~ f a l l e n a n g e l s ~

**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 three






Sakura Tomoe sighed, staring up at the ceiling. In the next room, she could hear Aya-chan climb into bed and turn off the lamp. After a few moments, Sakura's ears adjusted to the ringing silence and picked out the faint sound of Aya's slow breathing, rhythmic and indicative of sleep. She's so lucky . . . I wish I could fall asleep that quickly at night.
She'd offered to share her apartment with Aya-chan since the poor girl didn't have anywhere to live, and Aya had eagerly agreed. After all, the girl didn't know anyone-- her family was dead, her friends didn't know her anymore, and the only one she could talk to was Sakura . . .
her family is dead . . .
There had been something, earlier today. Something . . . if only she could remember . . .
She'd seen a flash of deep red hair. Her hopes rising, she nearly dropped the half-arranged flower bouquet she was holding. Aya? She'd only dared to think the thought in the echoes of her mind.
There was someone . . . standing just outside the flower shop, looking back over his shoulder. Sakura had to concentrate to look at him. Her eyes kept sliding around him as water against oil . . . why couldn't she focus?
And then, he saw her. She knew it was him-- she knew that gaze better than she knew her own heart. That beautiful stare, so cold and calm on the outside, but with such depths to it that she'd never be able to unlock . . . she could lose herself for hours within those eyes . . .
And suddenly, he was gone, and she was already chattering with her customer again. Had she been imagining it? No, she couldn't have been-- she'd never be able to recreate his eyes in her feeble imagination . . .
Sakura closed her eyes, her heart thumping painfully. She was startled to realize that closing her eyes caused a few burning tears to leak out from the corners of her eyes and trickle slowly down her temples. "I know it was him," she murmured aloud. "But . . . how come I couldn't see him, focus on him? Why hasn't he come to see me and Aya-chan?"
Maybe . . . was he a ghost? No, but he'd seemed so solid! Sakura sighed and rolled over. She'd have to think about it tomorrow. But try as she might, it took her a long time to finally fall asleep.



"No, I don't want any! For the last time!" Sakura's temper snapped.
Aya-chan's hands, curled around the handle of the juice pitcher, faltered, and her eyes were wide. "S-S-Sorry, Sakura-chan, I--"
"No, no . . ." Sakura shook her head and rested it on her hands. "It's my fault, I shouldn't have snapped at you . . . I'm just tired." That much, at least, was true-- it'd taken her longer than usual to fall asleep the night before.
Aya sat down carefully. She was still frail, even now, from her accident. "Is something wrong?" she asked softly.
Sakura glanced towards the other girl. Like always, it was like looking at a mirror for a second-- but one of those mirrors that has other features painted on. Like long hair, for example. And a softer expression. Aya had always had the uncanny ability to tell when something was wrong. Sakura quickly shook her head, although she knew that if Aya-chan was determined, the truth would be out in a second. "No, nothing wrong. Just . . . tired, that's all."
Aya looked at her for a second, her eyes troubled. "Are you sure? All yesterday evening you seemed preoccupied. Did something happen?"
Sakura was startled-- she never knew that Aya had watched her that much. She hesitated, not sure if telling Aya what she'd seen would upset her or not.
"Please tell me," asked the older girl, her dark eyes concerned. They were so much like Ran's eyes . . .
Sakura told her, stumbling a little bit when she had to tell about how she knew it was him. When she was done, she sat still in her chair, fiddling with a little bit of toast. For all she knew, Aya-chan could get angry, or burst into tears, or--
Aya smiled softly. Sakura gaped. Aya's smile widened, and she put a hand over Sakura's. "The people we love appear to us in many ways," she said softly. "If they can't come to us in person, they'll send their spirit." Aya looked down at her lap for a moment, hesitating, as if she wasn't sure whether she would say something or not. "Sometimes," she began slowly, "Sometimes I think I see my oniichan too. I think he must be watching over us, like-- like a sort of guardian angel." And then Aya flushed bright pink. "Ah-- never mind, i-it's stupid--"
Sakura shook her head. "No, it's not stupid! I think it's-- I think you're right. But this time . . . this time was different, Aya-chan. He-- he was looking at me. And he seemed startled to see me. Would a guardian angel be startled? I don't know . . ." Something triggered and caught in the back of Sakura's mind. Guardian angel . . .
Aya reached out and covered Sakura's hand with her own. "Don't worry about it, Sakura-chan. I'm sure oniichan has his reasons." And then she smiled, a bright, sunny smile.
Sakura found herself echoing the smile, and stood up. "Well, nearly time to open the shop, isn't it?"
Aya nodded. "Hai!"




