Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ The Last Step ❯ The Last Step ( Chapter 1 )

Warnings: slash/yaoi - deathfic
Archive: no, only mediaminer and my own site, sorry
Disclaimer: I don't own the concept of Weiss Kreuz or the boys. Considering this story it might actually be a good thing.
Beta: minion did me the favor to do at least a quick beta, thank you sweety!
Author's Note: This story was never planned but born out of need. I was depressed as hell when I wrote the first lines
and the boys had to suffer for me. But they're very good at it. *veg*

The Last Step
by evil Jy

Yoji was dead. This time it was final, no doubt, no hope. Even Aya couldn't deny it. He had seen the corpse. Worse, Aya had been there when Yoji had fallen. He had had to watch from a distance, unable to prevent it or to interfere in anyway.

The sound of the shot that had taken Yoji at the shoulder still rung loud in Aya's ears. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw him drop backwards from the roof. Falling slowly, so damn slowly. One would think a body would decent much faster. But for Aya it had seemed like minutes before Yoji had hit the ground with a dull crack. Long enough for the blond assassin to register that he was about to die, in a horrible massy way.

His brain and blood had drawn cruel patterns on the street, a look of shock and disbelieve etched in his features.

No matter how hard Aya tried he only could remember Yoji with this look on his face. In every situation he recalled from his memory Yoji wore a mask of sorrow and regret or he had no face at all.

Aya hadn't cried yet and he didn't think he ever would. There were no tears left in him. All emotions he might have been capable of had died with Yoji. Now his heart was as cold and hard as people kept gossiping about. He hoped it would stay this way forever. Because he never wanted to feel what he knew he should feel. When his sister finally had passed away Yoji had been there to hold him at night while he had silently grieved for a life taken much too early. Yoji hadn't asked any questions, hadn't demanded from Aya to talk about his pain. Then he had reminded Aya of the reasons why he should keep living. That he wasn't alone and damn well did deserve to be loved. A bit more time together with Yoji and Aya might even have believed him.

But now everything was shattered. Aya's heart, his soul, his hope, his trust in anything good and the frame of the picture of him and Yoji. On the missions following Yoji's dead he had become the cold blooded killer Kritiker always had wished for. He didn't care anymore who he killed, there wasn't even a second of hesitation before he struck. No nightmares hunted him when he rested, because he didn't thought nor felt anything anymore. He was as dead inside as were the bodies of his sister and Yoji.

Sometimes he cursed his survival instinct that kept him from lowering his defences in a fight and from running into the next bullet that was aimed at him. So Aya continued this non-living, just existing, of his. Waiting for the day that would end this sorry excuse of a life for sure.

At least Kritiker were delighted. The hated relationship between the two team-mates had dissolved itself without any interference from the organisation. In their eyes Yoji's passing wasn't a great lost. He had become more and more unpredictable. His new found love only making matters worse. But they knew better than to let anyone of the remaining Weiß members know that. There was no need for a psychologist's assessment to tell them that this would be the last straw for Aya and he would turn against them. In this case Omi and Ken would be loyal to him, that was for sure, too.

They sent Manx and Birman to feign sorrow about the lost of an valuable and effective killer and too keep close watch of the remaining three. Kritiker didn't intend to assign a new fourth member to the team; they didn't want to take any chances. The only thing that did change was the number of Aya's solo missions. They had increased in the time after Yoji's death to an amount where Aya was occupied nearly every night. If he wasn't on a mission with Weiß, he was out alone, killing even more people.

What Kritiker didn't know was that Aya was well aware of their take of the whole situation. But he couldn't care less about it. He knew in some small corner of his mind that not too long before he would have gone berserk on such news. Now he saw how meaningless it were, it wouldn't bring Yoji back to life, it wouldn't change nothing but endangering Ken and Omi, too. So he kept quiet.

Silently he had always thought that one day his luck would simply run out, that someone would just be better than him. Never would he have imagine how his life would really come to an end.

Nine months after Yoji's fall, Aya couldn't sleep. Instead he was sitting at his window, watching the nightlife of Tokyo and trying very hard not to remember. But this night Yoji's memories were hunting him like restless ghosts. Happy and sad times alike were replaying themselves in his mind. How Yoji had made love to him many many times. How he had hold him at night, made him laugh, to crack up Aya's cold façade. He saw them both sitting by his little sister's bed, holding her hands and telling her stories, never doubting that she could hear them. How often they had tended to each others wounds. Then their fights, small and big ones.

