Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections ❯ Anticipation ( Chapter 12 )

Reflections: Anticipation

Chapter 12

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by L.A. Mason.

Standard disclaimer applies: No copyright infringement intended. No profit being made or sought.

"Whoa! Say what?" exclaimed Yohji, just as Ken squawked "NO!" at the top of his lungs. The taller blond stalked back over to the kitchen table and leaned forward, both hands planted between the clutter of dirty dishes. Any desire to goof off was completely forgotten as he addressed Aya and Omi in dead-seriousness. "We are not hanging anyone out as bait, got that?"

After a warning squeeze of the redhead's callused fingers, Omi disengaged his hand. There was nothing delicate about the set of his jaw as he stared down Yohji, even though the older assassin loomed over him. "I'm the logical choice, Yohji-kun. They've already made one attempt to take me - alive - and I think that they'll want to try again."

"No." A fist slammed onto the pale maple surface, making the dishes jump and rattle. "You're not doing it."

The same fire that had lit the smallest of their team's eyes when he had taken Yohji down a few days earlier returned with a vengeance. Omi slowly rose to his feet and, mirroring the wire man's stance, leaned over until they were nearly nose to nose. His childish voice was harsh and low as he whispered, "Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Kudoh. I'm a member of this team. An equal member. And I have been since long before you showed up. The only alternative would be to put Aya-kun out there. And, seeing as they've already demonstrated that they would just as soon kill him as talk to him, I do not find that to be acceptable. Am I clear?"

Startled, Yohji recoiled, but at the grim expression on the teenager's face, his green eyes shuttered and grew hard. "Crystal." he snapped.

"Good." Omi straightened and resumed his seat. Head bent, his shaggy bangs obscured his features, but there was no mistaking the tense set to his narrow shoulders. His fingers flew across his laptop's keyboard, then he spun the machine around so that the other Weiss could see the scrolling columns of numbers and characters. Every so often, there was a bar of red that high-lighted one of the entries.

"What's that?" Ken asked, curiously. They looked like times and phone numbers, but he had no idea what the rest of it could be.

The display froze, leaving a block of red on the screen. Omi took a gulp of his Coke and began. "It occurred to me that the guys who hit Yohji and I had to have been tipped off about our visit to the police station. Otherwise, there is no way that they could have been in position to follow us to the isolation of the parking structure. That means that someone in the station, someone in close proximity to the Tanagawa prostitution case, made the call. What I've done is to pull up records of every phone call made at the police station during and shortly after our visit to Detective Tsanakia. Those that were to numbers outside of the station are shown in red. As you can see, we have something like thirty calls to look into."

"Huh." Relaxing marginally, the former PI reached for and twiddled the laptop's touch-pad, scrolling the display up and down. "Yeah, once we eliminate the calls to the wife about dinner, tracking down what's left shouldn't be too bad."

Under his breath, Omi retorted, "Or to the husband?" but the strain eased from his muscles as well and he slumped a little.

A faint twitch to Yohji's lips showed that he had caught the remark, but he let it slide. "How about cell calls?"

"Got `em. Unless our guy used a satellite phone, everything is on there. Now, what I propose is this: You go see your friend and complain that some guys tried to jump you. Storm into his office, make a lot of noise. You can make it sound like you suspect I'm to blame, if you want. Tsanakia-sensei already doesn't think much of me. But tell him that you dumped me back in Tanagawa. With a little luck, whoever is leaking information to the opposition will notify them that Yuki-kun has been cut loose, and they'll come looking for me there. We'll monitor out-going calls from the station, and hopefully get a lead on them from that direction, too." Omi turned to Ken. "This is where you and Aya-kun come in. I know it isn't terribly smart of us to pull everyone from the Villa, and I am concerned that someone will recognize one of you, but I'm also reluctant to involve any of Manx's people."

Ken nodded vigorously, and Aya inclined his head, acknowledging what their tactician left unsaid: there was still a possibility that the near-fatal leak had come from within Kritiker. "So, what do I do?" Ken asked matter-of-factly, outwardly more concerned with filling his plate up with seconds.

Omi shot the brunet a grateful look, relieved that he was so agreeable. "I want you for my back-up, Ken-kun. You know your way around the red-light district in Tanagawa, and some of the hookers will remember you."

"What about Honey?" Worried, the athlete paused, chop sticks suspended half-way between plate and mouth. He barely noticed when Yohji's long fingers darted in and liberated the forgotten morsel.

"I don't think she'll be a problem. If she's on the up and up, I doubt that she's told anyone about you. Why risk sharing a cash cow? And, if she's one of them, all it means is less time spent waiting around for them to make a move."

"Oh." That seemed logical. Although, there was one flaw in the plan: he would have to wear those ripped-up jeans again. Ken said as much, and was rewarded by a hoot of raucous laughter from their resident pervert. Omi's sympathetic smile grew strained as he avoided looking at the cackling man.

"Don't feel bad; I'll be wearing my same clothes, too.

"Are you sure?" Youji said doubtfully. "They were a real mess."

"So much the better." Shrugging, Omi busied himself with putting away some of the left overs. He tossed a dishcloth to Ken, indicating that he should wipe down the dirty table. "If I look like I've been roughed up, no one will wonder that I turn down customers."

Scowling, the former soccer player scrubbed at a spill and grumbled, "So, while we're hanging all our bits out there to freeze, what're Yohji and Aya going to be doing?"

"Hopefully tracing phone calls." The hacker replied promptly. "I can show Aya how to use the software since he's already proficient with the computer. With a little luck, they'll find out where our opponents are headquartered, and who's feeding them information."

"You've thought of everything, haven't you?" Ken asked dryly.

Omi's tone was modest, although a grin tugged at his lips and amused pride lurked under that surface. "I try. I really do try."

*******************

Left to his own devices, Ken wandered through the first floor of Villa Weiss. It wasn't that he wasn't welcome upstairs, just that his teammates were better occupied without him. Omi had conscripted Yohji to assist with sifting through the mass of data Manx had left behind on the cd-rom. Aya had, not too surprisingly, gone back to bed. It didn't take much to exhaust him, and if he was going out for the first time in a month as the wire man's backup, he needed all the rest he could get.

