Insecure

Summary: Weiß gets a new member who is more than they seem. No one is very happy about having a stranger thrown among their "family". But is this new member more than they seem? (OC, AU)

A/N: Weiss Kreuz and all of its characters belong to Koyasu Takehito & Project Weiß. All Original Characters and ideas are mine. And trust me, there are more original characters than the main one. ;; And a note, since this is AU, Aya-chan is awake now and is in college. She sometimes helps out in the flower shop.

Chapter 1: A New Addition

"For the last time, if either one of you make Panther's life miserable, I will personally make sure that there is a significant dent in your paychecks," Manx said through gritted teeth as she glared at her four informants that were standing around her preventing her from going up the stairs to leave the mission room.

"Manx, seriously, why do we have a new member? I thought you weren't going to add any more?"

"Siberian, listen, if you don't welcome them with respect, I will personally make sure you will pay for it. Now all of you let me leave so I can alert Panther to come. Any questions you may have can be asked of them. NO, I'm not telling you the gender either," she added with a final glare at Youji who was blocking her way up the stairs.

With that final glare, Youji moved out of the way and the four assassins watched as the red haired woman stiffly walked up the stairs. As she reached the top, Manx turned around and glared down at them. "I would have thought you two would have reacted better Bombay and Abyssinian." At those final words, she opened the metal door and slammed it shut behind her.

"Nice going you two, we all got in trouble now."

"Shut up Youji, you didn't react any better than they did."

Youji simply rolled his eyes at the former soccer player and sauntered back to the couches. "When do you think this 'Panther' will arrive? I have a date tonight and-"

But before he could even finish the sentence, the door opened again and the four assassins looked up expecting to see Manx again. Instead they were greeted with the sight of a girl about the same age as Omi, with golden brown, almost bronze-ish hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a pair of black slacks, a black coat and a white undershirt. The coat had a decent sized pocket on both sides. As she came down further into the light, the noticed that her hair was rather long, about waist length, and was pulled back in a braid. Her outfit now that they could see her better, seemed to look like an altered boy's school uniform. In her left hand she carried a canvas bag that clinked whenever it tapped against her leg, a clink that sounded like metal hitting against more metal; they assumed this was her weapon.

"Weiss, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I met Manx on her way out and she told me it was... well, not so much safe, as it was time, for me to come in. I am Uehara Akiko, codename: Panther, flower: lily, preferred weapon of choice: shuriken." As she said her preferred choice of weapon she opened the canvas bag and pulled out what looked like an old-fashion ninja projectile weapon.

The four men just stared at the girl, in shock that she had appeared sooner than they expected. Youji's cigarette was slowly falling from his mouth; Ken had fallen off the arm of a chair as she spoke, having startled him and was now climbing back onto the chair; Aya had merely rose an eye brow; leaving Omi to just sit there with a puzzled look on their faces. It was Youji and his uncanny ability to spot a girl of 18 or over that broke the silence.

"You're... a girl! And one of age at that! Never had a luckier day in my life!"

"Ah, Kudou Youji, codename Balinese. Professional womanizer, but knows his place and wont hit on girls under the age of 18. I was warned about you, but was also assured that if you harassed me I was free to defend myself as I see fit as long as you don't end up dying," she stated simply as she looked at the jade-eyed assassin.

Slowly she turned to look at Ken and smiled softly. "Hidaka Ken, codename Siberian, former J-League goalie." Then she turned to Omi. "Tsukiyono Omi, codename Bombay. Was raised from a young age to do the bidding of Kritiker." Finally she turned to Aya and studied him for a moment before opting to use his preferred name of choice. "Fujimiya Aya, codename Abyssinian. A supposed secret past that no one save for Kritiker knows about."

The four men glanced around before either one of them spoke again. They all seemed quite unnerved that she knew so much about them. Sure what she said they all already knew about each other, but that was only after living with each other for a while. But... when she spoke what she knew about Aya, it seemed she knew more than she was going to share with them. Which of course, angered the red headed, katana wielding - which he thankfully didn't have with him, though he did glance around for it - Ice Prince.

"Why do you know so much about us?"

Ken fell off the arm of the chair again, Omi jumped and Youji's cigarette actually did fall from his mouth that time, causing him to curse loudly as it landed on his hand. None of them expected Aya to speak. Yet, Akiko remained as calm as ever.

"If you must know I shall tell you," she said, pausing only to move further into the room and sitting in one of the free armchairs so she could easily see everyone. "As I have stated, I am Uehara Akiko codename Panther. My role in Kritiker is quite dangerous, and has been since I was officially allowed to join when I was fifteen. Before I was allowed to join as an assassin though, I was trained in the ways of hacking into computers. Basically, I am like an extra Bombay," she paused again to smile at Omi who looked confused on why they would need two members like him in a team. "As for why I know so much about you, it was Manx's wish that a small, though bigger than Weiss, group of people learn about all of the assassins in Kritiker should we ever need to take a position like Manx or Birman, who I've heard you have met on occasions."

Turning her brown gaze to Aya's purple one, she narrowed her eyes. "Thus, I do indeed know more about you Fujimiya-san than your own team does. I shall of course not tell them for it is not my place."

Aya nodded at this, but didn't speak. Neither did anyone else, thus leaving the room in complete silence. Finally, without a word the red head left, most likely to his room for the night. Youji soon followed suit, but stopped at the steps and told Omi and Ken not to wait up for him then gave Akiko a polite but awkward nod. This left the - now three, as opposed to the previous two - youngest members sitting in the mission room.

