Fallen Angels
by Kandy
~~~~
Birman cautiously stepped from the shadows and into the light of a nearby lamppost. She smiled warmly at the scene she was looking down apon. Four pretty young ladies were all sitting at a table in a fancy restaurant having an expensive late dinner. They all had many, apon many, shopping bags around their feet, that told of their previous actions for that day. They all laughed and talked throughout their dinner peacefully.

The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a camera. She zoomed in and took pictures of each of the women's faces; while they were in more happier moods. Birman slipped the camera back into her pocket. She smiled to herself once again as the four women laughed again, imagining the sound of giggles rippling over the resturant from inside. Then she stepped back into the shadows without so much as a slight sound of the camera clicking.

*~*~*~*~*~*

A warm smile creeped over Ken's face as he took a step outside 'Koneko no Sumu le' to water the flowers that were parched outside from the beaming spring sun.

'It's so beautiful outside. Wish I just take the day off,' he thought while twisting the end of the garden hose. Cool clear water came rushing from the tip as a light, relaxing breeze carried it's way across the block.

He looked down at his watch. Only a one more minute until school dismissed, the girl's came to admire them, and Omi started his shift.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Aya fixing an arrangement and Yoji was on the phone - taking an order hopefully.

3...2...1...2:15. After a matter of only moments, a rather large group of teenagers, fresh from a nearby high school, was approaching the little flower shop. Ken turned the garden hose off seeing that the flowers had had enough to drink for today.

The girls gathered and some waved as Omi took off for inside the store to start his shift. But as usual they weren't going anywhere. Many girls of the area flocked there after school everyday, just to stare them.

"Hey, Ken-kun!," Omi exclaimed waving as he went inside. Ouka followed him in.

"Hi, Omi," Ken said trailing off as two girls approched him. He sighed in his head.

Omi sat his backpack behind the counter and put on his apron, "Hey, Aya; Yoji-"

Yoji slammed the phone down and growled, startling Ouka and Aya, but he quickly regained composure in a heartbeat.

With a raised eyebrow Omi asked, "Yoji, what's wrong?"

He growled again, "Raina canceled on me that's what! And I had the perfect evening planned out for us too. Dammit."

The blue eyed teenager sweatdropped and smiled at Ouka who frowned in disapproval. A small 'hmph' came from her in response. Yoji stomped past them.

"Now I don't have anything to do this weekend!," he screamed frustrated. Yoji took a long gander outside of the window where the many upon many females stood outside. He spun on a heel and smirked over his shoulder.

"Unless..."

The tall playboy happily fled outside to flirt. Now Omi was frowning in disapproval. "Yoji...-," he started about to go after him.

"Leave him alone. He'll learn," Aya warned as he placed his finished arrangement on a table under a dimly lit hotlamp after spraying a little bit of water on it.

Omi looked at Ouka and vise versa. A small clique of girls entered the shop. Among them a medium heighted girl with lightly tanned skin, parted from some friends, walked over to a wall, and begin to scan the shop. Her light green eyes sparkled and her long sandy brown braid touched her elbows. Her hands on her hips she spotted Omi. A flash of surprise and happiness sweapt over her beautiful face. She then proceeded to approach him. She tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned around and shock sweapt over his face as well.

"Bijou!," he exclaimed.

"Hey, Omi, I didn't know you worked here," tilting her head to the side, Bijou smiled a genuine smile.

Gasping upon seeing Bijou, Ouka jumped between her and Omi protectively, "Of course YOU didn't. If it weren't for MY friends you still wouldn't know."

Bijou frowned bitterly. Omi, confused about his girlfriend's sudden surge of anger towards the new student, stood frozen. Yoji and Ken had now entered back into the shop with a herd of girls behind them. Yoji's eyebrows raised at this situation. He hit Ken on the arm.

"What?"

"Look at that, Ken. Omi's in the middle of a catfight," he said chuckling. Half amused at the situation of two girls fighting for Omi, especially when one of those girls were Ouka.

Bijou exhaled deeply and smirked evily at Omi. "Omi, boy, you better learn to keep your dog on a chain," she said motioning to Ouka. The watching girls laughed at Bijou's check.

Ouka frowned deeper snarling at the smiling Bijou.

Retaliating sharply Ouka folded her arms over her chest, "Watch it, Bijou. You don't know me, and if you get on my bad side again, you'll regret ever meeting me."

The girls 'ooo'ed and exchanged glances. Now all eyes were on Bijou, waiting too see how she'd handle Ouka's threat.

Bijou rolled her tongue over her teeth, then smiled sweetly, fake, but sweet looking none the less. "You know what? You better remember my name, girlfriend," she said flicking her hand out in front of her like they were buddies.

"And why is that?," snapped Ouka.

