A/N

It is Shiro's birthday! So he gets to be a little shit! :D And I get to write and have funnnnn!

I'm so excited! Semester is nearing its end and I want to get back to you all so much, but in the meantime I'll thank you here for being so kind and supportive. I'm not the best communicator, likely never will be, but thinking about all the interactions I've had with you throughout the years always makes me glow with happiness. Thinking about everything we still have ahead is daunting at times but I trust we'll have fun with that, too. I may be tired but ohhh I've been looking forward to writing again and it feels wonderful, like I'm a cow let back out on the pasture in spring. xD Take care, everyone, and stay awesome! I'll see you soon again, hopefully!

/Dimwit

Special thanks to optimustaud for another two characters: Amit Sahebkar and Brian Polchak.

Shiro wasn't sure if he could call it progress. He could make his own breakfast, Modugno had grudgingly accepted that. But laundry, cleaning, and any cooking more advanced than a ham sandwich was beyond his capacity, clearly. And now this. This… lunch pack thing that had greeted him when he walked into the kitchen this morning. The brown paper bag contained an apple and a sandwich – high-tech stuff, both ham and salad – and an unspoken threat that he better take that lunch with him, or else.

Shiro did take the bag. As it turned out, he might actually have use for that lunch pack.

He recognised Gino the chunk of dog at first glance when he crossed the street two blocks from where he had first met him and Maria. The big, beige menace might have recognised him, too. It stilled, tail sharply upward, and stared at him. Shiro stopped as well. They measured each other quietly, unsure what footing they were on when their mutual little acquaintance wasn't there to mediate.

"I know we don't exactly know each other", he started, slowly resuming his walk towards Gino. "But you probably need this more than I do."

Gino took a cautious couple of steps back when the sandwich rustled out of the paper bag. Shiro stopped a few meters shy of the dog, holding out the treat. Gino growled. It vibrated through his whole body out to the tip of the slim tail.

"Good morning to you, too, grumpy." Shiro took a demonstrative bite out of the sandwich as he navigated a semi-circle around Gino and continued towards Vatican City. Hadn't expected the same warm welcome Maria got, but not this level of discrimination. Animals were usually less judgemental than people. Then again… Gino had learnt to expect treats from the little girl. What had he come to expect from adult men? Kicks and hurled bottles? It would take more than a sandwich to win back that trust.

Shiro threw a glance over his shoulder, but the dog was gone.

Shiro was beginning to seriously doubt that he'd ever be a Knight. Not that he couldn't handle a sword, he was quite confident he would be able to use a sword against demons. As long as they didn't look human. That he trembled and dripped with sweat after Knight class was only partially due to the actual physical exercise. Bébé was probably forming the same image his landlady had, that he was just naturally incompetent. It sucked, because he knew he wasn't, but letting Bébé know why he couldn't raise a sword against his classmates wasn't an option. Just had to grit his teeth through it.

Flavio and G were a blessing that way. They were absolutely ruthless in pointing out when somebody screwed up, but they did it in a playful manner that helped ground him in the present. After showers and lunch they were going to take Shiro for that city tour, which may or may not include making him try an espresso because Flavio insisted there was no way to have the true Italian experience without coffee. The three of them were headed for the canteen next to the Barracks when Shiro spotted a head of black curls with a circlet of animal fur. He had seen her pass by outside the gym hall, too, but that had been in the middle of training.

"I'll catch you guys in the canteen, there's something I gotta do first." He jogged after the disappearing exorcist, shoving the mop of freshly showered hair out of his eyes. "Hey! Luka!"

He caught up with her on the narrow, abandoned street halfway to the Vatican library.

"Alexander. If that's how you want to be called."

"Yeah yeah, Alexander's fine – listen. About the other day. My family is shit, I've accepted that, I don't know what your family relations are like and I didn't mean to say anything insulting." Luka stared at him with a nonplussed look. Fine. Fine, he might owe her that. "I'm sorry."

She was puzzled. More than puzzled – perplexed, and the lines on her forehead only deepened by the second.

