Prüfung
earth, after rain

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by laila

Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz and all associated characters and assets remain the property of Kyoko Tsuchiya, Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiss, TV Tokyo, Movic and any other individuals or companies whom I may have inadvertently left out. This is a fan work from which no profit is being made or will be made, written solely for the amusement of anyone who may wish to read it and of course myself, as it's author.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to pichi for shining light into the dark, uncharted wilderness of my first draft and to Rokesmith for providing me with a map, listening to me talk, and generally putting up with far more than any man should have to. Thank you, too, to everyone who read this fanfic in its original form, and to everyone who's taking a chance on the redraft.

Author's Notes: Several years in the making, this fic started out as precisely two plot points. The need to provide a framework for them to hang in resulted in this. Formerly posted as Seuche, I came to the conclusion that I was never going to finish the story if I didn't go back and fix the issues I had with the original opening – and decided in the process to fix everything else I didn't think quite worked any more, starting with the title and working from there. The amendations, or so I like to believe, are both self-evident if you know the original and largely self-explanatory, so I won't go on about them here. Suffice to say that though the plot and the themes are all very similar, there've been some changes made.

Warnings: Strong language; slash; canon-appropriate levels of violence; dark and mature themes.

Prologue – Mädchen: In plain sight

Of course if it hadn't been for Takanori's party, she never would have heard of the pills.

Sayu Tanemura had never, in the truest sense of the word, ever exactly been fat. She just hadn't been Mizuki, that was all, but that had been quite enough. Sure, her face was a shade prettier and she had the paler complexion, and Mizuki, poor thing, wore glasses. But Mizuki was a gymnast; she was lithe and willowy and long-limbed, with a slender waist and all her body in elegant proportion with itself. There was an easy, effortless grace about her that had left Sayu feeling fat beside her, awkward as a buffalo next to a gazelle.

At first, she hadn't really noticed it. Then it had merely irked her. It wasn't like Mizuki was doing it on purpose – but that wasn't the problem, it wasn't the point. The point was Sayu had never had Mizuki's figure and, or so she had started to fear, she never would. Wouldn't even come close.

Then Takanori invited them both to his eighteenth.

Takanori. Takanori Katou, whose attention she had been desperately, hopelessly trying to catch since – God, it must have been since first year. Takanori she'd thought for sure didn't even know she existed, still less what she was called. And he had invited her to his eighteenth birthday! She was thrilled, she was overflowing with sudden hope, she was scared silly – it was a sign, Sayu thought, it had to be a sign...

It could have been perfect, if only Mizuki hadn't been going too. Slim, elegant Mizuki, showing off those long, tanned limbs in a short, wild little dress... a guy like Takanori Katou wouldn't look twice at dumpy little Sayu Tanemura, would he? Not if she walked in next to a girl like Mizuki—

"Sayu-chan, aren't you hungry?"
"What? Oh... no, no. I'm fine."

So she'd started dieting. Started avoiding the suddenly far-too-inquisitive Mizuki, at least during lunch. The girl ate like a horse anyway, it was kind of gross really, and terribly unfair that she never seemed to get fat. Much better to hang round with Anko Hasegawa from 3-A. Anko was always dieting, she was famous for it – and it had been Anko who had told her about the pills.

By the night of the party she had dropped a dress size. A new outfit, new high-heeled shoes to help lengthen her too-short legs and Sayu was walking tall, and if all the boys' heads didn't exactly turn to stare at her as she strode proudly in, the looks that were turned her way were still more than she'd have got a month ago! It was all she could do to keep herself from smiling too much as she wove her way through the knots of friends and classmates over to Takanori and she'd never have had the nerve to do that before, not back when she was fat.

"You weren't fat," Mizuki had told her, but Sayu wasn't listening.

She'd sworn, of course, that the pills were a temporary measure. The kind of thing desperate full-time dieters like Anko Hasegawa resorted to. Anko was already hoarding her change for another, completely different miracle cure, telling herself that this was the one, this time it had to work – but Sayu wasn't like that, was she? She was different, she was sensible, all she wanted was to drop a dress size, or maybe two. Once the party was over, Sayu had told herself, she would stop: but by then it had become a habit.

Sayu was thin now, as thin as Mizuki. The pills kept their promise. Mama had fussed, of course, to see how she was letting her meals go: her irritation became outright anger and, finally, pleas. Sayu ignored them all. She zipped up her little school skirt, she smiled at the slim, pretty girl in the mirror. Takanori had camera club tonight, which was just too bad, but they'd have all Saturday to make up for it. Maybe Mizuki would go shopping with her...

If there were strange aches in her joints and her head hurt sometimes, if it was getting harder to make herself get up in the mornings these days, who cared? Sayu ate less, exercised more, it didn't have to mean anything was wrong. How could there be anything wrong? Anyway, a headache pill cured it.

Mama, Mizuki – they all worried too much. Life was sweet, and her new beauty cheap at the price.