Cycles by silvershadeus
Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz, I'm just borrowing the characters for a little bit.
~ silvershadeus ~
Ironic.
That's what it was. It had to be, coincidences were one thing, but this...this was more like one of God's cosmic jokes at his expense that he had never once in his life understood. What was more, he doubted he'd ever understand.
He doubted the others would care or even notice unless he brought the matter up and then they would most likely give him a wide berth, convinced he was on the verge of cracking under the pressure. Why not, after all he was afraid of the same thing. He'd never been meant to do the sort of things they did - hell, he doubted anyone was really. Then again, it wasn't as though it would have been a good thing to say that someone had been born to be a merciless assassin. No, certainly not a good thing to have something like that said about you.
Still...
Omi was a damned good killer in his own right, it was almost all he knew in life. Actually, it was everything he knew in life. All of his skills, his abilities were due to his training. His 'knack' with computers and other electronics a result of careful training and a quick mind. Kritiker was definitely an organization that believed in the tenet that hiding in plain sight was the best strategy for everyone involved. Or so they assumed.
The fact that Omi attended school simply added to the disguise - it gave him extra protection even as it left his vulnerable. Left him on the other side of the glass, able to realize just what it was he could have had 'if only'. Able to realize that had things been different he would have lived a life blissfully unaware of the darker side of life. But things weren't different and he could only continue on as he had, making the most of the life he had been handed. Still, as good as Omi was at killing, he'd been trained to it. It was not, thank God, an innate talent for him. It was simply something he was sadly skilled at. And Kritiker was not in the habit of letting skilled operatives slip out of their grasp.
Aya and Yohji were, relatively speaking of course, late comers to the club. The Killer's Club, as he liked to call it in the privacy of his own mind. They were very good at killing, just like Omi, but unlike Omi they sometimes failed to see what the emotional impact would be for themselves. They killed because it was what they were trained to do; because it was what they were told to do. And for men like them - men who had very little or nothing at all to live for...for them killing became a way of life. It became a way for them to feel alive even as they ended someone else's.
It was a heady thing, to feel another being die. To know you were the one to cut someone's life short. Ken knew that of course, none better, as the saying went. After all he felt death on a frighteningly frequent basis and all too intimately. Far too much so for his peace of mind.
Of them all, Omi was perhaps most fortunate. Perhaps it was Fate's way of balancing the scales in his favor a little more - not enough to atone for the wrongs that had been done to him in his short life, but it was something. Omi was able to kill the way he did because he didn't feel the heart slow beneath his hands, didn't see the eyes dim a hands breadth away from his own. He killed the way the others were unable to.
Yohji's wire...
When Ken had been a child he and a friend had done what so many other children do at some point in time. Curiosity being what it was and, they had attempted to build their own telephone. A simple thing, contrived of empty tin cans and a piece of string, but oh the delight on their faces to discover it worked. After a fashion.
Pulled tight, sound carried further and more clearly as did every little vibration that came through the string. It was those memories that came to Ken every time he heard Yohji's wires sing. Every time Yohji killed.
Aya's blade...
Ken wondered about that at times. Whether Aya had chosen the sword, or the sword had chosen him. He'd been told a long time ago that that was the way of things sometimes. Much in the way a kitten would choose you even though you thought you had chosen it. You were convinced it had been your decision all along - your choice - but when it came right down to it, things were blurred. Out of focus.
Most of the time you didn't really care so much. Most of the time you were content - perhaps even happy - with the way things had turned out. But for Aya...Ken couldn't honestly say if Aya was content with his life as it was, only that he continued to live it. He may not have made the most of it as Omi did with so much ease, or that Yohji attempted to, but he did the best he could the way he knew how.
When Aya killed...that was when Ken felt closest to him. When Aya struck with his blade, slicing through flesh and bone - that was when Ken felt as though he might one day be fully capable of understanding Aya. Perhaps it was some odd sort of kinship they shared, some hidden sign of brotherhood bought and paid for in blood and death and something far darker.
Yohji may feel his victims struggle at the end of his wires, fighting off death for as long as they were able - but Aya and Ken lived it. Felt each tremor, each halting breath as it traveled from bone to flesh to steel and back again until they knew without a doubt that they were successful. That they had managed to end another's life.
