**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!**
Part Eight
"Ne . . . Reika-san?" Ken stood in the doorway to her room, fidgeting a little.
Reika looked up from folding laundry and smiled. "For the last time, Ken, just Reika's fine," she
said, and waved the boy into the room. "What's up?"
"There's something we all think you should know. Well, that Aya, Omi, and I all think you should
know. Not Youji, we haven't talked to him, but you see, that's because--" He cut himself short,
with a sheepish grin. Babbling was going to get him nowhere, not when he had to bring up such a
bad subject. Reika echoed his grin with a faint, puzzled smile, and motioned him to sit in one of
the chairs around the room. Ken gingerly pushed aside a few articles of her clothing, and sat
down.
"So what is this important thing that I have to know, but that Youji's not allowed to know that I
know?" Reika smiled slightly at the chagrined expression on Ken's face, and added, "Well, if the
three of you did something without him, it's fairly obvious that you don't want him to know that
you're talking to me."
Ken sighed and nodded, with a faint smile. "It's just that we don't think he'd want us to tell you.
In fact, we don't think that he knows we know . . ."
Reika waved a hand to cut him off. "Ken, just tell me. I won't bite." She grinned, though from the
faintly strained expression on her face, she was slightly nervous as to what Ken was going to say.
"It's . . . well, it's about Youji."
"No kidding." Her voice was amused.
Ken grinned. "None too subtle, am I? Well, basically, it's this. You know how oddly he's been
acting lately?"
Reika raised an eyebrow. "Odd? Ken, I've only known you all for a little while. You all seem a
little odd."
Ken paused to think about this for a moment. "Well, I suppose that's true. And he only really
started acting oddly when we met you at the hospital, and since you didn't know him before then,
you had nothing to compare him to. Not that he's any better usually, or anything . . . you know,
one time he actually--"
"Why are you changing the subject?"
Ken stifled a curse. "I don't know why they picked me to tell you," he muttered, running a hand
nervously through his hair.
"Maybe because Aya would make me feel like a guilty schoolgirl with those icy stares of his, and
Omi would make me feel like I was being lectured by a seven year-old?"
"Mm," Ken said noncomittally, his eyes drifting towards the window.
"So . . . Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to go ask Youji himself?"
Ken's eyes widened a little and, wincing, he said quickly, "Nah, I'll tell you. How much do you
know about Youji? About who he is, or was, I suppose?"
Reika shrugged. "Nothing whatsoever. Nothing about any of you, really. Well, I've figured out
that Aya has a sister. Or a girlfriend. I couldn't tell which . . . Except I kept getting confused,
because you'd talk about him as if he were the girlfriend. Or sister."
Ken blinked, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Finally, he replied, "Oh . . . you
mean Aya-chan. Well, Aya has a sister named-- well, named Aya. Aya's not his real name, his
real name is Ran. And Aya-chan was hit by a car on her sixteenth birthday--"
"And . . . went into a coma?" Reika breathed in sharply. "That's why that little girl in the hospital
made him so upset . . ."
Ken peered at her curiously from beneath his unruly bangs, asking intelligently, "Eh?"
Reika blinked once, coming out of her little reverie. "Oh-- nothing. Something just finally made
sense. So?"
"Well," Ken continued, glad to be talking about something other than Youji, "When that
happened, Aya-- Ran, actually, took his sister's name. Perhaps as a way of honoring her, or
remembering her. I personally think it was to remind himself of his revenge, so that every time
someone talked to him and used that name, he'd remember why he took it."
Reika shivered a little, wrinkling her nose uneasily. "Morbid way of living, if you ask me. No
wonder he acts all the time like he's got a stick up his--"
Ken cut her off, with a small cough. "Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, Aya-chan is his sister.
There's another girl, named Sakura, who looks so much like Aya-chan that they could pass for
each other-- and did, on the night we died. But she sort of has . . . well, you could say she had a
crush on Aya."
"Aya? The sister?"
Ken flushed. "No, Aya, the brother. Ran."
"Oh. I was confused, for a few moments there."
