It was the early marches of the night when Aya came to his room and slid the flat box out from beneath his bed. His hair still dripped from his shower. Though the red of the blood had been washed off his body, he could still smell its tang beneath the scent of his soap. It never completely washed away.
He didn't turn on the light. It was best to let his housemates think he was asleep. He didn't want them to know some things about himself. He also didn't need more light than what spilled through the window to navigate through the contents of the box. Blinded, he would have known the shape, feel, and purpose of each of the box's contents. He took off the lid and set it to one side, on his mattress.
The wand was on top. He'd always thought its design a little silly, a little cute. In the end, like all of them, he'd never gone without it. The wand had become that much a part of him. Its red crystal gleamed at him even now, yellow-silvered by the light, the greens and creams that dominated the rest of the wand's design washed out. It was one of the first things he'd learned how to make, he and Takeo-kun together, cutting and sanding wood, shaping and painting until the wands matched the image in the grimoire. He caressed that smooth wood now, and set it reverently aside.
Beside the wand was a stack of cards. He knew the use of every one, the chanted syllables that would go with each, that still place of concentration inside that was the same place his studies as a swordsman had led him. That place from where all right thought and action sprung. He could still hear it, his voice raised, chanting with four others--
The stack of cards were set carefully beside the wand.
Opposite in the box from the cards was another stack, this one of photographs, well-thumbed and well-loved. Takeo-kun, watching proudly as their three kouhai flew their brooms delicately, confidently. Sawanoguchi-kun, flustered at having summoned a winged textbook into the club room. Aikawa-kun, as photogenic as always, modeling her club costume the first day she'd worn it. Nanaka, berating a downcast Sae for tripping over her own feet again. Aya thumbed through them and others, each precious memory bringing a smile to his face, one his teammates now would have found strange to see. Eventually, though, the photographs too had to be set aside.
At the bottom of the box lay folds of black and white silk and a pointed witch's hat bent flat. He took the hat out and shook it. It snapped promptly back into the correct shape. He ran a hand along its cool, smooth brim.
If only...
Lost Magic: Eyes of a Stranger
a Weiss Kreuz/MahoutsukaiTai! crossover
by K. Stonham
first released 9th July 2006
Aya remembered his purpose every time he looked in a mirror. The purple eyes that looked back at him were those of a stranger.
His parents had been divorced when he was a very small child. The courts had granted custody of him to his mother; his surname had been changed to her family name. For as far back as he could remember, he had been Aburatsubo Ayanojou.
His father had remarried quickly. His new wife, who had been his secretary, bore him a daughter. For whatever reason, Aya's father had given his daughter a name similar to the one he had given his son. But Aya had only known about his half-sister vaguely, though family rumors, until he was eight. His father had come back into his life that summer, much to his mother's dismay. He'd ended up spending time at his father's home. His stepmother, to spare confusion between the siblings, had nicknamed him "Ran." He'd never used the name in his own life, only in theirs. He'd always known that it was all an attempt to woo him back to the Fujimiya family, to be the son and heir that his father's second wife hadn't been able to provide. Though he adored his sister, he'd firmly resisted his father's wish all the way through high school. If the man had wanted a son, Aya felt, he should not have thrown away in a divorce the one he'd already had.
The explosion and the car accident had changed everything.
His mother had been waiting inside the house to take him back home after he'd finished escorting his sister around the shrine festival. She'd been killed along with his father and stepmother. And Aya-chan...
At the hospital that night Aya had felt his heart shatter. He'd always pretended distance from his father and discomfort with his mother's clinging. In his heart of hearts, though, he had loved them all. He'd just never been able to show it. They were dead, his gentle, laughing stepmother also, and his sister in a coma...
When he'd gone back to his house and looked at himself in a mirror, he'd known that he could never go back to school again. He had lied to himself and to the world and hadn't ever told his family that he cared.
He didn't deserve Nanaka or Takeo.
Scissors had made quick work of his hair, red silk falling into the wet sink. But it wasn't enough. Hair would grow back. He still looked like who he had been, a person who lied. He needed something distinctive, permanent. Something that would never let him forget.
He didn't remember the syllables he'd whispered. He hadn't had his wand at hand, but sometimes it was not necessary for magic. He'd seen Sawanoguchi-kun do wandless magic before, so it wasn't that far of a stretch to imagine that he might be able to as well.
From that moment on, his eyes had been the eyes of a stranger.
The bell over the door chimed and everyone looked up simultaneously. It had been a slow afternoon (the local schools had all taken field trips to temples, depriving the small flower shop of the crowds of girls who stood admiringly about but almost uniformly never bought any merchandise.)
"Welcome!" Omi said.
"Is this the 'Koneko' flower shop?" the young woman asked. She was beyond pretty and well into the category of beautiful. Silver hair spilled like a waterfall to her knees, its color broken only by a streak of red in her bangs.
"It certainly is," Youji said, rising to his feet immediately. "How may we humble knights be of service, oh princess?"
"I need a gift for a friend," the young woman replied. "I was thinking maybe a plant? Nakatomi-sempai likes plants, I think..." Her voice trailed off as though she was unsure.
"Let me show you our selection," Youji said, beginning to guide her around the shop, one hand on the small of her back. He smiled at her in full charmer mode. She smiled back.
A snapping sound drew Omi's attention. The pot in Aya's hands had shattered. "Aya-k--"
"I'll get the broom from the back," Aya said, turning quickly and disappearing through the door in the shop's inner wall.
The girl, Omi noticed, had turned her head in the direction of Aya's voice, but he'd vanished into the supply room before she could spot him.
"I could swear I've seen you before--ah!" Youji snapped his fingers, drawing attention back to himself. "Of course, how could I forget? Miss Aikawa Akane, right? The fashion model."
