**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Weiß or it's characters (ohhh, though I wish I did...) so don't sue me. You wouldn't get anything... I have no money! This story takes place after the end of the TV series, but since I haven't gotten to see the OVAs (;_;) it doesn't have anything from there in it.
**C&C is very welcome! I always want feedback, even if it's just dropping a line and saying, 'Hey, I read your fic.' Email me at saezuru@hotmail.com if you want to say anything. Thanks for reading!
f a l l e n a n g e l s
a weiß kreuz fanfiction
part one
They ran. Blindly, faster than they ever had before, they ran. But the murderers could hear their
hunters behind them, closing in on them, nearer and nearer. One of them tripped over a trash can
and turned, peering back into the mist. "Wh-who are you guys?" he asked fearfully.
The mist swirled violently as a figure stepped forward, partway unsheathing a gleaming katana. In
a quiet, deadly voice he said, "We protect those of the light."
There was a rush of movement; the hiss of darts, the ripping noise of tearing claws, a flash of thin,
shining wire, the briefest flash of a katana. Then it was all over, and the alleyway was silent.
The television set fired to life again after a month of disuse. "This is the fourth report this month,"
the news reporter was saying. "A young man was attacked and robbed on sixth street last night,
by four men who took his money and ran off. Later, these men turned up, badly injured by
seemingly a variety of weapons, at the hospital doors, left there by some unknown watcher. None
of their injuries were fatal, but they had to spend a good time in the hospital and will most likely
spend even more time in jail when their trial is over. The money was later found back in the
apartment of the man who was robbed."
The reporter looked up from her notes and towards the camera. "Each of the previous three
times, the same thing has happened. Who are these guardian angels, shrouded by the night?"
With a flick of his wrist, a young man turned off the television set with a sigh of relief. "That's
good to hear . . . I'm glad their injuries aren't too serious."
Another young man grinned at him from his place sprawling on the couch. "I know what you
mean, Omiitchi. It's hard to know, after all these years of killing and all the blood staining your
hands, whether or not you can still fight without death."
Yet another one, standing off to the side a little raised one eyebrow. "That was certainly
profound, Youji. Coming from you, it's a miracle." He folded a piece of paper slightly in his
hands.
The fourth boy, glancing out the window, said quietly, "He's right, Aya. It frightens me each time
we do this. Why are we still fighting?"
Aya closed his deep, plum-colored eyes. "Because . . . because we can still make a difference.
There were so many that we couldn't save . . . Oka-san, Persia . . . but I don't want to settle for
losing them." He looked down at the folded piece of paper in his hands.
Youji ran a hand through his hair and peered at Aya. "A paper airplane? I didn't know you made
paper airplanes, Aya-kun."
"I don't." With a twist of his hands, Aya crumpled the paper airplane into a ball and tossed it into
the trash can.
There was a brief silence for a moment, until Omi cleared his throat. Grateful for the distraction,
the other young men looked at him expectantly. "I checked Manx's database this morning."
Ken leaned forward. "You sound grim. Anything unusual?"
Omi hesitated. "I'm not sure. I had to work fast I think she's onto something. She's noticed that
every time she records the activities of a criminal group, that very same group gets deposited at
the hospital the next day. But . . . apparently, there's been tell of young men just collapsing onto
the ground for no apparent reason, and falling into comas. It's always young men, and it's always
in the dark. Some woke up out of their comas already, and don't remember anything that had
happened, but others are still . . . still . . ." He had trailed off, looking at Aya.
Aya's face was impassive, as usual, but his eyebrow was twitching ever so slightly. Swallowing,
he gestured for Omi to keep talking. "Comas aren't permanent. There's always a chance to come
out of one. Do go on that can't be all."
Omi shook his head. "No . . . that's just it, there's no more information on the attacks. There was
a video taken of when one of the young men collapsed. There's definitely something weird going
on, but I didn't get time to really sit down and analyze it." Omi's cheeks turned a little pink, and
he shut his mouth with a pop.
Youji leaned forward. "Oh? And why not?"
Omi shrugged, turning around to rearrange the flowers in a vase. "She Manx, I mean um, came
out to check her email."
"So?"
"Er, well . . . she lives alone, and had just, er, come out of the shower." Omi continued to fiddle
with the flower arrangement.
Youji smirked slightly. "Man . . . you lucky boy. Too bad you're too young to really appreciate
it. Wish I had the talent to get into people's computers like that . . ."
