Blood Stained Angel

by NemKess

warnings: eventual shonen ai, some violence. When Weiss is disbanded, the vigilantes go back to living their normal lives. The problem is that one of them never had a normal life.

3. Chapter 2

Title: Blood-Stained Angel
Author/pseudonym: NemKess
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz
Pairing: Ran/Omi, Schuldig/Farfello
Rating: R
Status: WIP
E-mail address for feedback:: nemsmuses@msn.com

Disclaimers: Weiss belong to me? I could only wish. Nope, not mine. Only the horrible poem and the story idea are my own.

Notes: The fic 'A Name' is not a necessary read for this fic to make sense, but it does give background to some things. I'd recommend checking it out first. Regardless, this fic disregards anything canon that might have happened after the first 25 episodes. That's all I own and have seen, that's all that's being included as background info here.

Summary: When Weiss is disbanded, the vigilantes go back to living their normal lives. The problem is that one of them never had a normal life.
Warnings: shonen ai/yaoi. violence. possible OOCness.

~*~*~

Of Darkness born
Alone.
With shadows live
Alone.
In Darkness die
Alone.

~*~*~

"You were careless, Bombay. He saw you. "

The younger of the pair winced. "I know."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know."

~*~*~

"Maybe you were just dreaming, Aniki. Or seeing things. You did stay up awfully late," Aya-chan said with a hint of disapproval in her voice.

Her brother shook his head adamantly. "No. It was Omi. I'd swear it."

She could only offer a helpless shrug. "Why on Earth would he being doing skulking around a bookshop in the dead of night? I mean, this isn't Tokyo. What are the chances?"

The clang of the door announced customers, but for once, both siblings ignored it. They were far too concerned with their own conversation. The elder of the pair sighed and ran a slim hand through his blood red locks. "If it was him, then it was an accident or a coincident. Maybe he was here looking for me and changed his mind or something."

"Aniki.." Aya-chan started with a doubtful look on her face.

"Actually, you're probably right." Ran whirled, instinctively settling into a defensive stance at the droll sounding voice right behind him. Only to blink in confusion at the face smirking at him. "Getting a little rusty, are we?" The blonde inquired, his green eyes sparkling with amusement(1).

"Yoji!"

Another familiar face, this one topped with dark brown hair, popped up from behind the tall lanky figure. "Hey, Aya.. I mean.. Ran."

"Ken?" The bookshop owner could only gape at his former comrades. "What are you doing here? How did you find us?"

Smirk growing, Yoji leaned against the store counter. "It wasn't that hard. You didn't exactly try to hide and I am a private investigator these days. And as for why we're here? Well, just take a look at these."

He dropped several photos in front of Ran. Though confused, the redhead glanced through them quickly zeroing in on one he recognized. "Hey, this guy was following me yesterday."

Yoji's smirk turned upside down as he got serious. He leaned over and looked at the photo before pulling out a small notepad and scanning whatever was written on it. "According to the local police, he took a long walk off a short cliff yesterday afternoon. His body was found at the bottom of the lookout point just outside of town." The P.I. separated each of the half a dozen photos. "This one was found in an alley way a few blocks down the road from here- victim of an apparent mugging." He pointed to the third picture of a hard looking man dressed in cheap leather.. "The hotel staff found Mr. Leather's body this morning. Slit wrists, apparent suicide. And Baldie here stepped out in front of a speeding car just a few hours ago. They haven't found these last two yet, but I imagine it will only be a few hours until they do."

"Other than the fact that one of them was following me yesterday, what exactly does that have to do with me... Or you for that matter?"

The newcomers shared a look before Ken dumped the contents of his backpack across the counter. Dozens of files spilled out. Yoji tucked his hair behind his ears before answering. "The first time the cops approached me about one of these cases, it was because I'd been the last one to see the victim. He was following me and I'd confronted him in front of witnesses. I had an airtight alibi, thankfully. The killing was later ruled gang related, but something didn't feel right about that and it got me curious enough to start investigating on my own."

"He tracked me down last year to ask me if anything similar had happened to me," Ken added. "I'd been brought in for questioning on a case where one of my co-workers had died under mysterious circumstances."

With a nod, Yoji continued. "Both of us had settled away from Tokyo in places with lower criminal activity. The cops were complaining about the sudden jump in the murder/suicide rate for the last couple of years. On a hunch, I checked both the police and the public records for both our areas, going back about a decade."

"Let me guess," Ran interrupted with a sigh. "The increase started about the same time you moved in."

Winking and tapping his nose, the lanky man grinned. "Bingo. Now obviously, Ken and I weren't doing it. So I investigated the victims. None of them were all that nice, though I doubt any would have gotten on our hit list when we were with Weiss. But...." His dramatic pause was long enough to annoy his companions. Ran scowled at him while Ken actually went as far as bopping him on the back of the head, much to Aya-Chan's amusement.

"Just tell him, baka."

"Ke-en... Don't be so mean. I was getting there." The scene was a familiar one to Ran and he was surprised at how much he'd missed the playful interactions of his old companions. "Anyways, the kicker is that they all had connections back to people who were on our list. And they had no legitimate reasons for being in our areas. I spent the last week doing a similar check for around here. It's even worse than ours."

"Yoji thinks that Omi never left Kritiker and that he's been using it's resources to protect us."

Ran stared down at the files with a frown. He didn't like the way that sounded. It meant that Omi had sacrificed his own chance at salvation to keep them from being dragged back down into the blood. Omi...

"Wait a minute," Aya-chan interjected. The three young men startled faintly. They'd almost forgotten that she was there. "Omi... isn't he the one.. well.. that... you know ..... that day.... Ran?"