"Oh," she said in a small voice, looking down. "You know me."
"Of course." Youji leaned in closer and stage-whispered, "You're even prettier in person than in your pictures."
Aikawa-kun. Aikawa-kun. Aikawa-kun was here. In the Koneko. Must not panic. It was coincidence, that was all. She hadn't come looking for him, hadn't been sent. They couldn't know. No one knew.
Aya looked up into the mirror over the small sink. Violet eyes looked back. His face was hard, different. He was a man now, with the extra maturity that implied. He didn't look the same.
Aikawa didn't either. She'd grown, not so much in height but in maturity, losing the girlish roundness her face had held in high school. He'd watched her change from afar, through the advertisements she appeared in, the few television specials, her first movie. Tabloid rumor had her dating this star or that, going through men like tissues. She'd had much the same habit in high school.
"Aya, you okay?" Ken asked, leaning in the doorway. He looked pointedly at the broom to Aya's left. "I'm not cleaning up that pot for you."
Aya gave Ken a look that conveyed his disgust and annoyance better than any inadequate words, and snatched up the broom.
Youji flirted with the pretty starlet; she was over eighteen and, the rumor mill had it, between leading men at the moment. Fair game, he thought, until Aya came out of the back room and glared at him. Not the ice prince's usual keep-away glare, the one that set milk curdling, paint peeling, and babies crying, but something darker and more violent. Slowly Youji's hands backed away from Aikawa, until Aya's almost imperceptible nod let him know he was off the hook. Then the redhead turned and began sweeping up the shards of pottery like nothing had ever happened.
The next morning, when Aya came down to open the flower shop, he discovered that somehow all of their red roses had inexplicably become bright green. He pulled one out of the case, examining it. Was it backlash from Aikawa being in the shop? Her magic had usually had some kind of overflow.
Or was it the effect of a search spell hitting the few wards he'd risked?
"Aya-kun!" Omi said, coming into the shop. Aya turned, showing Omi the rose--no point hiding it, there was a whole case full of them. Omi's eyes widened.
Then Omi hiccuped, and brightly colored bubbles flew out of his mouth.
Musical bubbles.
Omi's eyes threatened to eclipse the rest of his face as he clapped a hand over his mouth.
Birman's arrival ten minutes before opening time steadied Omi enough that his hiccups stopped. Aya glanced up at the ceiling before going downstairs. The bubbles were still there against the ceiling, softly jostling one another like balloons.
He could make them disappear, change the roses back--
No. He couldn't risk it.
With the rest of Weiss, Aya headed down into the Underworld.
Akane stepped out of her shower and wrapped a towel around herself. Humming blithely she went into her bedroom to select clothes for the day--not that it mattered too much what she chose since she'd be changed out of it at the shoot. Still, there was no reason not to look nice, she thought as she walked past her dresser, intent on her closet.
Something caught her eye and she paused, trying to figure out what it was.
The small bush with the creamy yellow roses she had purchased for her friend sat on the dresser until she could find a moment to gift it. Akane leaned closer, blinking wide eyes.
She'd never before seen a rosebush where every bloom was a different color. A few even glittered.
"Hmm."
Unfortunately the day didn't improve much after their mission briefing was over. Hanging fuchsia baskets started showering gold sparkles of light onto whatever was beneath them. Pots moved themselves around. A few even tried to drag race each other until Ken and Youji pulled them firmly away from one another and set them in opposite corners of the shop where they seemed to sulk. The final straw came, however, when the shop broom hovered in front of Aya.
He knew what it wanted.
"'Magic wants to have fun'," he whispered to himself, remembering how Sawanoguchi's magic had taken on its own form and its own life. "'Magic wants to be free'."
He grabbed the broom with both hands. "No," he told it firmly, twisting until it stood upright again and its bristles touched the floor. It resisted for a moment then, defeated, obeyed.
He turned to face his coworkers.
"I don't think this is Schwarz," Ken said, watering a hydrangea whose flower clusters kept reaching appreciatively toward the watering can. "Even they can't do this."
"We're not going to be able to open the shop if it keeps up like this," Youji muttered. "Anyone sees this, we'll all be in trouble."
Perched atop a ladder, Omi reached for another of his hiccup bubbles and pulled it away from the ceiling. "I just wish I knew where all this came from." He stuck a pin in the bubble and it deflated with a sigh.
Aya rested the broom in its corner, eyeing it warily as he took his hands away. It stayed put.
If this was Aikawa's magic and it was spilling over, it might not be easy to fix things. He didn't have a copy of the grimoire, couldn't immediately think of a spell that would work.
But, he thought, looking around the magic-infested Koneko, if things didn't stop on their own, he might have to find a way to learn one.
The magic lasted three days, by the end of which time Aya was within a hair's breadth of taking his wand out of its box and forcing it all to stop. His teammates, though, surprised him by adapting easily to the unexpected invasion of their shop.
"It's not like it's a giant cherry tree tromping through downtown Tokyo, Aya," Ken explained, watering the glittering fuchsias. They trilled at him. "Actually, it's kind of cute." The flowers preened at the compliment.
Aya always did tend to forget that the world (or at least the greater Tokyo metropolitan area) had been present for that event, as they hadn't been directly involved.
...the smooth feel of the wind against his face, the steady flight of his broom as he placed cards on the branches, the snap of his cape, and the occasional sound of raised feminine voices as they worked. And all around them, the faint, overpowering scent of spring in the branches of the tree...
He blinked away the memory and reached for a vase. The glass rippled, squirmed, tried to get away. It stopped when Aya glared at it.
Omi smiled. "Aya-kun, you sure have a way with magic."
