Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ What Might Have Been ❯ One-Shot
[ A - All Readers ]
By: RurouniTriv 
Aya's thoughts.
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 04.24.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 571 | Status: Completed
Aya's thoughts.
Anime/Manga: Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 04.24.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 571 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, dont sue.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
By RurouniTriv
I wonder sometimes. What my life would have been like. Who I would have been. What I would have done, if things had been different.
I wasnt always like this. Not always the cold, ruthless bastard that I have become... and yes, I know thats what I am. It is my defense, my way of maintaining what little sanity I have. I had to lock my heart away, lest it be shattered by what I have become. By what I have endured.
Its not easy growing up in Japan when you have red hair and funny-colored eyes. When I was young, I used to get teased about it a lot. But Id tell them that it was something that ran in my family, skipping a generation or two sometimes, and not a sign of me being a half-breed or illegitimate. And Aya, being younger than me, took it in stride. As far as she was concerned, I was her brother, and I wasnt supposed to look like anyone else, because Im special . Kid-logic. I never minded, though, because it meant that with one person, I never had to be anything but myself. Even my parents werent totally unaffected by having a son who looked so odd. They had to field the questions same as I did, and I think that was part of why I didnt have as tight a bond with them as I did with Aya. That defensiveness came between us.
Dont get me wrong, I loved them. They were my parents, and they loved me and wanted the best for me. They never let me feel as if I was a freak or somehow wrong just because I was different. But they knew I was different and made an effort to show me that they didnt care, that I was still their son. They tried so hard that it wound up making a difference anyway.
But the problems outside the family that put such a strain on the relationship I had with my parents didnt really hurt me. If anything, they made me stronger. I tried harder to prove myself, I learned how to fight and how to avoid fighting, I worked harder at school. By the time that I graduated high school, I had been accepted at Tokyo University. My life lay ahead of me, utterly predictable, controlled. Id go to university, graduate, and join my familys business. When the time came, Id marry - perhaps a girl of my own choice, perhaps someone my parents picked for me. When my father was ready to step down and enjoy the fruits of his labors, Id take over where he left off. It was the same path my father had taken, and his father before him after the War. Everything was moving along as orderly as a bullet-trains schedule.
And then my life got derailed. My parents were killed, my father framed for embezzlement, our home destroyed, and I found myself with a half-dead sister on my hands, no money, and no prospects for a job that could come anywhere close to paying for the medical bills due for a comatose sixteen-year-old girl. Perhaps if Takatori hadnt run her over that night, we could have made it. It would have been hard, I would have had to get a second job and forget about going to university, but it could have happened. If she hadnt been injured, if my parents deaths had been accident instead of murder, if Takatoris influence hadnt ensured that I had no access to the familys money, we would have made it. Instead...
...instead, I became an assassin. A murderer for hire. I closed off my heart and damned my soul, all for the love I bore my family. Let no one tell you that love is a pure and innocent thing, for it has led me into the very belly of hell. To protect my sister, to avenge my parents dishonor, I would do anything, I have done everything.
Three years I spent killing, while my sister lay in unnatural slumber. Three years of obsession, hate, and self-loathing. I knew what I had become, what I was falling ever-deeper into, and did not care. I clung only to the thought of my sister, and revenge. For her I would kill, for my family I would destroy Takatori Reiji. I would make him feel the pain that I felt.
For the last of those years, I went by my sisters name, to keep the fires of hate burning brightly. Every time someone spoke to me, I would be reminded.
And the others wondered why I went berserk at the sight of Takatori. Why the mere name was enough to set me off. Even that was enough to remind me of all that I had lost, all I could have been. Selfish as it might be, I knew only that I had to be the one to kill him.
In the end, I did. I managed to corner the viper at long last, and nearly died doing it. I hadnt expected him to be a swordsman. But then, I hadnt expected to find myself working beside a pair of his closest kin, either. I hurt Omi rather badly when I first found out, Im afraid. I reacted without thinking, the knowledge that he was a Takatori temporarily overriding my awareness that he was my teammate and a good man for all his youth.
I did manage to get over it, although, as usual, I couldnt admit it until the worst possible moment. Telling him that he was Tsukiyono, not Takatori, only after hed just killed his brother? Gods, Im such an idiot. Im surprised I didnt get a dart somewhere painful.
