Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction / Noir Fan Fiction ❯ There Can Be Only Two ❯ Ending IV: Soap Bubbles ( Chapter 9 )

Disclaimer: The characters used in this last insane piece of my fan-fiction are still not mine (even though I am working on it - check back in a few millennia).

 

If you just finished one of the other endings and found them to be “touching” or you just like the atmosphere or the mood, I am not sure if you should right jump into this ending. Its…shall we say…different. Take a little reading break, to sap into the feelings of despair and desolation or get them out of you. Or use this to do it. Btw. Please be so kind and state your opinion about the use of four different endings that are not quite so separated as they may seem. I haven't got a single opinion about the layout and I really would appreciate it.

 

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Ending IV: Soap Bubbles

 

“Have you considered?” Crawford's voice was unusually pressed as he spoke.

“I don't know… I still…. I don't know if I should take it serious at all.” a voice, rang through the empty street behind him, anxiety laden and unsure, hardly recognizable as that of proud Mireille Bouquet.

“I know. But what I said I meant, though my only proof is that I have not tried to kill you so far. Are you willing to accept that?”

 

She hesitated, unable to hide her disbelieve and caution, yet locking and putting away the gun she had been pointing at him up this moment: “For now. Let's take a walk. I think we need to talk a little more!” was her only reply.

Wordlessly he turned towards her, letting her take his arm with her free hand, the other holding the still unopened bouquet. The clouds finally had cleared up and the full moon was shining down on them as they walk down the road. The imitation of a perfect couple, yet strangely stiff and awkward.

 

After a while Mireille finally broke the silence: “You are sure about what you said, are you not?”

“Yes. I think I am!” came the answer a little slow

“What about the boy? What about his death? Did he mean nothing to you at all?.”

“Nagi? He meant a lot! But….actually I am thankful to you. You did him a favor.” Crawford's voice was quiet and thoughtful: “He got the death that befitted a member of Schwarz and…it saved him from a lot pain and agony…and us, too. Non of us could have done it.”

“What are you talking about? You did not even have time to say good bye!” the confusion was prominent in Mireille's voice.

 

“Your client does not seem to be that well informed after all. At least not well informed about certain aspects. But the two of us have already figured that out.” A sad sight escaped Crawford's lips: “Nagi sure was powerful in mind, but not in body. He was suffering from several different types of cancer. Without Eszett he would have died a long time ago, long before his abilities would have matured. Still even our treatments have their limit, which is why talents like Nagi are deployed at such a young age, as this trait can be found in all but the weakest telekinetics and Nagi was one of the strongest. He would have died within the next few months, slowly and painfully, and there would have been nothing we could have done about it. If I had wanted to, I could have prevented him from going to school that morning…yesterday…” again Crawford paused for a thoughtful moment, smiling sadly, trying to find the right words: “But...I did not want to… Even though I could not determine the way it was going to happen and I think… he would not have wanted to turn back either had he known.”

 

Again time lapsed as they walked in silence both lost in their own world of thought and again it was Mireille who finally spoke: “I see.”

 

After a while she added: “How much of the future can you grasp? How much do you already know? Did you know that I would not shoot you on sight? Do you know already what my answer will be? Where our path's will lead to after tonight?” Something resonating within her voice spoke of a deep, basic need to know the answer to those questions. They were important to her.

 

“I can understand you question but it is not that easy. Nothing is predestined but different events have different levels of certainty. I knew Nagi would die off cancer eventually, but the exact date I would have know only perhaps one or two days in advance. Not the exact time. The closer an event is to the present the easier it becomes to predict it. For example, where a bullet is going to strike when the trigger is pulled is pretty certain, there are not too many factors involved. But it is harder with human actions and decisions. Forecasting the weather is easy in comparison. Especially with your two friends”

“Kirika and Chloe?”

“Yes. For some strange reason they seem not to be a proper part of our time continuum. A look into their futures seems to be a look into our pasts and the possibilities of their actions seem endless. Trying to predict anything surrounding them is as impossible as…” his explanation was suddenly interrupted by something only Crawford perceived. It made him smile. Not a big smile but a genuine one.

 

“What is it?” Mireille watched him uncomprehending.

“Nothing. Lets say interesting things can happen with our two young friends. I will tell you later…maybe.” Crawford replied and continued with his explanation: “Anyway. With your own actions it is not that hard even though you, too, seem to be slightly effected by the same phenomena. But In the end I have no advantages over other men in the same situation. There are not that many outcomes to it. I can see them. But in the end it is you sole decision.”