Whether it was Omi finally voicing the word they'd all been avoiding or the woman who walked in the door as he said it Aya didn't know, but all of a sudden the magic stopped. Singing roses grew silent, the fuschias stopped glittering, and the winged ivy pot fluttered back down to the table, tucked its wings by its sides, and went back to sleep.
"Excuse me," Nakatomi Nanaka said, holding a small rosebush whose flowers ranged in color from red to green to violet, "but is one of you by chance a magician?"
Her hair was a little longer but her body still athletic and trim. She wore an office lady's uniform with sensible shoes. And at the sight of her Aya felt something painful and denied lurch in his throat.
Her breath caught as she saw past the other three men, saw the one sitting at a worktable littered with flowers. His red hair was so short now, and his elegant face nearly unreadable. But his eyes held something she felt mirrored in her own. "Aburatsubo-sempai!" she said, stepping toward him.
In a flash, what thought she'd seen was gone, hidden beneath a stranger's bland mask and purple eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, and his voice was the same, smooth and deep like a cape's rich satin, "but I'm not who you're looking for."
His words drew her up short, the rosebush held to her chest. "Sempai," she breathed in shock. There was no doubting it was him, none whatsoever. But his wrong-colored eyes were cold.
"Aya-kun," one of the other men said.
His name was Aya. Nanaka's eyes narrowed. That name and that voice... he had to be the same.
The front door of the shop opened, ringing the bell. "Nakatomi-sempai?" Akane asked. She'd come from work the same way Nanaka had. They'd planned it...
The doorbell rang again. "Nanaka?" Sae asked. "Akane-chan!"
"Sempai!" Akane greeted. Nanaka still stood staring at Aburatsubo, challenging him. He was getting just the slightest shade paler with each arrival.
"Aya, what's goin' on?"
"Nothing," he rebuked his co-worker.
"Aburatsubo-sempai!" Sae said.
"I thought I saw him here the other day," Akane mused.
The bell rang one last time. "Sorry I'm late," Takakura's voice chimed in. "Oh, Sae, you're already here." His voice stilled. "Aburatsubo...?" he asked.
The man's lips silently formed the name "Takeo-kun" before he caught himself and glared icily, aristocratically, at Nanaka. She held her ground, giving as good as she got. He'd put them through six years of hell with his disappearing stunt after his mother was killed in that explosion, not so much as a word or a good-bye...
"It is you, isn't it?" Takakura asked, coming closer. "Where have you been?"
The man's expression struggled briefly, then cleared. "I'm sorry," he said softly, and Nanaka could taste the lie in his next words, "but I'm afraid you have the wrong person. I'm not this friend you're looking for."
"Bull--" Takakura started, but the man turned, cutting off his words by walking away. "Aburatsubo!"
The man walked out the back door of the shop, shutting it behind himself.
"Hey!" One of his coworkers ran to the door. "Aya, get back here!"
There was no one on the other side of the door.
"He ran," Takeo repeated. "We spent all this time looking for him, finally -find- Aburatsubo, and he runs."
"Maybe he's not ready to come home yet," Aikawa said, fiddling with her straw.
"But why not?" Sae asked. "I mean, his mother getting killed was horrible and all, but why won't he let us help?"
It was the same subject they'd debated off and on for the whole time they'd been searching for their missing coven member. Having come closer now to finding him, Takeo thought, they were further than ever from an answer. He looked at Nakatomi, who had been unusually silent. "Nakatomi-kun?" he asked.
"I'm going to kill him," she grated. "He's a selfish bastard who won't even say goodbye or tell us why, and a coward who runs. Maybe he's right--maybe he's not our Aburatsubo-sempai at all!"
They rest of them stared at her in shock.
Nakatomi sighed and deflated. "Even if he doesn't want to come back to the coven," she said in a small voice, "I just wish he'd tell us why. It's not that he's lost his magic." Her fingers twined, almost unconsciously, in her multi-colored rosebush.
"He used the doorways," Sae agreed. "The same way we did."
Takeo glanced reflectively at his watch. "The time...!"
Nakatomi looked at hers too and cursed. "I'm late!"
"Tonight at my place, seven o'clock!" Aikawa said, standing and grabbing her own purse as they made for the doorway.
"I can't make it until half past, but I'll be there," Takeo promised, opening the door and thinking firmly of his office as he stepped through.
At half past seven, Aya silently slid past an open doorway and proceeded down the hallway. His red hair and pale skin were beacons, he knew, so he kept carefully, quietly to the shadows in the pursuit of tonight's target. It was in information-only job, which Ken kept repeatedly detesting over their comm until Omi finally told him to bitch about it to himself and keep the line clear, thank you very much, Ken-kun. Aya wondered briefly if he wasn't supposed to be the bloodthirsty one.
His sister. This was for his sister. He kept that thought firmly in mind. Seeing his old schoolmates today had wavered his purpose briefly. If there could be a way that they could heal her...
But there wasn't. There was no spell to wake a coma victim frozen in time. It was magic, he knew that much, but it wasn't the same kind of magic that their club had worked with. None of the charms or spells he'd ever attempted to cast had gone near her. It was only by the absence of their kind of magic that he'd finally been able to detect what had happened to Aya-chan.
There was natural magic in everything, living or otherwise. Even the Bell, alien though it was, had traces of magic in it and was subject to its rules. But there was no magic in his sister. She was like the deep cold of space. An emptiness, an unnatural void...
Aya scurried past another office on the way to the server room. The empty rooms felt like eyes at his back. They made him wary, which was good. Complacency would get you killed in this profession.
He had to keep her alive, no matter what the cost. His father's company had been seized, his assets taken. Aya's mother's property, impressive though it had been, had only covered the cost of a few months' care for Aya-chan. Only Kritiker, and his servitude to it, was keeping her alive now.
