been, there was only silence in his mind. "My telepathy!" he exclaimed, panicked. "And the empathy too! My powers, they're gone!"

"They're being blocked," Brad responded, sounding a bit calmer now. "I don't think they're truly gone, I think they're just blocking us somehow. But that's not what I meant. Look again."

Frowning, Lukas raised his hands to his temples to help centre himself. His frown turned to a look of startled surprise when his fingers tangled in something long and silky. "What the... fuck?" he said, examining it. It was hair - carrot orange hair, long enough to probably nearly reach his waist. It was definitely his - one sharp tug proved that. He stared at the fistful of hair, eyes wide.

"Brad... what the FUCK... how much have I forgotten?" he asked, and now it was his turn to have his voice shake.

"Years," Brad replied, voice grim. "I'm not sure how he did it... but that bastard seems to have FLIPPED your amnesia."

"Amnesia?" Lukas felt like he was turning into a parrot. His mind was too stunned to come up with anything much more coherent. "What do you mean, amnesia?"

He heard Brad sigh, and could picture the man pushing his glasses up on his nose with that habitual gesture of his. "When I found you again, you had no memory of the Institute, or anything else," the precognitive told him. "Your mind was hiding from a traumatic experience, and I couldn't reverse the effect, not without killing you and possibly myself as well. In all this time you've never shown any signs of remembering anything from our time together at the Institute... I had given up hope of it ever happening."

There was a raw pain hidden beneath the calm surface of the other psychic's words. Only someone who had known him as well, and as intimately, as Lukas had, would have been able to catch it. It was an old pain, worn at the edges with time, but it was still sharp at the centre. Lukas frowned as he realized he was more than hearing it - he was sensing it.

"Brad... give me your hand," he said, reaching out through the bars. Something in his voice must have told the precognitive not to argue, because the older man reached out as well, and they clasped hands between their cells.

Lukas felt the differences in their grasp instantly. His hand had still been much smaller than Brad's the last time they had done this. Now they were nearly a match; though Brad's palm was still a bit wider than his, now Lukas's fingers were longer than Brad's. It was the grip of two adults, not a boy barely into his teens with a man barely out of them.

The feeling of pain intensified - barely, but the difference was perceptible. Closing his eyes, Lukas concentrated on the feeling of building an impenetrable shield, the kind he had created to allow them to talk without the Instructors overHearing them in the past. He couldn't feel what he was doing, as far as he could tell there was no real outward effect... except for a gradual increase in his awareness of Brad's emotions.

He sent an experimental charge down the connection, and Brad's grip tightened on his almost painfully. "You..." the precognitive started, and Lukas squeezed his hand back.

"Don't," he said, projecting a sense of danger. *Can you hear me?* he projected, trying to tag the thought on top of the empathic connection he'd already established.

*Yes,* Brad replied. His Voice was distant and difficult to make out, but it was there. *What are you doing?*

*I think they aren't blocking my empathy,* Lukas replied. *Either because they don't know about it, or because it got lost among my telepathy as usual. And it's a weakness in whatever is blocking my telepathy, as well.*

He continued to weave shields around shields around shields, creating the tightest wall he'd ever dreamt of, and then piling more shields on top of that. It was a strain, especially since he couldn't quite feel what he was doing, but it was also helping - their connection was getting clearer by the moment.

*Are you shielding us?* Brad asked after a long moment, sounding startled again. *Whatever you're doing, don't stop... it's working. I'm starting to get flashes again... we may yet be able to get out of this mess in one piece. Don't push yourself past your limits... but keep it up as long as you can. If I can just get a good enough look at the future, I'll be able to see how to get us the hell out of here.*

Grimly Lukas tightened his grip on the other man's hand, and kept weaving more shields into the pile.

|Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 7| |Part 8| |Part 9| |Part 10| |Part 11| |Part 12| |Part 13| |Part 14|

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