In Light of Death and Birth
Aya turned his back on the lonely, damp city streets, ascending a rusty metal fire escape many, many flights high, making his way patiently, gradually to the top of the building.
Something inside Aya reminded him of his past; it was so like those shadowed days almost sixteen years ago when he had escaped death and even a painful humanity and left Ken behind him. He had fought then, to keep the younger Weiß member with him. Demons had stalked the red light district of Tokyo in those days, though sixteen years ago Aya never would have believed it. What he had learned was that humans had minds and intentions scarier and more demonic than any monster would dare to dream up.
He remembered when the demons, the nosferatu, had jumped him, biting his neck and watching him drain of blood as he crawled and writhed to where Ken lay unconscious. Apparently the demon had meant to accost Ken as well, to bite him and drain him of mortality, but instead had smashed Ken into the concrete wall with a hellish strength, crushing the young man's skull. As Aya lay bleeding to death, or at least to undeath, he cried into the night for the first time in many years. He could not even say goodbye to the only thing in his life that still held meaning.
He had spent the subsequent years of his life avenging Ken. Revenge was something Aya understood well. It gave him life, gave him purpose, however flawed and fake the meaning behind Aya's rage. It wasn't at all like living.
Several years after Ken's death, Youji was killed during a mission. Aya could not remember that day with ease, though the echoes of Youji's small part in his life still haunted him. Aya had decided that after Ken had left him, everything had hazed over and he had lived in a dense, soupy fog, meant to block out memories and cushion tragedies beyond his control. Aya also remembered coming home soon after Youji had died to find a note on his pillow. Aya had sighed to himself then, as that very day he had planned to announce his resignation from Weiß. The note was penned by Omi, explaining that he and Nagi had decided they were sick of the fighting and killing and decided to run away together.
Aya remembered smiling at that moment, his first smile since he could remember. He knew there was a time not long before that day when he would have wished death upon Omi for such foolish treachery, but now he could do nothing but hope for Omi's happiness. Aya felt some of Ken's kindness shining through into his own life and was grateful for it.
Schwartz disbanded soon after Nagi's desertion and Aya made the hardest decision of his life. He pulled the plug on his one-chan. It had to end, he reminisced. Aya finally understood something he had never understood as a mortal. The death and the killing, the destruction and pain, the blood and the loss, none of these things brought Aya-chan or Ken back. Part of him had known that always but the part that cried out in anguish as he helplessly watched the only two things he loved being taken from him, that part insisted that there had to be some way to buy them back in blood. That part of him was a part that had perished. Its death was recent and he hadn't mourned it. Ken and Aya-chan were gone and he, Aya Fujimiya, was alone.
He finished his long ascent to the top of a tall bank tower overlooking the whole of metropolitan Tokyo. He could recall a time not at all long ago where, as a nosferatu, he was not strong enough to witness a sunrise. Now he was determined to see just one more. One sunrise, bringing him sixteen years of ageless age. After this there will be peace, Aya promised himself.
He turned his violet gaze to the east, watching a magnificent red star hail dawn as it crawled up over the horizon to brighten Tokyo's bustling city center. The glare of light blinded him momentarily, but as he focused, he noticed a girl perched on the building's ledge. Long chestnut hair fell in a tangle down the back of a loose cotton blue sundress that billowed in the light breeze.
He approached the girl quietly with detached curiosity and she heard his approaching footsteps, spinning around to meet Aya's eyes, obviously startled.
"I'll jump! I mean it!" The young girl threatened.
Aya quirked an eyebrow in mild surprise. She was indeed young, in either her early or mid teens - why then did she threaten suicide? What could possibly make death an option in her short, carefree years on this planet? Her hazel doe eyes were wide with alarm and her face seemed to be marked everywhere with scratches and bruises.
"Why do you want to jump?" Aya queried stoically.
The girl frowned slightly, as though she didn't properly understand the question. "Who are you?" She asked.