Which left Ken. Who was bored.

He opened the door to the small room that they had designated as `the den' a couple of years back, and sneezed. It was more of an over-grown storeroom, fusty-smelling and crammed full of boxes, but it had a desk, and an older tower computer that their techie generally ignored out of a preference for his laptop. Aya had left behind stacks of books, and there was a random muddle of old magazines and whatever else had been abandoned after past visits.

All boring.

He was on the verge of pulling the door closed behind him when a flicker of light caught his eye and drew him back in. Curious, he let his instincts lead him, but this time he left the overhead lights off. After a moment, the rapid green pulse led him to the computer's CPU; the monitor was turned off, but something was running its hard drive, and whatever it was, it was hard at work. The latch clicked as Ken's hand clenched on the doorknob, then he was across the room and sliding into the chair at the desk.

Once the monitor was on, the athlete scanned the creeping lines of text scrolling up the screen. While he wasn't at Omi's level - none of the other Weiss could come close to their youngest member's skill - he could and did use the search programs that the teenager had written. This looked to be one that the hacker had designed to trawl through bank records, looking for credit card purchases that matched specific criteria. The thing was, who was running it? Omi? But why would he bother?

Baffled, Ken clicked on the tab for the current search strategy. It quickly became apparent why the program was running so slowly; it had only a fragment of a credit card number to compare to the records of every airline and air freight company that did business through Tokyo, and it was sifting through the whole month prior to Aya's abduction. Gnawing thoughtfully on the side of his thumb, the athlete sank back in the chair and stared at the lines of information.

It just didn't make sense. If the search were Omi's, he'd be running it on the laptop to take advantage of its superior processor. And besides, the query, with its nested layers, didn't have the elegant feel of the hacker's code. Yohji? No, if the other blond wanted something, he'd just ask Omi to do it for him. Which meant Aya.

Doing research without telling the rest of the team was a completely Aya-ish sort of thing to do, Ken had to admit that. Grudgingly, but he recognized a truth when it bit him in the butt. Aya had been far less withdrawn and hostile than his norm, but trust just wasn't in the man's make-up. He would let the team help him, but only so far.

But what was he trying to discover?

Ken leaned forward and began going back through the program's history log. Observation number one: Aya was trying to trace the movement of something, was looking for a pattern of freight shipments. Given the volume going through Tokyo's Narita Airport, the number of records was staggering, and it looked like he was including Japan's other international airport, the Kansai, outside of Osaka. All he had to narrow it down was the middle part of a credit card number, and a limited time frame. Not that an entire month was all that limited. He slid the scroll bar back to the top of the log. The program had already been running for over a day, real time, and had produced a whopping total of nine hits… on four different card accounts that each contained the fragmentary number. Which led to observation number two, namely, that it was going to take a hell of a long time for the search to yield any results. Assuming that it ever did.

Scowling, Ken slid down in the chair and braced the soles of his feet against the edge of the desk. Ought he to confront Aya about the whole damned thing, or just let it ride? If the stubborn redhead was feeling his way along, running on a hunch and a guess, the intrusion would be far from welcome. Might even get Ken his head bitten off. And he could think of a whole lot of things he would rather do with his handsome teammate than having a screaming argument. But that was the flip side of the coin; Ken just didn't know if he could manage to not say something. At some point, his mouth was bound to run away from him, and he would end up just blurting out some stupid accusation. Maybe the right thing to do would be to bring up the computer activity, if he could find some non-judgmental way to do it?

He sighed. Life was certainly a lot simpler when his interactions with the other young man had been limited to staying clear of his evil temper. Then again… A shiver of appreciative warmth ran down from his scalp to his belly; Aya could sure as hell kiss. Grinning, Ken returned the program to the way he had found it and jabbed the `off' button on the monitor. It looked like Fujimiya had unknowingly bought himself some slack.

But while the decision left him with a puzzle to mull over, it did nothing to assuage the condition that had brought Ken into the disused den in the first place: he was still bored. Stomach rumbling, the hungry brunet figured that his next stop might as well be the kitchen, so he took the back hall the led behind the staircase, through the utility room. Knowing Omi, there was probably a small mountain of onigiri wrapped up in plastic wrap in the `fridge, and he might find something else worth heating up, too.

Ken swore under his breath when he stubbed his toe just through the door to the darkened utility room. Hopping backward, he barked his shin on another obstruction, and finally fumbled for the light switch, ready to rip who ever it was a new one.

Oh. It was his own basket of dirty clothes. Sheepishly, he scrubbed at the back of his neck, grateful that none of the others had been there for his performance. Yohji especially. The man was proving to be a lot nicer than Ken had given him credit for, but that didn't mean that the younger Hunter wanted to be subjected to his braying laugh or the inevitable smart-ass cracks about slaughtering a harmless basket of laundry. He sighed again as his stomach growled even louder; better start the washer first.

But damned if he was going to spend a lot of time on it.

Annoyed, he upended the basket, then stared in surprise at the small, soft-sided suitcase that tumbled out with a thud onto the tiled floor.

What the hell…?

The memory came, unbidden, of returning from his expedition to Tanagawa with the videotapes, and with Aya's black bag. He had jammed the wadded up clothes that he had worn on the mission into his hamper after Aya had remarked on the amount of skin that the ripped jeans displayed. Without meaning to, he had apparently dumped the redhead's over-night bag into the basket, too. And then promptly forgotten about it.

A prickle of shame heated Ken's cheeks. Forgetting about a potentially important piece of the puzzle like that was unforgivable. It went beyond his usually klutziness. Disconsolate, he dumped his clothes back into their basket and kicked it to the side; no sense in tripping anyone else; and carried the black kit on through into the kitchen. He might as well have a look before he told the others about his gaff. And it might not be as bad as all that. To be honest, he didn't really expect to find anything in it beyond a few changes of Aya's clothes, and maybe his toiletries. The redhead's destroyed laptop had had its own neat, black bag, and Aya never, ever took paper files with him. But there was a hard lump under a jumble of underwear and socks that should have been put into the laundry ages ago. Perplexed, the younger man fished it out.