No. There was no going back. Not even for Takeo. Not even for Nakatomi.
Aya had too much at stake.
It was the wasabi that did Ken in. Really. It had absolutely nothing to do with looking up from his lunch to find Aya's stalkers taking a table in the sushi restaurant he frequented. Really.
He immediately looked away (covert ops rule number seven: never be caught staring) and swigged back his ice water, waiting for the burning miasma of pain in his sinuses to dissipate. Which was not to say that his ears weren't wide open to any word he could manage to pick up. If only he had Weiss' gear... a dot-mike and wireless receiver would be handy, especially over the ambient noise of the restaurant.
"He lives in the apartments above the shop," Nanaka reported. "I think they all do."
Sae stared at her. "Nanaka, are you stalking him?"
"Of course not," Nanaka replied primly. "I was just making sure he hadn't run away again."
Nanaka hovered above the shop, her tabard fluttering in the light evening breeze. She watched as the lights went out and the four men--Aburatsubo among them--went out the back. The tall blond headed to the parking garage. A few moments later a fancy car drove out, him behind the wheel. The smaller blond went to one of the apartments in the building above the shop. The brunet also went into the garage and a few minutes later wheeled out a motorcycle. He had a tool kit and plopped himself down beside the bike to start doing Obscure Engine Things. But Aburatsubo... with a brief stop at a different apartment, he headed for the roof.
She hadn't known he practiced kendo, but somehow it fit. He'd always been good at whatever he tried.
Hard as he tried not to be, Ken was impressed. Stalking four assassins without any of them noticing a thing... that girl should work for Kritiker.
Still, he thought, pouring more soy sauce into its dish, Omi would throw a fit if he knew their security was so easily compromised. And what Aya would do if he found out... right. Best not to go there.
Takeo stared meditatively into his green tea. "As much as I hate to say it... we've found him and Aburatsubo doesn't seem to want anything to do with us," he said. And it hurt, a deep, coiling wound that his friend, the first person to believe him about magic, the man who'd shored him up during school, salvaged his pride, mended his pants and ultimately given him up to Sae with a friendly smile, would do that to him, to them, but... "Maybe it's time we let him go," he said quietly.
Sae didn't say anything, but her head bowed forward and he knew she was holding back tears. Aikawa just looked away, off to the side, but her expression was sad.
Nakatomi, too, looked for a moment like she was going to agree, but in a split second that changed and she slammed her hands down on the table, half-rising from her seat. "No!" she refuted. "He owes us an explanation and a good-bye. I'm not letting him off like that. He owes us wizard's courtesy, and I'm not letting it rest until he makes things square." Then her eyes looked beyond Takeo, refocused. Her head tilted slightly to one side. "Huh?"
Ken was yanked from his seat by an irate office lady. "You're sempai's coworker, aren't you?" she asked with a small, triumphant (evil) grin.
So much for covert ops, he thought with a wince. Youji would never let him live it down and Omi would sign him up for another training course as soon as he found out.
"Yes...?" Ken replied in a small voice.
Aya's old schoolmates, Ken decided, were absolutely insane. Not insane in a good Youji-I-cannot-believe-you-just-pulled-that-off way, either, but insane in the scary-Irishman-with-a-penchant-for-licking-bloody-knives way.
"Aya. A magician," Ken said, wanting to clarify that the concept he was getting was the one they were actually trying to get across.
"A good one, too," the man agreed. "Maybe better than me... though if he hasn't studied for the past six years, probably not."
"Are you sure you've really got the right Aya?" Ken asked. "The one I know has got zero interest in anything so frivolous."
"Magic's not frivolous!" the carrot-haired woman rebuked. "It's important! It's life itself. It's..." she trailed off.
"It's happiness," the model said quietly. "Magic is what makes the world a better place."
Ken shook his head. "Look, I'm not saying I don't believe you about magic existing--it took over our shop for three days, after all--but Aya? I don't think he's capable of happiness."
"Magic won't take root where there's not a place for it," the man said contemplatively. "If it filled your store for three days, that means someone let it in." He looked significantly at Ken. "Unless one of the rest of you is a magician..."
It was, Ken had to admit, food for thought.
Aya's reaction was in no way what Ken had expected. Rather than silent white anger, or worse, the disappearing act that screamed denial, Aya just nodded and went back to sweeping up the debris of leaves and stems and petals that was the constant litter of a flower shop.
Youji raised an inquiring eyebrow. Ken shrugged in response. "Are you feeling okay, Aya?" the blond inquired.
Aya rolled his eyes and continued sweeping, short, efficient strokes that pushed the trash into a mound. "I never expected them to give up so easily. It's not in any of their natures."
"So they are your classmates," Youji declared, enlightened.
"Mmm." The broom didn't stop as Aya poked it into corners, teasing out dust. "We were in the same club."
"So why're you lying to them now?" Ken asked.
Aya actually stopped working and looked at Ken as though he was an extremely stupid child. "You need to ask, Siberian?"
Oh.
"Better not let Omi catch you using those names in the shop," Youji advised.
Aya didn't want his friends around because... Yeah. Because of Weiss, because of Kritiker, because they'd all taken one-way trips to being killers.
The blood soaked Ken's clothes, his claws, his hands. He raised those hands before his eyes, starring in raw horror at the red--
"Ken-kun?"
Omi blinked at Ken from the other side of the table. He always looked so innocent somehow.
"The rush will be here in about ten minutes," Omi advised them, stashing his satchel beneath the counter and shedding the jacket of his school uniform. "You might want to get ready."
"Loads of single pink sweetheart roses," Youji predicted for the afternoon's sales, sliding off his stool. "Did you eat enough lunch, Omi? Wouldn't want your stamina to wear out."