"Aya." He said simply.
The girl smiled easily. "Nice to meet you, I guess. Aya…I never thought of it for a guy." She shrugged. "My name's Rindou Koneko. Well, everyone calls me Koneko anyway." She shifted her gaze out at the crisp morning sunrise. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
Aya watched it with her for a moment, the red-orange glare of warmth and light bathing Tokyo's steel towers and endless cement highways. "No."
Koneko turned to him again, a skeptical smile playing across her gentle features. "Why not?"
Aya thought about it in earnest. Sunrises were beautiful, beaches and blue skies and green trees were beautiful, roses and wildflowers were beautiful. Maybe that was all the aesthetic wonder some people needed in their lives. He missed Ken's smile. "Nature isn't impressive to me." He answered finally.
The girl looked down at the city, the people far below her, carrying on their crazy, complicated lives. It was so immense. "That's kind of sad, really. I mean you're missing out on so much joy, the way I see it. I'm lucky enough…one of my old friends, back in Okinawa…she said that I was a lucky person because I could see beauty and goodness in everything." Koneko smiled again, a faint rose hue painting her cheeks. "I don't really suppose that's true, but it's a nice thought, isn't it?"
Aya stood beside her, resting his hands on the cool, damp cement of the ledge. "A person who sees beauty in everything would be very content, don't you think?"
Her eyes slid downwards and the sweetness about her face clouded over. "Not necessarily."
"Why is that?" Aya probed.
"Well, there are many reasons, I guess. Can I ask you a question?" She continued without waiting for a response. "I've been up here a lot lately but I've never seen you here before. Do you come here often?"
"No, not often." Aya answered quietly.
"Why today then? To watch the sunrise, to see the dawn? It makes no sense, since you said sunrises weren't beautiful or impressive?"
Aya nodded once. "It's true, the sunrise doesn't impress me. I don't often get a chance to see it though. It's strange, but when one is deprived of something, even if it is not special, one finds within himself a need to obtain it."
Koneko smiled, her dark eyes glowing softly in the sunlight. "Yes, that makes sense. Do you work at night then? Or do you just have trouble getting up in the morning?"
Aya could have smiled at her naivety. Smiling was coming easier to him these days, or at least the concept of smiling was. "My life is more complicated than that, I suppose. You must understand what I mean." He added casually.
"Yes, I think I do." She nodded, looking out hard across Tokyo.
Aya asked his question once more. "Why do you want to jump?"
Koneko clasped and unclasped her delicate hands over and over, as if they felt strange to her and she was unused to the way they felt together. Her eyes fell down to her lap, to the thin folds of her sundress. "I don't want to."
"Mm. Why then, do you threaten to? You're very young to seek an end to a life you have hardly lived."
The girl tensed, her hands becoming stiff and ridged as she kneaded them against her thighs. "Age doesn't matter sometimes. I don't remember being happy."
That was something Aya could nearly relate to. But even through the mirthless years of his life, he could remember times of pleasure or at least inner contentment. He had taken Ken for granted in those days. "You don't remember any time in your entire life when you were happy? You smile easily. You see beauty and goodness. These don't help you find joy?"
Koneko turned to look at him then, studying Aya's height, his burnt auburn hair, his cold lilac eyes, his long black trench coat and black boots. "You're young and in pain. Why should I be an exception?"
"I'm not as young as I appear." Aya murmured. He was old enough to be this child's father. She managed to remind him of both Aya-chan and Ken.
"Fine." Koneko turned her body to straddle the ledge. "I'm lonely. My family moved her from Okinawa two years ago. I have yet to make friends, to meet people to spend time with away from home. I don't like being home because," she raised a smooth hand gingerly to her face, "my father hits me. All the time. Scratches and burns and bruises and lashes. When I was younger, he did worse." Her eyes lowered in darkened shame.
The chill in his eyes masked Aya's surprise. "What about your mother?"
