Falling Into Place

By Sharnay

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiss Kruez or any of the characters or events thereof.

AU. Enjoy

The night was cool , but what more, exactly, was to be expected of a cloudless winter evening? The skyline of high-rises and other such buildings had just given way into the darkness of night, setting the entire city in a strange state of twilight. The streets of Tokyo were bright underneath the constant, humming glow of the hundreds and thousands of flourescent signs. The beautiful, diamond-like stars were bleached out by the deep orange glow emulating from the night-life of the city and the veil of darkness no longer held its rich, velvet-like appearance. Above the city the sky was fogged over, looking like a worn down, ocean-tossed stone. And silence was certainly not the type of word to be associated with the boisterous streets. People were packed uncomfortable close to whomever was next to them as they moved down the sidewalks, wrapped thickly in their heavy, colourful array of winter clothing. Cars -loads of them- still sped down the roadways, some speeding, some following the speed limits set in place, while all of them belching out thick, black exhaust and giving the air a bitter, sulfurous bite. It clogged the air and dirtied up the snow along the line where the tar roads met up with the chipped concrete of the sidewalks.

The wind -the relentless, nipping wind- ripped its way harshly down these people-clogged streets, and unkind reminder to everyone that winter had arrived in full force, at only it's beginning being nowhere near the peak of its freezing abilities. The seasons first snow had occured only five days before hand and already, the snow lining the buildings and streets was no longer a pure white, nor did it have such a crystalline sparkle such as it did when it came falling from the grey sky.

There was a scraggly gang of teenagers lurking in the shadows of one of the alleyways. A mother passed by them with her young child and told the little girl not to look at any of them. The troublemakers snickered and sneered at this, stirring up plans of trouble in their devious minds. But this for sure wasn't the only gang. For every dark alley, there was an equally nasty gang of mischevious people; bandits, drug-dealers, murderers, addicts, perverts, creeps and other such terrible folk. They were the reasons many innocent lives were lived wrongly in fear and in unneccessary pain. The troublemakers and gang members fed off of the kind and trusting people until they had gotten everything they wanted. Some of these unfourtunate victims lived, only to become wary of others, drawn away, destroyed and twisted. And the others of these victims ended up dead after having everything they once had in life ripped from them. Even others they cared for.

These sick people were the reason for nearly all of the pain and suffering in Tokyo. And they truly were sick people since all they got out of their rotten deeds was joy.

And never minding just these small criminals, though it may be a disconcerting thought, there were still folk out there of a much worse kind. They were devious, sick and disgusting to even the most twisted of moral sight. They were evil. Nothing more. Nothing less. Going even as far as stripping people of their very humanity if it would do so much as ensure a few extra bucks in their pockets when the day came to a close. But slowly, these people were being dealt with.

A small group of shadowed figures, white assassins, were being disbanded into the city by a secret agency and were taking down these terrible people, using death to save lives and bring a sense of comfort into the city.

The wind blew harshly again. Being the middle of the month of December, icy patches were scattered around along the concrete pathways, would-be puddles were they patches underneath the care of the suns warm rays. Some people found themselves slipping clumsily across them, others falling without an ounce of grace onto their rears when they met up with the ice. But not one person in particular. He was not the type you would imagine would easily fall or be knocked down in front of loads of other people. He was not the type you could even visualize tripping when in the company of no others except his counciousness. He somehow held an air of difference from the other people surrounding him. He was different from all of the other lives in Tokyo. He was different from all of the other people in the world, as far as he was concerned. There were just no others like him. Period. They hadn't been through the same emotional hell nor endured some of the most unbelieveable trial as this very man had and come out alive in the end. He hated knowing he was alone, though he wouldn't even admit it to himself.

He walked in a shroud of deathly silence, one almost painful to endure. Passers bylooked away from him if ever he did so much as unintentionally brush their arm while going by, afraid to meet those harsh, concealing eyes of his. They were afraid of him without even knowing so much about him as his name. Perhaps that was partially due to the fact that he was never one to have a friendly feeling about him, nor a very welcoming disposition. He was never one that was wise to screw around with. When most people met him for the first time, even the loudest, most likeable of people would shy away and shut themselves up after being given only one look -well, it was more like one permanently-in-place glare- and wouldn't make so much as a peep while remaining anywhere within his presence. They wouldn't make a sound because quite frankly, they were afraid of being noticed or awknowledged by him.

