Odd Symbolism

Summary: Aya carries it and Yohji, too. Sena wonders about their necklaces. OneShot.

Warning: I have no idea where Sena and Kyo came from… Probably because I haven't listened to any of the Drama CDs. Anyway, warnings for strangeness, crosses, story-unrelatedness, odd changes in time and place and for my usual randomness. And, perhaps, the question was explained somewhere and I've simply missed it?

Set: Pre-Glühen

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

Aya carries it and Yohji, too. He hasn't seen it on Ken, though, so Sena isn't sure what the meaning of it might be. Maybe they're personal items, maybe talismans. But why, then, do the two members of Weiss have similar ones? Maybe they're a symbol. But if every elder member of Weiss has one, why doesn't Ken wear one, too?

But then he does, in a strange way that again makes the youngest member of Weiss wonder whether he is imagining too much, interpreting too much. Maybe he's just seeing things.

Sena has learned a few rules since he joined Weiss. Number One: Don't ask about other people's pasts. Number Two: Don't ask questions at all if you can help it. Number Three: If you really, really need an answer, don't ask Yohji. And he can understand those sentiments because he himself doesn't want strangers to poke their noses into his life and his past. Because as much as they try – and Ken tries hardest, almost desperately, he makes dinner and wants them all to sit and have it together and he jokes around and tries to get them to watch soccer together – because as much as they try they aren't a family and they barely are friends. Weiss is a group born from necessity, not from happiness, and whatever they do they are assassins and expendable. Rex can try to convince them otherwise and sometimes they almost seem like a family: on Sunday mornings, when Yohji comes down with a hang-over, when Kyo and Ken prepare breakfast and Ken blabbers endlessly, when Aya sits at the table silently and reads the newspaper and Sena gets the first, hot pancakes because he's the youngest. Then it feels like he is home, in some weird, odd way. But he also knows what he is seeing isn't real. He's dreaming, nothing more. He feels like an outsider and wonders whether Kyo feels the same: Aya, Yohji and Ken were Weiss even before the two of them joined. They seem comfortable together, closer, somehow. More relaxed around each other. Sena has seen Ken storm forward recklessly in order to come to Aya's help even though Aya never seemed to talk to Ken and Ken never seemed to listen to Aya. And he has heard Yohji curse colorfully, abandoning whatever he was doing in order to cover their backs, even though he would complain about Aya's remoteness and Ken's clumsiness and the world in general. They are a team while he and Kyo are separate entities, somehow aside of the team and yet awkward parts of it.

His theory only is reinforced by the fact that Aya-San and Yohji-Kun wear the same, cross-shaped pendant around their necks.

At first Sena didn't think much about it. The leather cord was dark with age and wear and the simple cross cut from stone was hidden underneath sweaters or jackets for most of the time. Then he saw it in the hollow beneath Yohji's Adam's apple one day and was taken aback: Was he Christian? No, it couldn't be. Yohji probably hadn't set a foot into a church for the past decade, maybe even longer. Well, except for the one mission when they had to take out a bishop who had distinct connections to Eszett and was abusing children. Sena thought about it for almost a week until he gave up angrily and tried to forget it. And he succeeded – or would have, hadn't spring started. Aya abandoned his turtle-neck sweaters and there it was: a small stone crucifix around his neck, perhaps a bit less dark than Yohji's but undoubtedly of the same design.

Ken didn't wear a cross, Sena was pretty sure.

The tall man had started wearing T-shirts again when it had only been early spring and nothing indicated at the fact that he was in possession of a similar necklace with a similar symbol. So it wasn't a Weiss thing? Was it purely an Aya-and-Yohji-thing? No, impossible. Sena might not know them well enough but he was quite sure there was no reason why Aya and Yohji should wear the same talisman. But what else could it be?

He was still fighting with the question when, one day in late summer, he saw something: Ken had a cross, too. And he carried it in the pocket of his jeans. They were out, getting take-out because neither one of them had wanted to make dinner after a long, hot day full of noisy fan girls and some particularly difficult customers and they didn't have a mission that night. Sena and Ken had been sent to pick up their order and as Ken searched for his money bag something slipped from his pocket and fell to the ground with a soft clatter. Immediately the soccer player bent down to retrieve it, almost dropping it again in his haste. He didn't intend to hide it, though. Instead, he lifted it to his eyes to examine it carefully and only when he was sure there was no crack in the stone he replaced it in his pocket and paid their dinner. They returned to the flower shop where Aya, Yohji and Kyo were waiting, and had a nice, quiet dinner until Kyo disappeared to his room, Yohji gave a wave and went out and Aya and Ken disappeared for a sparring. Sena was left behind in the living room, ignoring the TV show re-running some or another hospital series, and wondered. So all three members of the former Weiss generation carried a cross. But why? They weren't Christians and they didn't seem like people who believed in talismans. Yet the stone cross was important to each of them. It became clear in the way Ken had held it in his hand almost lovingly, in the way Aya sometimes touched it whenever he thought nobody was watching, and in the way Yohji wore it no matter if it fit his outfit or not. Why? What was the meaning behind it?

It probably wasn't anything he needed to know. He didn't have the right to know. He was an outsider, one of the new Weiss generation. He didn't really belong with them, with Aya-San and Yohji-Kun and Ken-Kun. But now that he had seen the crosses three times and had realized how important they were to their bearers it was impossible to forget about them.

Ken, he decided, would be a good person to ask. Ken would neither walk out on him nor mock him. Sena blurted it out one Saturday evening, on a day without training and missions and with relatively little work and few customers for the shop.

"What do your crosses stand for?"

