Abs Calamitas
Numbers: 1:9
Anime: Witch Hunter Robin

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! I'm glad everyone is enjoying the story so much, I'm glad to be writing it. MegaCon was a blast this year (my first convention ever) and I’m looking forward to some more this season. I’ll be sure to let everyone know where I’ll be.

---

The scissors were sharp enough, she knew, having tested them by trimming the ends of her own hair. The cuts were straight, there was no fraying of the ends that came from a dull blade. She stared at Amon for a moment.

Would he let her get close enough to use them?

It had been months… a year? Perhaps a year since he had pulled his gun on her. Since he had attempted to shoot her.

He had not shot her.

It was a very strange sensation of betrayal that she felt when she thought about the incident. About the whole of what had transpired at the STN-J between the two of them. There was something very comforting about how he had been with her, by her side, but there was something ruthless in how he had lied to her, tricked her into going into the warehouse. No one else had been briefed on the mission.

She should have known there was something more to the situation. But at the time she had blindly trusted Amon. Since then…

Since then things had changed. In Touko’s apartment, she knew what had stopped Amon from killing her. But that was after the incident in the warehouse. Why hadn’t he shot then?

---

Nagira rushed out of the office, pulling his coat on as he took the stairs out of the building two at a time. Touko had sounded…

He was unsure what the proper adjective to describe Touko’s tone was. Despite a broad range of experience, he was not adept at discerning the moods of a woman he had spent no time with. A smile tugged the corner of his lips. Touko was another one of Amon’s girls.

It amusing to think of Amon as that type. The stern, dark watchdog revealed as a ruthless hunter of the opposite sex.

Nagira chuckled.

The only thing Amon hunted was Witches.

Nagira wondered if his brother was still doing that. But he put the question out of his mind as he entered the subway tube. He’d lied to Hanamura-san. That was wrong, he knew. But it didn’t have to get out of hand.

He swiped his metro pass and headed down the stairs to the trains. It would take two hours to get to his destination, and he could not be certain how long he would be once he got there. Waiting for the proper train in the press of the other people in the station, he took out his cell phone.

Hana-chan couldn’t get too upset if he informed the client that he would be late. She knew what he was like, there was nothing to suggest anything other than his usual behavior. And if she did, perhaps it was time to get a new secretary. Hanamura Mika had lasted the longest to date, for various reasons.

One secretary had been shot on the way to her car. She’d not only quit, but sued Nagira for endangerment of his workers. He’d settled out of court once he got the formal letter she’d written him. It wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to advertise. The papers wrote up the incident as a mugging, and his secretary had agreed to let that stand.

Another secretary had gone to the market for dinner, and simply never returned. After that, he decided against employing Solomon labeled Seeds in his office staff. It was alright to have close ties with them, as he wasn’t on Solomon’s watch grid, but keeping them in arms’ distance of him was a bit dicey. And if one of them were to awaken to violent powers in the office…

Well, it could get violent. It had.

Amon had relayed the information to his brother that time. His words were cold, his gaze was livid. After the hunt, the dark haired younger brother left the returning Factory retrieval van and got into his car. A quick drive downtown was all it took to pay his older brother a visit.

Nagira’s jaw still clicked sometimes, when it was cold.

There had been one or two that were very dedicated to him. Too dedicated… It was eerie, what some women would settle for, given the right timing.

A good secretary, a stable one that had no designs on a wedding band, was hard to find, apparently. Maybe it was the part of Japan he was in. Maybe it was a general aversion to the clerical occupation. Whatever, he was glad to have Hanamura as his secretary.

The phone conversation ended, and his commute to the meeting began. Thankfully, while he couldn’t smoke on the trains, he could chew nicotine gum. It was nowhere near as satisfying. Nicotine gum had a very low death toll to its name, publicly anyway. There was little threatening about chewing a piece of gum. It didn’t engage those around him, it didn’t actively change the quality of the breathing he was doing. But it was good enough to subdue his oral fixation.

It took half a pack of the stuff to get him all the way to his destination, and by then his clicking jaw was reminding him how much of a jerk his brother could be. He got off the train and headed out of the station, then took a cab to the tea house that Masaki-san had indicated she would be waiting at.

The minute he opened the doors to enter, he knew what sort of place it was that he was entering. No one turned to look at him, but the head waiter bowed his head to the customer at the counter and turned to greet him politely with a deeper bow. Nagira returned it, but couldn’t shake the feeling that even though no one was aimed at him, they were all watching.

Masaki Touko was seated at the small counter, and when he stepped over to her, she got off her bar stool and headed to the back of the shop.

As he ducked past the cloth curtain covering the tea house’s rear seating from the front, he knew why she had chosen this place. Here, in the back, it was silent and somewhat dim. There were no interruptions.

Touko folded herself onto a seating cushion, and poured him a cup of tea. “It’s the sort of place where no one listens when they’re told not to,” she said.

