Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ It's too late to confess now... ❯ Slave to the mission... ( Prologue )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

It's Too Late to Confess Now


*****Prologue*****


The world is teeming with ignorant people living false, empty lives, and most of them don't even realize it. They are convinced they are happy. They are so certain, in fact, that at every turn true happiness will always pass them by.

How heartbreaking.

Someone could live out their entire existence believing they found the love of their life, when they really only settled for an illusion. Someone could be friends with a person for years believing they never before have ever been this close to another, when they really don't know their so called friend at all. Some unfortunate fool could go day by day believing they are happy, when truthfully, they are merely blinded by all the world wants them to believe.

Then again, some of us know better...

Meager light forces its way through a tiny crack in the window above, offering the only tangible illumination in the room. On a normal day the sun would be pouring in from that window, an hour or so away from setting, but today there is only distorted light coming from outside. Overcast and melancholy, it has rained all day, poured with purpose, and there is no reason for it to stop now.

Taking sanctuary from the downpour, Hidaka Ken has remained within the trailer since the storm first began early that morning. Small comfort; it really hadn't been his choice to stay. The overbearing leader of Weiss, Fujimiya Aya...no...Ran, ordered him not to leave.

Weiss. White hunters in the night, they strike down the black beasts of a city that has forgotten gentleness. Heroes to some, villains to others, and nothing but murderers to themselves. Still, Weiss is who they are, who Hidaka Ken is, and even if any of the members wanted to, they wouldn't be allowed to leave without penalty of death.

It is one of the many codes of the assassin they are supposed to follow. Once in, there is no way out, unless you forfeit your life. Any failure in a mission will immediately result in your untimely eradication. No one can ever see your face or witness a mission, and all who do must be handled without mercy. The list goes on.

Of course, they have broken these rules time and time again, and have yet to follow the first rule of assassination at all.

Kill the assassins.

Ken fidgets in his seat beside the window, his knees pulled into his chest, while his head rests stiffly against the glass. Eyes to match the sea, so liquid beautiful, appear dull and distant, trapped within an endless stream of visions, bringing him back to last night's events. The reason he is confined today. What began as just another routine mission...

*flash*

"Siberian, where is your head?! One of the targets is getting away!" the tall red-head yells in his direction, fending off an opponent with his gleaming katana.

The mission isn't turning out quite as they hoped it would, but then again, few ever do.

Across the room - a large basement, littered with machines and devices for the inhuman experiments Weiss has been contracted to stop - Ken stands over the body of one of the ring leaders, breathing heavily.

For a long time he had been continuously slicing his claws into the man's flesh, leaving it like some gruesome, battered rag-doll, even after realizing his prey was far beyond death, and paused only after Ran's voice called him away from the fun of his actions.

Fun. It sounds rather sickening to call it that, doesn't it? But that is exactly what it is to Ken these days. He jumps at the opportunity of every new mission. More and more, he becomes frustrated during the day while working in the shop, longing for a cold night's work, and the chance to put his deadly gloves to use.

Long ago, he believed the rapid pounding of his pulse was due to anxiety and disgust, that his hands shook because he was repulsed by the work he had to do. Recently, however, Ken has come to realize that he was wrong. His pulse speeds up from the thrill, his hands shake in anticipation, and he even smiles - sneers - at the feeling of his victim's heart beating right through to his hands from his weapon's contact, until the glorious moment when it stops.

"Ken! Do you hear me?! The target!!"

Jolting out of his pleasured triumph, Ken at last looks up at Ran - still dueling his own opponent - and finally realizes that the last of their quarries has dashed past him, and is running up the basement stairs into the house.

(One more for me...) the brunette grins, and is racing up in pursuit without a second thought.

This final target is by far the youngest, perhaps even younger than Ken, and is clearly scared out of his mind, for although the trained assassin at his heels is brutally fast, he is keeping a good distance ahead. Such a shame it won't be that way for long.

With a sudden surge forward, Ken lashes out, digging his claws deep into the younger man's back. He is dead before he hits the ground. One might call this precision. But for a single stroke to bring someone's life to an end, I call it savage.

Ken's breath is uneven and resonant, filling every crevice of the small hallway the chase had led to, and he suppresses a satisfied shiver, bearing the slightest hint of a smile. A smile that would appall even the most experienced soldier.

Consumed by the moment, Ken drives the glinting steel of his claws straight through the back of the dead body on the ground, feeling them make contact with the floor. Why is it this brings him so much joy...?

Just then, light from the room to his left falls upon his bent form, the door pulling open. Ken is blinded by the brightness of it in such dark surroundings, but he can still make out the shape of someone standing in the doorway, looking out at him.

Another lamb for the slaughter.

Howling maniacally, Ken leaps to his feet and strikes, following the outline of the intruder as it crumbles to the ground. A scream echoes from inside the room. There is someone else there, someone else with the unfortunate pleasure of having witnessed what never should have been seen.

Ken snatches up his most recent prey from the ground, only slightly put-off by its lightness, and enters the room, searching for the source of that piercing shriek. There can be no loose ends, after all.

There, cowering in the corner, is the prize, and Ken's face twists further into a crazed smirk. He advances, one hand gripping the collar of his latest victim - still breathing, but fatally wounded - and the other clenched and ready to add one more kill to tonight's accomplishments.

Small, whimpered protests greet his approaching figure, but the brunette has forgotten pity. It never really existed, never could, in a line of work such as his.

He raises his claw, eager to put an end to those pathetic pleads of mercy...