Her brother blushed a deep scarlet that almost matched his hair as Yoji laughed and slung one arm around his shoulder. "Yup, that was Omittchi. Our fearless leader here is probably the only one who didn't know about the kid's crush on him until that day. He's so clueless, "

It had only taken a week or so for the entire group to make plans and arrangements after Manx had given them their walking papers. Aya had helped Ran pack, chatting away happily about the new life they were going to have. Yoji and Ken had stuck their heads in from time to time- Ken to help, Yoji to annoy- but Omi had been strangely absent. Usually he was the first one to offer his help when one of his teammates, most especially Ran, needed it. The former Abyssian hadn't admitted it, but the chibi's absence had worried him.

They'd loaded their belongings into Ran's car, the elder sibling sad that the teammate he was closest to hadn't shown up to say goodbye. Aya was already in and buckled up when Omi came running out of the shop. He'd skidded to a stop directly in front of the redhead and stared for a long moment. Ran opened his mouth to speak when the eighteen year old had rose up on his tiptoes and kissed him soundly before turning and running away again. He never did say goodbye.

The look on Omi's face as he'd pulled away still haunted his sleep sometimes. It had never occurred to him that Omi was into guys at all, never mind that all that emotion could have been for him. For once Yoji was right, he was pretty clueless.

At the moment though, that was beside the point. Ran was still skeptical. He didn't want it to be true. He didn't want to have to acknowledge that they might have left Omi to that life. "Yoji, Manx said Kritiker was crippled. The new boss had decided to focus all the remaining resources on research and development. Leave the vigilante stuff alone. And Omi was let go too."

"First of all, we don't know that Omi was let go. Sure, he got a letter, but none of us ever saw what was in it. We just assumed it was the same as ours."

Ken added his own two cents. "Yeah, and whenever I asked him what his plans were, he was always really vague. Then he'd steer the conversation over to my new coaching job and I'd forget all about it."

With a nod, Yoji moved on. "Secondly, it would hardly be the first time that Manx lied to us. And lastly..." He pulled a newspaper clipping out of his pocket and handed it over to the violet eyed man. Apparently it was a day for shocks. "Like I said, you weren't all that hard to find. Neither was Ken. Tsukiyono Omi on the other hand, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth."

The article was about a diplomatic function being held at the home of the sole surviving member of the Takatori family, Takatori Mamoru.

"Omi's the new head of Kritiker?" Ran's voice was faint from shock. Omi had dared to take back the name of Takatori?

But Yoji was shrugging. "I don't know. I couldn't get a picture, a good description or any concrete evidence either way." He flipped to another page in his notepad. "What we do know for sure is that Mamoru was kidnapped when he was five and that daddy dearest refused to pay the ransom. The story goes that his uncle Shuichi-"

"Persia." Ken clarified.

"Right, Persia found him and fearing for his safety at the hands of Raiji, took him to live at Tsukiyono Castle with the grandfather, letting everyone believe that he'd died. Then, after all the other Takatori's had died, he came back to Tokyo to take over the family businesses." The former assassins shared an uneasy glance at the emphasis. "There was a big to do over whether or not he was the genuine heir, but the grandfather supported the story and swore that he'd had dna tests done to prove it."

"But we know that Omi was born Takatori Mamoru." It had certainly taken Ran long enough to get over that fact. He was hardly likely to forget it now.

"Right. But the chibi was definitely with us for a couple of the years that Mamoru was supposedly with his grandfather. I even compared some of the dates of supposed sightings and unless Omi somehow mastered the art of being in two places at once, it wasn't him."

"An imposter?" There was merit to Ken's suggestion, but he didn't sound very certain.

"Maybe. On the other hand, with the Takatori fortune at his disposal, it wouldn't be too hard to buy a few alibi's."

"But do you really think Omi would do something like that?" The soccer player always had a hard time believing the worse of anyone he called friend. "I can see him trying to protect us. But to get involved in the rest of that stuff? Omi wouldn't."

The idea that Omi had gone bad didn't exactly sit well with the redhead either, but he couldn't just dismiss the possibility. They were talking about the boy who'd killed with a smile on his face. And really, how much had any of them known about the others?

Yoji was shrugging again. "We don't know for sure that it's him. And even if it is Omi, for all we know he's using the family fortune for good. That sounds more like the chibi we knew."

There was truth in that, but he couldn't be sure.

The boy was a Takatori after all. There were those who believed that blood would tell in the end.

Violet eyes flashed with determination. Ran certainly intended to find out.

One way or the other.

~*~*~
Author's Notes:
It may seem like I gave out a lot of information in this part (and I suppose compared to the first two parts I did) but really I didn't. What is and what seems to be are frequently two completely different things. Sometimes a shadow is really a monster. Although... sometimes a shadow really is just a shadow. ^_^;;; Oh well. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was longer than I'd planned, but it just seemed to happen. Ya'll don't mind, do you? N-e-ways. Thanks for taking the time to read and review. It's always greatly appreciated. Ja! NemKess

1) I don't know what color eyes anyone other than Aya and Omi have. I'm afraid I didn't pay anyone else near as much attention as I did them. ^_^;;

Notes to Reviewers:
Kasra- I hope I didn't spoil the subtlety too bad. Seven years was a pretty random choice. I knew I wanted it to be more than five but less than ten. As you can see, it's possible that it's Omi.. but at the same time, it's possible that it's not. ^_~
indigoru- I actually had a pretty hard time with the introduction. Nothing really seemed to fit without giving away the mystery. I'm glad that I settled on something that worked.
Everyone- I love Ran and Omi together. They're just so adorable! ^_^ I'm glad that you're all enjoying the fic and I am writing as fast as my poor fingers will allow. ^_^ Thanks!