It is fortunate that Omi is more forgiving than I.
And then, after Takatoris death, a brief respite. Takatori Reiji was gone, and with him Kritikers Persia, Reijis brother Shuiichi. Kritiker was in disarray, Weiss was wanted by the government thanks to the frame perpetrated by Takatoris private army. And Weiss? We retreated to Villa Weiss to lick our wounds and mourn our dead.
I hadnt let myself do that before. But in the quiet stillness of the mountains, with my parents killer dead at my hands, I could wander off by myself and grieve for them. I indulged myself for a full week before I left. Id taken vengeance for my family, I didnt need Kritiker to make sure that Takatori didnt track Aya down and use her against me. There were no Takatoris left, only our Tsukiyono. And while our genki one is far from harmless, hes no danger to me.
I honestly thought it was over at that point. Rather stupid of me to think that I could just put down my sword and walk away, I suppose. Life - especially my life - is rarely so kind.
But I left the team, took on a new identity and found a job. It wasnt much, just working construction. I could have gotten a job as a florist, I had gotten pretty good at ikebana, but there were too many memories caught up in that. Of the Koneko and of Weiss. Id rather not have been reminded. Id rather build something that will last more than a few days.
I fell into a routine very quickly. Get up, go to work, get off work, visit Aya, return to my minimalist apartment, and go to bed, only to wake and do the same thing over again in a mind-numbing round of physical and emotional labor.
In an odd way, I was content. I was creating, not destroying. I didnt have any close friends, but I was respected for my willingness to work, and it was rather like my life might have been had my parents deaths been accident instead of homicide. If Aya had been awake, I might even have been almost happy.
And then Schreint resurrected themselves, stealing Aya from her hospital bed, and I returned to Weiss to use Kritikers resources to track them down.
It is fortunate for Schwartz that I do not have powers as they do. If I had possessed the ability, I would have killed them with a thought for daring to lay hands on my sister, to take her away when we had just found her again. It took long and painful weeks to find her again, and then it was a hard and bloody battle to rescue her from the mad Elders of Esset. We gave her into Manx care while we fought against Esset and Schwartz and barely escaped with our lives when the island upon which our battle was waged sank beneath the waves.
Im told that they thought we were dead for almost a week before we resurfaced, one at a time. Weiss was reborn, and I returned to the team rather than going to my sister. I didnt even let her know that I was still alive. It was... easier, letting her think I was dead. I didnt have to face her, knowing what I had become. She could remember me as her Ran-niisan rather than Abyssinian.
Have I mentioned that Im a fool? When Kritiker assigned us all to a mobile florist shop as our cover, I went along with it. What a disaster. Yohji drank far more than he did at the Koneko, Ken was going mad, Omi was beside himself with the stress of trying to deal with both of them... add to that the fact that there was no privacy in that damned trailer and no way to get away from each other when we needed to, and its a minor miracle we didnt do ourselves in. As it was, Ken and Yohji both got taken out of action after that fiasco. Psych problems.
It figures that once I got Aya out of the hospital, Id wind up spending more time at one visiting them. Life sucks that way.
I nod as one of the students Im teaching comes up to me, asking me... something. I answer, rather absently, not caring much. Ive got to go to the hospital to go get Yohji. Hes gone back for his last checkup before being reinstated to Weiss.
Kens out too, but hes strictly reserve now. Well call him if theres something really bad, but it wont be the constant emotional hammering he received when he was a full part of the team. The situations will probably be worse, but hell have the time to recover between missions, to play soccer with his kids and be a normal guy. Hes quieter now, the innocent optimism of our earlier years gone forever. He never should have been an assassin. It didnt suit him. He cared too much.
Omis found a new niche too. Hes our new Persia, one that can be trusted to work for justice. To keep the line between the light and the dark clear.
And me? For a while, I reunited with Aya. She writes me every week without fail from Germany, where shes in medical school. But I didnt leave Weiss. Now, I am its undisputed leader, and teacher of more subjects than are taught in the posh private school where I work in my cover identity. The new Weiss are students here, which gives them the perfect cover as well. We havent figured out quite how were going to get Yohji here, but it shouldnt be too hard to convince the other teachers that he and I are lovers.
Soon, very soon, it will be true. The bond we formed while he was in the hospital is a strong one. Stronger than anything else Ive ever felt. And Im going to enjoy making it stronger.