"Ano... Akiko-san, it was a pleasure to meet you. But I'm gonna go to bed now... big day tomorrow. Kids first soccer game of the year and all," Ken finally said after a few minutes. Akiko simply nodded and watched as Ken bid Omi a good night and watched him retreat up the stairs leaving the two youngest in the room alone, which is kind of what Akiko wanted.

"Omi, am I correct in assuming you have more questions for me? You've been too silent tonight, unlike what I... have been told," Akiko said.

The blue eyed boy shrugged a little. He was trying to work out some information in his head that she had said, mainly about the group of people who learned everything they could about the assassins of Kritiker. Surely that meant, she knew more about him than he did, for those were confidential files that not even the assassins themselves got to see. No, they were given the abbreviated version and didn't even get one for Panther.

"Well... I am curious on why Manx didn't even give us the usual new member profile when she told us about you. You also mentioned that you were part of a group of people that worked for Kritiker learning about assassins in case you took a position like that of Manx. Can you tell me more about them? If not, at least how long you've been working with Kritiker," Omi said carefully; prepared to file away the information in his head for later usage.

The girl smiled at the blonde who was sitting across the room from her. "I suppose I could tell you some things, but not much for I'd get myself in trouble with Kritiker. You didn't get the information about me on paper for the same reason I can only tell you so much. What I've done with Kritiker is not to be mentioned to anyone until the time is right. I am hoping that she told you that there would be a good deal of missions - for a lack of better term - that I would be taking on my own? If not, you now know. Don't worry, I wont get in trouble for saying that for it is the truth and you'd find out soon enough," she added for Omi opened his mouth to say that they didn't know.

"Anyway, for your second statement, I can't give you any more information on them. I am still in contact with them and we, I suppose they, are one of Kritiker's more secret groups that only a few assassin groups know about, but would never breathe a word about due to fear. I have been training for the role of an assassin just like you did from a young age. Six years old to be exact, I believe the same as you. When I was ten, I started to learn the ways of hacking computers and other stuff like that. When I turned 16 I was allowed to take on assassination missions, though they were no where near as dangerous as the ones Weiss took care of. No, I won't tell you more about them. Its part of the code of Kritiker, we keep our silence about our groups. Now that I'm 18 they realized that with some of the dirtier stuff they've been digging up and giving to Weiss and some of the other groups that a few of them, Weiss is the only one I know of, needed an extra member to help. Thus, here I am."

Omi nodded, thankful for that much information. Glancing at his watch he frowned a little, it was a lot later than he thought and still had homework to do before the next day. "Arigato Akiko-san. It was enough information to satisfy my curiosity for now. But it is getting late and I still have school in the morning and need to finish up some homework. I can show you to your apartment... it hasn't been used in a while (1), but it isn't too bad. We keep it clean for whenever Aya-chan comes and visits."

"Aya-chan? As in Fujimiya-san's imouto? Why doesn't he go by his real name then?"

"He does, but most of the time he still goes by Aya because we have a hard time trying to call him Ran now. But we manage when ever Aya-chan is here," Omi said softly, not feeling all that comfortable talking about their formidable leader. He was thus thankful when Akiko just nodded and stood up to follow him up the stairs and to her room.

The trip was made silently until they reached the apartment that would belong to Akiko while she was part of Weiss. "Here is your key. Aya is the door across from you and Ken is next door to you. The other room is empty, but we can clean it up later for you or Aya-chan, whatever you choose. Youji and I are down one floor. If you hear any strange noises coming from the room below you, that's just Youji and you can hurt him in the morning. Is there anything you need?"

Akiko chuckled at Omi's explanation of where everyone was and shook her head. "No, I'll be bringing the rest of my needed belongings over tomorrow. But I'll remember to not drink the coffee if Ken is up before me, unless of course Aya-san is up and drinking it."

With a small chuckle, they bade each other good night, and the brunette walked into her apartment and headed straight towards the room to get into her pajamas. Before she got into bed, she laid out her out fit for the next day, which proved to be much more casual than what she was wearing that night. For she was currently wearing her mission uniform. Though she was nice and kept her weapon out of the "storage" area on them, an elastic cord running diagonally on both thighs with small gaps to slide the handles of her weapon in for easy access, the inside of her jacket was lined the same way.

Tbc…

Whee! So, I hopped you enjoyed this story so far. I've been trying to get this story started for ages now... but I think I'm happy with it so far! It took an unknown amount of Weiss fics to get me to start writing it. lol Anyway, I actually have a lot planned for this story. I will admit, that yes the character is based off of me. -- Hence her name. I will apologize right now for something that will be revealed either in this story or another one that continues off of this one (since it can either be a never ending story or... multiple stories) about... something that has to do with this character. XX Can't say, will spoil the plot. :3

(1) I figured (as I stated in the AN at the top) that this story is AU. Meaning, I get to choose what happens disregarding all things in the series (but I'm not straying far). Thus, this room is indeed used by Aya-chan, who woke up two years prior to this story. Shwartz is still around being their evil selves. shrugs As Aya-chan is now in college in my story, she lives in the dorms and the room is now free.

As for the way the apartments are set up. I figured 2 floors of apartments, the main living area (which has living room, bathroom, and kitchen/dining room that leads right into Koneko no Sumi Ie), and then the basement which has a small flight of steps that leads to the garage behind the shop which opens up out onto an alley way. --; There are two ways to get into the living area and the mission room has 3 ways. to get into the main living area, you can enter from the shop or the mission room which leads you to come out in a hidden door in the living room. To get into the mission room you have the garage, the shop and the main living area (hidden door again). So yeah, I get to use my imagination :P sue me.

R&R appreciated!