Oh. It was just a book. Somehow, Ken realized that he should have expected it: Aya didn't care to watch TV, and never accepted invitations to go out for something like watching a soccer match. Instead, the reticent man would disappear to some quiet spot, and crack open a book. This was probably the last thing that he had been absorbed in. Ken fanned through the pages on the off-chance that some scrap of paper, maybe used as a bookmark, might fall out and provide them with a clue. Nothing did, of course, and he was about to toss the book onto the table when the back of the lurid jacket caught his attention: Run-away best seller… The no-holds-barred, personal story of the Meiji Restoration's most notorious killer…

Ken made a rude noise. As if he wanted to read about an historical assassin when he was living the life for real, in the modern age. Omi had forced him to watch a docu-drama not long before on Takechi Zuizan, and Okada Izo. Takechi had struck him as a sort of early Persia, manipulating the political arena, and sending his loyal followers out to deal with any opposition. Okada, on the other hand, with his callous nature and ruthless skill with a sword, had reminded both of them of nothing so much as Aya. Or, at least, the old Aya. Okaba had even shouted things like `Heaven's Revenge!' as he cut his victims. In Omi's opinion, it sounded better than `Die, Takatori!' and Ken was inclined to agree with him.

He turned the book in his hands, noting that while it was far from old, the edges of the pages were just a bit grubby, as if it had been handled a lot, maybe read over and over. The soft paper was rubbed till it frayed on the corners, yet care had been taken to not crack its spine. That was Aya, all over. It figured that Aya would have such a well-worn, but well-cared-for book. Still there was nothing about it to clue him in on where it had been. Too bad it was just a book, and not a camera. He dropped it on the table and returned to the small suitcase.

Nothing.

In addition to the underwear and book, the bag held a somewhat thread-bare tee-shirt that had the scratchy feel of having been hand-washed and then air-dried, as opposed to being run through a washer and dryer. There were faint, maroon stains on it that could have been old blood, but that was it. The Scotch-guarded cloth of the bag itself was not likely to hold fingerprints, so there was no hope of Yohji pulling a rabbit out of the hat as he had when they had tried to confirm Aya's identity. The only thing Ken could thing of was that he would have to ask Aya how the bag had come to be at the Hot Body's offices, seeing as he hadn't been carrying it when he was captured.

It could have been worse, he supposed. It would still be necessary to confess what had happened with the bag being neglected to the rest of the team, but at least he hadn't done the mission any lasting harm; that was something to be thankful for. Ken tossed the dirty clothes in on top of his own wash, and reached for the book, intending to put it back into suitcase. The sight of the upside-down artwork on the cover froze his hand in place, just as his fingertips touched the paper.

Unbelievable. It was simply, totally unbelievable. Granted, it was an artist's rendering, and not a photo, but that red hair, and the violet eyes that burned from the picture… It was Aya.

Alarmed, Ken turned the book around to get a better look at its cover. And blinked. Even right-side-up, the young man on the cover was his teammate, right down to the bone-chilling glare. But once he got past the searing cold of that stare, Ken began to note some differences. For example, the elfinly pretty face was that of a boy, at most Omi's age. He was standing, dressed in dark blue hakama and haori, back mostly to the viewer, looking over his shoulder, and by the look of his childish figure, he would be best described as `petit.' The scarlet hair drawn up into a high pony-tail was long, falling to his waist.

Surprised, and a little intrigued in spite of himself, the sports enthusiast opened the cover and read the inside of the book's dust jacket. Supposedly, the biography was drawn from the subject's own, personal writings, left to his son at his death, and also from a series of notebooks that that younger man had filled when he had set out on a quest interviewing every survivor of the bloody years that he had been able to find, hoping to get to know his enigmatic father. Ken flipped through the book, pausing at grainy, black and white photos of men in old fashioned kimonos and hakama, posed with great deliberation for studio shots, sometimes with their daisho, sometimes with a dainty wife at their sides. A few of the shots he recognized, important men of the day like Sakamoto Ryoma, or Saigo Takamori, but most bore tiny inscriptions that meant nothing to him. Shrugging, he turned back to the beginning and read the opening paragraphs.

When I look into a mirror, or a still pool of water, I am reminded that all things are illusion. That the world is nothingness. That I am nothing. For surely, if a mirror could reveal the truth, then all would see the blood stained heart of me, rather than the beauty that fate has seen fit to bestow upon me. Because the mirror does not show the taint, nor the pool reveal the blood… all one sees of me is pale skin, an effeminately pretty form, and violet eyes. Although, at least the blood-crimson of my hair is appropriate to that which I became: an assassin.

Hitokiri Batoussai.

The murderer of the innocent.

Would my life have been different, if I had been born with the stern visage of Toshizou Hijikata, who enforced the harsh code of the Shinsengumi upon friend and foe alike? Or, if I had had the visible, burning intellect of Sakamoto Ryoma, plain for all to see? Sometimes, I wonder what the true aspect of an assassin ought to be. Surely not what I see in the mirror. The fates could not be so cruel, for surely, the outside should be ugly, to match the corruption within. For although I have labored to atone, to right some of the wrongs that I have committed, nothing will ever wash away my sins.

But I will never cease to try.

And I will never kill again.

The slim book dropped from Ken's nerveless fingers, leaving him to stare at the opposite wall in stunned confusion. …nothing will ever wash away my sins. Oh, shit. For a second, he was tempted to read the book's flyleaf again, to see if it had changed in the intervening minutes, but he couldn't bring himself to pick the volume up again.

The premier assassin of the Meiji Ishin had had violet eyes and red hair, had been beautiful.

Oh, shit, shit, shit!

He had looked just like Aya.

He had sworn to never kill again.

