[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Walking on Hell
Scribblemoose

Never forget:
We walk on hell
Gazing at flowers

Issa

Interlude - Meditation 3

Aya sat in the car, a plain blue Toyota rather than his beloved Porsche, and stared intently out of the window. His white knuckled hands clenched the steering wheel as he watched Aya-chan opening up the flower shop.

She carried out buckets of flowers one by one, humming to herself as she worked, tweaking blooms into place. Tasks he'd done himself, day after day after day while he was caring for her, searching for her, always thinking of her. Always.

He wondered if she ever thought of him.

Once or twice, when he'd phoned the shop, unable to stop himself, desperate to hear her voice, she'd sounded a little breathless, excited... but how could she know it was him? More likely she'd expected it to be some new boyfriend on the other end of the line.

Except. There was no boyfriend. He knew. He knew when her classes were, which shifts she worked in the shop, what she was studying, which teachers she liked and which she hated, and he knew she didn't have a boyfriend.

Kritiker had their uses, after all.

Why hadn't it stopped?

His chest still ached from Schion's blade, his mentor's words still rang in his ears.

"Go back to your sister... she's been waiting for you for so long..."

Was she waiting for him?

He ought to go. He was meeting Yohji in half an hour, he had to go.

There was so little left. Schion and his group had swept through their lives like fire, leaving only the bare bones of Kritiker behind. So many gone - Manx, Birman, Kurasuma.... Even Weiss themselves... Omi was living with his grandfather now, Ken was in Kritiker's psychiatric unit, and Yohji-

Yohji was fighting his demons, as always. Alone.

The thought made Aya ache inside, but he told himself it didn't matter. He'd always known the end would come, again, and this was it.

He yearned to rush into the Koneko and sweep Aya-chan into his arms, twirl her around and bury his face in her sweet-smelling hair. To tell her he loved her, to hear her laughter.

But it was too dangerous, for her and for him. He needed to keep his focus. He couldn't have her in his life, so he needed to make her world better, the only way he really knew how.

Whenever Kritiker called him, Aya knew he'd be there. With that acceptance came an odd kind of peace. Aya-chan would never know his secret; she'd always remember the brother he'd wanted to be for her. This was his choice. It was enough.

He remembered a night, just a few months ago. Before Schion. When Yohji had crawled back from some bar, drunk and miserable, and looked at Aya with big green eyes, begging for comfort.

As if he could give Yohji the kind of comfort he wanted, sharing a trailer with Ken and Omi. Especially a feuding Ken and Omi.

So they went to a hotel.

Aya's eyes slid closed at the memory. Of hopeless kisses, the functional press of bodies. Sordid and pointless. Yohji tense, quiet, unreachable. His beauty tainted; polluted by his own misery.

Never again.

It had been so inevitable that it wasn't even a betrayal, when Yohji returned to the ghost of Asuka to wallow in his own sin. As inevitable as Ken's bloodlust, as Omi being a Takatori. Aya had known. Aya had always known.

With acceptance comes peace.

Aya-chan turned, and looked towards the car; Aya only just managed to duck down in time. He could feel her: her eyes searching the street on a whim, endlessly optimistic, sensing him close to her. His heart pounded in his chest, as if an enemy was stalking him.

He heard the distant, familiar ring of the Koneko door as Aya-chan went back inside.

Aya started the car, and drove away.