Ken, who had been rummaging through the kitchen cupboards in search of something he could convert into edible dinner, looked up at him from the kitchen floor he was kneeling on. His initial surprise quickly faded at Sena's serious, and somewhat awkward, expression.

"You mean the ones Yohji and Aya wear around their necks?"

"You have one, too. You carry it in your pocket."

The young man frowned. "Have you been watching us?"

"No. Well, yes." Sena felt compelled to answer honestly. "I just noticed. And I wanted to know… Well, none of you seems to be Christian and it seems like an odd symbol to wear for people like us…"

"You mean because we're murderers?" Ken never had any qualms with stating the truth. It was one of the reasons why Sena had decided to ask him. One of the reasons why he felt most comfortable with the dark-haired man, who now leaned back onto his hills and watched him with dark, thoughtful eyes. Sena nodded.

"Is it a reminder? So you never forget what you do?"

Ken stared at him for a few seconds. Then a smile broke out on his face and he chuckled. "Oh, Sena, you think too well of us. I guess we should feel honored. But actually, we don't carry those crosses because the weight reminds us of the fact that we're assassins and will, most likely, burn in hell. I don't think Aya is Christian, though I'm not sure, and Yohji definitely isn't. The cross… Well, it's a symbol for what we are, in a way, but not because what we are is bad."

Sena creased his forehead, trying to absorb this. "I don't think I understand. It's not supposed to remind you of what you are but it's a symbol for it?"

Ken scratched his head awkwardly. "Damn, Aya would explain much better than me. How can I put this? It's simple, actually. You know, when we – Aya and Yohji and me – joined Weiss, it wasn't Weiss only. It was Weiss Kreuz."

"Kreuz? Like cross?" Sena repeated, frowning. "But it's only Weiss now."

"Yeah, well, when Aya came to bring Yohji and me back, when you and Kyo joined and Rex was assigned to us, we decided we weren't Weiss Kreuz anymore. But it's always been Weiss before… We couldn't just change the name. So we're still Weiss and since Weiss Kreuz doesn't exist any longer we have these."

He opened his hand and showed Sena the small crucifix. It was the first time he was able to look at it closely and he took hold of the opportunity. It was a delicate form, made from black and green stone, from which it had been cut artfully. The smooth lines were simple and pretty. Sena eyed it for a few seconds, his hand hovering over Ken's in order to take it into his own, and then let it fall without touching the stone. He felt like he was looking at something private, sacred even, and didn't want to intrude. Ken regarded him and then the cross and a small smile appeared on his lips.

"Well, I guess it proves even that cold-hearted bastard Aya and that damn playboy Yohji have something they want to remember," he sighed and grinned at the same time. "In a way, all three of us are like these crosses, you see?"

Sena saw. And, for the first time, he realized why each one of them carried the symbolic cross on one part of their combat gear, too. But there still was something missing, something Ken hadn't told him. If they really carried the cross pendant to remember they had been Weiss Kreuz, why was there a fourth one hidden in the back of the drawer of the computer desk in their mission room in the basement? He opened his mouth to ask and then realized Aya was standing in the kitchen door, leaning against the frame, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Something in his gaze, directed at Ken, made Sena feel like he was utterly alone in the world. No, he told himself firmly. That's not true. He still had Weiss, had Kyo and Ken and Yohji and even Aya. He was a member of their team. Even though they didn't share the same past they had a mutual present. He smiled.

"Hey, kiddo. You help me with the dinner?" Ken's voice rang out and Sena turned to see Ken on his knees again, continuing his search of the cupboards. "Aya, do we really haven't got anything else than two-days-old rice?"

Aya looked at him, his face stony but a light in his eyes. "I propose you start cooking instead of complaining."

"I've been gone for two nights," Ken mumbled, not half as angry as he sounded. "And when I return I have to take orders from people who are of absolutely no help in the kitchen. You can't even differentiate between onions and leeks, Aya."

Aya snorted and turned. "I'll finish the mission planning."

Ken smirked. Sena watched them, feeling the smile tug at his lips. Yes, maybe he wasn't a full member of Weiss.

But if Ken, Aya and Yohji shared the memories of being Weiss Kreuz and had abandoned the name when he came, that meant he was a member of Weiss, as well.

Two days after the events of their last fight against Eszett, two days after Omi Tsukiyono had made a dive at Mamoru Takatori and both had somehow merged into one single person, the letter came. It had already been opened – of course, Rex and his people made a point in protecting him – but his people had deemed the content trustworthy. Or, at least, not dangerous.

Mamoru's body still felt stiff and bruised and his heart still was raw and torn. In the back of his mind Omi was worrying sick about Yohji's condition. Of course he wasn't supposed to know. Aya had made a point in telling him Yohji was dead, only to call a few hours later to tell him he was alive but wouldn't remember anything. Mamoru was worried, too, worried about Yohji and Ken and Aya, and raw for Sena and Kyo and all the people that had died. He didn't think he'd be able to trust his grandfather again but for their sake he had to pretend. Had to pretend Omi was dead and only Mamoru was left. He had to assemble a new Weiss generation, again. He already had nightmares about it.

He didn't know the handwriting on the envelope, which meant it was neither from Ken, Aya or Yohji. Their handwriting he knew like his own. He didn't know the content, either, though he recognized it immediately. Onto his hand fell a small, fragile cross, made from dark-red stone with black veins. He stared at it for some time while his brain made connections.

Sena.

He pressed his eyes shut and willed himself not to cry or laugh hysterically. Weiss Kreuz is dead. Aya was gone, Yohji was gone. Ken would leave soon, too. Sena and Kyo were dead.

Mamoru was the only one left.

His hand grasped the stone cross so hard his knuckles turned white.