Title – Price of Forgiveness (Chpt 6)
Author - HourglassThorne, hourglassthorne@yahoo.com
Rating – R (see warnings)
Pairing(s) - Pairing yet to be specified
Warning(s) – Gluhen spoilers;  strong language;  graphic violence;  disturbing content

Notes:  text in italics and centered are flashbacks;  I don't remember if "Ikeda" was really Asuka's family name in Gluhen, however I've made it so here, and when Youji married Asuka, he took on her name since he couldn't remember his own; 
Status of fanfic – ongoing

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"You bastard!"  Omi fell backwards with a startled cry, narrowly dodging Ken's flying punch right before Aya and Michel were able to grab a hold of their very angry teammate and keep him from pummeling the now wide-eyed young man into oblivion.  Just a short while earlier, Ken had practically leapt off the bike as it was still moving and had tackled Omi in a great bear hug, absolutely thrilled to see the young man again after so long.

~flashback~

"Ken-kun!  Lemme go!  I can't breathe!"  Omi gasped with a smile.  Aya and Michel smiled as the younger struggled to escape the soccer player's grasp.

Finally releasing the smaller man, Ken threw his arm over his old friend's shoulder and smiled broadly, dark brown eyes flashing merrily.  "Omitchi!  It's been too long!  I've missed seeing your genki little face.  If it wasn't for Michel here, I'd have gone into chibi-withdrawal a long time ago."

The fore-mentioned 'chibi' stuck his tongue out at Ken and offered his hand to Omi.  "I'm Michel Conrad!  Nice to meet you."

"Omi Tsukiyono.  Likewise."  They shook hands and Omi beamed.

"So what brings you here, Omitchi?"  Ken came up behind the older chibi and draped his arm about the other's shoulder once again.  "Lemme guess!  You finally got tired of being the head of a multibillion dollar corporation-slash-shadow organization and decided that your true calling is to fill the world with flowers, love, and happy fan-girls!"  Ken blinked, surprised with himself for a moment, then he laughed.  "What the hell am I saying?  That's something Youji would say.  Hey!  Where is Youji?  Did he already go inside?  We need to celebrate the four of us back together again… Oi?  Omi?  What's wrong?"

Omi's happy expression had fallen away at the mention of elder Weiss's name.  Aya's small smile also faded and his face took on a look of dead seriousness once more.   "Youji's already inside," Aya said neutrally. "Mihirogi took him to his room so that he could put Kaiya down.  He's also a bit upset with me."

"Why?  What happened?"

"I called his daughter a 'damned noisemaker'."

"AYA!  How could you say such a thing?!  Not even taking into account how stressed he was with what he went through this morning, you should have known better than to do that!  Hell!  If that cute little angel was my baby girl, I'd throttle you to within an inch of your life for insulting her like that!"

"He was asking too many questions about his past.  It was the surest, quickest way I could think of to distract him."

Ken was silent for a moment after that.  Then Omi spoke up.

"Also," he started tentatively, his voice sounding a little guilty for some reason.  "Youji doesn't know that we were friends before he lost his memory."

Shrugging, Ken smiled at Omi reassuringly.  "Well that's no big deal.  You said so yourself, '…he lost his memory.'  So of course he doesn't remember who we are and  that we all were friends."

The younger man shook his head, though.  "You don't understand Ken-kun.  He doesn't remember me as his friend Omi Tsukiyono, but he does know me as his friend Mamoru Takatori."

The dark-haired Japanese man stared at the younger blonde, a blank expression on his face.  "His friend?  But I thought…You told me…"  The words slipped over numb lips as he bowed his head slightly, his untamed bangs falling forward to hide his eyes.  As he stood there in silence for a long moment, however, the muscles of his jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth, his dark eyes flashing furiously as he lunged for Omi with a growl.

~end flashback~

"You little punk!" Ken snarled at Omi as he struggled against Michel's and Aya's hold.  "When I came to you to find out where Youji was you ordered me, as Persia no less, to not get too close!  You told me not to expect much, that he was married and had another life and that he didn't need any reminders of the past bringing back darkness into his new life!  And I agreed with you, you son of a bitch!  Especially after I saw how happy he was with Asuka and everything else, I knew you were right!  He didn't remember the last mission, or Weiss, or anyone!  The only thing that even connected him to us was the fact that he was still holding onto Aya's sword, and he didn't even know why he was holding onto it in the first place!" 

The man stopped struggling, but his whole body expression was seething as he glared at Omi, who was staring at him with hurt cornflower blue eyes.  "You told me to give up on him, that he needed to be left alone to be happy.  And now here you tell me that you broke your own rule and became friends with him behind our backs?!  Do you have any fucking idea how much I've missed Youji?" Ken's eyes glistened with unshed tears, squeezing his eyes shut to prevent them from falling.  "How much Aya and I have both missed him?!  I would have given anything to have been able to be friends with him again, even if he didn't remember our past."