An idea that had been niggling at the back of his brain suddenly blossomed into certainty, and he shot out of the kitchen at a run, shouting for Omi and Yohji. The other two came tumbling down the stairs in a worried rush, meeting him halfway. "I've got it!" the brunet panted, too wound up to start at the beginning; he would just have to trust that his teammates were quick on the uptake. "It's not Aya who said the stuff about killing being wrong, it's the guy in this book."

Omi's lightening fast grab intercepted the volume, and he sank down on the steps with a frown as he opened the cover. "Ken. I don't see--"

"Here, gimme." Huffing impatiently, Ken snagged the book back and flipped to the prologue. Finger on the words that had affected him so deeply, he handed it back to the smaller blond, and waited for the inevitable reaction.

"Oh, fuck…"

The unaccustomed curse spilling from innocent lips made Yohji's brows shoot up into his hairline. He pushed his ever-present sunglasses up on top of his head, and settled on a step just above the teen, intent on reading over his shoulder. "Well, I still don't get it." the older blond muttered.

Ken and Omi exchanged looks. Trust the playboy to miss something so obvious. If the subject didn't involve cleavage, or drinking, or going out clubbing, he could be incredibly dense. Since the group's researcher had obviously come to the same conclusion that he had, Ken was more than willing to let the younger Weiss have the fun of explaining. Omi said slowly, "If I'm following Ken-kun's thoughts, I believe what he's saying is that Aya doesn't have amnesia, or anything silly like that. But rather, he's adopted the personality of this man, the assassin of the Meiji Ishin who swore to leave killing behind, and went on to become a powerful force for peace in the new regime. That's why none of us knew what he was talking about. It's as if he's become a new person."

Yohji snorted. "Oh, come on! You know all that multiple personality crap on the talk shows is garbage."

"On the contrary, it actually makes a lot of sense." the other blond demurred. "Aya has always had a tendency to compartmentalize. Just look at how distinct `Aya' is from `Ran,' or from `Abyssinian,' for that matter. I think what Ken's come up with makes a lot of sense. We all know that Aya internalizes a lot of anguish over his life as a killer. We might let it out, sometimes, but he never does. But that doesn't make it any less real. I think he's latched on to the words of this Himura Kenshin, and sees him as an example to follow - as someone who might lead him to the other side."

To the other side of what? That's the real question. Ken thought. Even though Omi had come to the same conclusion, had validated his gut reaction, doubt assailed the hunter. Could it really be something so simple? That Aya's exhausted soul had taken refuge in the life of another, long-dead assassin, and was pinning his hopes for salvation on that distant man's journey toward the light? If that was the case, they might be in a hell of a lot more trouble than he had originally supposed.

Yohji had co-opted the book and was skimming through its beginning. Like Ken, he grunted in surprise when he read the description of the Battousai's appearance, even more so than when he saw the probably fictionalized rendering on the cover. He prodded Omi in the shoulder. "Hey, do you think Aya might be a descendant of this guy, or something?"

"Who knows?" Omi had to shrug. "But I think the resemblance might have been what made our favorite redhead stop and take a second look. The similarities in how they ended up accepting the word of others that they were really fighting for the good of the innocents who can't protect themselves is, I think, more telling than the fact that they had the same color hair and eyes. What I don't see, however, is why it's affecting him so much now. He's been aware of what we do for a long time. So why break down now?"

"Hn." grunted Ken, and bit his tongue. What Omi was saying was true. They had all had some doubts that their missions were strictly limited to hunting the Dark Beasts that were beyond the reach of law and society. He knew for a fact that it bothered their most taciturn teammate more than he let on. Still holding the book, Yohji stood up and let his long legs carry him over the obstruction that Omi made and on down toward the kitchen. The smaller Hunter jumped up and followed, leaving Ken to trail along in their wake.

"Well, okay. Suppose he really does think he's this Himura guy. How are we going to use that to get him back to being Fujimiya Aya again? If he won't kill, he's got no place in a unit like Weiss." Ever practical, Yohji cut to the heart of the problem as he dropped into a chair at the table and poured himself a cup of bitter, left-over coffee. He propped the book absently against the pot and, still reading as he sipped, turned a page.

"Uh, I don't know." Omi admitted, taking a seat to his left. He picked up and began fiddling with a pair of chopsticks left in the debris on the table, worried blue eyes focused solely on the thin pieces of wood. Ken sighed and grabbed a carton of juice from the `fridge and a pair of glasses waiting to be put away from the dish-drainer. He poured one full and set it in front of his friend. Omi lifted his gaze and gave him a grateful smile over the rim of the glass, then turned serious again. "Should we be trying to turn him back into Abyssinian? He seems… happier… now. He's opening up to us, for the first time. Maybe we should leave him alone?"

"Can we afford to? If he refuses to kill, what's the point of him being with a bunch of assassins?"

Predictably, the younger blond winced. But he resisted the obvious protest that Aya ought to stay because he was a part of their team. Because, if he continued to refuse, was he really one of them?

Manx was bound to say not. Kritiker would follow her lead. Aya would be gone.

Unable to stand the path his thoughts were taking, Ken bounced back onto his feet and began pacing in a tight, worried triangle: refrigerator, to table, to sink in front of the window, and back again. Finally, he burst out, "Uh, guys… There's one other thing that I didn't tell you; this book was in Aya's bag. I got it from that hooker, Honey, when I got the video tapes from the Hot Body."

"What?" Frowning, Omi stared up at him.

"It was in the office belonging to Mishakawa and Iida, the two guys who own the whorehouse. I- I'm sorry. I screwed up. I should have told you sooner."

Distracted, Omi waved the anguished apology away. The look of concentration he wore sat oddly on his boyish face, then he shook his head. "I still don't get it." he confessed ruefully. "There's something that I'm totally missing. I mean, I can feel that it's there, but I have no idea what it is."

Yohji glanced up. "So, get Aya down here, and ask him." Bemused, the teenager nodded, rose from the table and, still deep in thought, padded out. Yohji's shrewd green eyes cut to the still distraught soccer player. "Kenken, sit down, would you? And quit beating yourself up over it. I forgot, too, okay? I mean, I saw the prick's bag, and I didn't remember to say anything, either."