Sighing, Ken agreed with a grin. "Confusing to me, too. I try to not think about that whole tangle,
as much as I can."
There was a brief silence, before Reika suddenly said sharply, "You changed the subject again!"
Ken sniffed, stubbornly, crossing his arms across his chest. "No, you were the one who started
talking about Aya's past."
Reika rolled her eyes. "Well, that's because you asked me how much I knew."
"About Youji, not Aya!"
"Well, if you're not going to tell me about Youji, why are you here?"
"Because I have no choice!"
There was another silence after Ken's shout, in which he drew a deep breath. Exhaling, he said in
a calmer voice, "Sorry. Look, I need to just get this said. Youji-- before he joined Weiß, he was a
detective."
Reika leaned back against the headboard, crossing her arms behind her head, not interrupting this
time.
"He had a partner, named Asuka." Ken grinned, rolling his eyes. "She was probably the only
woman that could make that guy blush like a schoolboy, you know. When Youji would talk about
her, he'd get this look on his face, that made him look very different from the way he usually
does. But then, who knows? Maybe he was like that all the time before-- before Asuka got
killed."
Reika's eyes softened, and she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms about them.
"She died? Was that why Youji became an assassin?"
Ken shrugged, glancing out the window again. "Who knows? None of us really know why the
others joined. Aya? Maybe it was for revenge for his sister's coma. Youji, it might have been
Asuka. And Omi, his family deserted him when he was kidnapped years ago, and the head of this
organization, Persia, brought him to Weiß. But why he stayed? I don't know."
"And you, Ken?"
His mouth tightened, and he replied shortly, "We're not here to talk about me."
Reika sighed, but didn't press the subject. "Is that the end of the story, then?"
Ken shook his head. "No, not really. You've heard how there were two groups, Weiß and
Schwartz, right?" At Reika's half-nod, he continued. "There was actually a third group, made up
of women, called Schrient. One of the women there always had this mask-like visor on, but during
one battle it broke, and Youji saw her face. The girl looked exactly like Asuka, down to the little
mole below her left eye.
"A lot of other things happened, but the way things ended was the worst part. For a while, it
seemed this girl had lost her memory during a battle, and Youji took care of her, thinking she was
Asuka. We don't know if she actually was or not, but Youji was sure of it, and he was the only
one who knew her, so it's not our place to deny it. But he was sure she was. And for a while, it
seemed like she really had changed for the better." The muscles in Ken's face tightened, though
why exactly, Reika couldn't tell.
"And?" She was afraid to say more, in case the young man lost the momentum and stopped
speaking again.
"She betrayed him," he went on with a sigh. "She tried to kill him, and the next time our mission
clashed with their purposes, he had no choice but to kill her. He didn't talk about it, but he's
never been one to talk about himself. None of us are, really."
"I never knew that," Reika murmured, staring at the ceiling. "I'm starting to learn that there's
more to you-- all of you-- than meets the eye. After all, when I first met you, you were all just
pretty-boy florists looking for a thief. And now, you're a group of ex-assassins, deadly angels of
sin, trying to defeat an equally deadly bunch of demons." She shakes her head. "If you'd
mentioned this to me two weeks ago, I'd have recommended you to the mental hospital down the
block."
Ken nodded, making a wry face. "Honestly, that's how I feel too."
"But I still don't see why the others wanted you to tell me all this . . . I mean, it does give me a bit
of insight into Youji's personality, and a little of Aya's, too. But why was this such an important
thing?"
Ken took a deep breath, deciding not to avoid her question and avoiding her eyes instead.
"Asuka-- the girl Youji loved-- had short dark hair, eyes like yours . . . you could pass for twins,
in all but the beauty mark on her left cheek."
Reika's head spun, and she was silent, staring up at the ceiling.
Ken sighed, flushing a little. "Now I'm questioning why we decided to tell you this anyway. It
was a stupid idea, it's not like you--"
"No," Reika interrupted, sitting up abruptly in bed, and flashing a brief, weak smile at the
brunette. "No, it's a good thing you said something. Now I can be careful what I say around him.