“If you’re someone they listen to, or if you pay enough,” Nagira replied, taking the seat across from her. It wasn’t as easy as it could or perhaps should have been to fold himself down onto the cushion and sit at the table, but he did it. He picked up the cup. “Arigatou,” he said before taking a sip.

---

The answer was fairly simple, really. Amon didn’t shoot Robin because he was unsure that she deserved to be shot. He did not believe her to be a Witch the way that Zaizen claimed. She felt too wholesome… and he wanted to believe that. It was one of the rare instances in his life in which he did exactly as he wished instead of moving as he was directed and as was logical. A doubt had been enough for him before, to terminate Kate. It was simple. Kate was falling, and so he had done what had to be done to stop her fall.

He had been too dogmatic to see that he had only pushed Kate’s fall harder.

And if a doubt was enough to end a life, the same had to be true about saving one.

Robin was not a Witch like those they hunted for the STN-J, for Solomon. Robin was Robin. She was a feeling, sensible person who could smile, and even laugh when the occasion warranted it. There was no reason to shoot Robin.

Besides, that logical part of his mind reminded him, she was very good at getting out of the way of bullets. Or stopping them.

But was there doubt in Robin’s mind?

Amon put the thought away and chose not to think on it further. She had a sharp pair of scissors, and he was seated calmly at her mercy.

He was sitting in a chair in the bathroom. His hair wouldn’t be dyed, as hers was, but it was easily trimmed. Robin stood behind him with a pair of scissors that were marked on the product packaging as being ‘for use on hair’. She stared at the back of his head, wondering if changing the way he looked would change the attraction she felt for him.

‘If that’s it,’ she thought as she lifted a comb to his thick black hair, ‘then it is a silly crush.’

Robin stepped to the side and leaned Amon’s head back slightly over the sink. She cupped water in one hand and began to dampen his hair. Amon stared at the ceiling for most of it. She let a small smile broaden the curve of her lips, and gently ran her fingers through his hair.

It felt nice.

He made himself content with acknowledging that her fingers in his hair felt nice. He didn’t let people this close. Touko was not this close to him… Kate had never done something like this.

His mother had, long ago, he was certain.

He had never stared at his mother in a towel. It wasn’t the sort of thing one did to a mother. He felt his eyes turn and look up at Robin. She was diligent at the task of dampening his hair, and her eyes were focused on it. He could easily see the small smile on her lips. It relaxed him. He liked it.

His own lips relaxed in response to her mood.

How long had he been tense? Was it natural to be this eased by someone else’s mood changing? For many years, Amon had avoided the sort of contact he was having with Robin. There was a reason for it. Trusting people… more than just to be competent… acknowledging their opinions and being together with someone… it was dangerous.

He was unaware that he was staring so intently at Robin’s face until he found the green eyes meeting his own. Between their gaze, in his peripheral vision, he could see that she was breathing more heavily than normal. He ignored it. Just a haircut, he told himself.

Robin’s slender fingers cupped the back of his head and she lifted it slowly, making sure that the dampness remained on the towel draped around his shoulders as he sat up. Her fingertips lingered for a long moment. She knew it, she knew he could feel them… but she did not care at that moment. He was letting her touch him, letting her be close.

Physically close in a way that he still had yet to open up to her intellectually. In space, and in sharing, they were as intimate as the colors of light and dark that made up the yin yang symbol. But there was very little about them that touched. Very little was beyond functional partnering. Trust and protection.

This was beyond it, if only for her.

“How short, do you think?” She asked as she lifted the comb and straightened his wet locks. They fell longer wet than they did when they were dry. His bangs came down to his chin, and the rest was past his shoulders.

“Several inches, at least.”

Gently, Robin marked a length with her finger against the side of his face.

Amon noted the slight tremble, but ignored it for the moment in favor of the luxuriousness of contact with someone. It was nothing he had been missing, before, but something that for a moment was all he cared about.

“Good enough,” he said.

And then the scissors and comb were working.

He closed his eyes, preferring to feel, for the moment, the closeness of her presence in the bathroom, the warmth of her and the way she moved as she cut. Careful. She was being very careful, not that she was ever flamboyant or flashy with moving. She was controlled.

Which was why she was safe.

This Robin could not be the one that was a Witch. If there was a Witch Robin that existed. This Robin was safe. This Robin was his.

Amon’s eyes opened.

His?

“Amon?” Robin asked softly.

He closed his eyes again, trying to relax in the chair as he had been before. But she knew, he could feel it in the hesitation of the scissors cutting through his hair. The haircut finished, and Robin set the scissors down. She turned to the sink, still standing beside the chair, and washed her hands.

Amon turned his head to the side slightly, glancing at her again. She was still barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top. Her back was curved, her eyes focusing on the sink. She was always so focused.

Her hip was less three inches from his shoulder.

He had to wonder, if she was so focused, was that what put her that close, or kept her that far?

---

The two of them sipped their tea quietly… politely, for almost fifteen minutes. Nagira made a low comment about the flavor being good, and Touko just smiled. They were silent for twenty more, until finally Touko set her tea cup down on the table.