"You can't disrespect your ancestors in one breath and apologise for it in the next. That's… doubly disrespectful."

"Wait, are you angry because I disrespect my ancestors?"

"What else would I be angry for?"

Beyond the realm of perplexed lies a whole other dimension of befuddlement, known only to those who make contact with a culture that has evolved separately from their own for several thousand years.

"I thought you were angry 'cause I had disrespected your culture or something."

"You are disrespecting my culture by disrespecting your ancestors!"

"How the fuck does that make any sense?" He really had to work on his seminarian persona. Slip up like this in front of goody-two-shoes Remo and there would be suspicions.

Luka wanted to explode. But Shiro was clearly daft, and you can't be angry at an idiot who doesn't even understand what you're angry for – not unless you first make an effort to explain.

"Your ancestors gave you life." She stressed that with both hands, making a motion as if drawing something from herself and giving it to him. "It doesn't matter if you're Zulu or not, they literally gave you life. As an exorcist, you know the veil between worlds is thin. Your ancestors watch over you, always, and they help you – but if you anger them, they punish you. If this is how you've been treating them, I expect you would have been flooded with one misfortune after the other."

Incredible, how an isolated island in the North Pacific and a tribe in South Africa somehow managed to have such similar beliefs about ancestors. Shiro did his best to focus on that so he wouldn't have to pay attention to how very applicable Luka's analysis was. One misfortune after the other, quite literally from the other side.

He'd rather be dead than grovel before his family grave anyway. So, his ancestors gave life to this ungrateful son of a bitch: their mistake, not his.

"I take full credit for the misfortune I put myself in", he clarified with scathing calm. "And for the record, my family abandoned me, so if they punish me for abandoning them in return then I say they're the ones being doubly disrespectful." Hadn't this talk taken a wonderful turn of events? Good job, well done. "I said my apologies, that's all you're gonna get."

Shiro turned and strode back in the direction of the Barracks and the canteen. He would have his food, and then he would have an afternoon with his friends, and no bad mood was going to ruin that.

"I have apologies to make, too. Alexander!" Luka was walking next to him in no time, insistently seeking eye contact. "You don't deserve to be alone. But you're making it difficult to–" She pitched forward with a yelp.

Shiro had barely registered what happened when something wrapped around his shins and he fell on his face next to her. God, his palms were throbbing… Rolling over to have a look, the something that had tripped him was a thin rope with round metal weights attached to the ends.

"Your falling techniques suck."

Shiro verbally failed his seminarian persona again. He recognised that voice. So did Luka, by the sounds of it. Out of fucking nowhere, Mad came shuffling towards her felled prey with a disappointed look.

"I wasn't prepared." Luka barely contained the snarl as she struggled to unwind the string from her shins.

"That's kinda the point. Anyway, I'm borrowing your boyfriend a bit."

"He's not my boyfriend."

She said it with such vehement heat that Shiro had to clarify:

"She prefers 'friend with benefits'."

Luka really had no sense of humour. She did have a mean left hook. He could respect that. As long as he could get his glasses repaired before the next mission.

"Sorry to interrupt the domestic violence but I need him in one piece. You can have him back later."

Shiro struggled out of the rope, with half a mind to trip Mad with it but that wobbly shit wouldn't be as straightforward as throwing a rock or a ball.

"I'm coming with you."

Shiro and Mad both turned. Luka was back on her feet, with a look that wouldn't take no for an answer.

"You sure he's not your boyfriend?"

"I am sure, and I don't trust you."

"Good", Mad grinned, and waved them both along.

Neither of them spoke after that. Shiro tried to mentally catalogue what Mad could have in mind and didn't like the possibilities. She had shared Samael's stupid Paladin comment with the class. If she knew anything more than that, he'd rather not have Luka around to learn about it.

They didn't have to go far. The outline of the sturdy Barracks came into view, and when they entered Shiro thought they might be heading back to the Knight gym hall. They made it almost there when Mad led them down the path that had smelled like rotten eggs when Bébé gave Shiro the tour. The corridor in turn split like a T, where Mad turned left into a new corridor. She pounded her fist on the first door. Nothing happened.