Thanks for the consideration."
That was as much a dismissal as a reassurance, so Ken, realizing it as such, got up and left the
room, pausing in the doorway long enough to reply, "Welcome. I think." And then he was gone,
the door clicking shut behind him.
Reika sat there for a long time, just resting her chin on her knees and staring at the door. Finally,
after a long internal struggle, she swung her legs to the ground, got to her feet, and left the room.
Youji was outside, on the fire escape, smoking a cigarette. The fire escape was a quiet place,
quiet except for the noise of the city below. It was more a silence of mind that he craved, rather
than a silence in truth. His left hand held the nearly-finished cigarette between two fingertips,
while his right toyed idly with the empty cigarette box. After being so rudely evicted from his own
room so that the girl could have a place to stay, he had been sleeping on a spare mattress in Ken's
room at night. Since even his room wasn't his own anymore, this place was the one place he
could come and just be, and not think about the gravity of the situation they had all found
themselves in. Not thinking about it didn't really seem to help. I should have died, back there . . .
I should have stayed dead, not come back to haunt this place and pretend to fight demons. My
soul died long ago-- all of ours did. It's cruel to bring us back to this earth to fight again.
Just as he took a long draw on his cigarette, burning another section of the tobacco to glowing
ash, there came a tap on the window frame. Youji glanced to the side with an annoyed noise in his
throat, to see who was invading this last retreat. Ah, damn it . . . It's the chick. Last thing I need
right now is some woman on my back about something or other.
The window slid open. "Is there room out there for me?" the girl asked, poking her head out into
the area.
"No," replied Youji shortly, his voice annoyed. So she takes over our mission base, then invades
my room, my mind, my dreams, and now she's taking this one place as well?
She ignored him, clambering out of the window and onto the fire escape. There was plenty of
room for both of them-- they could fit a third and even a fourth person in there comfortably.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked, crossing to the far end of the fire escape, looking out
at the city, stained red by the sickly sunset in the distance.
Like blood, thought Youji, absently. Aloud, he said, "Attempting to be by myself, thank you."
Reika ginned, turning her head to peer at him with eyes that were hauntingly, searingly familiar.
"Well, you've failed for this evening at that attempt. So what are you really doing out here?"
Youji began to lose his patience, though he did manage to keep that thin veneer that was minna
no Kudou Youji, the familiar patterns of the facade staying in place as if slipping into grooves
worn by years of use. "Look, sweetheart, I'm tired--"
"You're dead. You can't get tired."
"Fine then, I just needed a smoke--"
"Can't be affected by nicotine, either," Reika interrupted cheerfully.
"What do you want?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.
At this, Reika just shrugged and turned away again, leaning out over the rails of the fire escape,
her dark hair highlighted red by the sunlight. "Ken talked to me, today," she murmured, still
watching the city.
Youji silently stifled a groan. Great. Just great. Was he going to have to be the love counselor,
now? On the outside, however, he smirked and said, "Ah, so you've come to me so you can lay
open the twisted and tumbled thoughts you're having about our favorite clawed assassin?"
"He told me about Asuka."
The smirk vanished from Youji's expression, like a broken mirror falling to pieces. For a few
minutes, he just stared at Reika's back, his eyes fixed upon her shoulder blades as if they would
provide some sort of comfort, something that would deny what he'd just heard. Suddenly, a wave
of anger went through him, and he pushed himself off of the railing, dropping both cigarette and
empty cigarette box off the side of the fire escape. "K'sou! That bastard . . . what's he think he's
doing?"
Reika moved to the window in order to block his path. "Youji, stop it. It's not his fault. They all
agreed to tell me, and sent him to do it. I'm glad they did."
The few moments her speech had taken were enough to give Youji back a little of his equilibrium.
He rolled eyes eyes and slouched against the building, the worn soles of his shoes sliding a little
on the metal grid floor of the fire escape. "Why are they talking to you about it? It's not your
problem." But a sinking, sickening feeling in his gut told him that she knew, that somehow, the
others had seen the frightening similarities between Reika and Asuka, and that they'd told her, for
some idiotic reason of their own. But that didn't mean he couldn't pretend like he didn't know
what was going on.