 

At that Mireille raised an eyebrow. “You want to honestly tell me that there are in fact other men in this world who have asked the same question to the women that was paid to kill them?” The soft chuckle spoke of disbelief but not of malice.

Crawford could only join in though his was even softer: “Well I have to admit the chances for that are not too great but….”the chuckle ended.

 

Their way had brought them to nearby park to the shore of a mall pond lined with plum trees already proving that winter was almost over. The blossoms shone brightly in the silver moonlight and the tepid breeze that was slowly moving the leaves spoke of a pleasant spring to come.

Crawford separated from Mireille and turned towards her. His face once again a cool mask yet there was something that Schuldig or Farfarello, had they been here, would have described as un-Crawford-like, perhaps it was a certain excitement that did not befit their proclaimed leader or a smile that was neither menacing nor cold.

 

But here it was only the two of them on this moon lighted night. Mireille Bouquet leader of the two woman assassin team known and feared as NOIR, but also being played with by Soldats a powerful secret society working behind the scenes. And Brad Crawford owner of rather successful import business residing in Tokyo Japan, but also head of Schwarz, apostate elite killer squat of Eszett, another powerful masterminding secret organization specialized into the supernatural.

 

But an unknowing spectator would not have know that. He would have only seen the two people as lovers alone in the night as Crawford took Mireille's hands.

 

They had stood there for several minuets staring into each others eyes when Crawford finally found the strength to move again. Gently taking the encased flowers from Mireille and opening them slowly as he spoke: “Mireille Bouquet. I do not know why I left you that time. The gravest mistake I must ever have made. You are the most astounding woman I have ever crossed paths with and I do not want to repeat mistakes of the past …please…despite what has happened between us in the past and what might happen tonight. I ask you to become my wife.“ Slowly he got down on one of his knees presenting her the collection of blood red roses that had unfolded from the paper. His white suit shone brightly in the night giving the impression of a fallen angle asking for absolution “I am waiting for you answer be it with words or with lead and I will be waiting as long as necessary.” And then nothing more.

 

 

***

 

 

Something was bothering Schuldig. Something he had seen deep inside the girls mind. Trying to control her he had gone deeper insider her mind than he ever had done with other persona. Beyond the strange outer shell of her mind. Something from his past. Another shot past by him or rather through the place his head had filled a moment before like so many had done already on this night.

 

“Your name is Kirika, isn't it?” this time he called out aloud instead of telepathically accessing her mind. The name stirred unpleasant memories, it had an awfully familiar sound to it. Absently he fired into the direction he was sensing her without actually aiming. It just could not be. It had been too long. This girl was too young. Still he could not get the image he had seen out of his mind. He had to find it again. Suddenly he ran forward dodging several bullets all aimed for his most vital body parts. The street had little cover for him to hide but he had to try be it dangerous or not. He was close enough. In the relatively safety of an entryway to one of the moderately sized estates in this area he concentrated on her again. But this time he was not trying to distract her at all. In fact he carefully tried to hide his presence in her mind in fear of forcing her to run, trying to get out of his reach.

 

Again he went the mental paths he had taken but half an hour ago. Deep down into parts of her mind that seemed to be inactive. Blocked by a trauma or something alike. Schuldig was no expert on this. There was a time in his life when he had thought about leaving Rosenkreuz and study Psychology to use his gift to help other people, to do good. But life had forced him down another road to become another man. So now this man, a professional killer, supposed to have no mercy, no fear, no feelings at all was franticly trying to find something in the very person's mind that obviously had no remorse to kill him. A person he had wanted to kill himself not to long ago. Yet something deep inside of him told him not to stop searching.

 

Almost in awe he watched the images he found and felt a sick fascination with the way she had been killing humans all her life. In still remembrance he had watched the last moments of Nagi's life knowing that as little as he liked what had happened, it only had accelerated the inevitable. But Nagi was only the last in long row of murders and killings. One of the more intense memories, the earliest, consisted of her holding a gun in small hands and shooting a mother while the blonde European women was holding her young daughter. He could not tell how old Kirika had been that time for the memory contained only her own view. Only the remembered heaviness of the gun and the size of her hands let him guess her age at that time. Two other facts he noticed about the memory. A strange absence of emotion connected to it and an insistent tune played by music box or something that overpowered every other sound at the ghostly scene. But he discarded those findings. He was looking for something else, something that had happened before that memory he had just released, something hidden even deeper.

 

Interrupting his search for a moment he noticed that even though she was roughly at the same spot she had been before she seemed to have stopped firing. Had she noticed him? He did not care, he had to find the image he hat found the last time through sheer luck. A find it he did.

