Seven
"You never want to miss. Get 'em in one go, or you'll light a fire under someone's ass and they'll run twice as fast."
As the burning sun beat down on his back, Kiritsugu suffered through the most drawn-out panic attack of his life. Mostly because of the tense situation, but he was sure the heat had something to do with it.
It was hot. Too hot. Not a cloud in the sky, not a gust of wind blowing through Black Spot, not a single effective piece of shade. The light was everywhere, hitting him through his thin clothes and the withered leaves of the scraggly tree he was resting under. Kiritsugu knew heat, having lived on a tropical island for most of his life, but this was something else entirely. It had come out of nowhere, just as he left the hotel to walk the city. One moment the noisy ceiling fan was blowing false hair into his face, and then he was being crushed by the air itself.
He wanted to go back. To wait for Natalia. But Klaus had insisted, with a half-baked excuse: "If she's compromised, so is this place, and so are we. Put on your best disguise and don't get in my way, boy."
Kiritsugu didn't make it a habit to detest people, but Klaus Spielmann was something else entirely. Secretive and confrontational, indulgent and paranoid, indecisive and flippant, everywhere he looked, Kiritsugu saw someone unfit to be an Enforcer, even by his standards. A child's instinct, perhaps, but Kiritsugu had never had reason to doubt it: the man was bad news.
As they walked the streets, his own hand being crushed by the Enforcer's in a twisted father-child facsimile, Kiritsugu whispered a query: "Where are we going?"
"To bail your mother out of her mess." was Klaus' dry reply. He sweated in his dark, collared dress shirt, while Kiritsugu's breezy clothes afforded him enough of a reprieve to be comfortable, to a point.
"She's not my mom." replied Kiritsugu, determined not to give an inch. They pushed past an old couple that stared oddly at Klaus, like he was some sort of modern pirate.
"Guardian, then," the older man said, clearly somewhere between bored and tense. He slapped idly at a buzzing fly that'd tried to settle onto the brim of his hat. "Or would you prefer 'owner'?" He paused, gauging Kiritsugu's lack of reaction. Not a single inch. "That was a joke," he said after too long. "You do know what those are, don't you?"
Nothing. It was the silent treatment. Perhaps it was the best response a child could give to a clearly antagonistic adult.
Klaus swallowed his own poison without batting an eyelash.
Their forward progress was halted at a police barricade. There was no crowd; officers were redirecting anyone going down that section of road or approaching the alley. A quick check confirmed the other side was similarly closed down. One officer spotted Klaus and Kiritsugu and waved them off.
They retreated to a nearby cafe. It was conveniently empty of customers, likely from fear and poor timing. Klaus ordered a coffee for himself and Kiritsugu asked for a glass of water in his worst falsetto. Klaus' grin at the boy's falsetto was both irritating and embarrassing, and once more Kiritsugu wondered how he'd ended up wearing a sundress and a brown wig.
Oh right, Natalia.
"Kids all look the same," She'd told him once, almost laughing the whole time. "They've got a lot more wiggle room, before puberty. You'll have a tougher time in a year or two, but for now that soft face of yours is gonna come in handy..."
"Wait here," was Klaus' decision. "I'll access the alley myself."
"For clues?"
The man nodded. "Precisely. It won't be long. If I'm not back in half an hour, return to the room by yourself. What's your favourite food?"
Kiritsugu pursed his lips and lied. "Sushi."
Klaus rolled his eyes. "We're inland. No seafood."
"I don't want anything."
Klaus left a ten dollar bill on the table and stalked out of the cafe looking like a starving sex offender or broke private investigator, or perhaps both. Kiritsugu weighed the pros and cons of following the man, then spotted something called a sinner's sandwich on the menu and decided to order that instead.
Two bites into the turkey, jam, and cereal extravaganza, someone plopped into the seat in front of him.
"You're back already?" he wanted to say, but it came out as a 'Mmmf bhihk aahda?"