"Youji, it wasn't funny!" Cheeks flaming, Omi spun around to face his grinning partner.
Aya pointed impassively. "Omi, you're blushing."
Omi paused. "Oh, really?" he said absent-mindedly. "I keep forgetting." Immediately, the color in
his cheeks disappeared.
Ken shook his head. "Oi, leave him alone, Youji-kun. Ne, Omi . . . let's see this tape."
Omi nodded, giving the innocently grinning Youji a slight glare. Stepping forward, he brushed his
fingers lightly against the television monitor and concentrated for a second. With a flare of light,
the set turned on.
The scene showed a young man and his girlfriend sitting in a brand new car, apparently being
taped by a friend. The young man was enthusiastically talking about the speed capabilities and
mileage, while the girl looked pleasantly bored. After a moment, the young man's voice slowed
and then stopped, and he stopped for the briefest of moments, staring at a spot just past his
girlfriend's ear. Then he suddenly clutched his head, letting out a yell, and fell to the pavement.
He twitched once and then lay still, oblivious to the hysterical cries of his girlfriend and the
shocked stare he was getting from his friend. Then the screen cut to static. Omi sighed and started
to reach for the remote control to turn off the television set. Youji looked at him with raised
eyebrows, and then waggled his fingers at him. Omi flushed slightly. "Oh! That's right, I'm not
getting used to this very well." He frowned at the television set for a moment, and the screen
went black.
"You're blushing again, too," Ken pointed out.
"I'm sorry!" Omi said, a little more sharply than he intended to. "I'm not used to being dead!"
There was a silence filled only with the slight rustle of fabric as Youji reached for a cigarette. Aya
absently plucked it from his fingers, saying softly, "You don't have a physical body anymore,
Youji. You can't be affected by nicotine."
Youji frowned. "So? All the better. I can't get lung cancer or anything."
Aya sighed. "Youji, angels don't smoke. When's the last time you saw a picture of an angel with
a cigarette?"
"And when's the last time you saw an angel running around in a trench-coat, waving around a
katana?"
Aya didn't answer. Omi smiled. Ken looked out the window, his deep violet eyes troubled.
"Something just isn't right about this," he murmured quietly. "I can't explain it, but I have this
strange feeling . . ."
Aya gave Ken a piercing glance. "It's true that your talent hasn't manifested yet . . . maybe it's
seeing the future, or something."
Ken hesitated. "It's not like that. I just have a weird feeling, deep in my chest."
Youji waved a hand at Ken, nonchalantly. "Well, there you have it. It's probably the start of your
talent. Remember, when Omi got his he could only make the mouse cursor move at first." He
grinned at Omi, making the boy blush. He decided not to point out that his blushing was only a
habit from when he had been alive. Angels didn't blush.
After the four of them had died, along with Schwartz, in the building collapse, they'd somehow
found themselves back on Earth, each with an ambiguous but very firm set of instructions
somehow set into their minds. None of the boys had shared what their particular set of
instructions were, but one thing they had all had in common was that they had been assured that
they would gain some sort of unnatural talent. Omi had been the first (and, until now, only) one
to manifest the talents they had been told they would get. He'd been sitting at his laptop one day
when he'd suddenly realized he wasn't actually moving the mouse at all with his hands. The
cursor was moving on its own. Startled, he had called the other boys who rightfully assumed it
was his talent. Poor Omi had been so disappointed after all, what kind of talent was moving a
mouse cursor? But gradually he'd developed it to the point where he could get inside anything
electronic, especially computers and the information highway. That was how they got all their
info Omi raided Manx's computer, who was still collecting information on criminals for some
reason.
But somehow, none of the others had gotten their talents yet. Youji sighed, reaching for another
cigarette, which was promptly snatched away again. He glanced at the clock and stretched
luxuriously. "Well, time for bed, boys. We've got investigating to do tomorrow." He stood up
and sauntered towards the stairs.
The others followed, Omi stifling a yawn. Aya shook his head. "You know we don't actually
have to sleep, Youji."
"It'll help to sleep on the problem, Aya-kun. Just trust me on this."
"Whatever, Youji." The redhead turned the corner and closed the door to his room without so
much as a "goodnight."
Youji blinked his amethystine eyes. "Grouchy as always, I see . . ." He turned and grinned at Omi
and Ken who smiled back, their violet eyes glinting in the faint light. "Goodnight, kids!"