"She died when I was ten. She didn't know about it back then. I have nowhere to go. Back in Okinawa, my closest friend…I didn't tell her, but she knew something bad was happening. She didn't press it, but she let me stay with her when things got really bad. Father would kill me if he knew I told someone. Anyone." By the intense look of fear in her eyes, Aya knew she was serious.
"Here I have no friends. It's more than that, though, in some ways. Ever since I can remember, I've had this horrible feeling, like this huge piece of me is missing, and I can never get it back. I don't know if you can understand what I mean, or if you know what that's like, but it feels…like your heart is broken beyond repair."
Aya nodded slowly. "Yes. I know how that feels."
Koneko ran a hand numbly through her tangled brown hair. "So you know. That's why I feel like I have to jump. I don't want to. I can't go back home. I swore last night I wouldn't. But I have nowhere else. The rest of my family lives in Europe and we're not close. They wouldn't take me in. And I don't want to feel this loneliness anymore. I don't want to die. I just want it to stop." Her eyes welled with liquid and an embarrassed smile flushed her swollen lips. "I'm sorry." She laughed wryly, brushing the tears from her eyes briskly. "You just came here to be alone and I've pushed my problems on you. You didn't come to hear a child complain of life's injustice. There are…" She paused, "…other ways of getting rid of…problems. I can leave you alone now." Koneko swung her other leg over the ledge and jumped down onto the roof.
Aya felt a need inside himself, an inexplicable desire to go to her, to hold her in his arms and try to assuage her grief. He knew of abuse and of loneliness, the soul-deep kind. She was young and inspirationally brave. She retained her smile, her laugh, and her love of beautiful things - all things he had lost during his own personal tragedy. Something inside him couldn't let her die.
"Wait." He called out as she turned her back to him to descend the rickety metal staircase.
The young girl turned, her hair dancing in the sea salt breeze, her silhouette apparent beneath the gentian blue of her dress. Koneko's haze; eyes caught his and Aya knew where he has seen those eyes before. He had seen their depth and their trust, their naivety and their joy. He had seen love in those eyes. "Ken." Aya mumbled in disbelief.
Koneko's brow creased with confusion. "I'm sorry?"
Abashed, Aya wanted to give up but something wouldn't let him. He paced briskly towards her, grasping her bruised arms firmly and stared down into her eyes. Had he been crazy enough, desperate and pathetic enough to imagine Ken's light and love in the eyes of some troubled little girl? He stared long and hard at her and in her confusion, she stared up into his, trying to understand his unusual behavior. Aya saw in those eyes far more than he could have hoped for. Yes, the light and love, the childlike mirth and gentleness were there. Everything he loved when he looked into Ken's eyes, the solace he received, knowing that someone somewhere in the world still looked out into the wickedness, the injustice with that love and gentleness, all that was bottled in Koneko's hazel eyes.
Her eyes burned into Aya's violet ones and suddenly a chilling, incredulous cold washed over her soul, followed immediately by a wave of warmth more wonderful than she could imagine. "Aya!" She cried, leaping into his arms, wrapping her own tightly around his neck, hugging him so close he could never hope to get away.
Aya stood a moment longer, shocked into shaky silence as a treasure greater than anything he could have wished for dawned slowly upon him. "K-ken." Aya's hand slid up into Koneko's hair, pulling her tightly to him. "My Ken." He whispered hoarsely. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ken. I'm never going to let you go again."
He held her close but after a silent moment she pulled gently away, enough to look up into Aya's eyes. "Promise?" She asked, beaming up at him. "Please you won't let me go, Aya?"
Aya's eyes held hers once again. A soft smile brushed his cold, tight lips and a tiny fleck of tear slid from his lilac eyes down his pale cheek. Koneko reached up gently, her finger catching it and brushing it away. "I love you, Ken."
Beauty and elation bloomed across the young girl's face and she tightened her arms around Aya's neck. "I love you too, Aya."