"Youji-kun!" Omi exclaimed, outraged, following Youji into the storage room.
Ken unfolded his clenched hands. Four red crescents bled across each palm. He was lucky his hands weren't shaking.
"You should put some antiseptic on those." Aya dumped his dustpan of debris in the bin. His eyes met Ken's. "Before those girls get here."
"Aya," Ken felt compelled to ask, "are you a magician?"
Aya turned, without replying, to put away the cleaning supplies. Ken waited a minute then sighed, knowing he wasn't going to get an answer out of his coworker. He stood and followed Omi and Youji into the storage room, aiming for the first aid kit and Omi to declare whether his hands needed band-aids, gauze, or open air.
Aya waited until he was alone before answering quietly, "I used to be."
The air was sultry as Youji locked the shop closed behind them that night. The blond immediately went off for a date or a drink--denying his sorrows either way, a part of Aya's mind thought--with Ken following closely behind, probably going to a club or some sports rally. Omi headed for his room, homework and pixel people and maybe research because he honestly did fall into the category of "scarily brilliant and way too good at managing his time," as Youji had once opined. Aya headed up the stairs to his room as well. Just outside his door, though, he stopped and looked up into the sky.
As he expected, a black-and-gold figure hovered there, sitting astride an old-fashioned broom, her tabard flapping in the gentle twilight breeze.
He looked at her for a moment, eyes meeting across the distance, then Aya turned and went into his apartment, locking the door behind himself.
He briefly considered food, but instead just went to his bed and laid down to brood. Aya-chan and Nanaka and Takeo and Weiss and his kouhai...
Sometime later, as he turned over, Aya wondered again at how difficult it was to make oneself truly heartless.
The dichotomy of sword versus sorcery kept running through Aya's head the next two weeks as his classmates refused to leave him alone, at least one popping into the flower shop each day. He could feel them coming like a low itch beneath his skin as they used the doorways spell. The presence of their active, bubbling magic buzzed in the back of his head like vertigo. He couldn't quite manage to be as rude to them as he was to Omi's pack of idiot schoolgirls, but by the end of any of their visits his hands were white-knuckled holding vases and it was through sheer willpower alone that he wasn't snapping flower stems between two fingers.
Why couldn't they understand that he didn't want them in his life anymore?
The magic was done, it was all in his past, and no matter how much fun life had seemed then, he lived in reality now. He had a sister to provide for, and his life as a murderer was the only path left open to him.
Not that he could exactly explain that to Takeo as he bought a bright bouquet of flowers for Sae, now his wife and getting on quite well with her advanced magic studies, apparently. The man kept up a one-sided conversation about his life, as though they were old friends who hadn't seen one another in years. Aya kept silent as he worked, crushing down the part of himself that was truly interested and happy for his friend.
The worst part, though, came when Takeo left and Aya couldn't hide from himself the fact that he was envious. That Takeo's life had gone straight ahead as planned while Aya's had gone more sideways than he ever could have thought of, once.
Aya spent the rest of the afternoon filling delivery orders, mindlessly creating perfectly balanced bouquets and aesthetically asymmetrical ikebana, trying to purge his soul again to nothingness. Wisely, his coworkers left him alone.
The radio silence was comforting. It meant that Omi had nothing to report and Youji was busy rewiring surveillance cameras while Ken and Aya made their way down the hall. Theoretically there was nothing to worry about. Theoretically the rent-a-guards were on the other side of the complex. Theoretically the door's alarm had been turned off. Theoretically there was no one working late, or dumb college kids pulling off a dare, or Schwarz showing up with their stupid power play head games...
"Is it just me, or does it feel like something's about to go wrong?" Ken asked sotto voce.
"No," Aya replied quietly. "Bombay?"
"Everything's clear from here," Omi answered. Just barely, Aya could make out the hum of the laptop inevitably situated in front of Bombay. "Balinese?"
"Pretty as my next date," Youji replied. "You're jumping at shadows, Siberian."
"What do you think, Abyssinian?" Omi asked.
Aya met Ken's eyes and nodded just a little. "I agree with Siberian. Something's off. We'll proceed until we find out what."
"All right. Be careful." Aya might have led on the ground, but Omi was the tactician and their team's real leader. It should have rankled, following the orders of someone three years younger, but Aya was glad to let that burden slide from his shoulders. "Pull out the minute something goes wrong."
They reached the door to the meeting room. Ken pulled out one of Omi's tech toys, waved it near the alarm. It stayed off; the alarm circuit was broken. Ken pocketed it again as Aya flanked the other side of the door. They met eyes again; Ken nodded. "Bombay, we're going in," he said into his mike, then kicked open the door.
There were people with guns, was Nanaka's first realization. Real guns. They looked like they knew how to use them. She whispered a curse and urged her broom into the shadows, thanking several gods that people never seemed to look up. She really didn't want any of those guns pointed at her.
The second realization, once she had a moment to calm her nerves and reflect, was that she'd come through a window frame using the doorways spell, concentrating on the place where Aburatsubo was.
Her eyes widened and she looked back down in a panic, fingers fumbling for her wand. If he was going to walk in, all those men with guns might shoot him... a shield spell, she needed a shield spell right now!
Ken's instincts had been good. He ducked right and Aya ducked left and then they came back at the rent-a-thugs, two of whom paused at the sight of death running at them, naked blades in hand. It was their last mistake. And their bodies made shields from gunfire, and the familiar smell made up of carbon and oil, blood and sweat, stale cigarettes, feces, and cold fear filled Aya's nostrils as they worked their way through the trap. Youji would have come to help them, but Omi's voice on the line forbid it; by the time Youji could possibly arrive, the two of them would either be the victors, or dead.