"I know you're in there, Cog! I can smell the stink!"

"That's 'cause your nose is right above your mouth!" Cog answered from within.

Mad pursed her lips, chin tipping upwards as she evaluated that response. Then she took a step back and kicked the door open.

Next thing Shiro knew, Mad was wheezing for air on the floor. He briefly entertained the idea that the door had kicked her back when he spotted a foam ball, like the ones kids played with in school, that rolled down the corridor as if fleeing the scene of the crime.

"Your falling technique sucks", he said, dropping the weighted rope on her and eliciting a series of choked curses in a foreign language.

When Shiro peeped into the room, he was met by the sight of a huge… crossbow. Maybe? It had arms like one, but the construction was bulkier than anything a human could load or shoot, and thus it stood braced in a heavy wooden frame on the floor. The still trembling rope was fitted with a pouch that looked perfect for launching items about the size of foam balls.

"Nice…" Shiro zoned out of the sound of Mad coughing her lungs up and quietly admired Cog's flat. He had machines for every kind of wood and metal working needed, and the walls were covered in blueprints and exploded view drawings of weapons. Shiro couldn't identify even half of them but he did recognise the draft of the crossbow, as well as several da Vinci designs he had seen on his tour of Castel Sant'Angelo.

"Shack! Shack!" screeched a brightly coloured parrot, excitedly hopping from side to side on its branch. The blueprint wallpaper only reached three fourths up to the ceiling, where it shied away from a canopy of branches and odd bits of wood. Cog had nailed them to the walls and to each other in a manner that made the flat seem like a cave with tree roots growing in from above.

"You break my door, I break your ribs. That way we can both enjoy a pain in the ass for–" The phone rang, and Cog looked up from the beam he was planing. "Oh, Hep's buddy is here, too? And Mr Pureblood? How's that Walther working for you?"

"Just fine. You", Shiro nodded at the giant crossbow, "built that?"

"Sure did. That's a scorpio." Technically, it was a scorpio: emotionally, it was his flatmate. "These were used as far back as the war against Hannibal. Except this", he touched the hand crank at the end of the scorpio body. "That's a modification from the Middle Ages. It can shoot shield-piercing bolts up to 100 m, though I don't think this one packs quite that much power – I've only had volunteers for short range testing."

In the hallway, Mad might have had something to say about his definition of volunteers. It sounded like she was swallowing an ocean.

"It's so cool, how simple materials from back then can actually trump our supposedly superior modern stuff: specially cured ox tendon, that's what you're supposed to have to create the most efficient torsion engine."

The phone on Cog's desk still rang. Shiro didn't know who would call the weapon's master directly but assumed it would have to be important.

"I've been wanting to build full-scale ballistae for the Vatican City battlements for the past six years but the Grigori aren't easy to convince. That's still a no." Cog's raised eyebrows considered that a very unfortunate and ill-informed choice on the Grigori's part. Perhaps that was why he was ignoring the phone. "But if I can show them this they might change their minds, it performs really well – and this is just a small one, if they agree to fund me I could make customised ballistae with more projectile options, automated reload, just – this technology has so much to offer! And for a combat unit like ours? This is where our roots are, this is the kind of technology that was in use around the birth of Western exorcism! Just picture that – knights and weaponry evolving alongside each other, an ongoing process for fifteen centuries!"

"How much would it weigh if you made it mobile?" Shiro tested the rope with two fingers, mentally picturing the possibility of shooting shield-piercing bolts 100 m in the field. "Without the stand, like a crossbow?"

"Some 15-20 kg, maybe. The issue wouldn't be the weight so much as the distribution of it. All weight ends up in front, you can't hold a steady aim like that."

"I could", Shiro thought. If he'd be allowed to make use of that strength.