Ken had always had a healthy appreciation for knives, and by extension, swords. It had been impressed upon him form an early age that one simply did not play with sharp objects such as knives and like - it just wasn't safe to do such a thing. As he grew older his appreciation shifted slightly, just barely out of line with what it had been as a child, as all things do. Older now, he knew the damage knives could do, but it was this same knowledge that gave him a sense of security. He knew now how dangerous they were, and in knowing that they became less so. Knives were no longer some form of bogey man out to get him if he should be careless or reckless as a child, but a simple - but elegant - tool. Nothing more, nothing less.
In school he learned the applications man put such a simple tool to. Cutting, slicing, even killing on occasion. To help, to heal, and to hurt. As man grew, so to did man's capacity to destroy. And Ken was ever a product of just such a legacy.
He was fascinated by pictures of swords with intricately and beautifully decorated hilts, burnished steel sharpened so finely a single hair could be split upon the edge of the blade. Things like that intrigued him, as they had many others before him. So it was no surprise really when one day he happened to come across a reference to some odd creation.
Bugnuks. Tiger claws.
Ironic, the way things turn out sometimes. Simply god damned ironic.
Until that moment he'd thought the closest things to such a weapon existed solely in ink and paper, some comic book character created by one of those crazy Americans. Until that moment.
He'd had chance to wonder, as the years passed, just how truly efficient a weapon bugnuks were. Surely they couldn't be all that great a weapon - after all, he'd never heard of anyone using them except in books. If they had been effective in the first place they'd still be in use, wouldn't they?
As even more years passed Ken finally had his questions - on that front at least - answered. In spades.
He'd learned the harsh reality of steel tearing, ripping through cloth and flesh alike. He knew all too well the sound of his claws rending flesh and bone to get to the wildly beating heart of his victim. Knew the shock of blood heat against his skin as he severed precious blood vessels, leaving men to die in his wake. Oh yes, he knew exactly how cruelly efficient those tiger's claws were. Knew it so damned well he dreamt of it at night sometimes. Lived it.
Looking back on it now, maybe it was an omen of sorts. Fate's way of saying 'This is your future, Ken Hidaka. Kiss the only life you've ever known goodbye.', perhaps. Or maybe it was one of God's cosmic jokes at Ken's expense and he'd just been too damned oblivious to notice. Whatever it had been, it was in the past now and he had the future to worry about. The present...that was another thing altogether, but it would take care of itself one way or the other. That much he was sure of. Somehow, it always did.
"Isn't that cool, Ken? Just like that Wolverine guy!"
Dragging his mind back from places it had no right being, Ken looked down at a sharp tug on his sleeve. Bright eyes in a round face beamed up at him, full lips drawn up in a wide smile as a little boy pointed at a picture in the book he held.
"Man, what I wouldn't give to have a pair of those. I bet everyone would be so jealous..."
Swallowing down the feeling of sick dread the boy's words evoked, Ken pasted a weak smile on his face even as he tuned the excited voice out.
Dark, unruly hair. Eyes so very full of life and enthusiasm and boundless energy. The very picture of innocence, and yet...
That was me ten years ago. Ken thought wildly, gaze flitting towards the back of the flower shop where he could just hear Omi's voice as he worked on arrangements. Holy God, that was me ten years ago.
Should he say something then? Warn little Michael what lay in his future? Tell him that he was doomed to live Ken's life for him when he was no longer able to? What could he say? Run? Try to escape while he still could? Before he found out what death looked like? Or should he just smile, nod and agree that he'd never seen anything cooler?
"...I know you're probably busy working and stuff, but my sister wanted to come in on the way home form school and she's over there flirting with Yohji, but, well...I just wanted to show you this because it's so cool and I kind of thought..."
Shaking his head as he realized Michael's enthusiasm was waning due to his apparent lack of interest, Ken's smile grew a little wider in an effort to reassure the young boy that he did indeed agree with him.
"Yeah...I used to like Wolverine when I was your age myself, you know." He offered, wincing as the light of full-on hero-worship filled Michael's eyes.
"Really?"
So much vulnerability in that single word. So much innocence...and trust.
"Really."
"Cool. My sister thinks he's stupid, you know, but man he's got those killer claws! They're just way too cool!" Michael gushed, happily unaware of the effect his words were having on Ken, which was oddly enough the way he wanted it to be. The past was the past, the present was now, and as for the future? That was something he had no control over, no matter how much it galled him at times.
Still...it was ironic the way things turned out sometimes. Never what you expected, and certainly never how you expected them to. Life was just funny that way.