Reika sighed and shut the window, making rather impossible for Youji to leave without having to
open it again. "Quit playing dumb, Youji. I'm not an idiot, and you know I'm not an idiot.
Neither are your partners; they're not quite as blind as you seem to think."
Youji just stared back at her, replying coldly, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Reika let out a groan. "Why do I have to play psychologist to the supernatural?" she murmured,
more a question to the universe in general than to Youji. "Ken said that I look exactly like her,
except for the beauty mark."
Youji just sighed, and slid to the ground, his back still against the building. Resting his arms on his
bent knees, he watched the people scurrying back and forth in the alley beneath the fire escape.
"Yeah. So?"
Reika leaned against the railing, watching him with a calculating look. "So, what do you plan to
do about it? Or are you just going to let yourself sink further into that angsty pit of despair you're
digging yourself?"
Her words stung-- even Youji had to admit that, to himself. He swallowed, and gave her a look
that could have reduced a much stronger and larger person to a mere smudge of ash on the
ground below. But Reika didn't move, her eyes stone-cold and hard. Youji shrugged, and looked
away again. "Just go away," he muttered. "I don't need this. Go-- oh, go flirt with the guys, or
something."
A slight rustle near him and faint movement in the corner of his eye him told Youji that Reika had
moved over to sit across from him. Youji refused to look at her. "Yo-tan," she said softly,
surprising him with the use of his nickname, "I feel . . . I feel bad about it."
At this, Youji turned his head enough to look at her from the corner of one eye. She wasn't
looking at him, but sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms hugging them, staring
with apparent interest at Youji's shoes. "It's not your fault," he replied, feeling just slightly rotten
with the way he'd treated the girl. She was so young, to be dealing with demons and angels, and
incredibly vulnerable looking . . .
"But it still feels like it is," she said, with a light grin. "But, I was thinking, and . . ." And here she
actually blushed. Gone now was the icy-eyed woman, bombarding him with words, and in her
place was a young, frightened girl. "And I realized something. A lot hinges on you four, on this
mission of yours. It's not like it's the final say in good versus evil, but it's a step, and every bit
helps, I suppose."
She stopped for a little bit, turning her head to one side, and tracing the fingers of one hand over
the metal patterns in the grid-like floor of the fire-escape. When she continued, it was hesitant.
"And that means that you all need to be functioning at your best. Someone like me doesn't really
matter, in the long run. So . . . what I'm trying to say, is that if you still love Asuka, and see her in
me, well, you can-- pretend. I don't mind. You're not exactly unattractive, or anything."
Youji merely stared at her for a few moments, his mouth parted in surprise. Whatever he had
thought she was going to say, it hadn't been this. "You mean . . ." As he spoke, her face turned a
shade darker and he sighed, deciding not to say it out loud if it made her that uncomfortable.
"You say I'm not unattractive, that you wouldn't mind. But you don't love me, or even feel like
that. Do you?"
Reika just shook her head numbly.
He understood all too well what Reika was offering-- she was offering to be his lover, so that for
a few precious moments he could pretend that Asuka was alive and with him. It was so tempting .
. . his Asuka was sitting there just a few feet in front of him. Everything he'd dreamed of since
that day she'd died, everything he'd wished for, prayed for, just a hand's reach away. And yet . . .
He started to laugh, feeling something lighter inside him than he'd felt for several days. Reika
looked up in surprise, and then that surprise darkened into anger. "What? Why are you laughing
at me?" she demanded, eyes snapping.
Youji just shook his head, waiting for the bubbles of laughter to die away. When he could speak
again, he said, "You're so not like her at all."
Reika's eyes widened. "But Ken . . . he said--"
"Oh, you look like her, that's for sure." Youji grinned, finding it an easier expression to assume
than it had been for a while. "But you're completely different. For example, if Asuka were in your
shoes and found out that I was moping just because she looked like some old love of mine, she'd
smack me and tell me to get a life." He winked, running a hand through his hair.