Aya felt his heart melt at Koneko's words, sliding his hands from her slight waist up her sides to gently cup her face as he leaned forward, placing a sweetly chaste kiss on her soft, pink lips. "Call me Ran." He whispered, leaning his forehead against hers.
Koneko shuddered happily, the amazing warmth in Aya's voice almost too much to bear. "Okay. Ran. I love you, Ran Fujimiya."
Aya wrapped her tightly in his arms. "My Ken. My Koneko. It doesn't matter; you're here." He paused for a moment, and drew back once more, holding his love at arms length. "It's so amazing we found each other. I…I came here to die, Ken-chan, as you did. Now I know for the first time how alive I am." He stopped, knowing it was a half-truth. His soul was alive, more than it had ever been but he was nosferatu. Aya promised himself to tell her that soon. He knew his Ken, and now he knew that their love transcended lifetimes. Ken would understand. "I'm going to make it better, Ken-chan. I'm going to make you so happy." He held her tightly to him. "I'm not going to let you cry ever again, understand? You have somewhere to go now. Someone to live with now." He murmured softly into her hair.
Koneko smiled softly, holding her true love with all the strength she could muster. "I know, Ran." She smiled, her eyes darting up to his, in awe of the love they held for her. "Let's leave this place, okay?"
"Aya nodded.
She grinned, walking with Aya towards the rusty stairs, her hand clasped firmly in his. "Maybe then you can explain to me why you haven't aged a bit in sixteen years?" She laughed out loud at the surprise on his face.
His eyes cast to the stone beneath him, he muttered, "Do you promise not to fall out of love with me?"
Koneko spun in mid step to block his path, her gentle smile glowing as his eyes met hers. "Ran Fujimiya, don't ask stupid questions. Look at me. My love for you lasted a death and a birth and sixteen empty years. Nothing you can say will make me stop loving you."
Aya saw the conviction in her eyes and helped her chivalrously down onto the sagging stairs. "I love you, Ken."
"I know, Ran. Now, tell me what this is all about?"
~Owari~
Aya turned his back on the lonely, damp city streets, ascending a rusty metal fire escape many, many flights high, making his way patiently, gradually to the top of the building.
Something inside Aya reminded him of his past; it was so like those shadowed days almost sixteen years ago when he had escaped death and even a painful humanity and left Ken behind him. He had fought then, to keep the younger Weiß member with him. Demons had stalked the red light district of Tokyo in those days, though sixteen years ago Aya never would have believed it. What he had learned was that humans had minds and intentions scarier and more demonic than any monster would dare to dream up.
He remembered when the demons, the nosferatu, had jumped him, biting his neck and watching him drain of blood as he crawled and writhed to where Ken lay unconscious. Apparently the demon had meant to accost Ken as well, to bite him and drain him of mortality, but instead had smashed Ken into the concrete wall with a hellish strength, crushing the young man's skull. As Aya lay bleeding to death, or at least to undeath, he cried into the night for the first time in many years. He could not even say goodbye to the only thing in his life that still held meaning.
He had spent the subsequent years of his life avenging Ken. Revenge was something Aya understood well. It gave him life, gave him purpose, however flawed and fake the meaning behind Aya's rage. It wasn't at all like living.
Several years after Ken's death, Youji was killed during a mission. Aya could not remember that day with ease, though the echoes of Youji's small part in his life still haunted him. Aya had decided that after Ken had left him, everything had hazed over and he had lived in a dense, soupy fog, meant to block out memories and cushion tragedies beyond his control. Aya also remembered coming home soon after Youji had died to find a note on his pillow. Aya had sighed to himself then, as that very day he had planned to announce his resignation from Weiß. The note was penned by Omi, explaining that he and Nagi had decided they were sick of the fighting and killing and decided to run away together.
Aya remembered smiling at that moment, his first smile since he could remember. He knew there was a time not long before that day when he would have wished death upon Omi for such foolish treachery, but now he could do nothing but hope for Omi's happiness. Aya felt some of Ken's kindness shining through into his own life and was grateful for it.