It was so nice to know your teammates cared, Aya thought grimly. But then Omi thought of the bottom line. He had to. Which was why Aya wasn't the one making the decisions.
Nanaka watched in shock, and growing horror, as Aburatsubo and the dark-haired coworker plowed their way through the men with semi-automatics. They did it easily, like a dance. Like it was practiced. Like they'd done it lots of times before.
The sword... it wasn't just for kendo, she realized distantly, in the part of her mind that wasn't frozen and was running a stream of babble instead. And the other one, he'd seemed so nice. So normal.
She barely even noticed as tears carved their way down her face.
They were both breathing hard by the time they were through. Aya spared a look at Ken as he flicked the blood neatly from his sword (and when, he wondered, had that habit become automatic?). He'd avoided most of the gore, though his coat was going to need a trip to the dry-cleaners Weiss used. Ken, though, was stained with blood. Aya pitied him his weapon.
"Siberian?" Omi's voice asked suddenly. "Abyssinian? Report."
Aya adjusted his mike with a gloved hand. "We're through. Proceeding to target." It wasn't pure Black Technology they were here to destroy tonight, but it was almost as dangerous, and scheduled to be picked up tomorrow.
It was the magic tingle that made him pause after he sheathed his sword.
"Abyssinian?" Ken asked, already ahead of him.
Aya snapped his thoughts away from what he'd felt. That was that, and this was his job, and his life. Messing up here could get both himself and Ken killed, and if that shipping crate was delivered tomorrow, a lot more people would get hurt.
He would deal with what he'd felt later.
Nanaka watched as the two men worked quickly, attaching things to a particular crate. She was too far away to understand what they said to one another, but the words were few and to the point. They worked again quickly and well, showing all the marks of a long teamship. Like herself and Sae, Akane, Takakura...
It seemed only a few minutes until they were finished and heading back to the door they'd come in through. They didn't even seem to notice the bodies of the men they'd killed, except to walk around them instead of across. They avoided the blood too. She supposed they didn't want to track it out on the soles of their boots. Aburatsubo went through the door, but the other one paused and dug something out of his jacket.
Then the crate exploded and a cloud of flame mushroomed up to engulf the roof of the building and Nanaka too.
How Aya heard the scream beneath the explosion he didn't know. He spun and shoved past Ken, eyes tracking automatically now to what he hadn't seen a few minutes before: Nanaka, clinging one-handed to a burning broom, flames eating away at her tabard and hat wreath. He hadn't his wand to pull her to safety, couldn't cross the flaming wreckage of the warehouse floor to pull her to safety, wasn't able to fly and save her.
But, like with his sister, he could not just let her die. The hell that was life as Kritiker's murderer meant nothing if he couldn't use it to protect the innocent.
Wasn't she a part of his coven?
A janitor's broom lay against the wall, smoldering itself. He pulled it away, feeling Ken's eyes on him. He stamped it against the floor, putting the flames in the short bristles out.
"Aya, what are you doing?"
He met Ken's eyes as he spun the broom level, an old, practiced move. "Saving someone," he replied. Then he looked back at the broom and concentrated. There was magic; there always had been, and there always would be. And riding a broom was easy.
He took his hands away and the janitor's broom remained level in the air. Perching calmly sidesaddle, he gripped the broomstick, and flew.
It was quite simple. Nanaka knew she was going to die.
Her gloved hand slipped a few more inches down the burning broom as it slowly sank down to the fiery sea that was the floor of this hell-begotten warehouse where she was going to be engulfed in flames and die and no one would know, not even Sae, and Aburatsubo might've, maybe, but he was gone and didn't care anyway...
"May I offer you a ride?" he asked, and Nanaka found herself staring into purple eyes that should've been green as he skillfully maneuvered a broom up and beneath her so that she perched effortlessly on it. Unconsciously her fingers curled around the good, solid wood of the broomstick. The minute she did so, magic stopped working on her own broom and it fell down, disappearing into the fire. She barely noticed, staring into those eyes.
He looked away.
"Siberian, pull out," he said, and she noticed for the first time that he was wearing a head mike. "We're done here. Bombay, I have something to take care of. I'll meet you back at base. No, I will not explain. Abyssinian out." He pulled the mike off and stowed it in a pocket as the broom rose higher. His eyes met Nanaka's again.
"You owe me an explanation," she said, the words braver than she felt.
He held out a hand, demanding.
She paused, then handed her wand to him.
He closed his eyes and whispered the words: "Odori deiah--". She closed her own and joined in the familiar chant: "--handa ee." The broom picked up speed, rushing forward, the hot air blowing around their faces, as it dove through a window, and came out somewhere else entirely.
There really was only one way to explain, and so Aya took her to the one person whose presence made explanations unnecessary.
They left the broom on the roof, along with his coat and sword and Nanaka's tabard and hat. If one ignored the smell of smoke and the faint tang of blood about them, they could have passed for two trendy people out on a date. Fortunately the smells disappeared into the antiseptic maw of the hospital.
He led the way unerringly to his sister's room. It was past visiting hours, but the staff knew him and didn't raise a fuss at his presence.
"Who is she?" Nanaka asked as they stood on opposite sides of Aya-chan's bed.
"My sister." He held his sister's hand in his as he stood looking down at her.
"I didn't know you had a sister."
"My family was murdered," he said, and listened to the silence the words created. "I saw it. Only she survived. She's been in a coma ever since."
"That's why you disappeared?" she asked quietly. Aya couldn't look up. "Is that why you do that?"
"It costs a lot of money to care for a coma patient," he answered. "More than you could ever imagine."
"Sempai--" she said, and he could hear her swallow before asking, "Why didn't you ask us for help?"