Reika rolled her eyes and got to her feet. "Well, Youji, you deserve to be smacked a lot of the
time. I wouldn't blame her." She started to head towards the window to go back inside.
"Hold on a sec," Youji looked up at her from where he was sitting. She paused, glancing down
curiously. "Er . . . thanks, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. All I saw was the physical
resemblance-- already, I'm starting to notice the little differences. Thanks."
Reika flashed him a brilliant smile, and climbed in through the window. "You're welcome. But
thank your partners, not me. They were the ones who cared enough to notice."
"But not everyone would be willing to do what you offered," Youji murmured, soft enough that
Reika could have missed it entirely. After a few moments, he called out, "Reika?"
Her head emerges once more from inside. "Hmm?"
"Toss me that pack of cigarettes on the table there, will you?"
She disappeared for a few moments, and returned with the box held loosely in one hand. Youji
lifted his hands to catch it, as she tossed the box . . . and it sailed over his head, dropping down
into the alleyway below. "H-Hey!" said Youji, with a scowl. "You can't be that bad of a throw."
Reika just grinned, and said, "Smoking's bad for you. Even for angels." And with that, she
winked, and disappeared into the building, shutting the window behind her.
Youji shook his head, though an answering smile came to his lips. With a sigh, he pushed his
sunglasses up on his nose and stretched out his long legs in front of him. Clasping his hands
behind his head, he leaned back, watching the reddened sun sink below the horizon.
Ran lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his sleepless eyes wide open. He felt no fatigue, no
exhaustion, and yet the others insisted they try to go to sleep. It was supposed to take their minds
off of the task ahead of them. Foolish idea, he thought to himself, turning over on his side. We
could be researching right now, or training our 'talents', or anything to prepare for this except
sleeping. He sighed and sat up, giving up on the prospect of sleep tonight.
For what must have been the thirtieth time that night, Ran's thoughts turned once more to the
flower shop, and the strangeness of the fact that it appeared to have been abandoned for about six
days now. "There has to be something wrong," he murmured, torn between an almost obsessive
desire to check on his younger sister and the knowledge that he couldn't go upstairs to see her
and give away his situation. "If . . ." he began quietly, slowly. "If I go up now, and just see for a
little while, no one will be the wiser. I won't wake her or Sakura. I'll only look . . ." With that
justification firmly in his mind, he stood up fluidly and shrugged into a black t-shirt and jeans.
He opened the door to his room and looked out, cautiously, but there wasn't anyone in the
hallway or the main room. He padded barefoot across the floor and headed silently up the stairs,
turning the doorknob slowly. The door creaked as he opened it-- wincing, Ran made a mental
note to have the hinges oiled. Up the second flight of stairs he went, and down the hallway. Which
door? He wondered, helplessly. One door was the upstairs bathroom, at the end of the hall. There
were four remaining rooms, which had been the Weiß boys' rooms when they were alive. Two of
these four had doors open, and were obviously empty; the other two, however, had closed
doors-- these were the doors that must lead to Sakura and Aya-chan's rooms.
Ran made a split-second decision, and turned to the left-hand door on a whim. Silently, the
doorknob turned without being touched, and the door swung inwards without a sound. The room
beyond was dark and silent, the only light being from behind closed blinds at the window. As
quietly as was possible, Ran padded barefoot across the carpet to the bed. Fast asleep, short hair
tumbled across the pillow, mouth open like a young child's, was Sakura. Ran's breath caught in
his throat for a moment, his thoughts twisting. She looks so much like Aya, his mind whispered.
And yet, she's different . . . Ran closed mental pathways, blocked subconscious trains of thought,
and turned away from the bedside before he could notice the lines of strain on her face, the dark
circles the hung beneath her closed eyes. The door clicked shut behind him when he left.