Schwartz disbanded soon after Nagi's desertion and Aya made the hardest decision of his life. He pulled the plug on his one-chan. It had to end, he reminisced. Aya finally understood something he had never understood as a mortal. The death and the killing, the destruction and pain, the blood and the loss, none of these things brought Aya-chan or Ken back. Part of him had known that always but the part that cried out in anguish as he helplessly watched the only two things he loved being taken from him, that part insisted that there had to be some way to buy them back in blood. That part of him was a part that had perished. Its death was recent and he hadn't mourned it. Ken and Aya-chan were gone and he, Aya Fujimiya, was alone.
He finished his long ascent to the top of a tall bank tower overlooking the whole of metropolitan Tokyo. He could recall a time not at all long ago where, as a nosferatu, he was not strong enough to witness a sunrise. Now he was determined to see just one more. One sunrise, bringing him sixteen years of ageless age. After this there will be peace, Aya promised himself.
He turned his violet gaze to the east, watching a magnificent red star hail dawn as it crawled up over the horizon to brighten Tokyo's bustling city center. The glare of light blinded him momentarily, but as he focused, he noticed a girl perched on the building's ledge. Long chestnut hair fell in a tangle down the back of a loose cotton blue sundress that billowed in the light breeze.
He approached the girl quietly with detached curiosity and she heard his approaching footsteps, spinning around to meet Aya's eyes, obviously startled.
"I'll jump! I mean it!" The young girl threatened.
Aya quirked an eyebrow in mild surprise. She was indeed young, in either her early or mid teens - why then did she threaten suicide? What could possibly make death an option in her short, carefree years on this planet? Her hazel doe eyes were wide with alarm and her face seemed to be marked everywhere with scratches and bruises.
"Why do you want to jump?" Aya queried stoically.
The girl frowned slightly, as though she didn't properly understand the question. "Who are you?" She asked.
"Aya." He said simply.
The girl smiled easily. "Nice to meet you, I guess. Aya…I never thought of it for a guy." She shrugged. "My name's Rindou Koneko. Well, everyone calls me Koneko anyway." She shifted her gaze out at the crisp morning sunrise. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
Aya watched it with her for a moment, the red-orange glare of warmth and light bathing Tokyo's steel towers and endless cement highways. "No."
Koneko turned to him again, a skeptical smile playing across her gentle features. "Why not?"
Aya thought about it in earnest. Sunrises were beautiful, beaches and blue skies and green trees were beautiful, roses and wildflowers were beautiful. Maybe that was all the aesthetic wonder some people needed in their lives. He missed Ken's smile. "Nature isn't impressive to me." He answered finally.
The girl looked down at the city, the people far below her, carrying on their crazy, complicated lives. It was so immense. "That's kind of sad, really. I mean you're missing out on so much joy, the way I see it. I'm lucky enough…one of my old friends, back in Okinawa…she said that I was a lucky person because I could see beauty and goodness in everything." Koneko smiled again, a faint rose hue painting her cheeks. "I don't really suppose that's true, but it's a nice thought, isn't it?"
Aya stood beside her, resting his hands on the cool, damp cement of the ledge. "A person who sees beauty in everything would be very content, don't you think?"
Her eyes slid downwards and the sweetness about her face clouded over. "Not necessarily."
"Why is that?" Aya probed.
"Well, there are many reasons, I guess. Can I ask you a question?" She continued without waiting for a response. "I've been up here a lot lately but I've never seen you here before. Do you come here often?"
"No, not often." Aya answered quietly.
"Why today then? To watch the sunrise, to see the dawn? It makes no sense, since you said sunrises weren't beautiful or impressive?"
Aya nodded once. "It's true, the sunrise doesn't impress me. I don't often get a chance to see it though. It's strange, but when one is deprived of something, even if it is not special, one finds within himself a need to obtain it."