"Oh." Deflated, Ken sat. For a second, he struggled with the temptation to make excuses, but the truth was that even if it turned out to not be a bid deal, he had let the others down. Just as he had failed Aya, by letting the redhead go out alone. Abruptly miserable, he lowered his head into his folded arms and resisted the urge to cry. A hand squeezing his shoulder made the brunet twitch in surprise.

"Come on, cut it out. Help me figure out how this thing got to Tanagawa, and why those assholes would hide it. There's gotta be something we're missing." When Ken raised his head and stared, Yohji gave him a wry, lopsided smile. "After all, you're the one who's been granted leave to approach His Highness. Chances are, if anyone can figure him out, it'll be you."

"Yohji!" groaned Ken, allowing his head to drop again with a thud.

"All you gotta do is ask him."

Before the brunet could say, `but that's what I'm afraid of,' light footsteps warned him that the others were there. As if he needed the warning; Aya's wary voice was saying "Ask me what?" from the safety of the doorway. Ken's heart lurched at the lost trust in the sound: it was all his fault.

Well, the damage was done; he might as well get it over with. "Aya, how did they get your overnight bag? You didn't have it with you when they captured you."

"They brought it to me after I regained consciousness. The-- the man told me to clean myself up." The undercurrent of panic was back. They were again skirting close to something that the sullen redhead didn't wish to discuss. Omi shifted subtly behind him, blocking Aya's escape route. Ken opened his mouth to demand why! but Yohji's hand again touched his shoulder gently, and the former detective drawled, "Let me."

The older Hunter got up and leaned casually against the edge of the table, hands stuffed into his pockets. "So," he said mildly, "How could they have brought it to you; your apartment wasn't broken into."

The swift reply was harsh. "I told you. They didn't have to break in. They took my keys off of me."

"Hm." Yohji fumbled out a cigarette and popped the end into his mouth, but he left it unlit. "If they got your overnight bag, why not your laptop?"

"I already told you! I saw to it that it was ruined when they caught me. There were no files at the Kritiker apartment. I had already destroyed the ones from the art show and auction, and had not yet met with Birman over the new assignment. All I had was the invitation to the Press Club luncheon." The sudden spate of words came out in a cold hiss, full of venom. Taken combined with the defensive hunch to his tall form, bundled into another of his hideous, baggy sweaters, and the manner in which his hands clenched into fists, warning bells were going off full blast in Ken's head. Aya took an involuntary step backwards, nearly treading on the small teenager's toes, but Omi paid no attention; his lake-blue eyes had gone bright with interest.

"Whoa. Wait a minute-" the hacker interjected. "That invitation. It wasn't there when we searched the apartment."

"Then they must have taken it." Aya snapped. Desperate, his gaze flickered between his two inquisitors, obviously weighing the need to escape against his reluctance to injure a teammate. Ken guessed that they were about ten seconds shy of having blood splatters all over the clean kitchen.

Yojhi pushed off from the table, his long-fingered grasp closing around Aya's good wrist, tugging him gently off-center. "Why?"

Stumbling, Aya choked, "I don't know! I told you, all they asked me, over and over, was `who are you?' They never said anything about the invitation, or Kritiker, or anything… Just `who are you?!' " His hand came up against the center of the older man's chest, splayed fingers digging into the crisp green cotton of Yohji's shirt.

Alarmed, Ken found himself breaking Yohji's hold with a quick pick, pinch, twist. The startled wire man was two steps back, out of reach of the trembling swordsman, before he knew what hit him. The determined brunet said firmly, "I'd better talk to him alone. Okay? This is getting out of hand."

"Not until we get some answers, damn it. Aya, why? Why are you acting this way? This whole `killing is wrong thing.' Okay, so I can see you got it from the guy in the book, but it's not you." Knocked out of his customary, jaded ennui, Yohji's eyes flashed with intensity, and his wide mouth tightened with a mixture of hurt and concern.

"B- book?" whispered Aya, the little color that remained draining from his already pale features. "You found it?"

"Yeah, if you mean this…?" Half-turning, the blond plucked the volume from the cluttered table. At the sight of the garish cover, the normally graceful swordsman staggered and would have fallen if Ken hadn't grabbed him by the elbow.

"Aya!" Frantic, he braced himself to receive the slender man's full weight, but it didn't come. Instead, his teammate wrenched himself free and began pacing in agitation. Aya's voice was hoarse and barely audible, more as if he were speaking to an audience of one - himself - than to his assembled partners, "I read it, over and over… I had nothing else to do. I have no idea how long I was there… You said three weeks total. I was unconscious for the first four days. After my escape attempt, they took away my bag, my clothes. That knocks off another week, leaving me ten days. Do you know how many times I read that book? A dozen times? More? I had nothing else to occupy my mind with. I thought I would go insane. I would count the time by how many pages I had read… but after a while the words ran together in my head. I was hearing them constantly! …Constantly… `wash away my sins… I will not kill again…' Over and over!" The increasingly hysterical whisper choked, becoming a whimper. "I will not kill."

Ken and Omi stared, stricken, as the agitated man stopped dead in his pacing, bringing his clenched fist to his mouth. He bit savagely at his own knuckles, stifling the harsh, whispered refrain. The wide eyes were unseeing and wild. When Ken kicked a chair out of the way, shoving it back with a discordant skree of wood on wood, the younger Weiss' hand shot out, intercepting him. "No!" he hissed, "Don't."

A shudder ran through Aya's frame, beginning with his taut shoulders and rippling down the thin body until Ken thought that his knees would give way, and he would collapse like a marionette with its strings cut. He blinked, focusing suddenly on the book where it lay abandoned on the table top. The words that poured out were so swift that they slurred, running together, "I will not kill. To kill is an abomination. I will atone for my sins, and sin no more. I. Will. Not. Kill." The swift strike of his hand slapped the garish volume across the room, the crack of its impact into the cabinets sharp as a gunshot in the enclosed space of Villa Weiss' kitchen.