With his last words, the fight in Ken's temper drifted away, the pain of the revealed hypocrisy of one of his oldest friends left behind in its wake and clearly writ in his face.  Sensing that Ken wasn't going to pose a physical danger to Omi anymore, Aya and Michel released him, letting him shrug away from their grasp and stalked straight past Omi without paying him another glance.

Aya watched as his partner strode through the open front door and slammed it shut behind him as Michel rushed over to help Omi up to his feet.  The older of the two boys stood up slowly, his eyes downcast and his expression sorrowful.  The taller redhead came up to him, and Omi looked up, meeting his sky blue gaze with amythest ones.  "Come on," was all that Aya said before heading to the front doors. 

Nodding, Omi and Michel followed, walking side by side, with the young Irishman looking curiously from the redhead to the blonde beside him.  "When the four of you were in Weiss together… was the relationship between you all always so… complicated?"  he asked Omi.

"You have no idea."

When Omi and Michel stepped inside after Aya, one could clearly hear Ken yelling once again, only this time his anger seemed directed at someone else.  "What do you mean I can't see him?!"  A quick glance revealed that is was Mihirogi that he was tearing into verbally this time as she stood at the base of the stairs.

The woman wasn't at all phased by his outburst, though.  "I meant exactly what I said.  Kudou-san was quite clear when he told me that he didn't want to see any of you and that he wanted to be alone with his daughter."  She turned to look at Omi.  "Takatori-san…  I believe that Kudou-san is suspicious of you and your connection to him.  Once he decides that he wants to talk to you all again, you and the others have to tell him the truth about his past."

"No," Aya interjected, walking up to place a hand on Ken's shoulder, silently willing him to calm down.  "Youji Kudou, Balinese, died two years ago.  The man we brought here today is married and has a daughter and a life without any blood on his hands or deaths weighing down his soul.  He got lucky and the fates let him start over again with a clean slate.  I won't allow that to be taken away from him just because he's too curious for his own damn good, or because we all miss him."

There was a choked sob and everyone turned around to face Omi, who had shut his eyes and was shaking his head, a mournful expression on his face.  "It's too late, Aya-kun," he whispered as he scrubbed away barely shed tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.  "It's already been taken away from him.  That's how Youji ended up here in the first place.  His wife was murdered and whoever killed her is after Kaiya and him now."

Aya and Ken stared at the grieving young man in shock.  Forgetting his anger with Omi, Ken moved to put his arms around his friend.  "Hey now, it's alright.  We're all here now, and we'll make sure that whoever did this will pay." 

Even though the words were a comfort, the grief the chibi felt in his heart for the two upstairs stabbed at his heart.  "Asuka didn't deserve to die the way she did… The way they killed her… The way Youji found her…"  Omi shuddered, screwing his eyes shut as he buried his face into Ken's chest. 

The two elder members of Weiss looked at Omi with great concern.  They had all been around death in most of its gruesome forms, and in some shape and form had managed to desensitize themselves to an extent to the often nightmarish scenes they would encounter on their missions.  Despite the fact that the youngest Weiss was the most sensitive of the four of them and that Asuka had probably become a close friend to him as well as Youji back in Japan, the former Bombay should not be reacting as strongly as this.

Mihirogi disappeared for a moment during this exchange, but reappeared soon after, bearing a black folder in her hands.  She forced a stoic expression upon her face as she addressed Aya.  "This is the file that I will be handing out to everyone for the mission briefing tonight, and yes the next mission will concern your friend and his daughter upstairs.  However, it's best that you understand what has happened first, considering how close you are with the victim's family."  She handed the folder to Aya, who gazed at it gravely.  "Inside are the current reports of the police investigation  concerning the death of Asuka Ikeda, as well as images from the crime scene and what little both Kritiker and Kryptonbrand have been able to dig up both in Japan and in Europe."

Releasing Omi, Ken and Michel walked up to look at the file with Aya.  Out of the corner of his eye, Ken noticed that Omi made no move to join them.  He stood there, stock still, his eyes closed and his head turned away so that he was not even looking in the general direction of the others.  By the expression on his face, one could see that the former Bombay was thoroughly upset, but doing his best to keep his emotions in check.  Then the dark-haired Japanese man turned back as he heard Aya begin to undo the leather tie that held the folder closed.

His heart pounding like a jack hammer in his chest as he undid the tie, Aya took a deep breath and prepared to steel himself as he always did right before looking at images for a mission where the darkest, most disturbing violent aspects of death were involved.  He had seen more than his fair share of them in his time, and he believed himself almost completely desensitized to the nightmarish haunting nature of those pictures.

Then, he opened the folder.

And his beliefs were shattered completely.