Sighting Aya stood up and walked to his desk. Often had he rebuked Yoji for his many addictions. Now he had fallen himself. The first bottle scotch had been Yoji's. When Aya had gone thru his things to clean out Yoji's room he had found it in the bedside table. Instead of just throwing it away he had taken a gulp. The alcohol had burned down his throat and he had thought it would come out again through his noise. It had been too long since he had drunk anything stronger than a beer. But when the scotch had settled in his stomached it had felt strangely good. The taste in his mouth was like Yoji had tasted many times when they had kissed. Back then he had been disgusted of it but now he favoured it. Because odd as it may be this only brought pleasant corporal feelings with it, no emotions nor memories.

Aya hadn't become a alcoholic over the month, although he always had a nice stock of Yoji's favourite scotch and wine in his desk. On those nights like this, when he was alone and restless and his mind wouldn't quiet down Aya would pick a bottle or two, sit by the window and drink himself slowly into a stupor.

No one knew. At least he hoped so. He always made sure that he was alone, his door locked and he was very good at hiding the occasionally hangover he may have. People didn't talk to him much anymore these days, so it wasn't difficult to manage.

Embracing the bottle Aya sat at the window again, now watching without seeing. He would let the images play out like they wanted, not fighting them until the alcohol would do it's magic. It still burned and truthfully he hated the smell of it, too. But it was a bit of punishment for him and also the pain was good at distracting him.

Still, nothing would work tonight. The bottle was half empty and the images didn't even slow down. They were so vivid it was frightening. As if dreams and memories became more real than reality itself. A very tiny and distance voice in his mind commented that he probably was going insane now, finally. A much louder and bolder voice countered that he already had been for a long time. Aya didn't partake at the ongoing discussion, instead he took another deep gulp.

Why wasn't he getting sleepy? Rather he became more restless and even paranoid. Because sine a few minutes he had the feel of being watched, of another presence in the room with him. Though knowing that this was impossible and not wanting to give in to this new madness, he didn't turn around and looked but fixed his eyes with new determination on the lights of Tokyo.

So when a hand touched his left shoulder, he couldn't completely suppress the shudder that went through him - not more since the alcohol had at least managed to relax his muscles. Still he didn't turn around, but a sickening feeling settled in his stomach, replacing the warm, fuzzy feeling he had so hard worked for. It got worse when another hand grabbed his right should and squeezed slightly. Soft breath tickled his ear there and even the small voice from just a few minutes ago now agreed wholeheartedly with the louder one that he was long past simply mad. But Aya couldn't listen to them as there was a new voice demanding his attention, whispering in his ear.

"Don't be scared, Aya. It's just me."

"Yoji…" For a fleeting moment Aya pondered if someone had messed with the scotch or if he had died without noticing it.

"No, you're still quite alive and for the scotch, let me see." Aya saw a hand that looked very much like Yoji's and very much alive, too, grab the bottle from him and he turned in time to see a very real looking Yoji take a deep swallow from it like he had used to.

"Nope, that stuff is alright. You don't mind if I take the rest? It's been too long."

"Dead or not, get your own bottle!" With that he snatched the scotch out of Yoji's hands and for good measure, emptied it at once. No way would he let a ghost or insane vision of his get the last of his drink. Wouldn't that be a waste of good alcohol anyway?

"And here I thought you would be happy to see me. Or…", suddenly Yoji leaned forward till he was nose to nose with Aya and looked him straight into his eyes, "… or do you still not believe that it's really me. I'm no vision nor dream and I don't think I'm a ghost. Much too solid for that.

"To be truthful I don't really understand what I'm now and I don't care. For some time after my very real death I have been kinda nowhere. I wouldn't describe it as a place 'cause there wasn't anything. Neither light nor darkness, no shapes, no sounds. I didn't even had a body or at least I couldn't feel it! There was just me and my thoughts alone. You can guess that most of the time it was you who occupied my mind. So while I was thinking of you and wondering what you where up to these days, if you even had survived that day, suddenly there were you. At first I only could see you, but wasn't able to hear anything. It was night and you were in your mission gear and hacking thru a bunch of goons. Your eyes, Aya, they were colder than I remembered. I don't think you really saw who you were killing back there. But that didn't matter to me 'cause even covered with blood and gore you looked stunningly beautiful to me. I could feel my heart again 'cause it suddenly arched for you; my hands 'cause my fingers itched to touch you; my legs and feet 'cause they wanted nothing more than to run to you. Well and I could feel some other important body parts, but I think you can imagine that."