He was a little less careful about opening Aya's door, knowing that this time he'd found the right
room. When he first opened the door, the room seemed the same as Sakura's had been. As his
dark eyes scanned the room, however, Ran noticed that it was lighter than the other. The curtains
had been swept away and to the sides, and were restlessly billowing in the constant stream of
frigid air blowing in through the open window . . .
Something screamed, deep in Ran's mind. Something was wrong with the picture . . . Suddenly,
his eyes widened in alarm. An open window? His thoughts raced. But it's freezing outside. What .
. .
Just then, something caught Ran's eye-- something low and black, something shadowy on the
ledge outside Aya's window. He stared at it for a few moments, before he saw a flash of gold,
two narrowed, golden eyes, the shadows reflecting off of the curves of a vicious smirk . . .
With a stifled shout from Ran, the window shut with a slam. It took him a few moments to
recover from shock, but when he did, he was shaking in barely suppressed anger. That Schwartz
had dared to try and target his sister, his family, his only tie left in the physical world . . . Ran
crossed the room quickly and threw open the window once more, and he scanned the streets
below for any sign of the demon that had been there. There was none, but Ran had expected that,
and for the moment, didn't care. All that he could think of was the strange luck that had allowed
him to arrive in time to keep the demon from entering and harming his sister.
Ran shut the window again, quietly, and as he did a faint noise from behind him caused him to
turn, eyes on the little bed in the corner. Did I wake her? He wondered, attempting to melt back
into the shadows, trying to avoid being seen.
"S-Saku-ra?" came the faint, almost inaudible sound, more of a sigh than a voice. It was labored
and hoarse, cracking on the last syllable.
For a moment, Ran recoiled at the sound of that voice. It was no voice he knew-- it sounded
more like something out of intensive care at the hospital. But then he saw the faint sillhouette of a
girl's face, saw her throat convulse as she tried to swallow--
"Aya?" whispered Ran, hurrying towards his sister's bedside. Without realizing he was doing it,
he concentrated briefly and the street-lamp outside flared to life, filling the room with a pale,
ghostly light. Aya's lips were blue, her closed eyes swollen painfully. Her chest rose and fell
shallowly, her breathing labored and irregular. Trying to ignore the panic creeping into his
thoughts, Ran glanced around aimlessly for something, anything that would give him a clue as to
what was wrong with her. His desperate eyes fell on a little plastic bottle, the brown-orange color
of a prescription medicine, sitting on her bedside table. Ran read the label quickly, ignoring
everything except for the little box in the lower right corner, which held the doctor's name and
diagnosis. Scrawled in shorthand was the single word: pneumonia.
For a few moments, Ran had to stop, letting his frantic thoughts calm a little, until he could finally
understand-- somehow, Aya-chan had caught pneumonia, which was why she was so ill.
With a sinking, leaden feeling dropping into the pit of his stomach, he glanced back towards the
window. The worst thing for an invalid with a lung sickness was cold air. Ran swallowed, closing
his eyes. Just because the demon had been outside, and Ran had shut the window, didn't mean
that the attempt had failed. After all, there was no way of knowing just how long the window had
been open, no way to tell how long the winter air had been clawing its way into Aya's lungs.
Burned into the insides of his eyelids, all Ran could see was that flash of golden eyes, the smirk
upon the demon's stolen face . . .
"O-Onii--"
The gasp brought Ran abruptly back to the present, and he lifted one of Aya's limp hands. Her
skin was freezing to the touch, transparent and clammy like a corpse's. Forcing himself to sound
normal, Ran said, "Hush, Aya-chan . . . I'm here now. Everything's alright. You're safe."
The girl weakly opened her eyes, focusing wearily on Ran's face. "I-- oniichan . . ."
Ran shook his head, and started chafing at her arm, trying to lift the cold from her skin. "Don't
speak, it's alright. I'm here."
Aya-chan's face contorted with pain, and her arm twitched feebly. "'niichan, stop . . . it hurts . . ."
Ran gave up on trying to rub some life back into the girl's frozen limbs and sat down on the bed.
He slipped his arms under her shoulders and lifted her, leaning her back against him, trying to
share his body heat with his sister. His thoughts circled frantically, not letting him ignore the
knowledge that her body felt weightless, like a feather, as if there was nothing left of her except a
frail husk.