Bijou turned to walk away. Once some feet away, and standing right between the on-looking Yoji and Ken, she looked over her shoulder with a smirk. "Cause tomorrow, you'll be screaming it, once I kick your stuck-up ass!"

Bijou, angry as hell, pushed the doors open and walked her way out of the shop and down the street. Ouka, now slightly frightened, dropped her guard completely. The girls 'ooh'ed and 'ahh'ed at the almost fight. Many excited about whether or not there would be one tomorrow.

Omi exhaled deep and long. He placed a hand on Ouka's shoulder as the shop slowly thinned out. Ouka looked back at him.

"I think...you oughta go home now, Ouka. I'll see you tomorrow," Omi suggested calmly.

Ouka turned around completely. She sighed at the thought of him telling her what to do, but she quickly dismissed it, and decided to be a nice little girlfriend for once, "...I guess so."

"Come on, let's go," called one of two of her friends from the door.

"Coming," the lavender eyed girl replied over her shoulder. She then turned back to Omi who was now leaning on the counter. Ouka walked over kissed him on the lips and whispered, "Call me."

Omi replied, "K."

Then the rich girl walked out of the store with her two friends close behind. Omi grabbed his forehead and groaned after she was out of sight. The shop had extremely thinned out by then. And the only people there were ones who actually intended on buying something. Which was a good nine people in all.

Ken and Aya had walked off to help some customers. Yoji smirked and hit Omi on the back. Omi looked at him from the corner of his eyes darkly.

He sniffled playfully, "Oh, Omi! To have two girls fight over your affection," Omi turned to give him a death glare, that he was secretly learning for Aya, as Yoji sniffled some more, "Little chibi is becoming a man right before our very eyes."

Yoji then burst into hysterical laughter, teasing him heavily. Omi slapped his hand from resting on his shoulder.

Some hours later the sun had gone down and in 30 minutes the shop would be closing.

"Shut up, Yoji. You don't know a thing about what happened today," Omi yelled, irritated with Yoji's teasing of the almost fight.

"Well then, explain. Tell us all about the short history of Ouka and that pretty new girl she seemed to hate with a passion."

Omi took a seat. All three of them seemed to be interested in the roots of what happened earlier.

"The new girl, her name is Bijou La Salle. She just transfered to our school from an elite one in Paris, France. Rumors have already started circulating about her. She got kicked out by being an uncontrollable deliquent; she was in a chemical accident and her parents were forced to send her here; she suddenly dropped from top-of-the class to failing over-night; and junk like that.

"But this morning, she became instantly popular with everybody in all her classes. Although she's trying to hide it, Ouka's really jealous. Bijou's in half my classes, she's even my chemistry partner. She is nice...smart...and funny too. Her attitude is in the danger zone, though. And at lunch Ouka and Bijou had a heated arguement. Nobody heard it but, Ouka ran out really mad and embarassed.

"When I talked to her she told me Bijou was a bitch. They've been bitter ever since," Omi said, his eyes darting from each of his friends. Yoji opened his mouth to say something but the sound of the bell above the door drowned his words out. They all looked over to see Bijou standing in the shop her hands behind her waist.

Re-dressed in a long sleeved mid-driff with big, navy blue letters that said 'D&G'(1!) and a pair of tight navy blue jeans, held up with a white belt. And she topped it off with a pair of white strappy sandals. Her hair still in the braid, but it was shinier and was pulled and braided over her right shoulder.

She smiled as she walked over to the counter.

"May I help you?," Aya offered.

"Yes, would you happen to have a bouqet of Oriental Lilies?," she asked with an accent.

They all looked at other. They mumbled a few 'Do we?', 'I don't remember seeing any', 'One of you go look in the back', 'I'm not going', and 'Fine I'll go'.

"I'm sure we have some in the back, I'll be right back, Miss," Aya said politely as he rose from his seat.

Bijou smiled again once she'd caught Aya's eye, "Please, take your time."

Aya nodded and proceeded to find her some descent lilies. Omi raised his eyebrows at her. Bijou shoved her hands in her pockets.

"Why didn't you buy the flowers you wanted earlier today?," Omi asked breaking a short silence.

Bijou cocked her head to the side, "That's what I was going to do. I was going to ask you about my lilies, that is before werebitch jumped between us."

"You like flowers?," Ken asked.

She nodded with a grin, "Home isn't complete without a little greenry."

Aya returned, arms full with red, yellow, pink, and white Oriental Lilies; tied neatly and in a pot. Bijou's face lit up upon seeing her favorite flower.

Ken and Yoji said goodbye. But before going out of the store completely Bijou looked over her shoulder, "Oh, and Omi - I'm not going to beat-up your girlfriend. Although she deserves it, she's not worth breakin' a sweat."

And with that she headed back down the street with her lilies in arms.

