By Laurelgand (laurelgand@home.com)
http://www.weisskreuz.net
Part one of a four part series which explores the ideas of rituals. This part features Ken. Omi, Yohji, and Aya will follow respectively. Author's notes follow the story.
What do you do, afterwards?
Every mission, every death.... Ken kept very careful track of his kills. A mental tally of what was owed. To balance the scales, in some small way. He wondered, idly, if any of the others had some ritual to see them through the aftermath of a mission.
After I kill....
Rituals are a part of life. Rituals for life, rituals for death, rituals for eating and sleeping and for making love. For comfort, for religion, as a matter of habit-- there are always rituals to perform.
One more death....
Life is a game, and every person a player in a set of moves too convoluted to fathom. When you falter, there is always something to fall back on-- the formula, the ritual of life. What you do from day to day. The things that keep you sane, the things that stay the same no matter where you go or who you're pretending to be.
The things that keep me sane....
The things you do automatically; the things you can do without thinking too hard about because they have been mindlessly performed a hundred times before.
Too many... too much....
Everyone has a ritual.
Assassin.
Ken silently slipped into his apartment, closing and locking the door behind him. A faint beep betrayed the arming of the apartment's state-of-the-art security system. In darkness, Ken unerringly walked down the short hallway and into a small room. Flipping on the lights, the dark-haired bishounen was greeted by the same sight which always awaited his return from a mission, a room full of green and living things.
Mission of death...
To an outsider, or even to one of his fellow members of the four-man assassin team that made up Weiß, the room would look much like a florist's paradise. From humble begonias, carnations, and geraniums to the exotic and showy orchids and lilies, the room was filled with beautiful flowers; each a well-tended masterpiece. But these flowers would never grace Koneko No Sumu Le.
Murderer.
These flowers were memories; the private monuments erected by a driven man as memorials to those departed. Each colorful and fragrant plant a symbol of the fragile hope of life from death.
Mission of life....
And so Ken counted his kills very carefully. Because Ken knew at mission's end he would find himself once more in the small room, planting a seed for every life taken that night. Some nights there were only a few, and some nights there would be a dozen or more. He would not sleep, nor change from his 'work clothes', nor do anything else until that task was done. A ritual.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...
Perhaps for partial expiation, or possibly even to feel a little bit like a god-- giving life with one hand while the other takes life away. His ritual.
From the earth we came, and to it return...
Crossing over to the workbench, Ken selected a pot at random, already filled with moist rich earth in which to plant yet another gravestone. He immersed himself in the ritual, the formulaic movements, to prevent himself from thinking too hard about what... who... the pot represented. Tightening his fist, the bishounen loosened the soil with the bugnuk's extended claws, still sticky with semi-dried blood. Retracting the bugnuks, Ken removed his glove and threw it carelessly to the ground.
Only one tonight....
Ken regarded a nearby shelf with carefully packaged and labelled seeds and bulbs, considering. Finally, he settled on the mixed zinnias. With care, he removed a small pinch of the seeds, the promise of life, and placed it gently into the awaiting soil. He patted the seeds down, covering them lightly.
Only one.... in memory of you....
Ken stared at the pot, summoning his memories of the kill. As always, the salty tears began to flow, running down his cheeks and finally falling to the awaiting earth below. But this time, the tears... the memories.... Ken bowed his head, sobbing quietly.
Kase....
Grounded in blood, and watered with tears... theirs, and his... a ritual of death and life to keep the darkness at bay.
~Owari~
Special thanks to Jen-chan, for sending me the Weiß Kreuz tapes! *grovels*
I chose to write this story less to explore Ken's character than to experiment with the idea of achieving a balance of one's actions. A life for every death, a seed for every kill.... The initial concept wasn't even Ken-based, but after considering the four members of Weiß, he seemed like the best choice for a story that dealt with these issues.
In flower language, mixed zinnias mean a remembrace; thinking of an absent friend. The title, Naehred, is German for "Nurturing". Before watching Weiß Kreuz, my German vocabulary probably consisted of 10 words or less. So I apologize if I have used the term in error.
*^^* This one is kinda morbid, actually. And more stream-of-conciousness than I usually write. Hmmmm.... I look forward to your feedback!
Weiß Kreuz (and associated characters) belongs to Koyasu Takehito *.*, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya, TV Tokyo, Bandai, and others I've neglected to mention. No copyright infringement or disrespect to the creators/copyright holders was intended in the writing of this 'fic.
This 'fic written and self-published by Laurelgand. All content not copyrighted to others is © April 2000 to Lara E. Gill.