The voice came out of the shadows, nearly startling Omi off his feet. Damn it, you’re supposed to be better trained than this! he cursed himself mentally, whirling from the body lying below him and dragging out a couple of darts, reading to throw. He knew that voice.

Farfarello walked out of the shadows, grinning. He made no threatening move, but that made no difference. This was Farfarello. The psycho.

“Ain’t you gonna answer me, boy? I said, people think you’re so sweet, don’t they?”

Omi’s eyes narrowed. The Irishman obviously thought he had a point, but what it was escaped him entirely. So he ignored it. “What do you want?”

Bombay was rewarded with the second big shock of the night when Farfarello suddenly sat down on the stone floor, face totally serious, and said, “To talk.”

With the coldness that came from years of training, Omi wasted no time wondering exactly what one of Schwarz wanted to talk to him about. He considered running, or attacking. And discarded both: attacking Farfarello was suicide, running from him tantamount to the same since the man was just faster than he was—and would most likely take running away as an invitation to a private session with Omi and his knives. He shuddered.

“Siddown, boy.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice was protesting being called ‘boy’, but the rest of him was cautiously obeying Farfarello’s command. Even though it was dumb. After all, if he was here, the rest of Schwarz couldn’t be too far away. Lord knows they never let him off his leash for long.

“What do you want to talk about?” Omi offered cautiously. This was not the behaviour he was used to seeing Farfarello display, and it was making him edgy—since it made the other man unpredictable.

Omi hated things that were unpredictable.

“You,” was the blunt reply. Omi blinked, startlement making its way through no matter how hard he tried to push it back.

“What about me?” he asked, and nearly smacked himself. Half his mind was formulating a way to get out of the situation as fast as possible, the other half concentrating on any unprecedented attacks, and it seemed like neither was in control of his mouth. You do not want to draw this conversation out, Tsukiyono! he yelled at himself, but it was no good. The words had already left his mouth.

“Dinnae you ever listen, boyo?” Farfarello said, Irish accent increasing in his uncharacteristic exasperation. Omi tensed, expecting an attack.

None came. “I said, people think you’re so sweet, don’t they? Y’ ain’t given me ‘n answer yet.”

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

Farfarello grinned suddenly, yellow eye glinting in the dim light. “Ye’re s’pposed to agree or disagree, laddie.”

Oh, great. First boyo, now laddie. “Then I’d have to agree, wouldn’t I?” Omi said wryly, wondering where the hell this was going.

“But y’ aren’t sweet at all, are y’?”

Omi frowned, peering intently at Farfarello. “What do you mean?”

“Out of all yer friends,” the man nearly spat the word out, “ye’re maybe the closest to us.”

“Us?”

“Schwarz.”

Omi wasted no time. “Explain.”

“I shouldn’t be needin’ to, boyo, but if y’ insist on bein’ dense. . . .” Farfarello spread his hands, Omi’s whole body tensing and snapping into combat mode at the simple, slow gesture.

Farfarello saw it, and chuckled. “Calm down, laddie. Ye’re safe . . . fer tonight.”

Omi didn’t relax. “Or you’re just saying that to get me off my guard.”

“It’s th’ boss’s orders,” Farfarello told him, shrugging in equanimity. “Not my idea, but I’m fine with it. Been wanting t’ have talk with ye.”

Omi would have blinked in surprise at that last, but his mind was too busy cataloguing and sorting the information given and formulating a conclusion to waste idle time on mere surprise. It was fine to react normally during the day, but this was a mission—and sitting in front of him was an enemy.

“Crawford ordered you not to touch Weiss,” he concluded, somewhat obviously. “The why escapes me.”

“Ye’ve still got yer purposes,” Farfarello said easily, then all of sudden went deadly serious. “Now enough bandyin’ about, laddie, I won’t be sidetracked no more.”

“Then explain what you meant.” Omi was feeling slightly more in control of the situation, now that he had more information about. Information was power. Power was security.

“Ye’re like Schwarz,” Farfarello told him, face calm. “Y’ got yer high-an’-mighty morals, y’ got yer ordinary life, but deep down, when y’ strip it all away, ye’re as fucked up as the best of them.”

The man stood, and before Omi could move he was right in front of him, peering down.

Omi refused to panic, knowing only that it would encourage any nasty responses Farfarello could be having the impulse to implement. Instead, he stayed where he was, looking up at the scarred, insane man with a totally calm face.

Farfarello chuckled. “Y’ see what I mean?” he asked, not waiting for or wanting a reply. “We get trained, Schwarz an’ the like, till all we are is puppets for our masters. Perfect killers: enough intelligence to get the job done, an’ done well, but not enough confidence to ever leave and make it on our own.”

There was a hint of bitterness in the man’s voice, but Omi refused to think of what it might mean. “How does this relate to me?” he asked, maintaining his unnatural calm.