"Ken, stop! What are you doing?!" Tsukiyono Omi's unexpected voice cries from the doorway, begrudgingly halting Ken's blow. "They're just little kids..."

As if his vision had been blinded, Ken begins to see clearly again, and the image of a frightened little girl before him - 10 years old, if not younger - catches his breath in his throat.

Suddenly, strong arms are grabbing hold of him, pulling him away, and trying to free his other victim from the locking grip of his clawed fist. He doesn't struggle, but his hand refuses to let go.

"God, Ken, what did you do...?" Kudo Youji voices in disbelief, forcing Ken's free arm down as he helps Ran pull him away from the girl in the corner.

The serious red-head's job is much more difficult, struggling to force Ken's clenched fist to release. "Let go, Ken." he commands, low and steady, yet on the verge of anxious emotion, even for one usually so expressionless. "This isn't a target. Let him go."

Shaking all over his body, Ken tears his gaze away from the panicked girl in front of him, forcing himself to look at who is being held in his grasp.

Hanging by the front of a now torn nightshirt, the bleeding victim is still alive, somehow, fighting to hang on. His tiny feet don't even touch the ground. Another child. So young. Half the age of the girl who has been spared.

"Oh God..." Ken breathes, his eyes locked on the carnage in his hand, though he is still unable to let go.

The realization is just too much. Not because he has done something so unthinkable to a child. Not because of that. But because, deep down, he knows he enjoyed it.

At long last, Ran is able to pry Ken's fingers away, and the young boy falls to the floor. His breathing is slowing; sharp intakes that look and sound so very painful. The claw marks down his shoulder and chest are deep, too deep to repair. He doesn't have much time, and the tears falling from such innocent eyes could be acid, with the remnants on Ken's glove burning him alive.

"Ken-kun...how could you...?" Omi barely gets out, hovering near the door, and wrapping his arms around himself to stay the effects of a sudden wave of cold.

Youji and Ran still have hold of Ken's arms, and are trying to lead him away, pulling the brunette's now limp body from the horrors of the room.

Rushing to her brother's side - worlds away now - the young girl clings to his dying body, crying fiercely, and glaring at the retreating assassins with deep hatred emanating from her eyes. "What have you done to Hajime-chan?! You...murderer!" she screams.

Little Hajime's breathing is even more staggered, barely alive now, and a sickly color is overtaking his skin.

"Use your legs, Ken. We're leaving." Ran speaks into his devastated friend's ear, still close as he pulls Ken back into the hallway. Youji lets go then, holding back the churning in his stomach, as he distances himself from the bloody claws of his teammate.

"But...Aya-kun..."

"There is nothing we can do for that boy." Ran states firmly in response to Omi's faltering words. "This mission is over. We're going home."

Even after they clear the building, the girl's cries and curses follow Ken like a persistent shadow, and the sight of his mark left on the body of that boy ingrained itself forever into his memory.

More than that, the knowledge of how it felt - how good it felt - and the fleeting glances of his companions as they ride home, are more than he can bear.

*flash*

A growl of thunder pulls Ken from the clutches of his brooding memory, the rain outside still falling harshly against the side of the trailer, and dripping through the crack in the window above. Though a few drops have landed on Ken's face, he only now realizes they are there, wiping them away.

The liquid reminds him of tears as they brush against his fingertips. Tears he should have shed for the boy he killed, but couldn't.

Though he has been cooped-up all day, the others are out doing errands, finding themselves quite busy, even with the shop closed because of the weather. Well, perhaps that isn't entirely true.

(They're...afraid of me...) Ken thinks somberly, pulling his knees in more tightly to his chest. (K'so...even I'm...afraid of me...)

The troubled brunette suddenly tosses his legs over the edge of his seat and stands, raking a tense hand through his mused and dampened hair. He begins heading for his room then, while the chorus of bitter thoughts continues playing their part over in his mind.

(I...enjoy it now...don't I? Instead of dreading missions, I look forward to them...) he muses, and then pauses momentarily in his step, before moving on again. (Iie, it's not the missions. I look forward to...killing. Hehe. That should bother me more than it does, shouldn't it? Hehehe...heh. I enjoy killing people...)

Reaching his room, Ken instantly goes for the closet, scavenging through it for his gloves, and smirking greedily when he finds them, still dried with blood from the night before. Deliberately slow, he slips them on, clenching his fists to display the proud claws within, and turning his hands to watch the blades shimmer in the shadows.

(Hehehe...I have to make it stop...) his crazed thoughts form, scaring him and exciting him at the same time. (I have to stop myself...have to stop...Weiss...before...before they end up like me...)

Heading for the living room to wait, Ken's deadly claws are anxious for his unsuspecting prey to make their way home...


*****A/N*****


No flames, and please don't hate me! There is a reason for all this. If you have heard or read what is on the Dramatic Prescious CDs you should understand why I had to do this. If you haven't, go read it now. There are full translations at this sight:

http://kekkai.org/wkcorner/

Go to media, then drama, and then dramatic prescious. There are many other great things to explore here if you've never been to this site, but it hasn't been updated since last December.

Anyway, I hope you can understand. I won't say what is going to happen. You can probably guess, but then again, I might surprise you. Please give this a chance. This is the first part of what will become five parts, and when it's done I'll try to do something more chipper in the future.

Also, please go read my FarfxSchu fic, "Too much time to think." It's a real good read, so...pretty please! :-)

Thankies all, and PLEASE REVIEW!!