Omi's fingers tightened on Ken's wrist, holding him back. Aya shook himself, like a dog showering his surroundings with excess wet, except that in his case, it was a surfeit of thoughts. His head jerked up, violet eyes abruptly sharp and clear, mouth compressed until the lips turned white with the strain of holding in the words, or maybe, a scream. The teenager stepped slowly around his brunet friend, taking care to not move suddenly. Faint shivers racked the swordsman's lean body, tiny twitches and quivers as if he had ants crawling at random on his sensitized skin. "Aya…?" Omi asked softly. "Can you hear me?" For a moment, it seemed that the redhead would ignore the cautious approach, then he registered the presence of another human.

"What do you want?" Aya asked tonelessly. The shift in his attention outward, to Omi, calmed him, draining some of the tenseness from his rigid body.

Omi carefully reached out, taking up his bitten hand and carefully examining it. There was a tiny bit of blood, but nothing else appeared to be the matter, and the smaller Hunter released it. "Aya, do you remember what brain-washing is? I think you've basically brain-washed yourself. But think; you know that you're not Himura Kenshin. The forgetfulness, the guilt… Yes, we've sinned, and I'm sure that we'll have to atone for it someday…. But it's not the same; we're not the same." Omi paused and took a deep breath. "Come on, Aya. Let it go."

Aya could do a sudden spate of words, angry or bitter as the mood seized him, but calm and rational generally wasn't in his vocabulary, at least not when it came to explaining his thought processes. It was a measure of how distraught he was that he actually answered Omi civilly, even if it was heavy with despair.

"How can I let it go…? This is what I am, Omi. A murderer. Just a murderer."

****************

In an oddly tender gesture, Aya smoothed the stained cover of the book resting in his lap, seated quietly at their kitchen table. Maybe it hadn't been the best thing that Omi had dragged Yohji off, ostensibly to work on Manx's information dump, but in reality letting Ken take over `handling' Aya. Not a good idea, at all… Whether the older man accepted Omi's injunction to `let it go,' or not, the critical thing that remained was that Ken was standing on top of Krakatoa, and it was August 25th, 1883. While Aya might not literally blow with the same force as the infamous volcano, anybody within range was still likely to wind up a bloodied mess.

But he had to start somewhere, right? Unnerved, Ken nodded at the shabby volume. "So, ah, I notice that the guy the book is about was described as having red hair and purple eyes. Any relation?"

Their own redheaded assassin shrugged minutely, not particularly interested. "I have no idea. The hair color appears once or twice in a generation among the Fujimiya… I suppose Himura could be an ancestor." His dulled voice was exhausted.

"Oh." That Aya didn't seem to think that it was anything significant left him feeling a bit at a loss. "So, I guess that Benson-creep was just blowing smoke when he made those cracks about you not being your father's kid, huh?"

The worn book dropped to the floor with a thud. Ken barely registered that Aya had moved, reaching over the table to grab, until his hard fingers were digging into the younger Hunter's shoulders. Incensed, the redhead demanded, "What did you say!"

Futilely, Ken tried to free himself, but short of offering violence, there was no escape. If anything, the fingers dug deeper, sparking pain in the abused joints. "Fuck it, Aya! Not again! That hurts!" he protested.

"Repeat what you said." Feral anger lent the normally sexy depths a dangerous edge. Instinct warned Ken that he was on shaky ground. The bad part was that he wasn't sure which part of his off-handed remark had set off his twitchy partner this time. Carefully, he said, "Um, you didn't look like your dad's kid?"

"What else?" The growl was accompanied by a quick shake, like what a terrier would give to a rat. Ken's own temper began a slow burn over the treatment, but he bottled the urge to strike back.

"Benson. That asshole knew your parents."

Aya jerked as though the words had solid weight, and were hard punches thrown to the body. His hands spasmed, and grew lax, falling away from Ken. "Benson… How… how did you know about him?"

Concern furrowed the brunet's forehead. Something wasn't adding up right. The contrary man had gone from controlling hard-ass back to looking like he wanted to vomit, all in the space of two minutes. Suspicion caught up to Ken's mouth, by-passing his brain, and he blurted, "Oh, God! Benson - Yohji was right. He did rape you!"

"What?" Flat astonishment pulled Aya back from where ever his mind had wandered to, and his violet gaze sharpened until the athlete felt like something scraped from the bottom of his teammate's shoes. He flushed, holding both hands up in hasty surrender. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to be so tactless." But at least the faux pas had switched the man back into his `sane' mode. Or whatever passed for it. Aya was really beginning to frighten him with the way he shifted so unpredictably from one extreme to another.

Scowling, the other man rose effortlessly and stalked over to the refrigerator. As he selected a bottle of juice, he tossed back, "I won't pretend that I was pleased with Benson's demands, but it wasn't rape, Ken. I went to him voluntarily."

"You-Voluntarily?" It came out in a squeak better suited to Omi's voice than his own. The nausea he had felt the first time, when they had listened to the obscenity that was the American forcing Aya to suck him off, returned with a vengeance. But the line of Aya's back, and the vague, unfocused, thoughtful stare that he leveled on the black rectangle of the kitchen's window supported his claim: it wasn't the sex that absorbed him. The sex really was meaningless. But he couldn't just let it go. "Aya, why?"

Exasperated, Aya sighed. He drained the last swallows from the bottle, chucking the empty container at the trash before turning to stare at the bewildered athlete. "Look, sex is just sex. It's meaningless if you don't care about the person you're with. You're forgetting that my first real team was Crashers; trust me, compared to some of their methods for getting close to a target, what happened with Benson was nothing."

Nothing…? Bile rose in his mouth; Ken gulped.

The redhead ran a frustrated hand back through the short lengths of his hair before trying again, his tone more gentle. "Please, Ken. You're losing sight of what's important here. That I can be with someone, isn't it. Shion, and the others at the Aoba in Sendai toughened me, and taught me the art of the sword. My first team, Crashers, showed me that I could go to a party or a club, and blend in. That I could be invisible, just like any other customer or guest. And Weiss, Weiss gave me my revenge, and finally made it possible for me to move past personal anger, and to think only of the Beasts that we hunt. The missions that we took had a purpose, Ken. And that was what mattered."