Yoji got up and locked the door. He spun on his heel, "Ouka better consider herself touched by an angel."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Yoji blew cigarette smoke into the air. He didn't do so much as twitch as the bedroom door creaked open. A slender figure glided it's way across the room. The figure wrapped it's arms around Yoji's neck.

"Yoji...," it whispered as it leaned down closer to gently kiss his neck.

Yoji smiled, "Yes, Asuka?"

She plopped down on the bed beside him. "There's something...I should of told you...ages ago. I just never really got around to saying it outloud..."

Becoming interested he looked over at her, "Now's the perfect time," Yoji chuckled, "That is unless you wanna tell me how much you've enjoyed sleeping with me. That's something I already know!"

Asuka lowered her eyelids, "Uh-huh. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Yoji laughed and put his cigarette out in an ashtray on the floor, "Rich."

"Seriously, Yoji. I promised myself I'd tell you this tonight."

Yoji laid back on the bed, bland in plain white sheets. He raised his arms behind his head as Asuka laid back as well. She rested herself on his chest comfortably. Asuka's dark blue-green(2!) eyes stared down into his.

Serious as well Yoji dropped his joking, "I'm listening."

"Physically...I've been gone for a while. And I've been noticing how everyday seems to bore you more and more. But when you finally fall asleep, I see something in you that I'm sure that other people in your life miss...and I've finally realized why."

There was a long ear-numbing silence. Yoji strained his brain to try to think ahead of time so she wouldn't have to waste time making him feel like an idiot. He failed.

"Me."

"What?"

Asuka rolled off his chest and onto her side. Her clothes left a sexy outline of her curves underneath. Yoji tore his eyes away from her body. Her words had suddenly found a way to reach his brain.

"What do mean, it's you? I'm not sure I even know what your talking about."

"I mean that your relationships with others, outside of your head, are suffering. And all because you can't let go."

"Maybe I don't want to let go, Asuka."

"You have to! It's been a year, Yoji. A whole year of you constantly coming back to these memories and fantasies and hopeless dreams of us getting back together one day. I've been gone too long, but yet you still seem to have a bit of my spirit locked up in your head. It's not right. Move on."

'Move...on,' Yoji tried to repeat those words in his head, but just thinking them didn't sound right.

"Dammit! You were all I had. Your the only one I've ever loved, Asuka."

"That's because you've never tried loving someone else."

The wavy haired Japanese man suddenly felt sick. Was this really true? Was his outside bonds suffering half-as-bad as Asuka made them seem?

"Do you really think forcing me to let go of you is going to help anything?"

Asuka raised from the bed and stood on her feet. She walked over to the door as Yoji sat up, confused. Asuka sadly glanced over her shoulder, "I can't tell you the answer to that."

That said it all. The door creaked open, then creaked shut.

Yoji snapped his eyes open as they came into focus on the ceiling.

*~*~*~*~*~*

A bright Saturday morning sun poured down on Tokyo. Omi knocked harshly on Yoji's apartment door. Yoji stirred as he rose. Another round of thundering pounds came down on his poor door.

"QUIT IT! I'M UP!!," Yoji yelled at the top of his lungs. The pounding stopped abruptly. "Shit," was all he could manage to mumble. He'd never yelled like that at Omi's wake-up calls before. It was just that his dream about Asuka kept him up half the night. He'd just fallen asleep again a few hours ago.

Yoji groaned and looked over the clock on his dresser. 'Shit!,' he yelled at himself upon seeing that he was approximately 57 minutes late to work! "No wonder Omi nearly knocked the door down," he said to no one in particular as he rushed to get dressed and to clean himself up.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"How many more times do I have to say I'm sorry?!?!," Yoji demanded to know from Omi who happened to be ignoring him.

The flowershop door pushed open to reveal the curly red-headed Manx. Aya looked up from balancing the register. He forced back a scowl when he spotted the folder in her hand. A folder meant one thing: New Mission. Things had been slow lately and dammit, to be honest he was enjoying it. But nothing was ever permanent in this business.

"I have a special proposal for you guys. Downstairs," Manx said with a grin as she took off downstairs to the secret room below.

After handling things upstairs and getting situated downstairs Manx began with full attention.

"Persia has decided to let Weiss become a special part of a new experiment of his. Intitled: Project Fallen Angel, the four of you will become temporary one-on-one teachers to a new team of assassins that Persia has assembled."

They couldn't help but be struck with shock. Teachers? A new team of assassins? Manx continued on before they could flood her with questions.

"Before your teaching can go into effect, the new team must pass a test. In this folder is everything that you all will need to know about; because Weiss will be giving and grading the test."

She handed the folder to Omi, who took it bewildered as he ever would be.

"The test is simple enough. One of you will have a card on you, one of the members from the other team must get the card from you and the whole team must get out of the alotted area before they are caught. If they get out together with the card, they have passed. If Weiss stops them, they have failed the test and the experiment will go no further," Manx walked over to the staircase, "Persia expects this to be done no later or earlier than Sunday. Good luck on your task, Weiss."