Koneko smiled, her dark eyes glowing softly in the sunlight. "Yes, that makes sense. Do you work at night then? Or do you just have trouble getting up in the morning?"
Aya could have smiled at her naivety. Smiling was coming easier to him these days, or at least the concept of smiling was. "My life is more complicated than that, I suppose. You must understand what I mean." He added casually.
"Yes, I think I do." She nodded, looking out hard across Tokyo.
Aya asked his question once more. "Why do you want to jump?"
Koneko clasped and unclasped her delicate hands over and over, as if they felt strange to her and she was unused to the way they felt together. Her eyes fell down to her lap, to the thin folds of her sundress. "I don't want to."
"Mm. Why then, do you threaten to? You're very young to seek an end to a life you have hardly lived."
The girl tensed, her hands becoming stiff and ridged as she kneaded them against her thighs. "Age doesn't matter sometimes. I don't remember being happy."
That was something Aya could nearly relate to. But even through the mirthless years of his life, he could remember times of pleasure or at least inner contentment. He had taken Ken for granted in those days. "You don't remember any time in your entire life when you were happy? You smile easily. You see beauty and goodness. These don't help you find joy?"
Koneko turned to look at him then, studying Aya's height, his burnt auburn hair, his cold lilac eyes, his long black trench coat and black boots. "You're young and in pain. Why should I be an exception?"
"I'm not as young as I appear." Aya murmured. He was old enough to be this child's father. She managed to remind him of both Aya-chan and Ken.
"Fine." Koneko turned her body to straddle the ledge. "I'm lonely. My family moved her from Okinawa two years ago. I have yet to make friends, to meet people to spend time with away from home. I don't like being home because," she raised a smooth hand gingerly to her face, "my father hits me. All the time. Scratches and burns and bruises and lashes. When I was younger, he did worse." Her eyes lowered in darkened shame.
The chill in his eyes masked Aya's surprise. "What about your mother?"
"She died when I was ten. She didn't know about it back then. I have nowhere to go. Back in Okinawa, my closest friend…I didn't tell her, but she knew something bad was happening. She didn't press it, but she let me stay with her when things got really bad. Father would kill me if he knew I told someone. Anyone." By the intense look of fear in her eyes, Aya knew she was serious.
"Here I have no friends. It's more than that, though, in some ways. Ever since I can remember, I've had this horrible feeling, like this huge piece of me is missing, and I can never get it back. I don't know if you can understand what I mean, or if you know what that's like, but it feels…like your heart is broken beyond repair."
Aya nodded slowly. "Yes. I know how that feels."
Koneko ran a hand numbly through her tangled brown hair. "So you know. That's why I feel like I have to jump. I don't want to. I can't go back home. I swore last night I wouldn't. But I have nowhere else. The rest of my family lives in Europe and we're not close. They wouldn't take me in. And I don't want to feel this loneliness anymore. I don't want to die. I just want it to stop." Her eyes welled with liquid and an embarrassed smile flushed her swollen lips. "I'm sorry." She laughed wryly, brushing the tears from her eyes briskly. "You just came here to be alone and I've pushed my problems on you. You didn't come to hear a child complain of life's injustice. There are…" She paused, "…other ways of getting rid of…problems. I can leave you alone now." Koneko swung her other leg over the ledge and jumped down onto the roof.
Aya felt a need inside himself, an inexplicable desire to go to her, to hold her in his arms and try to assuage her grief. He knew of abuse and of loneliness, the soul-deep kind. She was young and inspirationally brave. She retained her smile, her laugh, and her love of beautiful things - all things he had lost during his own personal tragedy. Something inside him couldn't let her die.
"Wait." He called out as she turned her back to him to descend the rickety metal staircase.
The young girl turned, her hair dancing in the sea salt breeze, her silhouette apparent beneath the gentian blue of her dress. Koneko's haze; eyes caught his and Aya knew where he has seen those eyes before. He had seen their depth and their trust, their naivety and their joy. He had seen love in those eyes. "Ken." Aya mumbled in disbelief.