After all that weve done, all weve been through, I think we deserve a little happiness.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
By RurouniTriv
I wonder sometimes. What my life would have been like. Who I would have been. What I would have done, if things had been different.
I wasnt always like this. Not always the cold, ruthless bastard that I have become... and yes, I know thats what I am. It is my defense, my way of maintaining what little sanity I have. I had to lock my heart away, lest it be shattered by what I have become. By what I have endured.
Its not easy growing up in Japan when you have red hair and funny-colored eyes. When I was young, I used to get teased about it a lot. But Id tell them that it was something that ran in my family, skipping a generation or two sometimes, and not a sign of me being a half-breed or illegitimate. And Aya, being younger than me, took it in stride. As far as she was concerned, I was her brother, and I wasnt supposed to look like anyone else, because Im special . Kid-logic. I never minded, though, because it meant that with one person, I never had to be anything but myself. Even my parents werent totally unaffected by having a son who looked so odd. They had to field the questions same as I did, and I think that was part of why I didnt have as tight a bond with them as I did with Aya. That defensiveness came between us.
Dont get me wrong, I loved them. They were my parents, and they loved me and wanted the best for me. They never let me feel as if I was a freak or somehow wrong just because I was different. But they knew I was different and made an effort to show me that they didnt care, that I was still their son. They tried so hard that it wound up making a difference anyway.
But the problems outside the family that put such a strain on the relationship I had with my parents didnt really hurt me. If anything, they made me stronger. I tried harder to prove myself, I learned how to fight and how to avoid fighting, I worked harder at school. By the time that I graduated high school, I had been accepted at Tokyo University. My life lay ahead of me, utterly predictable, controlled. Id go to university, graduate, and join my familys business. When the time came, Id marry - perhaps a girl of my own choice, perhaps someone my parents picked for me. When my father was ready to step down and enjoy the fruits of his labors, Id take over where he left off. It was the same path my father had taken, and his father before him after the War. Everything was moving along as orderly as a bullet-trains schedule.
And then my life got derailed. My parents were killed, my father framed for embezzlement, our home destroyed, and I found myself with a half-dead sister on my hands, no money, and no prospects for a job that could come anywhere close to paying for the medical bills due for a comatose sixteen-year-old girl. Perhaps if Takatori hadnt run her over that night, we could have made it. It would have been hard, I would have had to get a second job and forget about going to university, but it could have happened. If she hadnt been injured, if my parents deaths had been accident instead of murder, if Takatoris influence hadnt ensured that I had no access to the familys money, we would have made it. Instead...
...instead, I became an assassin. A murderer for hire. I closed off my heart and damned my soul, all for the love I bore my family. Let no one tell you that love is a pure and innocent thing, for it has led me into the very belly of hell. To protect my sister, to avenge my parents dishonor, I would do anything, I have done everything.
Three years I spent killing, while my sister lay in unnatural slumber. Three years of obsession, hate, and self-loathing. I knew what I had become, what I was falling ever-deeper into, and did not care. I clung only to the thought of my sister, and revenge. For her I would kill, for my family I would destroy Takatori Reiji. I would make him feel the pain that I felt.
For the last of those years, I went by my sisters name, to keep the fires of hate burning brightly. Every time someone spoke to me, I would be reminded.
And the others wondered why I went berserk at the sight of Takatori. Why the mere name was enough to set me off. Even that was enough to remind me of all that I had lost, all I could have been. Selfish as it might be, I knew only that I had to be the one to kill him.
In the end, I did. I managed to corner the viper at long last, and nearly died doing it. I hadnt expected him to be a swordsman. But then, I hadnt expected to find myself working beside a pair of his closest kin, either. I hurt Omi rather badly when I first found out, Im afraid. I reacted without thinking, the knowledge that he was a Takatori temporarily overriding my awareness that he was my teammate and a good man for all his youth.
I did manage to get over it, although, as usual, I couldnt admit it until the worst possible moment. Telling him that he was Tsukiyono, not Takatori, only after hed just killed his brother? Gods, Im such an idiot. Im surprised I didnt get a dart somewhere painful.
It is fortunate that Omi is more forgiving than I.