"We're not kids, Youji." Ken grinned. "Technically, we're all the same age now."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. I'm still older than you, no matter what the rules of angel-dom say."
Omi laughed. "Goodnight, Youji-kun. Night, Ken-kun." And he disappeared into his room,
shutting the door with a loud click.
Ken slipped into his room. "Night, Youji." He shut the door behind him.
Youji stood in the hallway for a moment, before flicking off the hallway light and padding into his
own room as silently as a cat, the door shutting behind him silently.
Ken winced in the dark as the floorboards creaked slightly. He closed the door behind him again,
the only just audible click it made sounding like crash symbols to his ears. He didn't want to wake
the others . . . for some reason, something about the criminal report they had gleaned from
Manx's computer was nagging at him horribly, and he couldn't sleep. He couldn't even remember
exactly how one went about falling asleep . . . being dead did weird things to a person's natural
instincts.
He stumbled over something in the hallway and stifled a curse. It was at times like these that he
wished angels really did have the halos of light depicted in religious pictures-- that way he'd have
some way of seeing where he was going. He bent over and brushed the object away and out of his
path. God damn it, he thought to himself, not even flinching at the words he was using despite
being an angel in every sense of the word. Why does Youji always leave his shoes all over the
place? He continued across the floor and then slowly, carefully made his way silently down the
staircase. When he reached the bottom, he breathed a sigh of relief and reached out to flip on the
light switch. And blinked at what he saw.
The other three ex-assassins were in various places all around the room, in strange positions as if
they'd been caught right in the middle of tiptoeing across the floor. Their expressions, like deer
caught in the headlights of a car, would have been priceless had Ken not been wearing one
identical to theirs on his own face.
Youji was the first to recover from surprise, and straightened up. "Well . . ." he said briskly.
"Looks like we all had rather the same idea. Somehow I gather the idea that you all aren't down
here with a bad case of the midnight munchies."
Ken blinked, lowering his hand from the light switch. "Yeah," he murmured aloud. "Yeah, I had
that same feeling I had earlier today again. Something's bothering me about what Omi said."
Omi nodded his agreement, glancing at Aya who was now leaning silently against the wall. He
wondered briefly as Aya adjusted something at his side, if the older man had gone to sleep
wearing his katana. But then he pushed that thought from his mind and spoke. "Same here. I
don't know what it is, but something seems strange."
Youji raised an eyebrow as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "Stranger than teenaged boys
dropping to the ground in instant comas?" he drawled.
"You know what I'm talking about!" Ken snapped, and then immediately regretted it. What was
making him so tight strung?
"Why so uptight, Kenken?" Youji echoed Ken's thoughts, peering at him with his deep violet
eyes in what almost seemed to be concern.
Ken took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. "I don't know." He tried to put what he was feeling
into words, and simply repeated, "I don't know."
Aya straightened up, pushing away from the wall. "Can you put the video file back on the screen,
Omi?"
Omi blinked once and nodded. "A-aa, Aya-kun." He closed his eyes, his expression one of deep
concentration for a moment. Then the old television monitor sparked to life, and began replaying
the scene they had all watched earlier of the boy collapsing in front of his friends. The four
assassins watched it in silence.
"Play it again," said Aya.
Omi nodded, and the film rewound itself and began playing again.
Youji suddenly leaned forward, lifting one hand slightly. "Wait-- stop, Omi." The video
immediately stopped, as the others gave him slightly puzzled looks. "Rewind it just a bit-- no,
further-- there. Play it again."
It was just before the boy's expression went blank. For the briefest moment, a flash of black
clouded the air just behind him. But then it was gone in the blink of an eye, and no one was sure
they'd seen it.
"Play it again," Ken whispered through dry lips.
The scene played itself over and over, but every time, the tiny flash of shadow was visible. But
only barely. Without being asked, Omi slowed down the film just before the darkness came. At
the slowed rate, the flash of darkness could be seen as a lighting-fast swirl of shadow around the
boy's head, the merest speck of gold light in its midst. Omi rewound it once more and played it
back even more slowly, and paused it in shock at what he saw.
They were very familiar. Their color had changed to a deep, rich gold, but the shape and mind
behind them were as familiar to Weiß as their weapons-- those golden eyes suspended in the
cloud of shadow . . .
Aya's dry lips parted, and he whispered quietly into the silent room. "Schwartz . . ."
Fallen Angels, by Tori-chan: email me at saezuru@hotmail.com