Cog could describe in great detail how the scorpio had originated as a Greek artillery device called the oxybeles, which had later been adopted by the Romans since there was nothing Roman that hadn't once been Greek. Luka's face seemed to suggest she regretted coming along after all.

"Shouldn't you answer the phone?" she asked.

"That's Polikarpov." Cog did not look at the phone; he was pointing at another red and green parrot Shiro hadn't noticed. "She imitates a phone when she's in a good mood. The one who likes to see targets hit is Cutlass. Banshee and Corsair are in bird prison for escaping out in the corridor. Again."

Mad was in a good mood, too. She had gotten back up on her feet, and it turned out some of those hacking noises weren't coughs.

"I win!" Mad's hoarse laugh made her sound like a demented ghoul. "You're a hypocrite, Cog! A total blazing hypocrite pacifist!"

Cog looked at the junior exorcists in a manner that suggested this, too, had been an ongoing process for fifteen centuries. "And she's an anti-religious misanthrope protecting humanity on behalf of the Roman Catholic church."

"A pacifist can't love weapons!"

"I like the mechanics of weapons, I don't think they should ever be used against people. Or animals. We've been through this a hundred times, just say what you want and I'll tell you to piss off."

"Your extra accurate scales – you were working on them that time I almost caught Corsair. I got a volunteer to test them out."

Cog telling them to piss off included the information that the scales were already tested, that he had delivered them to Amit, and that Mad should keep her grimy hands off his birds.

"Want me to help with that?" he asked, eyeing Shiro's glasses and then throwing a sceptical glance at Mad. "Fix the frame, file an abuse report?"

"Training accident, actually. But yeah if you can fix them, sure. Thanks."

They left Cog's flat to find the Amit guy, who was apparently also a resident of this corridor, whatever it was. It seemed less part of the actual Barracks and more like a dorm for adults.

"Corsair's gonna be my dinner some day."

Misfit adults.

"Grilled or boiled?" Shiro offered. Luka shot him a most disapproving look.

"I'll deep fry it." Mad scooped up the foam ball and began tossing it up and down. Shiro's fingers twitched, bracing internally for a surprise headshot. "With some fresh spring onion and croutons – I want it crispy enough that Cog can hear me eat through the walls."

"You could do water chestnuts." Because that conversation was lost before it even started, and because Mad would have to try harder if she wanted to bait him into an argument.

"That actually sounds tasty. Hoy, Bruce-Shoes! Got any new kicks to try out?"

Mad passed the ball to Bruce, who barely had time to close the door behind him. Shiro squinted. Bruce was a stocky fellow, with blonde hair that looked like it rarely saw a brush. That was about as much as he could make out without glasses. Bruce had some very good reflexes, though, and seemed to realise there were people in the corridor only when he had already caught the ball.

Even without glasses, Shiro could see the fresh blue and black marks that covered his arms.

"No, these are old. But Brian likes them. He likes green." Brian must like green a whole lot, if he had picked out those neon green kids' shoes for his dad. Or uncle. "Have you got any new cadavers?"

"Nah. Gonna go shopping this weekend, see what I find."

"Brian wants a wolf."

"What, birds and badgers aren't good enough?" Bruce didn't answer that, but his troubled squirming suggested it wasn't. Mad ruffled his hair, ending with a soft smack on his head. "Off with you. And if you see Cog, return that ball to his face."

"Who's Brian?" Shiro asked when Bruce had gone, because that kid must be quite the character.

"He's Brian. We just call him Bruce for fun."

"Why does he speak of himself in third person?" Luka wanted to know.

"Ask him that and I'll punch your teeth in", Mad responded conversationally. Shiro was debating whether he should ask why they called him Bruce, or ask about what he did with dead animals, when they reached the last door of the corridor. Mad barged in without so much as a knock. "Hey Stinky, you using those scales right now?"

Amit looked like a man who might, in another time and place, have spent his days drawing exquisitely illustrated maps, or written detailed studies of the social behaviours of birds. He looked like a man who dedicated himself to work with the serene passion of a lapping ocean, but most of all he looked startled. Then he looked resigned. Then he looked at the door and all the futile efforts it represented.

