Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Through the Eyes of an Immortal ❯ Distant Memories ( Chapter 6 )

I don't own Weiß, nor do I own the series Highlander. Their respective owners own those two.

Note: Italics within this story are used for thoughts. Also anything in between ~~~~ and ~~~~ are flash backs ^__^

"I see by the look on your face that you've heard of them." Duncan said as soon as he caught the look on Ran's face.

Ran nodded slightly. He was by far, too numb to speak. A Watcher had killed his old friend Darius, an immortal who was, to his knowledge, the oldest one on earth. To say what had happened was a shock to the three hundred year old assassin would be a complete understatement.

It was also unheard of, that a watcher would go and do something as sinister as causing the death of a humble, inactive immortal; much less one who was a priest, who believed in nothing but helping people. What the watchers were supposed to do was what their name implied. They were to watch the immortals, the good ones, the bad ones, as well as the neutral. They were the chroniclers of their chosen immortal, even when the ones they observed rarely knew about their presence.

Ran looked at his Scottish friend. "Who did it and why was it allowed to happen?"

Duncan inhaled deeply. "A renegade Watcher by the name of James Horton was responsible for killing Darius." He paused for a second then continued. "It was also because of him that Tessa died." He momentary looked at Ran. "Anyway, the reason why he was "allowed" to do such a thing was because another friend and I got to the church too late. Other wise that psychopath wouldn't have been able to touch Darius, much less kill him. Besides, it wasn't like he had some sort of extravagant motive; he just thought we shouldn't exist at all. You know the whole "all immortals are evil" bullshit. I tell you because of him we were almost found out. The idiot."

Ran raised one of his delicate crimson eyebrows. "You did stop him, right?"

"Stopped him? I killed the bastard. I had to, or else he would have tried to kill all of us." Duncan's voiced held a satisfied tone to it. "I doubt I should have let him live after he destroyed so many of us for no reason. We have our own troubles to worry about with the game and not having some psycho after us."

Ran didn't say anything, didn't judge him. He had no right to anyway. He was worse than his own friend; although one could always justify his own actions with Kritiker by saying that they deserved it even among immortal standards. It didn't, though, make him feel any better about the whole situation. He was after all only an assassin for a certain reason, one he loathed to remember but he did none the less.

Duncan cleared his throat noisily. "So, Ran, care to tell me how you knew about the Watchers? It's not something that's common knowledge with our kind." He stared at the younger immortal in interest.

"Hn…" Was the only reply the Scotsman received.

As soon as that was said the crimson haired man began to move again, this time heading off the sidewalk into a forest area that a small park lay in, hidden to the naked eye of the road.

Ran stopped at a bench and sat down, gesturing to his old friend to do the same.

After a few moments of waiting for Duncan to make himself comfortable, he began to speak again. "Do you remember how I stayed in the monastery with Darius for a few years after you got my sword back for me?"

"Yeah."

"Well, after a few years of staying with him, I had to leave. His beliefs and mine tended to clash too much for my liking. He had his Christian, peaceful beliefs while I still clung to the ways of the samurai as I was taught by my father and then later Shion. Perhaps, it was for another reason all together, I don't know. It's been so long, that I can barely remember, but whatever the cause was, I ended up returning here to Japan."

Duncan nodded his head. He had also gone through the peaceful teachings of the monk; so he could understand exactly what the Japanese man had went through. After all, it wasn't an easy curriculum for a person, mortal or immortal, to follow, especially when you had to consider the nature of all human beings. Finding a peaceful solution to something wouldn't be an aspect of training a samurai would receive. "I know what you mean, Ran, but that doesn't have anything to do with how you know about the Watchers."

"I'm getting there, Duncan." Ran flashed a tiny smile over in his direction. "For being over four hundred years old, you'd think you'd at least have learned a little something about patience by now. You need to work on that. Anyway, as I was saying, I came back here and lived, watching as the times and people changed. It was quite interesting to see. Although, around twenty years ago, I found out about the Watchers."

"You've known about them for a quarter of a century and never once mentioned it to anyone?!" Duncan cried out in disbelief.

"And it took you how many years after Darius' death to see me and inform me about it?" Ran pointed out.