"'niichan, I thought you'd never come." Aya-chan's voice was steadier, but somehow the fact
couldn't cheer Ran nor calm the fear racing through his veins.
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
"I know I'm dying," she whispered, her eyes too large for her pale, sunken face. Her lips, cracked
and dry, curved into the ghost of a radiant smile. "You've finally come back to take me home."
Something wrenched at Ran's heart; the utter sweetness of her smile, the unadulterated trust in
her dark eyes. "No," he whispered, angrily blinking away dampness from his eyes. "Aya-chan,
you're not dying. You'll be warm again in no time."
"I'm not--" Before she could speak her sentence, she broke into a fit of coughing. Her frail body
shook with each spasm and every cough was weaker than the last, until she could only gasp in
pain, her thin fingers clinging desperately to Ran's shoulders. When she recovered, she opened
her mouth to continue, and Ran reached up with a trembling hand to wipe away the blood at the
corner of her mouth. "It isn't cold anymore," she whispered, her voice thin and weak.
"Aya-chan, you're freezing." He tightened his arms around his sister, trying to will some warmth
into her dying body. "Don't let go, Aya-chan, please--"
"I'm not afraid," she whispered, that phantom smile returning. "Because an angel has come to
guide me home." Her fingers curled, clutching his shirt as if clinging to a board in the middle of a
shipwreck.
Ran felt the edges of hysteria encroach his mind, and he replied almost angrily, "You're not going
to die! Aya-chan, listen to me-- I'm here, I haven't come to end your life. Live, we can be
together--"
Aya lifted a finger, placing it gently against her brother's lips, her eyes calm. "Just don't leave me,
Ran. That's all I ask."
Ran choked back what he was going to say, and found himself nodding numbly.
The young girl smiled, her face filled with the joy of a child, and curved her hand to place it gently
against his cheek. Then she gave a little sigh, as if finally surrendering a lost battle, and the small
hand fell from Ran's face to dangle lifelessly off of the edge of the bed.
"A-Aya?" whispered Ran, hoarsely. "AYA!"
He collapsed, his arms around the lifeless body of his sister, his body shaking with uncontrolled
sobs.
Sakura stood in the doorway silently, tears rolling down her pale cheeks. "I'm so sorry," she
whispered, but the angel that had come to take his sister didn't raise his head, and the only
response was the limitless sound of his grief. The window shattered, the glass blowing outwards
in a glittering cascade, as Ran pulled his sister's body closer. The bottle of medicine fell over and
rolled off of the nightstand, snapping into pieces as it hit the floor. As if a violent storm had
entered the room, Sakura felt herself flattened against the wall by the sheer force of Ran's grief,
manifested through his telekinetic power. The nightstand itself rocked once and fell over, breaking
into pieces that flew up and smashed into the wall, only inches from where Sakura stood. The
window-frame ripped itself from the wall and shattered, adding to the debris surging violently
around the room. Sakura merely stood, her eyes closed, her lips moving silently for a moment
before she managed to whisper once more, "I'm-- Ran, I'm so--"
Her voice was cut off as one of the blurred shards of debris struck her on the side of her head, and
she slumped to the ground, vision fading to black. "--sorry . . ."
Author's Note:
Me and my pre-reader have . . . rather interesting conversations about my story. She's one of my
best friends in real life, and so we tend to joke a lot. I'm considering compiling a lot of e-mail
conversations into a rather funny dialogue, as an omake to "Fallen Angels." I'll probably end up
doing it anyway, but I'd like to know if there's enough interest to post it up on fanfication.net.
So, the point of this is to say: e-mail me about this, and let me know if you're interested at all in
reading it-- it's pretty funny. ^__^
And many thanks to all you readers, and those who have emailed me. And especially Ochiba, for her very uplifting (not to mention ego-boosting ^_~) comments on
this story. (And for her great YoujixRan fic, which she will continue, else I shall be very upset.
^_~) Thanks!