"Rude!" The reply was most definitely not delivered by the detested Spielmann. Kiritsugu looked up from his meal, saw a grinning set of white teeth and a set of bright blue eyes, and choked on his food.
"Whoa, calm down!" Someone started rubbing his back firmly, and he finally got it down. A glass of water was thrust into his arms and he downed half of it in a second.
"Don't just ambush people like that!" he protested when he was finally able to speak.
"If I didn't, you'd just run away." She settled down across from him again.
"..." He couldn't look away. It was her again. The girl he'd seen a week ago, that he'd run from. Long, pale hair. Even paler skin. A mischievous grin and warm eyes.
"Well?"
"...yeah, I guess."
She laughed. Her laugh was so much like Shirley's, it was a bit scary. But he'd definitely never seen her before.
"Who are you?" Kiritsugu asked. He'd ask to go to the washroom in a few minutes, he decided, and then sneak out the window. Some small talk wouldn't kill him.
"Rose!" the girl said triumphantly. "And you?"
"Kerry. How long-."
"That guy back there wasn't your dad." she said firmly. "You're too squinty."
"Japanese," Kiritsugu said. "I'm Japanese."
"Did he kidnap you? Are your parents not around here?" Her eyes were wide. She couldn't have been much older than him.
"He's taking care of me," said Kiritsugu. "Are you hungry?" He offered her his meal, mostly in hopes of distracting her so he could run. Right now, with her gaze capturing his, he couldn't bring himself to look away.
Rose didn't even glance at it. "I can't eat that," she said.
In lieu of speaking, Kiritsugu grabbed the sub and took a big bite, filling up his mouth. She took that as a chance to speak.
"I'm here with my brother," she chirped. "But he stays inside most of the time so I just wander around. The people here are real nice."
Kiritsugu nodded.
"But it's kinda boring, too. Nobody really does anything. It's like nothing's actually moving."
He nodded again. Now that she mentioned it, the town really was very sleepy. It reminded him of Alimango, actually. Both had that feeling of being stuck in time, like a world inside a snow globe. Until someone took to it with a hammer.
"It's like... in a river, sometimes you get patches where the current sorta stops. And it's real smooth and calm, like a lake. That's where the fish lay their eggs and all the weird things grow. That's what it reminds me of. Except I haven't found the weird yet."
"Did you live near a river?" Against his better judgement, Kiritsugu couldn't help but be curious.
Rose beamed. "Yep! Swam in it every day. Then one time my big brother nearly drowned, and after I saved him we had to move away. It's kinda scary, not having it nearby. This place doesn't have anything like it."
"I lived on an island. A small one. Right next to the beach. Before that, a bunch of places."
It was weird. She shouldn't have been so happy just from hearing Kiritsugu share a vague piece of his past. But the moment he admitted it, Rose's grin widened, as if he'd just done something miraculous.
"Hey." Rose leaned in. Over the rickety table. Her eyes filled Kiritsugu's view. "Do you miss it? I do."
"Y-yeah."
She was whispering now. Like Shirley, when they'd share a secret. "Do you ever wanna go back?"
"I..."
A waitress behind the counter giggled. Kiritsugu blinked.
"I need to go to the bathroom."
He stood up and marched to the well-kept washroom, and bolted the door. There was a small window for ventilation above the toilet. Kiritsugu lowered the seat, pushed it open, and squeezed through. The other side was an easy drop, but he still scraped his knee on the way down, not used to his baggy clothes. After getting to his feet, Kiritsugu ran all the way back to the hotel without looking back once.
Only when he was in the apartment with the door locked and Natalia's wards up did he breath a sigh of relief. Then he ripped the stupid wig from his skull and threw it on the ground.
Klaus came in an hour later, absolutely beaming. In his arms was a half-eaten sinner's sandwich.
"Hm?" Kiritsugu sat in a ball in the farthest corner from the door. A small pistol was in his hands. "Paranoia, eh? A good trait, if cultivated. Be at ease, boy."