And with that Manx exited the shop. There were some long moments of silence afterwards. Ken walks over behind Omi who is now flipping through the papers with the folder in his lap.

"Well, who's this new team were suppose to be teaching?," Ken asked shoving his hands in his pockets.

Omi raised an eyebrow as he continued to flip through the papers looking for something, "It doesn't say. No official names, no pictures, no descriptions, no statics, no nothing. These papers don't even say if they're male or female. All I have are their codenames."

"Well, read them," Yoji suggested, "Maybe we could figure out something about our mystery students that way."

"I doubt it. The names are as reads; Seattle, Baltimore, Miami, and Houston," Omi said leaning back in the chair.

"The identities don't matter," spoke Aya, "As long as we can fail them before they get ahead."

He particularly disliked the idea of being another man's teacher. He didn't have the time for that nonsense. Getting a mission done was what was really important, not teaching some wannabe the proper way to hold a man-slaughter.

Omi looked back down at the papers, "Like Manx said, it doesn't seem very hard." Omi held up a plastic card that resembled a credit card between his fingers, "We have to keep the entire team from getting out of the area with this card."

"In that case, they don't stand a chance," Yoji walked over and took the card from Omi, examining it. It was plain, shiny, gold with a scanning bar on the back side. Yoji put the card in his pocket.

"We can pull this off by tomorrow, right?," asked Ken looking at Aya, who returned the glance.

Omi straigened the papers and put them back into the folder and folded the flap over the top, "By these simple notes, we could pull this off tonight if we wanted."

Yoji's eyes widened, "Really? That easy?"

"Yep."

They all headed back upstairs and put the shop back in it's present state. Omi spun on his heel after unlocking the door back, "I'll have everything planned out around 6. I want all of you to come over so our test can be efficient."

Weiss gave they're own silent little ways to let him know that they'd be over and ready.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Aya sat in the empty shop. Yoji and the others had left early to catch a late dinner at a nearby restaurant. He wasn't hungry so he chose to stay behind instead. It was late and near closing. He looked over at the door to see a beautiful young lady come in the shop.

Her cranberry colored hair swooped below her shoulders and her bangs dipped onto her forehead. Her sparkling midnight blue eyes and pale complexion gave her an eerie, yet mysterious aura. Aya watched as she walked over to one of the black cases with the glass doors. She carefully picked flowers. 12 long-stem roses of two colors, red and white, filled her hand.

She then walked over and placed them on the counter. As Aya reached over to get a white ribbon to tie them with he noticed her expression. The woman seemed to be depressed about something, but as he tied her roses as faint smile came to her. She paid in full and left with her roses. The others watched from around the corner as the woman exited the flower shop.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"You mean we have to find the other team in that crowd of people?!," exclaimed Yoji upon hearing Omi.

"That's gonna take a while," whined Ken.

Omi, irritated, spun in the computer chair to face them, "LIKE, I was saying! The test is going to take place at 'The Palledium'. There's an estimate of 200 people to be in the club tomorrow, so it's going to take a while for the team to get to us if they don't have information about us. Yoji is going to have the card at the bar at all times. Ken, you'll be watching Yoji's back and anything out of the ordinary from the east wall. Aya will be upstairs watching both of you from overhead. I'll be outside keeping an eye on all possible exits, just incase the other team gets the card I'll be able to stop them from leaving the area."

Aya leaned forward from his seat in the window sill, "How big is the area?"

Omi frowned and turned back around to get the notes Manx gave them. He flipped some pages until coming to the right little paragraph, "Okay, if the club is on Hirusu Street and if the other team needs to be on Shizu, Onisha, or Arakawa Street(3!) to be out of the area that means that the area must end about 5 blocks from the club."

"You mean if they get the card and we see them leave we gonna have to chase them down 5 blocks?," Ken asked with anger and 'no way' in his voice.

Yoji slid his shades above his head, "If we don't we're going to have to teach these guys, and there's no way in hell I'm going to have another guy hangin' off me."

Omi informed finally, "So it's settled then. Everybody meet up and takes position at the club at 10 o' clock."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Alright :] I'm done! Fallen Angels Part One: Project Fallen Angel Complete. Part Two: The Palledium, coming soon. Meanwhile, how did I do? Not bad, I hope :] I've never seen the anime before, I've just read the translated version of Assassin and White Shaman Volume One & Two. Anyway, here are the foot notes.

1: D&G - Dolce and Gabanna; Prestigious Italian fashion designers and their line of clothing.

2: I really don't know what color Asuka's eyes are so I presume they'd be something rare, sexy, and mysterious at the same time so blue-green popped into mind. Tell me the correct color if you know :]

3: I don't know any real Japanese streets so I made those up heavily :]