Slowly, Ken got to his own feet and approached his older partner. Aya could be eloquent when the mood struck him. Obviously, this had to be important for him to spend to many words expressing himself, and Ken's understanding likewise had to be something that the subdued assassin desired. "Then… okay, I don't get it. If it wasn't the sex, then what importance did Benson have? Is he the one who had you kidnapped?"

"No. I confirmed that he was safely out of the country before I completed my report on the art auction that I attended. I am certain that he had nothing to do with my abductors." Aya's quiet voice grew rougher, deeper. "What I should have done, however, was to have listened to my instincts, and killed him, while I still had the heart to do it."

"What?" It was Ken's turn to be completely baffled. He was close enough to the swordsman to touch, but the stiff body language discouraged it. "I don't get it. If it's not the sex, then what's bothering you?"

"My name. He said my real name. On a mission." Aya's low tones shook with suppressed disgust. "And I let him walk out of there with that knowledge."

The clipped words were as good as an electric shock, jerking Ken sharply back and upright. Shit, he had been unconsciously leaning toward the slender figure in its ugly/shabby sweater, letting the events of the previous day warp his judgement. Yes, he had kissed Aya, and the surprisingly passionate man had responded in kind, but that had no bearing on the current conversation. Quite the opposite, given the vehemence with which Aya dismissed the topic now. It means nothing. Ken held firmly to the thought, focusing on the here and now. And that meant paying attention only to Benson's discovery of Aya's cover persona. Breathing in deeply, the soccer player tried to use reason. "Okay. Look, who would he have bothered to tell? And why? Birman figured that he was satisfied to have one-upped you, and that after the auction, he could have cared less about your existence."

"I don't know." The swordsman gave in to his desire to fidget and began pacing the length of the kitchen. On his second traversal, he stopped dead in front of Ken glaring hotly. Aya had stiffened even farther, if that was possible, until his clenched muscles virtually vibrated from the strain. "You heard us. You listened to a recording." he accused.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't like it was on purpose!" Defensive, Ken countered. He could feel the slow burn of a hard blush beginning around his ears, and spreading across his cheekbones and nose. This was so not the conversation that he wanted to be having. Standing stock-still in front of him, Aya made no motion toward backing down, and Ken sighed miserably. "But, y- yeah… Your mic activated, and Kritiker caught the whole thing."

"Shit." The muttered expletive sounded weird coming from the tight-lipped assassin, but then Aya was leaning out the kitchen door, bellowing "OMI!!" up the stairs. The startled thud of feet hitting the floor and coming their way at warp speed made the athlete blink at the older man in baffled confusion. Aya took it in, and snarled back, "Benson. I used both names, my own and my cover's. He addressed me as `Fujimiya,' and like an idiot, I tried to convince him that I was `Fujita Masahiro.' "

Ken didn't understand the fit of rage that gripped his companion, but it provoked a corresponding shout from him none the less. "But… he left for the States. Birman cleared him. There was no connection to anyone!"

"You heard us. What if someone else was listening, as well?"

"In a bathroom?" Ken hated the way his voice squeaked, turning the last word disbelieving, incredulous.

"Why not?" Aya retorted swiftly. Omi's footsteps were flying down the steps, closely followed by the more deliberate tread of the other blond. The redhead turned back and glared. "Trust me, one thing I learned in Crashers is that people are incredibly stupid in restrooms. With that illusion of privacy, it's the perfect place to surveil, to get the goods on someone. They snort cocaine, engage in sex-- " The disgust in his tone deepened, becoming more self-mocking. " -in short, anything. If you want to catch someone with their hands in the cookie jar, the restroom is the place."

"What's wrong?!" Winded, Omi burst into the room and skidded to a stop. He hovered, looking uncertainly from one to the other of his friends, alarm written clearly on his good-natured features. Yohji arrived a moment later, muttering "This is getting old - you guys yelling, and us running…" and leaned carelessly against the doorframe.

"Me." Aya replied tersely. "I'm the one who blew my cover. At the art auction."

"Holy shit." Yohji dropped heavily into a chair at the table, fumbled for a cigarette, and lit up. His long legs were splayed out beneath the cover of the table. "Okay, someone. Take it from the top, would you?" Aya complied, repeating their conversation in clipped. angry words. When he was done, Yohji ran a hand through his wavy hair, pulling it back from his forehead. "Jesus, Aya." he said admiringly. "When you fuck up, you do it in a big way. So, in a rest room. The one place that should be private."

Ken caught himself before he could confirm the statement. Aya no longer seemed to be listening to him, but rather was thinking furiously, his angular auburn brows drawn down into a tight frown. His head shot up, violet and silver clashing with Yohji's heavy-lidded green. "The question is, who?"

Shrugging wryly, the blond kept his eyes locked with Aya's. But the humor was only skin deep, because when he spoke, his manner was anything but amused. "The most likely answer is the people who ran the art show. They would have wanted to know if there was anything screwy going on. Me, I'd've had my own people mingle with the guests, just to be on the safe side. Did you notice anybody like that?"

Something about the man's professional tone defused Aya's angry tenseness. To Ken's astonishment, he actually returned to the table and sat. Omi slid into his usual spot, and, while his fingers itched to start taking notes on his laptop, he forewent the opportunity, relying instead on his prodigious memory as his bright eyes flickered between the two men. Aya considered the question for a long moment, and finally replied with his normal, deliberate calm. "Yes. I identified two men, and one woman."

Yohji nodded encouragingly. That matched the recording that they had browbeaten Birman into giving them access to. Alertly intelligent, the frivolous playboy was completely gone, together with a good portion of the man's careless, lazy manner. "Uh, huh. They were local talent, right?"

"Yes. A cut above the usual hired muscled, as would be expected in an environment such as that hotel, but yes." The frown had smoothed itself from Aya's handsome face, and he seemed nearly relaxed. Awed, Ken glanced at Yohji, who remained focused on the swordsman with genuine interest. The sincerity couldn't be faked.