The man sat at the table and finished the sandwich with three large bites. Then he reached into the fridge, picked out bottle of Gösser, and cracked it open. After half-draining it he sighed and his shoulders drooped.
"Okay, boy," he said. "Any reason you came back here?"
"A girl talked to me."
This set off Klaus for a good half-minute. He laughed like a dying man. "Yes, that will do it! Must have been interesting in that getup!"
"...oh." Kiritsugu blushed. He hadn't noticed. He hadn't noticed that she hadn't noticed. Despite his outwards appearance being completely different, she'd recognized and greeted him like a familiar face.
"Cheer up!" barked Klaus. "It could be worse. They likely don't know where we are, and if they do, I've extended the wards a decent amount. And your owner made herself useful, too."
Kiritsugu scrambled to his feet.
"The gun."
"Right!" With a click, the safety was on. Klaus shook his head. Kiritsugu removed the magazine, then got rid of the bullet in the chamber, and that elicited a nod.
"Good. Kaminski was nowhere to be seen."
"What?"
"Gone." Klaus took another swig, nearly finishing off the bottle. "Not without leaving behind plenty of evidence, mind you. They fixed up the wall but the bloodstains are still there. But she's likely still breathing, so sit down and calm yourself."
Kiritsugu dropped down again and crossed his legs.
"I found this," Klaus retrieved a small plastic bag from his coat pocket. Within was a bloodstained bullet. "In the wall. Marked by a small rune. She must have planted it there. Only reason she'd do that is if she were captured, not killed."
"What good will that do us?" Kiritsugu was panicking again. Just like she'd told him not to. But on the surface he was calm and ready.
"It's got my brother's blood on it. A recent trace, too. I can use it to track him down."
"But what about Natalia?"
"We can think about that later. This takes priority. The longer you wait the harder it is to get a good read on them." Klaus finished off the bottle and was on his feet in an instant. "Equipment, in the other room. Sample's big enough for two shots..." Muttering, he reached for the door handle.
"Wait!"
The gun in Kiritsugu's hands was shaking, but his voice was firm. "Natalia comes first," he said.
"Boy, my job is to capture the target, not take care of you or your soft-hearted owner."
"You asked for backup.You said you needed help. She came all the way over here-!"
"And got herself captured."
"And did what you couldn't!" Kiritsugu raised the gun, shifting his aim from gut to frowning face. "If it wasn't for her you'd still be stuck here, drinking. That's her bullet, not yours."
"Boy..."
"You said it yourself. You can't do it alone. So help her."
It didn't take a genius to see the boy was on the verge of breaking down and doing something stupid. Klaus sighed. "Fine," he said. "The tracking can wait a day."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Kiritsugu lowered the gun.
"Was that thing loaded?"
Kiritsugu just flipped the safety and stuck it into a child-sized shoulder holster, which he proceeded to shrug on under his clothes. After realizing he was still wearing the dress, he groaned. "This thing is useless."
"You're keeping it on." Klaus' foot caught the wig and threw it.
Ignoring Kiritsugu's scowl, Klaus pocketed the bagged bullet and stomped over to his suitcase. He flipped it open and fished out several vials before slamming it shut. Each one went into a different pocket save for the last, which contained a palm-sized dragonfly encased in amber.
He popped it open. "Be grateful. These things are hard to make." Before Kiritsugu's eyes the amber melted into thin air, and the insect came to life with a visible electric shock. It crawled out of the jar and onto Klaus' finger. The Enforcer nodded and knelt beside Natalia's locked suitcase, holding the insect out to it to get a scent. After a moment it began emitting a low hum and rose into the air, shaking like a spinning top.
"Hm. It's a strong signal. She's still in town," Klaus said.
"Where!?"
Klaus reached over and pulled up the blinds on the west side of the room, and then wrenched open the window and let in the hot summer air. Immediately the dragonfly flew over and buzzed more excitedly.
"About where I expected," he grumbled. "The police station."
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Originally Posted by Dullahan