Farfarello reached down and caught his chin, cold fingers holding him immobile and staring up into the assassin’s one yellow eye. Feral, like an animal’s.

Omi felt no fear. He was beyond that, in the place he had been taught was vital, the place he needed to go to be able to kill. No emotions affected his clear thought, no petty attachments to get in his way.

In the darkness of his own mind, he called that place Mamoru.

When Farfarello spoke, it was with a gentleness belied by his firm grip on Omi’s chin. “Y’ got trained, too,” he said. “Y’ got trained and trained until y’ were a fallen angel, not a bairn nor a man, but a defender of God’s wee innocents, warped and twisted by humans who weren’t meant t’ touch one of His holy creations. It’s that trainin’ that stops y’ from screamin’ when the pain gets too much. It’s that trainin’ that lets y’ kill. It’s that trainin’ that cuts you off from all ye’re fightin’ fer, all the s’pposed joy of normal human life, and all y’ can do is thank them fer it. Because they trained into y’ that y’ couldn’t never do anythin’ else.”

Farfarello let go of Omi’s chin and stepped back, watching him with the oddest look on his face.

It was almost . . . pity.

“Y’ see? Not so different from me. Not so different from Schwarz.”

Farfarello chuckled, and the hollow sound echoed around the empty room. Omi was suddenly horribly aware of the body lying not so far away, the body of the man he had killed. And also horribly aware that Farfarello was right. Maybe not about the fallen angel thing, but the training . . . when had he ever stopped to question what he did? When had he ever contemplated killing a person when he had not pulled his training façade over his simple, innocent eyes?

When had he ever stopped to consider that the people he killed . . . were people?

Omi’s gaze dropped to the floor. Mamoru, he called that place. To protect . . . and yet, also his name. Mamoru. Protector. Weiss. Omi. Killer. Schwarz. The same person.

Sometimes he wondered if simply by being born he had condemned himself to this life.

“But y’know somethin’?”

Omi’s head shot up, startled—he had almost forgotten Farfarello was there. He couldn’t voice the question, but it was written all over his face.

It was uncanny, and at once soothing and terrifying to see a gentle smile on the man’s face. “There ain’t nothin’ I could ever do that’d make God cry as much as you bein’,” he said.

“W-what?”

“Y’ were meant t’ be one o’ His angels,” Farfarello told him. “Y’ were meant t’ protect, without killin’. But they changed that. Weiss, Kritiker, they changed that. Ye’re a fallen angel, Omi, an’ what makes God cry th’ most over His lost little children is that y’ don’t even know it. Neither do th’ others.”

Omi stared at him. “T-the others?” He was ashamed to hear his voice shake.

“Weiss. Schwarz. Opposites, y’see, ‘cept the people in ‘em aren’t. All we are is shades of grey, an’ every day we get closer.” His smile had superiority in it now, a smug haughtiness worthy of a certain German redhead. “Th’ last step of a fallen angel, Omi, is fer ‘im to admit he’s fallen. An’ that’s the only thing keepin’ you an’ yer friends from bein’ exactly like us. An’ y’know what?” he paused, but once again appeared not to need an answer. “Th’ only thing keepin’ Schwarz from bein’ Schwarz, not jus’ a dark shade o’ grey, is that we’re honest.” Insanity was creeping back into his amber eye, the wild, feral gaze fixed solely on Omi. “We’re the dark side, kiddo, but we’re not th’ dark. An’ that’s just coz if nothin’ else, we’re honest about what we are.”

He paused, and delivered the final blow. “But Weiss? Two steps, an’ ye’re the dark. Kudou’s closest, I’m thinkin’, jus’ a shade from Schuldig.” He laughed suddenly, a harsh bark of sound. “What’ll he change his name too, I’m wonderin’? Sünde? That’d be laugh, wouldn’t it, Guilt an’ Sin.” All amusement fled as he looked down at Omi. “But he don’t make God cry. An’ neither does Fujimiya, or Hidaka. But ye. . . .”

Farfarello’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a look that was half grin, half snarl. “Y’ make God cry. Y’ make him weep, because ye’re two steps from the edge an’ a mile past the line, an’ y’ don’t even know it. So fer that, if nothin’ else, ye’re safe from me. Because I don’t ever want God to stop cryin’, an’ ye’re doin’ a fine job o’ that by yerself.”

And then he was gone, leaving a shocked Tsukiyono Omi in his shattered Mamoru shell, crouching beside a dead man he’d killed for no other reason than that he was told to, and realising for the first time in his life just how close he was to being someone that lived for nothing more than death and murder.

Weiss. Schwarz. And all the shades of grey, splattered with blood.

And a voice drifted back to him through the night, “Two steps, Omi . . . two steps. . . .”