Crash!
Dismayed, Sakura surveyed the wreckage of the vase. That was the second one she'd knocked over today, she'd been so preoccupied. She apologized to the customer, who winced but reassured her that it was fine. Aya-chan came over and laid her hand gently on Sakura's shoulder. "Are you alright, Sakura-chan?" she asked worriedly, her pale brow wrinkled slightly in concern.
Sakura nodded hurriedly. "Fine. Tired, like I said earlier."
Aya's eyes were troubled. "Are you sure?"
"Of course!"
"Really sure?"
Sakura hesitated. There were times when she wondered just how well Aya knew her. "Y-yeah . . . I'm just not concentrating well."
"Tell you what," said Aya as she brought the dustbin and broom over to clean up the shards of the ceramic vase. "You take a break for a while, I'll keep the shop."
"But--"
"No buts!" Aya could be quite stubborn, despite her frailty. "Look, you're just being a bother more than you're helping, anyway."
How well did Aya know her, exactly? To anyone else, that might have seemed like an insult. But to Sakura, it was logic-- in her scattered mental state, she truly was more of a bother than a help. But still . . . "Are you sure? You can run it by yourself?"
Aya-chan nodded reassuringly. "It's only for a little while. Go on, gather your thoughts. I have days like that too."
Sakura sighed, and smiled slightly. "Well, alright. If you're sure."
"Positive."
Sakura smiled once more, and then wandered off down the rows of flowers. Where was she going to go? On a whim, she found herself heading towards the stairway leading down towards where the four boys had once held their secret headquarters.