"Hm. No surprise there. How about the guy running the show? There were some high rollers in that crowd; he must have been somebody good. Did Birman have any names for you? Or did you pick anything up while you were there?" Yohji asked. He propped one ankle on the opposite knee, his exposed wrist and open hand loosely on top, and leaned forward slightly. The implication was that anything Aya had noticed was worth hearing about, and that Yohji was offering no threats. The redhead's gaze dropped, and he stared thoughtfully at the wood grain of the table, idly reaching out to scrap the metal edge of his splint across it. It made the barest rasping sound.

"A local man, Hisadae, was fronting for the real sellers. He was on the list of individuals I was to keep an eye on during both the show and the auction, in an effort to identify those he dealt with. But I never saw him with anyone other than the buyers, or a handful of his own flunkies. I don't know who was behind the auction. Birman hadn't included any information concerning the money's destination in my briefing packet. I wonder if Manx would know." Aya replied abstractedly.

Out of their line of sight, Omi caught Ken's eye and mouthed Wow. `Wow' was right. The former soccer player had watched Yohji flirt with and cajole any number of school girls and waitresses, even a policeman once, when he had gotten pulled over for speeding, but he had never seen the full Kudoh treatment work on their resident prick before. For some reason, Aya was relaxing enough to let Yohji inside his automatic defenses, and as a result, the younger Hunters were witnesses to a definite rarity in the history of Weiss: a debriefing that was proceeding as smooth as silk.

"It was a lot of cash that they raked in, wasn't it?" Yohji asked curiously. "I mean, I'm no expert on art, but shit, even I recognized some of the names you listed off."

"Yes." The affirmative came automatically. "At a rough estimate, the sale raised close to two billion yen. Benson alone dropped something like one-point-two million U.S. on his purchases."

The senior Hunter whistled thoughtfully. "A total of over eighteen million U.S.? I wonder where all of that went? Do you suppose, seeing as a lot of the stuff up for sale was stolen from former Soviet block countries, or disappeared around there during World War II, that the real sellers might have something to do with the people that Manx said had Communist connections?"

Ken held his breath; this was the point where Aya would either explode, or freak, because the PI was asking obliquely about his abductors.

The steady gaze that Aya leveled on Yohji said that he had arrived at the same conclusion. Then the remarkable, shadowed violet eyes drifted closed, and he exhaled, shuddering a little. "Yes. Yes, I do."

*****************

The others were gone, again leaving Ken alone with Aya. The weary set of the redhead's shoulders told that he had - once more - driven himself beyond the limits of his endurance. Without giving it any thought, the likewise tired brunet circled the table and dropped down onto his knees in front of the man. Aya barely glanced up in acknowledgment of his presence.

"Want to talk about it?" Ken asked simply. The wine-dark head gave a tiny shake, light glancing off its sleek strands. His expression was shuttered, soft lips pressed tight together against whatever thoughts roiled within.

Ken let his own gaze drop to the hands that lay limply across Aya's thighs. He rubbed a thumb thoughtfully over the cold backs of the prominent knuckles, then gathered a hand into his own, intending to chaff a little more warmth back into it.

Matched finger to finger, Ken's was broader, more muscular, while Aya's slim white fingers tapered to callused tips that were a good bit longer than his. But both of them had the strong wrists of men who fought for their lives, Ken with hand-to-hand, and Aya with his katana. It took a lot of power to swing the weight of a sword with the precise force that the red haired kenkaya used, shearing through flesh and bone with the same ease. To cut with a sword was not a weakling's art. Ken rolled the unresisting wrist over, and pressed a gentle kiss to its pulse point.

Killers' hands, the both of them.

If he thought about what he was doing too much, he would probably end up running screaming out the back door, and on down the mountain. Ken nuzzled the old marks of scars, faint ridges that showed a more opaque white against the fragile skin. It was as if he could feel the burning of the blood beneath the thin covering, moving with each stuttering beat of the heart. Absorbed, half-dreaming, the younger man set the sharp point of his canines against the surface of the raised vein, pressing until he felt a flinch. He hadn't broken the skin, just left an indentation, but he licked at it gently. Ken spoke quietly.

"Aya…? I won't leave you alone, okay? Not ever."

Ken had given his word.

God help him.

***************

Author's Notes:

All right, everybody, sit back down. No screaming at the writer.

This is NOT a Weiss Kreuz / Rurouni Kenshin cross over fic.

Oh, I admit that when I was in the planning stages, I did a lot of muttering to that effect. But it isn't. A few months ago, as I was mulling over the strangeness of an anime universe that made it possible to have two entirely separate series about a red haired assassin, it struck me that there were many similarities between Aya and Kenshin. But more importantly, there are many differences, for they exist not only in two different time periods, but in two different sets of circumstances.

I have to send a hearty `thank you!' to the friends that have put up with my pondering on politics and morals, and on killing as a solution to political and social problems. I appreciate all the times that you've wanted to throw things at me, but have stayed your hands.

I hope you don't regret it when you read "Reflections."

For those of you who are familiar with my research habits and love of cookies, fine, yes, I confess that they're all over this chapter, too. And I'm giving in and putting a bibliography with chapter 12. I've held out this long, but I can't *sob* control myself any longer. With the exception of Kenshin, the historical figures named in this chapter were real. So was the cry of "Heaven's Revenge."

The Meiji Restoration / W.G. Beasley. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1972. ISBN 0804708150. Well-written, broad, neutral overview of the Meiji Restoration.

Choshu in the Meiji Restoration / Albert M. Craig. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1961. Reprinted 2000 by Lexington Press. ISBN 0739101935. In-depth analysis of the political and historical role of Choshu han in the Restoration.

Samurai Sketches : From the Bloody Final Years of the Shogun / Romulus Hillsborough. San Francisco, Calif. : Ridgeback Press, c2001. ISBN 0966740181. A somewhat sensationalized series of biographical sketches of the players during the Restoration. If you enjoy RK, you will probably get a kick out of Hillsborough's work.

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