"I tried magic, in the beginning," he said. "It didn't help. Whatever keeps her in this coma, keeps her from aging like anyone else should... it's impervious to magic. And don't say you could have helped financially. It was too much money."
Nanaka's half-laugh was bitter. "So you just left. Without even saying good-bye, or letting us know."
He did look up now, met her eyes with a hard gaze. "Don't," he warned. "I became a murderer to keep her alive. There was no way I would ever have let any of you know. I didn't want you involved with what I've become."
"Become?!" she demanded, and he could hear the hysteria beginning to bubble up in her voice. "What, a florist who--"
"Who kills at night, yes." He caught one of her wrists, didn't let her eyes go. "Do you really want me this way, Nakatomi-kun? Weren't you much happier three weeks ago, with just the memory of who I was?" She didn't answer. "Go up to the roof," he instructed. "Take that broom, and your wand, and go home. Forget tonight, and forget that Aburatsubo Ayanojou ever existed, because he doesn't anymore."
She stared at him for a minute longer, then pulled her wrist from his grasp, and turned away. She paused at the door, but didn't say anything. And then she was gone.
Aya looked down at his sister, and tried to remember what happiness felt like.
Nanaka entered her apartment through a closed door and sank to the floor, ratty janitorial broom still in one hand, sliding down to rest against one shoulder. She took her hat off, holding it in one hand as her arms crossed on her knees and she buried her face.
She couldn't stop crying.
They were waiting in the Underworld when Aya got back. He'd expected no less. Ken leaned against a wall, arms crossed, trying badly to cover his interest. Youji lounged on the couch, sunglasses eternally at half-mast, intrigued but cool. Omi was the only one actually working, typing a mission report or some such at the computer. He saved, though, or sent, or whatever arcane thing it was he did, and turned around as Aya walked down the stairs.
Aya coolly crossed the room and leaned on the opposite wall from Ken, waiting for someone to speak. He'd be damned if he'd crack first. Let them ask.
Ken, predictably, gave way before Aya did. "So, you're a magician, huh?" he asked, using the tones of someone who was trying to be mature and adult about the entire thing but had just found out that Santa Claus was real.
"I was in the Magic Club in high school," Aya admitted.
"Your high school had a real magic club?" Youji asked, straightening up just a little bit.
Aya snorted. "As if the staff and general student body ever thought that. They thought we were prestidigitators."
"Prestidigi-whats?"
Omi sighed. "Fake magic tricks, Ken-kun." His blue eyes were calm, assessing, as they never let go of Aya. "So, magician, anything we should know?"
"No," Aya said solidly.
"Not even about that pretty witch Ken says you flew off with?"
Aya gazed icily at Youji. "My former classmates shouldn't be a problem anymore, Balinese."
The man was unaffected. "Pity. If that's all?" He glanced at Omi for permission to leave and got it in a nod of a blond head. "I've got a hot date with Michiko-chan. See you later." He sauntered up the stairs like he hadn't a care in the world. Knowing just how much an act that was, Aya snorted internally.
Ken lasted a minute longer before finally deciding that Aya wasn't going to give him any more information. He paused at the first turn of the stairs, though, and looked back down, one hand on the railing. "Aya? Y'know, that was really cool. With the broom and saving her and everything." Then he was gone.
Aya looked at Omi. Omi looked implacably back, then smiled his trademark sunny smile. "If you don't want to tell us, Aya-kun," Omi said seriously, "then you don't have to. I trust you to know what's best."
Aya felt a vague desire to thank the younger man for the sentiment, while at the same time realizing it was perfectly possible (given that this was Omi) that this might be Omi's way of trying to find out more. In the end, he did nothing but give a slight nod and head up the stairs to his apartment, where he stashed his mission clothing in the hamper, cleaned his sword and set it on its stand, showered, and finally went to bed, where he couldn't get the memory of teary brown eyes out of his mind until he finally fell asleep.
Aya didn't know what Nanaka had told the others, but his prediction held true and they no longer came to the Koneko.
He didn't want to know what she'd told them. Imagining that hurt too badly. He already knew he'd broken her heart by breaking her illusions about the person he was. Imagining what Takeo thought of him now...
So he filled his days with flowers and irritating silly schoolgirls and his nights with darkness and murder, and tried to forget that there had ever been anything else.
And so it was that a rainy gray day found him at the worktable doing nothing more complicated than arranging some chrysanthemums, when the doorbell chimed and he looked up to see Nanaka once again in his shop, folding an umbrella closed.
She was quiet and subdued, wearing forgettable casual clothing--no hint of the bright birdlike witch's dress, no wand poking out of her handbag. No stepping through doors into other people's lives.
"Well," Youji declared from behind the till, where he'd been listlessly paging through a magazine, "I'll go see about getting us some coffee, then. Aya, mind the shop, would you?" And he closed his magazine and set it down, was out the door, nodding politely to Nanaka, and gone before either of them spoke, the door chime ringing in his wake.
She looked after him. "He forgot an umbrella," she observed.
"He'll take so long at the coffee shop that he'll be dry before he comes back," Aya wryly replied, knowing Youji's habits. "Why are you here, Nakatomi-kun?"
She turned to face him again. "I thought... I wanted to talk," she said.
Aya sighed internally and set down the stems he held between his fingers, waving at the chair opposite himself. She left the umbrella by the door and took the seat. He waited for her to start.
Nanaka marshaled her thoughts. She hadn't wanted to leave things between them the way they'd been left, she'd finally decided. Aburatsubo had been harsh, true, but... wouldn't she have been, too, if someone she liked discovered that she was really doing something like that at night?
Not that either of them were wide-eyed high school students anymore.