At last, Nagira thought, someone’s going to say something.

“Amon,” Touko said, turning her head slightly to regard one of the wall scrolls hanging in the small, somewhat dim tea room.

Nagira kept silent, wondering what about Amon had urged Touko to call him all the way out here. What about… the situation she didn’t understand.

“Is he dead?”

A confused little noise came out of Nagira’s throat as he looked at Touko. What was it, a year ago now when Amon broke it off with this woman? And what was it that Amon had said when asked about it…

Nagira had been curious about his brother’s relationship with the well-connected daughter of the head honcho at STN-J, but Amon seemed… apathetic, disconnected in regards to it. There was nothing in his tone when he said that it was casual to hint at any sort of feeling about it.

It made Nagira wonder whose idea it had been to start.

After Amon had gone from the house they both grew up in, after he’d come back to Japan from wherever he’d gone, he was still a teenager. He was still a teenager, and he was suddenly someone else’s problem. Zaizen had arranged for everything regarding Amon’s living situation… Had Zaizen arranged for Touko as well? Had his brother been sneaky about it? Was there some deeply buried affection that Amon simply didn’t show? Or had it been by Touko’s design that the two of them happened… even casually?

Amon, you bastard, was all that Nagira could think at that moment. One more problem you dumped in my lap. One more of your women.

“Let me ask you this,” Nagira replied. “You think a couple tons of concrete could kill Amon?”

Touko reached for her tea cup again. “He’s only human,” she said, looking up to meet Nagira’s eyes as she did.

A chill jolted the nerves in Nagira’s spine. He looked back at Touko with a blank expression for a moment as the words she spoke sank in. It was true… Seed or not, Amon was just a human being. Robin was just a human being, Witch or not. The collapse of the Factory was more than enough to kill a human being.

Touko’s eyes continued to hold Nagira’s, until he laughed.

“Sure,” Nagira said once he recovered himself enough to paste a smile on his face. “Sure, Amon’s human, you and I are the Witches.”

A jolt made Touko sit up straight, and her lips pressed together in an angry line. “He’s human,” she said firmly. “Amon’s just like you and me.”

Bored at repeating the same conversation with the potentially delusional woman again and again, Nagira tipped back the last of his tea and rose. He bowed to her and headed through the partition again. This was what he’d wasted the afternoon on? What was so special about Touko that he had come all the way out here to talk with her?

Nagira headed back to the train station, and stood waiting. He checked the schedule, and then his watch. There was time before his train would arrive… a lot of it. He kicked a piece of trash and headed over to a vending machine to get a cup of coffee.

That tea tasted rancid where it lingered on his tongue.

Something about that whole conversation was stagnant and wrong. He hated tasting air like that, let alone tea. Carrying the warm can of coffee, he headed back over to one of the benches in the small station and took a seat before popping the top open.

“Is this sort of thing really healthy?” a soft female voice asked.

Not seeing the speaker, he could almost imagine it was Robin asking him that question. Innocently peering into the grocery store packaging over his shoulder or holding a pair of chopsticks awkwardly poised over the food in front of her.

He didn’t bother to turn.

He’d left the tea house, he hadn’t run from it. It wouldn’t have been hard for Touko to follow him down to the terminal.

“You’ve had it before too, I’m sure,” he said, taking a sip.

Touko sat on the bench beside him. She was wearing a coat that was buttoned up, he could see out of the corner of his eye. She looked warm in it. He shifted his suit jacket on his shoulders, wishing he’d worn his too.

A train pulled into the station. The noise of the brakes was loud, it needed to be serviced. It was a grating noise, loud and drowning. Touko said something, but all he could hear was the grinding of the brakes on the train as it slowed to a stop.

It sounded almost like the Factory’s stones.

As the sound faded away, Nagira could hear Touko’s words. “You think this visit was a waste of your time,” she said. She was reaching into her jacket. She took out an envelope and set it beside her on the bench. “I would hate to think that could be true… if he’s alive it’s not, I suppose.”

Nagira sipped more of his coffee. He could almost taste the chemicals they’d put in it to make it warm when it opened.

“But if he’s dead, you deserve to be compensated.”

“I don’t need your compensation, lady,” Nagira said, taking the envelope from beside him. He held it out to her.

Touko’s eyes, when he met them, tucked between a hat and the collar of her jacket, were hopeful. She smiled softly when he held the envelope up to her. But she didn’t take it. Standing, Touko put a pair of gloves on. Behind them, another train pulled into the station.

“I’m sure you’ll find some use for it,” Touko said, watching the people as they got out of the train.

Nagira frowned. “I said, I don’t need it, especially if you think this was a waste of my time.” He held the envelope up to her.

Touko looked down at Nagira for a moment, and her eyes were warm. “He never is, is he?” She stepped past the bench and headed over to board the train that was announcing the passenger loading.

Nagira sat on the bench for a long moment with the envelope outstretched, and then tucked it into his own jacket. He finished his coffee and got onto his own train soon as it pulled into the station.