A crimson lock of hair fell carelessly into those forementioned cold, unemotional, amethyst eyes of his by aid of the wind and he quickly brushed it aside with a leather-gloved hand. An elongated gold earring dangled from his left ear, reflecting in quick flashes and glints of colour, lights of the overhead neon signs. His calloused, glove-wrapped hands were shoved deep into his pockets, hiding them from the cold. Dressed from head to toe in his all-too-familiar clothes, he walked openly through the streets. That trenchcoat, bemeadaled with all of those zippers and buttons, the one he had worn on countless, unspeakable occasions fell over his tall, thin but defined frame and his boots sloshed carelessly through the solidifying slush. But with no katana at his side, no guise could help him feel anything but exposed to the world. His security was gone for now and he would greatly enjoy to have it back. Though, the other people around him just saw and viewed him as some worthless, teenage rogue. But he was more than that. So much more than that. It was sad that nobody could ever know it though.

He was to be their saviour, whether or not he wanted to be just that.

Being out on the open streets like that, so vulnerable to the thoughts of others, so succeptible to the ridecule and the suspicions of every man, woman or child that passed by, was something that set him at unease. Dodging between shafts of moonlight in dark buildings, or finding his was through a labyrinth of black air was something more comforting for him. Situations like that had always been something he had needed to do, relentless of his own personal fears. He had dedicated his life to the Weiss, so he had to do anything Kritiker had asked of him.

But all of that was gone now. There was no more Weiss. There was only emptiness where that name used to hold so much meaning to him.

Visiting Hours were supposedly over by the time Fujimiya Aya reached the hospital his sister now resided in, but that was something he disreguarded with ease. His sister meant too much to him. Nearly a year had gone by since anything was last heard of Eszet. That totaled out to three years since Takatori Reiji had stormed into his life and shattered every aspect of it. Three years since his sister had last had a chance to live.

Making sure that he was seen by no medical staff upon entrance, the crimson-haired young man quietly swept up the steps, taking them two at a time, heading for a room he had been at far too often. The halls were silent, so silent it was almost unnerving. Silent like death, a word those whom visit hospitals for loved ones dreaded to even think about, dreaded to hear whispered among passers by in the halls. It was unspeakable. Aya knew death all too well. Being a deliverer of such a fate, he had become almost numb to the pain of it, totally detatched from the immorality behind it and the fear. His parents, dead. His sister hanging on by just a thread, though living, she was still comatose, just as dead to him as the rest of his family. It was a depressing vicious cycle of thought that he managed to fall into all too often. It was too hard not to. He had nothing to be happy about.

People would think that his partners in crime from the flower shop would have brought him at least a little bit of comfort and hope, but that was not so. Even now, now that the mission numbers had begun to dwindle, they were still doing nothing more than killing together. They were doing it for the benefit of society, yes, but it was something that weighed heavily upon them all. There was no way that any of them were fit to try and help eachother with the pains of their duties, never mind all of the multitudes of other issues stacked on top of that. People just didn't understand, and they never would.

They didn't understand why his thirst for revenge had yet to be quenched. He had done away with Takatori, the route of all troubles in his life, yet that did not seem to be enough. He had delivered the death blow, just like he had sworn to his parents and to his dear sister, though he felt there was not nearly enough retribution in that one act alone. There had to be something more he could do for them, had to be other ways of doing right all the wrongs they had in turn be done. Years later he still did not feel that longing for revenge would ever die. Not with who he had become.

He was no longer Fujimiya Ran, son of a respectable banker and his wife, nor was he the older brother that Aya-chan so looked up to. He was none of that anymore. It just was not there. Instead his was a cold, distant and violent person his family would have been ashamed to call their blood. He was a beast, a murderer, incapable -as many thought- to love or to recieve love. He had become a machine, commiting all actions and dirty deeds under the guise of nightfall with no emotion or attatchments to his doings at all. Some would call him inhuman.

Perhaps he was inhuman, or, more truthfully, nearly inhuman. He still had the hope of his sisters future awakening to keep him alive, to keep him in touch with everything he had been before. Never had he had a better friend than her, nor a better hope in life. Now she was the only thing that kept him from going off the deep end and becoming what he so remorselessly hunted now.