Koneko's brow creased with confusion. "I'm sorry?"
Abashed, Aya wanted to give up but something wouldn't let him. He paced briskly towards her, grasping her bruised arms firmly and stared down into her eyes. Had he been crazy enough, desperate and pathetic enough to imagine Ken's light and love in the eyes of some troubled little girl? He stared long and hard at her and in her confusion, she stared up into his, trying to understand his unusual behavior. Aya saw in those eyes far more than he could have hoped for. Yes, the light and love, the childlike mirth and gentleness were there. Everything he loved when he looked into Ken's eyes, the solace he received, knowing that someone somewhere in the world still looked out into the wickedness, the injustice with that love and gentleness, all that was bottled in Koneko's hazel eyes.
Her eyes burned into Aya's violet ones and suddenly a chilling, incredulous cold washed over her soul, followed immediately by a wave of warmth more wonderful than she could imagine. "Aya!" She cried, leaping into his arms, wrapping her own tightly around his neck, hugging him so close he could never hope to get away.
Aya stood a moment longer, shocked into shaky silence as a treasure greater than anything he could have wished for dawned slowly upon him. "K-ken." Aya's hand slid up into Koneko's hair, pulling her tightly to him. "My Ken." He whispered hoarsely. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ken. I'm never going to let you go again."
He held her close but after a silent moment she pulled gently away, enough to look up into Aya's eyes. "Promise?" She asked, beaming up at him. "Please you won't let me go, Aya?"
Aya's eyes held hers once again. A soft smile brushed his cold, tight lips and a tiny fleck of tear slid from his lilac eyes down his pale cheek. Koneko reached up gently, her finger catching it and brushing it away. "I love you, Ken."
Beauty and elation bloomed across the young girl's face and she tightened her arms around Aya's neck. "I love you too, Aya."
Aya felt his heart melt at Koneko's words, sliding his hands from her slight waist up her sides to gently cup her face as he leaned forward, placing a sweetly chaste kiss on her soft, pink lips. "Call me Ran." He whispered, leaning his forehead against hers.
Koneko shuddered happily, the amazing warmth in Aya's voice almost too much to bear. "Okay. Ran. I love you, Ran Fujimiya."
Aya wrapped her tightly in his arms. "My Ken. My Koneko. It doesn't matter; you're here." He paused for a moment, and drew back once more, holding his love at arms length. "It's so amazing we found each other. I…I came here to die, Ken-chan, as you did. Now I know for the first time how alive I am." He stopped, knowing it was a half-truth. His soul was alive, more than it had ever been but he was nosferatu. Aya promised himself to tell her that soon. He knew his Ken, and now he knew that their love transcended lifetimes. Ken would understand. "I'm going to make it better, Ken-chan. I'm going to make you so happy." He held her tightly to him. "I'm not going to let you cry ever again, understand? You have somewhere to go now. Someone to live with now." He murmured softly into her hair.
Koneko smiled softly, holding her true love with all the strength she could muster. "I know, Ran." She smiled, her eyes darting up to his, in awe of the love they held for her. "Let's leave this place, okay?"
"Aya nodded.
She grinned, walking with Aya towards the rusty stairs, her hand clasped firmly in his. "Maybe then you can explain to me why you haven't aged a bit in sixteen years?" She laughed out loud at the surprise on his face.
His eyes cast to the stone beneath him, he muttered, "Do you promise not to fall out of love with me?"
Koneko spun in mid step to block his path, her gentle smile glowing as his eyes met hers. "Ran Fujimiya, don't ask stupid questions. Look at me. My love for you lasted a death and a birth and sixteen empty years. Nothing you can say will make me stop loving you."
Aya saw the conviction in her eyes and helped her chivalrously down onto the sagging stairs. "I love you, Ken."
"I know, Ran. Now, tell me what this is all about?"
~Owari~