Duncan felt his cheeks heating up in a slight blush of embarrassment, "Well, I did have things that kept popping up and well… you know…"

"As did I, so in a way, I guess you could say that we're even on that matter ne? Now as I was saying, it was around twenty years ago, when I came across the Watchers. Although, at the time, I didn't know that he was one."

Ran gazed around the park, that the two sat in, thoughtfully. "It was in this park that we met actually. I had been sitting here, in this spot, watching as parents brought their children here to play. I've always enjoyed doing that you know. Sitting watching the children play here all the while growing up, then, bringing their own children here and doing the exact same thing. Anyway, I ended up staying here until it was almost time for the sun to set, so I got up to leave. I was making my way over to the entrance of the park when it hit me."

"What that you were being followed by someone?"

"Actually… let me rephrase that. I should have said, that's when he hit me…"

"What?" Duncan exclaimed.

"He fell out of a tree and landed on top of me."

"He fell onto you?"

"Yeah…"

A look of disbelief flashed over Duncan's face.

"Anyway, it took him almost an hour to stop apologizing, and when he did he told me the reason as to why he was there."

"He actually confessed right off the bat to being a Watcher?"

"No, he told me about how he brought his wife and newborn daughter to the park for a little picnic."

"So, he wasn't your watcher?"

"He was. It's just that I didn't find out about that until much later, maybe around a few weeks later. Then again, I pretty much had to force it out of him after I kept spotting him everywhere I went. Coincidences are bound to happen on occasion… but to see him no matter where I went is something that's highly unlikely.

"True…"

"The strangest thing about it was, I ended up finding out that he and I were related to each other. As in, he turned out to be the descendant of one of my father's brothers."

"Ok, Ran, let me see if I have all of this down correctly. This guy, who so carelessly crashed into you because he was stupid enough to fall out of a tree, wasn't just your watcher, but was also a distant cousin of yours? I was always led to believe that something like that wasn't allowed to happen with Watchers."

Ran shrugged. "Honestly, I still don't very much about them. He was kind of tight lipped on exactly how they did things. Don't get me wrong I do know how to identify them and what not, but on to your next question. Yes, we were related. We're both Fujimiya's. Moreover, he owned this tiny black book which held in its pages our family history. Then there was the fact that he and his daughter did hold some resemblance to my aunt while she was still alive."

Duncan kept his mouth closed through all of this. He wanted to object to the likeliness of all of it being true, but with the points that Ran had given him, he couldn't quite argue with his friend's logic. He gave a slight shake of his head. "So what happened after that?"

"I started going over to their house every once in a while, then it ended up being and everyday thing. I think that ended up getting on his wife's nerves so she just demanded that I stayed with them to live. I was going to turn them down at first but decided not to argue with her. I swear that woman could probably have made mountains move with just one word. If she set her mind to it that is."

Ran leaned his head back and gazed into the sky thoughtfully. "You know, Duncan, it's pretty funny how time can just seem to slip right past you when you're actually happy."

~~~~

A young girl of around eight years old bounced into a tiny living room. Her two pigtails flew behind her almost as if some unseen force was holding them aloft.

As soon as she entered into the room, she halted and glanced around. Her midnight blue eyes alighted on a lone figure sitting within the room and emitted a small squeal of delight as she recognized who it was. It was her "ni-chan" sitting in a plush recliner sipping on a cup of tea.

A smile spread from her bow like lips and in an instant she was off again at an astonishing speed. This time… in the direction of the young man.

When she came within a few feet of him, she jumped up, flying into the air and landed in his lap, almost causing him to spill the hot contents over the both of them.

"Aya!" Ran half yelled out and set down the steaming cup. "Warn me next time you decide to go and do something like that. I don't want to spill my tea on you and you get scalded."

The young child called Aya just giggled. Every day the same thing happened and every time that it did her "ni-chan" would say the exact same thing. To her it was nothing but a game. One she enjoyed playing because it was the only time she could ever catch him off guard.

Ran wrapped his arms around the girl and smiled. He was on the verge of chiding her again when she spoke up.

"Ran-nichan! Ran-nichan! Guess what!"

"What?"

"When I grow up I'm going to marry you!"

Ran laughed faintly at her words. "Aya, if I married you. I wouldn't be your ni-chan, besides by the time you are old enough, I'll be a wrinkled, old prune, laying on his death bed. I don't think you would want something like at would you?"

Aya's face took on a crestfallen look as her ni-chan turned down her proposal. The look only lasted for a few seconds before a smile once again crept back, brightening her petite face. Her midnight blue iris sought out his violet ones. Her smile widening before she proclaimed in a loud voice, "Ran-nichan, you'll never get like that! You're going to live forever and not change!"

A miniscule smile formed over Ran's lips when she spoke those words. Pulling her into a tight embrace, he looked out over her head. An old grandfather clock loomed against the wall.

He stared at it in slight fascination; his mind going over what Aya had said while the seconds of eternal time passed by. He couldn't help but think about how such, a young, innocent child, could be so right about him.