"Did you break it?"

"Not what I asked, short stuff."

"Because if you did break it, I have a written statement from the Quartermaster General that you will pay any repairs or replacements, and–"

"I just opened it, jeez, it's not broken! The scales – where are they?"

It took Shiro a long time to place what Amit's flat reminded him of, but then it clicked: it looked like a certain laboratory of a certain alchemist in 17th century Poland. This laboratory wasn't in a tower and everything was more modern, but there were cabinets stocked with flasks and the weirdly shaped glass equipment for distillation looked surprisingly similar even now. Then there were the scales. One had to assume they were scales. They looked like a clockwork enthusiast had built a gym machine and added a few extra sets of weights, pull levers, and gears for the aesthetic of it.

"I asked for scales to measure chemical compounds with", Amit clarified when Mad inspected the construction like one inspects crashed spacecraft.

"And you got a classic Cog Customisation", she muttered, bending to scrutinise the markings on the various levers. It could absolutely weigh in milligram intervals. It could weigh in kilograms, too. Up to half a tonne. "There's a knob here that changes the unit from grams to ounces." She turned her head towards them with a haunted expression. "That knob should not exist."

A sinking feeling of dread settled in Shiro's gut. It had nothing to do with measurement units, unless that was what Cog decided to customise his glasses with. He would have run back to the weapon's master if Mad hadn't addressed him next:

"Get up there, kid."

Amit, who seemed to know Mad quite well, did not question her when she waved her student up on the scales.

"Wait. Just let me adjust it first." Amit did something with the levers that made the bars of the scales shift and clink affirmatively once they had switched from a very light set of weights to one that looked more gym appropriate. "There", he said listlessly. "I assume he doesn't weigh more than 500 kg?"

Shiro stepped onto the weighing plate; the platform dipped, the pulleys whispered, wire croaked against metal, and Mad stared at the numbers for the longest time.

"But it is accurate…" Amit scrunched his forehead at the scales. "It's absolutely accurate. So–"

"So how do you weigh 98 kg", he couldn't see Mad's gaze, but he could feel it, "with that scrawny body of yours?"

"Dense bones and lots'a muscle."

It wasn't a lie. Much like Cog's engineering feats, the human body is an adaptable construction. Shiro knew perfectly well how much he weighed after all that special training he did: he had written it on Mad's initial exam.

"Lots'a muscle?" Mad's eyes roved over him, lingering on his stark white hair and deceptively lithe frame. Then she lit up. "Ha! They did it! The fucking Japs, they did it! Human weapons straight outta the factory!"

"What?" It was the only possible response. Sadly, it was out of Shiro's mouth just seconds before Amit lamented 'don't get her started'.

This was how Shiro learned that there was something called Unit 731, or had been something called Unit 731. Possibly. If you believed Mad's ravings about a secret, government sanctioned facility in Manchuria where the Japanese had performed experiments on captured civilians. It had something to do with biological warfare, and potentially with enhancing human soldiers. It also had to do with Templars, somebody called Bilderberg, and the CIA. Possibly.

"Are we done here? 'Cause I want my glasses, and then I want lunch."

Mad was satisfied: Cog was not. He had ideas about tinted glass for enhanced contrast when shooting, and flexible coils instead of hinges for shock absorption so the frame wouldn't bend when hit. He hadn't had time to do either of that, and Shiro wasn't about to give him that time.

" Well that was interesting ", Shiro said non-committally when he and Luka left the Barracks. " I wonder if she always attacks people when she wants something. Instead of 'hi' or 'excuse me'. Just goes straight for a suplex. "

"I've heard she does worse things."

"That's why you insisted on coming along?" Against better knowledge, he pulled a cheeky smile. "Worried about me?"

Luka gave him a glare that knew what he was trying to do and would have none of it. "We are teammates."

"M-mh. And you were holding onto that in case you'd have to defend me?" He nodded at the rope and weights still in her hand.