Omi sighed forlornly. "It's not working . . . the only graveyard for miles and miles is the one we visited last night!"
Aya shook his head. "No, there's got to be more. That's what she said."
Omi sighed again and rubbed at his temples. "I know, Aya-kun . . . but it's true!"
Aya's eyes hardened perceptibly. "Omi, look again. Schwartz has to have some trick up their sleeve."
Omi frowned. "Look, Aya, I know you want to believe that girl . . . but think about it. She's only a very little girl, and she could have easily gotten confused by the oncoming traffic. There isn't any way that boy could have suddenly known what Schwartz was up to in the middle of that traffic, told his sister, and then somehow gotten out of the accident and walked away. It's just not possible."
Youji, lounging on the couch as usual, spoke up. "How do you know?"
Omi glanced behind him, towards Youji. "Eh?" he asked, confused.
"Lots of things aren't possible," the older man drawled, a slight smile on his face. He waved a hand in the air, negligently gesturing at everything, including them. "We're not possible, really. Us being dead, and all."
"But--"
"We're not possible to normal people, of course," Youji added.
He was irritating Omi greatly. "Youji . . . just stop it, okay? We've had a long night. You're talking nonsense."
Youji sat up, swinging his long legs down onto the floor. "No, I mean it. If you asked a normal person, they'd say that we're impossible, because we're technically dead. How do we know that whatever Schwartz is doing is within our conceived realm of possibility?"
Omi was startled into silence, but Ken spoke up instead. "Go on," he said cautiously. "I have a feeling you might think of something that would help make sense of this whole mess."
Youji paused for a moment, before saying slowly and thoughtfully, "I haven't thought it out completely yet . . . for one thing, if they're demons and we're angels, which are technically supposed to be equal entities, how come we have bodies and they don't?"
"That's assuming that shadow we saw in the film was one of their bodies," Aya said quietly.
Youji frowned at him. "Hmm?"
Aya stood up and walked slowly across the room, his face impassive as usual. "It might have been some sort of mental projection of them."
Thoughtful silence fell, as they all tried to make sense of it. Then Youji broke the heavy quiet by clapping a hand on Omi's shoulder, startling the younger boy. "Well," he said, flashing a charming smile at the youngest member of the group, "I think we can depend on Omi to figure all this out. He's the one with the computer."
Omi leveled him a flat look, and Youji grinned widely. After a moment or two, Omi gave up and drooped a little. "Sure, sure, whatever you say. I'll get right to it."
Ken, sitting near the stairs, suddenly lifted his head. "Shh!" he said abruptly, and immediately the others fell silent. In response to their puzzled glances, Ken gestured at the stairway. Then the noise he had heard came again-- the doorknob turning, creaking with disuse.
"Shit!" hissed Youji. "Hurry, hide," he whispered.
"Hide?" Aya asked, amused. "Remember who we are, you dolt. We're not little kids caught using our parents' car or anything."
The look on Youji's face spoke volumes. "Oh," he said simply. All four boys drew back into the corners of the room, concentrating mentally on not being seen.
Soon, footsteps could be heard, coming slowly down the stairs. Sakura paused at the bottom, her hand resting lightly on the handrail. Her eyes swept the room briefly, and her face was slightly pained. She walked into the room and tried the light switch-- Omi concentrated briefly on blocking the wiring of the room, using his talent-- and the light didn't work. "After all, no one's been down here in a while," she murmured aloud. She sat down on the couch and ran her fingers over the worn cloth. "Now, he would have sat here . . . just like--" she leaned back and lounged, much like Youji did. In his corner, Youji winced and made a mental note to change positions once and a while. When the girl did it, his usual pose looked very strange. "Just like this," she repeated, a faint smile tracing her lips. Manx had talked so much about the four boys that Sakura felt almost as if it had been she who had been their secretary all those long months, not Manx.
"And standing by the stairs, Ken . . ." She glanced at the stairs with a smile, and Ken stiffened-- but she didn't see him.
"And over there . . ." She stood up and crossed over to the desk, on which used to sit the computer. "Omi would have sat here." And she sat down backwards on the chair, leaning against the back with her chin. "And Youji would force him mercilessly to do all the researching, while the rest of them slept." She laughed briefly, the sound echoing slightly in the seemingly empty room.
Youji's expression grew slighty chagrined as he stiffened in annoyance, trying to ignore the way Omi was smirking at him from across the room.
She sat in the chair for a while and then looked towards the opposite wall, where Aya was still leaning. "And . . . Aya-kun would stand there, looking like he usually did." Sakura's eyes narrowed slightly, and her brow was puzzled. She leaned forward, almost squinting. Aya's eyes widened, and he began to concentrate even harder and avoiding being seen. Soon, Sakura stood up and started towards the stairs. "Well," she said slowly, "Aya-chan was right . . . I do sort of feel better for having taken a bit off. I should--" she paused. "Oh! Of course! I know where he'd go!" And with that, she took off up the stairs and through the door at a run.
The four boys relaxed their concentrations, and exchanged four equally puzzled glances as they listened to her footsteps fade away.