And then, after Takatoris death, a brief respite. Takatori Reiji was gone, and with him Kritikers Persia, Reijis brother Shuiichi. Kritiker was in disarray, Weiss was wanted by the government thanks to the frame perpetrated by Takatoris private army. And Weiss? We retreated to Villa Weiss to lick our wounds and mourn our dead.
I hadnt let myself do that before. But in the quiet stillness of the mountains, with my parents killer dead at my hands, I could wander off by myself and grieve for them. I indulged myself for a full week before I left. Id taken vengeance for my family, I didnt need Kritiker to make sure that Takatori didnt track Aya down and use her against me. There were no Takatoris left, only our Tsukiyono. And while our genki one is far from harmless, hes no danger to me.
I honestly thought it was over at that point. Rather stupid of me to think that I could just put down my sword and walk away, I suppose. Life - especially my life - is rarely so kind.
But I left the team, took on a new identity and found a job. It wasnt much, just working construction. I could have gotten a job as a florist, I had gotten pretty good at ikebana, but there were too many memories caught up in that. Of the Koneko and of Weiss. Id rather not have been reminded. Id rather build something that will last more than a few days.
I fell into a routine very quickly. Get up, go to work, get off work, visit Aya, return to my minimalist apartment, and go to bed, only to wake and do the same thing over again in a mind-numbing round of physical and emotional labor.
In an odd way, I was content. I was creating, not destroying. I didnt have any close friends, but I was respected for my willingness to work, and it was rather like my life might have been had my parents deaths been accident instead of homicide. If Aya had been awake, I might even have been almost happy.
And then Schreint resurrected themselves, stealing Aya from her hospital bed, and I returned to Weiss to use Kritikers resources to track them down.
It is fortunate for Schwartz that I do not have powers as they do. If I had possessed the ability, I would have killed them with a thought for daring to lay hands on my sister, to take her away when we had just found her again. It took long and painful weeks to find her again, and then it was a hard and bloody battle to rescue her from the mad Elders of Esset. We gave her into Manx care while we fought against Esset and Schwartz and barely escaped with our lives when the island upon which our battle was waged sank beneath the waves.
Im told that they thought we were dead for almost a week before we resurfaced, one at a time. Weiss was reborn, and I returned to the team rather than going to my sister. I didnt even let her know that I was still alive. It was... easier, letting her think I was dead. I didnt have to face her, knowing what I had become. She could remember me as her Ran-niisan rather than Abyssinian.
Have I mentioned that Im a fool? When Kritiker assigned us all to a mobile florist shop as our cover, I went along with it. What a disaster. Yohji drank far more than he did at the Koneko, Ken was going mad, Omi was beside himself with the stress of trying to deal with both of them... add to that the fact that there was no privacy in that damned trailer and no way to get away from each other when we needed to, and its a minor miracle we didnt do ourselves in. As it was, Ken and Yohji both got taken out of action after that fiasco. Psych problems.
It figures that once I got Aya out of the hospital, Id wind up spending more time at one visiting them. Life sucks that way.
I nod as one of the students Im teaching comes up to me, asking me... something. I answer, rather absently, not caring much. Ive got to go to the hospital to go get Yohji. Hes gone back for his last checkup before being reinstated to Weiss.
Kens out too, but hes strictly reserve now. Well call him if theres something really bad, but it wont be the constant emotional hammering he received when he was a full part of the team. The situations will probably be worse, but hell have the time to recover between missions, to play soccer with his kids and be a normal guy. Hes quieter now, the innocent optimism of our earlier years gone forever. He never should have been an assassin. It didnt suit him. He cared too much.
Omis found a new niche too. Hes our new Persia, one that can be trusted to work for justice. To keep the line between the light and the dark clear.
And me? For a while, I reunited with Aya. She writes me every week without fail from Germany, where shes in medical school. But I didnt leave Weiss. Now, I am its undisputed leader, and teacher of more subjects than are taught in the posh private school where I work in my cover identity. The new Weiss are students here, which gives them the perfect cover as well. We havent figured out quite how were going to get Yohji here, but it shouldnt be too hard to convince the other teachers that he and I are lovers.
Soon, very soon, it will be true. The bond we formed while he was in the hospital is a strong one. Stronger than anything else Ive ever felt. And Im going to enjoy making it stronger.
After all that weve done, all weve been through, I think we deserve a little happiness.