Three familiar faces at what seemed to be a birthday celebration of a fourth birthday. Two of them he had almost forgotten himself but the last one he knew by heart. It may have been younger in this memory than he remembered, but he had seen it all too often during his life. It was his very own. Slowly he realized to whom the other two faces had to belong to.

 

“Mama!…Papa!” it were almost a whispers that got carried through the silent alley. The person who had uttered them, pressed against a wall the moment before, fell to his knees. Tears running down his cheeks he could not tear his mental eye from the two faces that he had not seen in so very long, forgotten in his own memory. The two smiling people he had hold dear for only the shortest period in his life before Rosenkreuz before… . A tall man with the same impossible red hair Schuldig sported and big brown eyes that seemed to have gained a slightly taint from the air, unmistakably his father. Besides him his wife, the small petite Asian women that so much resembled the girl he had been following yet having his own sapphire eyes so rare to find with Asian people. And than he finally realized who the person was he had been following, whom he had tried to kill, in who's memories he had found these ghosts of the past, ghosts of his own past.

 

The whispers were followed by cry of pain, something long captive finally broken free: “Kiri-chan!” He did not care if she shot him or not. He just had to see her. Without hesitation he jumped up an run toward where he could feel her presence. But shoot she did not when he frantically turned the corner that she had found refugee behind. He was not expecting to see her lying in a fetal position tears running down her face, her gun next to hear. “Mirellei….I am so sorry....“ she repeated again and again almost inaudible.

When she had seen him through the streams of tears his gun firmly held she had already concluded with her life not caring what would happened to her. She did not know why all those memories had suddenly turned up, Perhaps it was that telepath's doing, but she did not care. She wanted to die for what she had done, she expected to die, she suddenly found herself in a tight embrace. Another memory stirred. A happy memory of a time even beyond the seemingly endless assassinations and murders. “Mama…Papa…..Sebastian!”. The tears did not stop for a long time.

 

 

***

 

 

The ballet of blades performed one the rooftop of the hotel was extraordinary. Two masters of the art of knife fighting out to kill each other. Two evenly matched opponents exchanging blow after blow with cat like agility yet neither hitting the other's flesh. Also like cats they circled each other in the brief pauses only to again turn on the other trying to find a weakness. Slashes were blocked and stabs avoided to be countered the next moment. Often injury was escaped by mere millimeters.

 

Chloe's slightly superior speed and technique were met by Farfarello's greater strength, reach and endurance. But while the flesh of the two fighters seemingly had not taken any fatal damage at all, their garment had. Early in the fight Chloe had had to drop her cape for the fear of getting entangled in the mass of loose stripes and holes it had accumulated quickly. The blades may have missed the skin but not the fabric. Farfarello's T-Shirt had no lasted much longer. After one of Chloe's throwing knifes had cut through the collar seam and another slash that had missed his abdomen cut the front almost in half he had just ripped the remaining shreds off.

 

Yet no other sound could be heard on the rooftop but the high pitch ring of metal hitting metal and hissing. No further conversation, no words of taunting. Eyes locked onto the body of their opponent, they were watching for the slightest sign of movement. A single muscle impulse underneath the skin-tight black bodysuit that covered Chloe's almost fragile form would cause Farfarello to go into a defensive action even before she actually attacked. The movement of flesh, sinews, and tendons on his lean frame, almost impossible the grasp underneath the Irish's white, scarred skin, told her where to expect the counter swing aimed to disembowel her.

 

She avoided it the last second. Yet again the blade caught her adding another long cut to her garb. What once had been a one-piece bodysuits with a long left sleeve and a turtle neck now sported the signs of attacks on all her vital body parts. Attacks that never hit yet left marks, some only on her gear, others penetrating the skin leaving thin red lines on the white skin underneath. What the enemy blades had not accomplished had been done by her own movement, not having the time to take regards to the stressed material. By now her shoulders were bare. Cuts aimed at her throat or her neck having severed the suit's and any other material completely leaving the rest of the former turtle neck like a choker and the remaining shreds hanging down. The same had happened to the fabric covering her abandon and her kidneys and the suit's trouser legs now consisted of only thin irregular stripes. The only part of her gear that was not damaged beyond repair were her long brown leather boots reaching up to the knee and ending in protective kneepads as well as the leather gear around her right wrist and left upper arm.