Reika watched, puzzled, as the girl rested her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. She'd come into the hospital at a full sprint, and then just stood there trying to catch her breath. At first Reika had thought there was some sort of emergency, but then, the girl had come into the main entrance and not the emergency room entrance.
"Can . . . Can I help you?" she asked, raising her voice a little.
The girl looked up and straightened, walking over towards the counter. "Well, actually, I'm looking for someone-- I think he might have come here."
"Why do you think that? If there was a patient he would have seen, maybe I can check to see if they've had any visitors . . ."
The girl paused. "Well, no . . . there used to be someone here that he would visit, but he made such regular visits that I'm sure he would have at least come once."
Reika tilted her head to one side. "What's his name? Maybe I'll recognize it."
"Aya Fujimiya," the girl replied hopefully.
"Aya Fujimiya. . ." Reika repeated thoughtfully. "No, there hasn't been anyone here by that name lately." She stopped, and then turned to the computer. "Hold on a second . . .?"
"Sakura," supplied the girl. "Sakura Tomoe."
"Alright. Hold on a moment, his name sounds familiar." The nurse's fingers flew over the keyboard for a few seconds before she leaned back in triumph. "Fujimiya Aya. It says coma . . ." she paused. "He wasn't one of those recent coma victims, was he?" Without waiting for an answer, she read on. "Oh, wait . . . this isn't recent. Let's see . . . transferred to another hospital . . . wait a second." She looked up, puzzled, meeting Sakura's eyes steadily. "It says here that Aya Fujimiya is a sixteen year old girl."
Sakura blinked. "Oh . . . that's right." She sagged visibly. "Never mind, then. Thanks for your help, anyway." She turned to go.
"W-Wait!" called Reika, raising her hand towards the girl. She had looked so desperate, and then so crestfallen, that Reika couldn't ignore her request. "It can't just be coincidence, can it? That there would be two Aya Fujimiya's associated with this hospital?"
Sakura stopped, glancing back over her shoulder. "No, he was her brother. The man I'm looking for, anyway. Aya wasn't his real name, it was his sister's."
Reika's eyes softened. "That's so sweet of him-- to keep his sister's memory alive by using her name." As an afterthought, she asked curiously, "What about his sister, though? Did she ever wake back up again?"
Sakura smiled slightly. "Yeah, she did. But . . . Aya never saw her smile again. He died."
Reika raised an eyebrow. "And yet . . . you're looking for him?"
Sakura flushed. "Well," she said quickly, "I thought I saw him. And I didn't actually see him die, I just assumed-- I mean, he drowned, and . . ."
Reika sighed and nodded. "I understand now. Sakura-san, you have to learn to let go. We have classes associated with the hospital for dealing with grief--"
"That's not it!" Sakura was quick to respond. Then she shrugged. "Never mind. Ran obviously didn't come here. Thank you for your help." And then she slipped out of the door, before Reika could say anything.
The young nurse sighed slightly, remorsefully. She was new to this job-- she hadn't learned yet to keep a detached outlook on things. If she went around getting herself involved with every person in denial that came by . . . She stopped short, freezing in place, her mind working furiously. What was it that the girl had said, just before she left? 'Ran obviously didn't come here . . .'
Ran. The name of the man that had come here earlier, and taken such an interest in the coma patients in intensive care. Ran, the man that had used his sister's name, Aya, when she was lost in a coma. It was too, too convenient . . . Reika turned excitedly to the computer, ready to look up Sakura Tomoe's address so that she could tell her. And for the second time, she paused, her fingers frozen over the keyboard. Hadn't Sakura mentioned . . . something about seeing Ran, or Aya, or whatever his name was, drown? Drowning . . . Something that had been nagging at Reika all day, since Ran's visit, finally clicked into place. She stood up slowly, a horrible chill running down her spine. A while back, she'd spent part of her training internship at the morgue. Something wasn't quite right.
"Azaki-san!" she called towards the back of the room. "I . . . er, my father called, and needs me to help him with something." She made up the excuse on the spot nervously, knowing that she wasn't a good liar. She felt her face heating up and turned her head away, but didn't need to-- the older woman called back distractedly, probably without actually listening to the newest nurse, "Oh, alright, but don't be gone long."
Reika wasted no time in collecting her bag and jacket from under the counter and slipping through the glass doors of the hospital lounge.
She hurried the three blocks to the city morgue, trying to remember exactly what it was that was drawing her to the dreary place, but unable to picture it clearly in her mind. As she entered through the rusty doors, the man behind the desk called out, "H-Hey, miss! I need some identification, please."
She flipped her hospital ID towards him and he leaned back again into his chair. Once reassured, he took no notice of her and waved her distractedly towards the back rooms. Reika went through the doors and turned towards the wall with the more recent cases. The particular one she was looking for had grabbed her attention for quite a few reasons, not the least of which the peculiar circumstances of death. There had been eight young men, all drowned in the same place on the same night. They had washed up on the shores eventually, and were taken to the morgue immediately. Reika scanned the labels on the drawers until she came to one that read "Fujimiya." Reika swallowed; her mouth was suddenly and inexplicably dry. She steeled her nerve and grasped the handle, and began to slide the drawer out into the room, not knowing what she was going to find.
Whatever she was expecting, it didn't happen-- there was indeed a body there, as it should be, and it was definitely quite dead-- she could see that even through the sheet covering it. No vampires or zombies or anything of the sort. The card very clearly read that the victim had died several weeks ago and that the cause of death had indeed been drowning, as she had remembered. Reika almost breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the drawer back in, when something made her pause briefly and pull back the edge of the sheet. The face beneath it, its skin the near-transparent color of death, its eyes closed almost serenely, was the face of Ran Fujimiya, the quiet, healthy young man who had brought flowers to the little girl in the hospital that morning.



Fallen Angels, by Tori: email me at saezuru@hotmail.com