That was Yoji's trademark grin the no-ghost, no-vision thing flashed Aya. This prompted the brain cells in Aya's head to process the information presented. He now tried to actually listen what "Yoji" was saying.

"I watched you for quite some time. On your missions with Omi and Ken, when you were working in the flower shop or when you took your solo missions. I could gut Kritiker for this if I didn't know it was as much your fault as it was theirs. Tho I can't really blame you. You don't have much left these day, do you, Aya?"

He didn't answer to that. Because what was there to say? His sister and his lover were both death and he had no purpose in life anymore. So Aya kept quiet.

"Exactly. Oh and before you wonder, yes, I can read your thoughts. It was the first I could hear again. Strange, isn't it?"

"Why are you here, Yoji? What do you want from me?" There was pain in Aya's voice, real bleeding pain. It made Yoji sit back on his heels. He silently look up at Aya, the expression on his face grave, the brilliant green eyes, that Aya had loved so much, clear and deep.

Only now did Aya noticed that Yoji seemed a bit different. He still looked the same but something had changed at him and it centred in his eyes.

"I want you to come with me, love. Leave this worthless life behind. You yourself think of it as just existing and I agree with you. If I had any notion of it getting better anytime, that there was still happiness possible for you, I wouldn't have come to you. But I think it can get only worse and I don't want to see your spirit broken to nothing and your dead body lying in some back alley, only to be found days later by some bum.

"I don't know what the afterlife really is. Until now it only existed of nothing or of you. Maybe together we will leave this world behind us completely. For me it doesn't matter if we go to hell or heaven or neither. I just want to be with you, I need to know you're by my side!"

"You want me to commit suicide?" Aya was startled, that he certainly hadn't expected. He had thought about it, but for one he didn't want to leave Ken and Omi with the burden of his dead body or the uncertainty. Also this strange survival instinct of his was too strong, he could willingly kill his soul but not his body. That he just couldn't do.

"Not as you think. I don't want you to slit your wrist or anything. I don't want Omi and Ken to find your body, neither. It's… I can't explain you how but I know that if you take my hands and if you really want to come with me, all you have to do is take one step and you will cease to exist in this world. You would be with me, body and soul. Don't ask me how this is possible. I don't know the answer to it as I don't know why I can stand here before you with a solid body, while we both know that my body should be buried six feet deep and looking really ugly by now."

Suddenly Aya didn't want to ponder about the why and how. One though only repeated itself in Aya's head. Louder than any of the voices, discussing his state of sanity or insanity for that matter. To be with Yoji, to be by his side again. With this thought everything fell away from Aya. The pain and sadness he felt but hadn't acknowledge. The fatigue that had weighted him down. He felt rested and refreshed. Alive! Odd considered that he was about to end his life. But that, too, he didn't question. To be with Yoji, to be by his side again. It was all that matted. He didn't asked what Omi and the others would think. He suddenly knew it would be alright, they would understand. Even without his corpse or a suicide note. Was it like this for Yoji, too? Just to know without understanding or needing to understand it.

Maybe that was what death was all about, to have all the answers you really need and to not worry about the rest. Aya wanted this, as much as he wanted Yoji.

His eyes locked with Yoji's, Aya slowly got up from the window seat and stood straight before his lover. Decision made he didn't want to waste time.

"What do I need to do?"

Yoji took Aya's hands in his own and graced his lips with a feather light kiss. "Just one step. Think about leaving this existing behind and take one step with me, that's all, I promise," he whispered against the lips of the man he loved most in life and death.

Aya didn't hesitated and followed Yoji who lightly tugged at his hands - not pulling Aya but encouraging him. The moment Aya's foot should have touched the ground again, the lovers vanished from the room. No blinding light illuminated the room, no sound marked their departure from this plane of existing. They just ceased to be.

The next morning the uproar was great. Kritiker believed their agent on the run from them. Omi and Ken were interrogated for hours but couldn't give any helpful information. Of course they were suspected to have helped Aya on his escape, not that anyone said as much. Still, no evidence could be gathered, no clue be found. Window and door had both been closed from the inside. No sign of an violent act. Years to come, the whereabouts of Kritiker agent Fujimiya Aya would stay a mystery. He was the first to ever get completely away from the organisation.

Ken and Omi worried for their team mate a couple of days long, as they, too, couldn't understand what had happened. But then a strange calm overcame them, banishing any doubts about Aya's well being. Even as they couldn't explain how, they just knew that Aya and Yoji were once again together and that was all they needed to know.

End

Thank you for your patience...