 

The foot gear was the only still usable wear on Farfarello as well. There were no rules in this game and when an upwards slash that almost cut him open from crotch to nose but only tore through his belt and waistband finally had rendered the jeans unusable he had torn them off with his knife severing the last resisting fibers. It was either stripping or dieing - the damaged pants would have hampered his movement too much. So now he was facing an evenly scantily clad and evenly deadly female assassin in only his shoes and white boxer briefs. A few remaining bandages were fluttering in the low breeze, most off them gone having revealed old and new scars. He didn't mind though. Not only because decency and temperature concerned him the same way politicians usually are concerned about their voters - not much after the election - , but also because this was greatest excitement he had had in a long time. Again and again they clashed, sparks flew, the polished metal irregularly reflecting the light from above creating the illusion of more than mundane weapons being used in this dance of death, magic fantastic weapons maybe.

 

With sand and palm trees on the roof they might have given the impression of attending a strange gothic beach party at midnight, but there were none. A thin layer of sweat, at some places intermingling with blood, covered the bodies of the two fighters, their equally ghostly white skin shone brightly in the silver light, and small streams of vapor rose from their heated bodies in the cold air as they once more moved around, measuring each other. Only caring for fighting capability of their opponent, ignoring every other aspect and thought the exited body and barely covered anatomy of the opposite sex might have caused.

 

He let his knife wander from one hand to another and back; easily as if playing. She readied her last throwing knife. At an unseen signal they jumped, out for the kill. Metal hit metal and metal hit flesh. Farfarello's knife blocked by Chloe's resulting in battle to overpower the other. Left versus right. The throwing knife pierced through his other palm, his fingers closed around hers preventing her from letting go of the useless rendered weapon. His blood ran down on her wrist mirroring the stream on his. Never losing sight of the other's eyes they struggled for the upper hand. She kneed him in the groin which showed no effect while he found the petite body in front of him to be far more resilient than should have been possible. Their faces showing grim determination only centimeters apart, their long slender limbs interlocked in a stand-off between life and death.

 

And then they kissed. A tender kiss. A kiss between young lovers on their first date, not sure what to expect, not trying to hurt the other. Softly and warm. Where it came from no one could tell, it just happened. They never let go of the weapons yet they stood there with closed eyes and locked lips for what seemed like eternities.

Words were not necessary that night and an unspoken trust settle in as in unison they dropped the blades and she carefully removed the knife from his palm. Arm in arm they left the roof, never to be seen again at that place with only the moon as witness. And only some strewn weapons and rest of clothing bearing proof to what had occurred here. Love at first fight one could have said.

 

 

And thus with the new morning and a long absent sun also rose, a marriage, a family reunion, and - of course on 14th of February, young love.

And maybe they lived happily ever after.

 

 

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Took some time to post this one here (not that I think that anybody cares). I kind of forgot that I did not post the last ending here on MediaMiner

 

Oh Well, Its over I guess. Hope you survived this last piece of massive Kitsch, with its gloriously rose colored happy endings. After all the gore and blood in the other endings even I needed some grand overdoing-it.

 

In my opinion this ending is the least serious and most childish one, but I like it as well as the others, which itself of course was the reason for doing all four.

So I do not have a really preference, but I really would like to know what you think. Is there a single “best” ending to the First chapters or does it work with all of them? Can four different endings work in one story with many flavors or do they just mess it all up and one should stick with a single one (A single ending that you would recommend to your friends when they read this story for example - what you hopefully do^^) I would really appreciate your opinions, since I did not get a single opinion on this topic.

 

 

For those who actually read up to this point and are interested into a few mechanics that where more hinted at instead of being described:

Actually it is the time paradox that handicaps Crawford: It is only hinted at, but the valley where Altena lives in the Pyrenees is inside a Time Warp, letting time pass slower inside than in the real world, and thus giving its inhabitants a very long live. In NOIR this causes the apparently age difference between Mireille and Chloe/Kirika, who are actually all of the same age. But the later two spend most of their time living inside the valley and aged slower while Mireille only was there for a short amount of time.

That is what is wrecking havoc with Crawfords time sense because they are not completely integrated into the “real” space-time continuum and a more or less fluctuating. To completely describe this one would have to be a precognitive theoretical physicist, but I think it is not too absurd to use that scenario.

Kirikas young appearance is also what was preventing Schuldig from even unconsciously thinking about his sister. I mean he had forgotten her actively and would have at least expected a young woman, not a girl out to kill him. Its was more or less lucky for him to try to use the brute force method of just flooding someone's deepest hidden memories to the surface to distract them.

 

Any other questions?

 

Thanks for reading^^.