Disclaimer: As always, Weiss-verse belongs to its respective creators.

Summary: Mamoru muses about his time as Omi, and his opinions about the three men he could never understand. Mamoru's POV. Loosely linked with "I Know".

~X~

In truth, I don't think I really loved Ouka. She was just an experiment.

In that regard, I'm like my brothers – twisted men longing only to experiment and to dominate. A coward, really.

But nevertheless, I tried to 'love' her. You see, I wanted to understand Youji-kun – I wanted to understand the hole that he felt Asuka-san left behind. And I knew that, without a doubt, Schwarz would kill Ouka eventually.

So I eagerly awaited that day.

The fact that she was also my step-sister was just an added benefit. It took me one step closer to understanding Ran-kun.

But in the end, I didn't really understand either them. As I watched the life fade from her eyes and screamed her name as I always envisioned Youji to (based on his drunken retellings), I felt…

… nothing.

I wonder, does that make me a monster? Or was it simply a passing teenage crush that simply lacked the emotional weight behind it to make it a true loss? Does the fact that I barely knew her overwhelm the fact that she's my sister?

Truly, I wonder.

But it's too late now. I can't rewind time to get to know her better and truly fall in love with her, and then lose it all at once.

It doesn't matter.

So I decided to move onto Ken-kun, hoping that I would have more success there.

I befriended Nagi.

I knew that the other Weiss would never betray me, with Ken-kun having had enough of any kind of betrayal, Youji-kun looking at me like some long-lost little brother, and Ran-kun being forcefully faithful to Kriticker as I was.

So I had to find an alternative. Nagi was the obvious answer.

He was the enemy. He was a child. He also hated his life at Schwarz, but loved and feared his oh-so-perfect leader, Crawford. A perfect candidate really.

So we became friends.

We made our first tentative steps online. It took a good three months of hacking to find out which forums he frequented most often, and then three more to find out his username as well as his preferred time of login and logout.

And there, I set a trap. I talked to him as I would a normal stranger: about hobbies, about my taste in music, about girls. And he took to it like a sponge. He, who craved normality, grabbed onto our conversations like a drowning man to a rope.

And then came the day that Crawford found out.

I was counting on it, really.

It was almost disappointing that it took another four months for the precog to realise that we were planning an ofukai*1, and that it would end badly for the young telepath.

And so he had a talk with Nagi, and Schwarz set a trap.

At the same time, Ran also found out. I suppose he truly is a model assassin – despite what the other two think, he's adept not only with his katana, but with guns, needles, poisons and more recently, computers and hacking.

It was due to the last two skills on his increasing repertoire that my plan began to unravel.

It was meant to be a single betrayal by Nagi, to me, and I would live, for Crawford still needed us alive, but nothing would stop him from beating me within an inch of my life. A good re-enactment of Ken's final days as a disgraced soccer player.

But in the end, thanks to Ran-kun's meddling, it became a double betrayal.

We betrayed each other at the same time.

Our team fought.

The restaurant was destroyed.

And in the end, we all went home, licking our respective wounds. Ran-kun approached me and scolded me for fraternising with the enemy, but I knew then.

I knew that Nagi was already quite taken with me – be it as a friend, or merely as a symbol for normality. And so, when the time came for Schwarz to disband, once more did I extend my hand out to him. And once more did he take it, and worship our connection.

And before we knew it, he was my bodyguard, and I, Takatori Mamoru, his boss.

A sickening parody of Takatori Reiji and Crawford really.

In the end, I didn't understand a single one of them. Their grief, their loss, and their self-destructive pursuit in joining their lost ones. All of that nonsense… just didn't make sense to me. When I confided in Nagi, he shook his head and gave me a sad smile.

I always thought we were the same.

I guess I was wrong.

Nagi was born as a street-rat. He eeked out a living in the fringes of society, stealing, robbing and whoring. But he was human. He connected with others – he had friends, he had enemies, and he had crushes. Then Rosenkreuz took him away from all that, conditioning him for their purposes. But their training was incomplete. He was simply too powerful for simple brainwashing.

I was not so lucky. I was found and raised immediately as an assassin. Anything I raised and touched, I would soon be told to kill. Sometimes I wonder if there was ever any difference between killing my brothers and that dog I raised so long ago. Perhaps the dog had been just that much harder to kill.

I don't know.

I can't understand.

In the end, I am just a killer. And I'm mighty good at it.

I feel nothing.

Should I be guilty?

I don't know.

~X~

*1 = An "offline meeting" of people who met online. I just like the sound of "ofukai" ^w^"