"I told everyone that you were doing undercover government work," she said finally, "and that we were endangering your cover. That's why they haven't been around."
"Thank you," he said.
"It's not the truth, though, is it?" she asked.
"No."
"I didn't think so." She studied him. He was a lot older than the sempai she'd fallen in love with. She chose her next words with care. "I don't think you'd just kill anyone, though, even to keep your sister alive."
He leaned back just slightly. "Do you know anything about Black Technology?" he asked. She shook her head and he continued, "It's technology created by a special class of people known as 'The Whispered.' They're apparently born with an aptitude... what they create is beyond the skill of normal humans to imagine. And in the wrong hands, it's very dangerous. That crate contained circuits which had the potential to create directed critical failure in whatever systems they were placed into. Imagine them on subways, in banks, in hospitals. Imagine their controls in the hands of people who only care about profit to their own endeavors. And then imagine what happens when they cause train crashes, power failures, and take the national budget for themselves. Just because they can." His eyes seemed to glow even though his words remained calm. "We didn't expect the guards. In retrospect, we should have."
"You killed all those people to save all those others?"
He nodded. "My employers pay to keep my sister alive, and they offer me the chance of revenge against the man who caused my family's deaths. But I did not act mindlessly when I made this choice. The blood on my hands isn't from anyone you should mourn."
"We're none of us innocent," Nanaka declared. Aya almost had to smile at her vehement protest. "We wouldn't have turned away just because you do this kind of work."
"I'm beyond saving, Nakatomi-kun," he explained, as gently as he could. "I made this choice, for several reasons, and I have to live with it. Even if I stepped away tomorrow--even if I could--do you really think that would change what I've done?" He tried to hold her eyes, to make her see. "The world I live in is not the one you do. They occupy the same space, but not the same meaning. Even if I stopped, left Weiss behind, I'd still walk down the street knowing that there were killers and slavers and chemical wars going on that never make the front page. I can't look at a police officer without wondering what he's being paid to turn a blind eye to. I can't live in your life any more. I'm not that person."
She was very still, until she finally asked, "Is there magic in that world at all?"
He frowned, thinking of Schwarz, and of chemicals that mutated man to beast. "I think so," he said slowly, considering it. "The wrong kind."
"If there's magic," she pressed, "no matter what kind, then there's hope." She gave a wry smile. "I sound like I've been listening to Sae again, don't I?"
"Yes," Aya replied.
"But you don't have to give up the magic, sempai," Nanaka insisted. "Not if it's in the world you live in too. You just have to use it right."
Aya leaned back in his chair again, thinking about that. It was true that before this moment he'd never thought some of the things Weiss had come up against could be magic--but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed likely they might be. The seeds of magic, badly grown, warped and misdirected... if he could use the bright magic he knew to unravel that, to set things right...
Slowly, the world changed.
If it was possible... how many chances had he missed, Aya wondered, when he was too determined not to sully magic with the darkness?
It might be that he was wrong, but even so, surely the idea was worth a chance.
To save one life...
He raised his eyes to Nanaka's. "Does everyone still meet over the ocean at the full moon?" he asked.
Aya ignored the muffled laughter emanating from Youji's direction. He knew the black and white unitard looked stupid, and the black thigh-highs with the ankle boots didn't help, but this was his wizard's uniform, and no wizard's ceremonial garb ever looked like normal clothing. He really wondered what he and Takeo had been thinking, though, when they decided to use spandex for the main material.
Then Aya remembered what he had been thinking, and what he had been pretty sure Takeo had been thinking, and promptly shut down that line of mental inquiry.
Adjusting his hat with one hand, he spun his new broom with the other. He'd crafted it by hand, ash wood with broom corn bristles tied on with seawater-soaked strips of willow bark, as they were supposed to be. He was pleased with its weight and sturdiness. It felt like it would take a high wind or a crash without any problems.
In some small way, it felt also like a new beginning.
He laid it on the roof and stepped away, taking out his wand. He closed his eyes and called power with the chant: "Isaki apam mehinan eto caffe nam." He was meanly pleased by the way Youji's laughter choked off as the wind picked up, whipping his bangs and eartails around his face. His single earring, twin of the one held in his sister's hand, brushed Aya's cheek. He could feel the magic, and was not surprised as he opened his eyes to see his broom hovering, waiting, bathed in a soft radiance.
"Holy shit," Youji breathed from behind him.
"Toldja." Ken sounded smug.
Aya met Omi's eyes. Omi, impressed but always taking things in stride, merely shrugged and smiled. He probably thought it was good for Aya to have a hobby. The rest of them did, after all.
He resisted sauntering as he walked over to it--he'd done a good job, but he didn't need to rub Youji's nose into his talent--and placed a hand on the broom's shaft. With the other he tucked his wand through its safety pocket, two slits cut in the uniform to free up hands and ensure it wouldn't get lost. He looked over one shoulder at his teammates. "I'll be back before moonset," he said, and hopped on the broom. His ankles crossed naturally. Like the costume, the position probably looked fey, but he'd never understood how any of the others could sit astride their brooms. It was just plain uncomfortable and no more secure.
With a thought, one crimson glove holding lightly to the broom's shaft for guidance, he soared off into the night sky in the direction of the ocean.
Author's Schism
This story is dedicated to Jeanne, who let me know that I broke her brain when I posted the first bit of it. Thing is, crack as the premise is, it has a base. Fujimiya Ran and Aburatsubo Ayanojou are both voiced by Koyasu Takehito. They're both redheads. They both have a variation of "Aya" for their names... Sometimes I think I ought rightly be titled "Crossover Crack Queen." Oh, and yes, that was a hint of the Full Metal Panic universe in the story. I hope you enjoyed the story.