He shoved his thoughts aside and welcomed the gaping silence beneath them as he reached his sisters room. The door was closed and he spyed through the thin pane of glass in the door to make sure no one was there tending to her that would send him away if they spotted him. The room was empty save Aya-chan.

With a sigh, Abyssinian put his gloved hand on the metal knob and gripped it tightly. Taking one last look in both directions to make sure he was alone, which he was, Aya opened the door with as much care to being silent as he could manage and slipped inside. The door clicked shut just as silently as it had opened. The older Fujimiya sibling then stepped away from the door and plummeted his hands into his pockets, searching for something.

His left hand closed tightly about an envelope, crinkling it a bit in the process. Taking a seat beside his sister, he pulled out the small, white envelope and looked at it. He was sorry he had to do this to her, that he had to let her know about everything that had happened this way. He was sorry to tell her on that paper that the brother she knew and loved so much had long since died and that a beast was born in his place. He wished that he didn't have to tell her about anything, ever. It wouldn't be fair to her though. When she woke up, it wouldn't be fair for her to sit around, wondering where her brother was, wondering what had happened to him and the rest of her beloved family. The answers were all there, scrawled out in his mechanical handwriting, telling her everything from how long it has been since she last remembered anything up until the time of his letter, to who was behind the incident with their family and as far as to how Aya had dealt with the vengance. He told her about taking up her name to keep her alive, though he also apologized that he had turned out to be a disgrace unworthy of her name. He told her everything. Not a detail was left out. He even told her about the murderer he had become, feeling he had no other choice. She shouldn't have to wonder forever about what happened to her brother. Instead she could find out straight up and deal with it how she pleased right from the start.

He also apologized that she would never again be able to see him. He would not let her see what he had become, how much of a mechanical structure he had become as opposed to the human being he used to be.

Why give her the letter now, that was something he had thought about extensively. He just had a feeling that he could not ignore. His sister was going to wake up soon, whether or not he entirely belived it himself. He just knew. Which meant he could not come around to visit her so often. It would be too risky.

He wanted to be able to visit her daily though. He wanted to be there when she woke up to let her know that everything was going to be alright. He wanted her to feel comforted, but he just could not be the one to do it. Sakura would be there for Aya-chan, he knew that. She came on a regular basis to visit his sleeping sister just as often as he did. Sakura cared about Aya-chan because she knew that this girl meant the world to Aya, and somehow Aya had come to mean the world to Sakura. He had faith that she would help his sister when the time came for him to disappear...

He shook his head, clearing the thoughts away, or at least attempting to and reached for the place his sisters earring rested. It was in a drawer at her bedside now, collecting dust, just as this letter would do for a short time. It was only a matter of time now, and he knew it. He had done a terrible thing in order to get that knowledge, so now he was very unsure of where he was going to go when he left... He wouldn't be able to return to the koneko very often any more, if even at all.

"I sold them out, Aya..." he whispered to his sister. "I don't know now if that was the best thing to do. They have been loyal to me, my partners, but things aren't going to be that way anymore..."

As he whispered that thought, he wondered how they were fairing, the rest of Weiss. In a moment of desperation, Aya had partially sold his soul away to Schwartz, which, when drawn higher up the ladder, meant Eszet, if they were still even in some sort of command anymore. He had broken at Crawford's will, promised to help them for the information on his sister. According to the Oracle, three more days and Aya-chan would wake. He had forseen it and it cost Aya nearly everything to get that knowledge, but at least he knew now.

Though in retrospect, he was quite unsure on how much he had actually needed that information. Three days was not a long wait. If only he had gained the patience that waiting required...

Now Weiss was down one man, with Schwartz up one. He had only made things worse.

"Aya-chan, I, I have to go now. I don't know if I will ever see you again, or more than likely, if you will ever see me again. I may not be there, but I will still be watching you, making sure you are safe no matter what the cost. I have done it before. I will do it again."

Aya rose from his chair and hung his head. Upon grasping the doorknob, he looked over his shoulder at his sister and whispered, "Happy Birthday, Aya. I will miss you," before slipping out into the halls and into the night.

End.

I hope it was pleasing in some way.

Review?