"People like Johanna Stridsberg don't listen to words. They only understand action."

Couldn't argue with that. Couldn't get Luka into any proper bantering either.

"Hey, can I have that? If you're not gonna use it?"

"I'm not sure about giving you a weapon."

"Come on, I won't hurt anyone with it."

"I'm more worried about you hurting yourself with it."

Shiro had to conduct a full ten second analysis of just what the fuck was going on. Because Luka didn't joke. It was very evident that she wasn't a joking person, yet here she was, saying things that from every angle looked like a joke, but with a perfectly serious face, and–

"God, you've seen me in Battista's class", Shiro groaned. "Swords are an exception, alright? I'm not actually that bad."

He kept trying to convince her of that throughout the walk and throughout the meal in the canteen, where he had the pleasure of telling Flavio and Gianpiero exactly why he was so late for lunch. Luka was very hard to convince when she had made up her mind.

A/N

Shack is Air Force slang for confirming you've hit the target.

Scorpio
There's nothing to say that Cog hasn't said already. He's a nerd like that. I like him. C:

Cutlass, Banshee, Corsair, and Polikarpov are all military aircraft. I cannot remember why exactly I chose these – I started writing this lonnnnnng ago. x'D I just remember I sat for hours going through planes to find ones that matched the time-frame for Cog's service as a military technician. Cutlass, Banshee, and Corsair models he would have worked with, but he would never have seen a Polikarpov plane and I can't for the life of me remember why I decided on that name. =/ It's a very funny series of planes though: there were so many models made and most of them were only made in one or two prototypes before the project was cancelled and a new one begun. Many were very accident prone, that was part of why they weren't mass produced. Idk, maybe Cog's Polikarpov was always a bit of an oddball and he named her Polikarpov for that...

Muscle mass
For men, muscle weight usually constitutes around 40% of the total body weight. Now, Shiro's condition should give him a serious case of muscular hypertrophy, so let's put that at 50%. Half of the guy is muscle and for the rest he's very lean. Strongmen – the ones who lift some 300 kgs without much effort – typically weigh over a hundred kilos themselves. But not all of that is muscle, making it hard to draw direct parallels to Shiro. You don't have to weigh that much either, as shown by the amazing CJ Cummings, who stands at 69 kgs but lifts 185 kgs. That could be Shiro, technically. However I'm not sure I can draw that parallel either, because the physcial work they do is very different – strongmen rarely handle that much weight longer than a few seconds, while Shiro pushes his body for much longer. Looking at how much force a kg of muscle can exert didn't give me any good answers either, as the calculations involved levers and torque and not, well, "how many kgs of muscle would I need to lift 100 kgs?" So ya know, in the end I just winged something. There ya go. 98 kg Shiro who can bench press you, your book collection, and your cat at once.

Unit 731: the real Section 13
Unit 731 was one of many research facilities at the time, this particular one based in Manchuria during WWII. Focusing on biological and chemical warfare, they used foremost Manchurian civilians to conduct monstrous experiments. Ironically, the operation was led by a man named Ishii Shiro.

I didn't want to mention the exact nature of these experiments here, but those who want to know and can stomach it can read on Wikipedia, or watch the documentaries that have been made about it. Riben Guizi (Japanese Devils), an interview with 14 war criminals, was available on YouTube at the time I wrote this part of the chapter (some of their testimonies still haunt me). Not all of them were actively working with Unit 731 but they mention things they saw there.

When the war was over, the US gave researchers of Unit 731 immunity from war crime trials in exchange for the data they had obtained; the same thing was done for many Nazi German scientists. So that the US could incorporate their research in their own war industry, if they found anything interesting. The Unit 731 researchers that were captured by Soviet troops, however, were charged with war crimes and sentenced to between 2 and 25 years in labour camps.
In 1977, my best estimate is that Shiro might have heard of Unit 731 in the passing, a reference in a sentence in a history book at school, but he wouldn't have any idea what it really was. It wasn't until 1981, almost 40 years after the crimes, that direct testimonies started coming in.