~~~~

Duncan stared at his friend in astonishment. "You mean you've been living with them for twenty years now?"

Ran shook his head. "No, a couple of years ago, something happened. It forced me to move back out on my own again."

"What was it? Another immortal?"

"No, that wasn't it."

"Then what happened?"

Ran stood up.

"That is a tale best left untold until a later time." He said. An edge of iciness could be detected in his voice as he answered the Scottish man.

It was at that point Duncan realized, that whatever it was that had happened, it was a spot to the Japanese man, so he let the subject drop. He stood up as well. "All right, maybe we'll talk about it some other time."

Together the two men began walking again. Each one wrapped in their own thoughts of past times.

They walked together in silence for a couple of hours when Ran's cell phone began to ring.

"Moshi moshi…" Ran answered the phone then fell silent as he listened to the unknown voice at the other end. "Aa… I see. I'll be back as soon as I can." He hung up the phone and turned towards his friend. "I have to go back to the Koneko; they need me there."

"Alright, we'll go back. When you're finished working, would you like to join Amanda and I for dinner?"

"Amanda left."

"What? … What do you mean she left?"

"I was told that she left in search of something… fun… to do."

Duncan stood there as the information sank into his head then began to curse fluently in five different tongues. After a few minutes he calmed down and spoke to Ran once more. "I can't believe that woman, who knows what she's planning on stealing right now. I have to stop her, Ran, before she gets herself into too much trouble."

Ran nodded in agreement. "Hai."

"I wish we could talk more … but I guess we can't. When I find her… if I find her, that is, I'll try to come back. Anyway, I'll see you when I do."

With that said Duncan moved away from Ran, into the sea of mortals that surrounded them and disappeared.

Ran watched as his friend was out of sight and sighed. He couldn't help but think bout how convenient that it had been Omi calling him. Not about Amanda but about Manx, it just so happened that Amanda had decided to leave at that point in time. It ended up giving Ran the perfect excuse for him not to have Duncan follow him back.

He hated to admit it but he did tell his friend a little white lie about what Amanda was really doing. However, knowing some of the woman's history as he did, he knew that it would only stay a lie for a short period before actually becoming the truth.

Ran took one last look at the sky before he began to head back to the flower store.

An hour later he was walking inside the building through a side door.

As soon as he stepped past the door's threshold, Ken strode up to him from out of the shadows.

"Manx and the others are waiting in the mission room." He said, his voice a whisper.

"Hn…"

"Who were those people from earlier? Were they friends of yours?"

Ran ignored the boy's questions and entered the mission room.

As soon as he entered, he came face to face with her.

She stood in front of him. Her pale green eyes filled with impatience and anger at having to wait over an hour just for the man to show up.

"Abyssinian, must I remind you that the longer we spend here waiting for any one of you, the more time these evil doers have to wreck havoc in the city."

Ran snorted and leaned against the wall. "Time is linear." He muttered, and then turned his attention to the wide screen television that showed the filth of the known world.

Author's Notes: I finally did it!

Schu: Finally gave up hope on ever becoming a real writer?

No silly I finally finished this chapter…

Schu: … good for you…

Anyway… I doubt it's up to par but… I worked hard to get this thing out. I do hope you enjoy it. Read and review if you want to *shrugs* I'm out for now. Ja!