Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ To Tourney ❯ One-Shot

“To Tourney”
By Viridian5
11/9/04

RATING: PG
SPOILERS: “Mission 13: Bruch-- Rain of Revenge,” “Mission 15: Duell-- Hunters of Revenge,” “Mission 25: Ende des Weiss-- To the Knights,” and “Last Mission 13: Tomorrow.”
SUMMARY: Aya’s on a quest to save her brother.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things Weiß Kreuz belong to Takehito Koyasu, Project Weiß, Polygram k.k., and Animate Film. No infringement intended.

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“To Tourney”
By Viridian5
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She gasped as she rushed into the room. It was incredible! The people, the music, the decorations, the clothing.... As her weariness fell away, she saw that she now wore a beautiful kimono and had her hair swept up. At the beginning of her journey it would have surprised her, but she’d learned that the rules ran differently here. Still, she had to be wary of gifts.

As a servant handed her a drink, she watched the talk and dancers, longing to join in. Her years in a coma had left her particularly hungry for company. Was that Sakura over there? Sakura, dancing with one of the dashing men, smiled and waved.

That might not actually be Sakura, no matter what it looked like.

Aya didn’t dare let down her guard. She’d crossed the Dark Ocean of Sleep, navigated through the rose thorn maze, and braved the collapsing Halls of Fire before arriving here. If the Knight of Ghosts and Shadows thought he could use this party to distract her from her quest to get her brother back, he would soon learn differently.

“Good girl,” a familiar voice said. “Trust nothing. Except me, of course.”

She turned to face her foreigner, who looked even more eccentrically dressed in this crowd than he usually did. His long orange hair seemed to blaze against the deep green of his velvet coat, his black leather boots went up to his knees, and what she saw of his gray pants made her wonder if they were that tight everywhere on him.

He’d helped her before, particularly during her coma, by providing company and a bright touch of life and color to her world. She trusted him.

“It’s beautiful here,” she answered, letting some of her skepticism bleed into her voice.

“Of course it is. It’s a birthday party fit for a princess.”

Birthday.... Prompted, she looked for her brother and the knight. At least she found the knight. Arms crossed, as if protecting himself, he stood in a dark corner of the room, nearly a shadow himself in a long black coat. Dark red hair like her brother’s shadowed and hid his downcast face, which was further covered by a thin white porcelain mask.

She knew that the knight was her enemy, but he seemed so tired and beaten that she pitied him as well. It worried her that he resembled Ran so much, because it didn’t quite seem like a ruse.

He turned away, disappearing into the shadow, so she ran to reach him. She didn’t find a door in that corner. Frustrated, she tried to rip the paper wall with her fingers to follow him, but she couldn’t make a mark. Looking back at her foreigner, she saw him mime holding and slashing with a sword. Her katana! Whatever had dressed her differently hadn’t taken it from her. She’d received it from the sleeping blond man in the rose maze. As much as it worried her that she might be dishonoring this fine weapon in her ignorance, she still used it to cut and bludgeon at times. Now she used it to slice through the wall.

The partygoers grabbed at her sleeves and arms, trying to force her to stay, but she ran from them into the dark tunnel, heading toward the white light at the end. As she came out into a hospital the too-familiar smell hit her like a club.

“No,” she murmured to herself.

“Your brother spent much of his life here after the car accident looking after you,” the foreigner said. “If it’s too much for you to handle, you could always leave him with the knight.”

Aya steeled herself and walked, glancing into the rooms she passed to see if she could find the knight. So much misery, pain, and hopelessness here....

He stood in the room at the end of the hall. The nearby window blew the torn white curtains around him, white against his blacks and dark red. As always, his mask revealed no expression as he stared at the bed, which had a large cross slashed through its sheets and all the way into its mattress.

“I’ve come for my brother!” she told him.

“He’s not here. Don’t look at me,” he murmured in a low monotone, but his voice was Ran’s.

Despite the increasingly bad feeling she had, Aya walked around the bed with the katana in hand. “Where is he?”

Shrinking back from her, he answered, “He’s dead.”

“I don’t believe you.” She couldn’t. “He called me. He sounded so sad, but he was alive!”

“You spoke to a dead man.”

“No!” She tossed the katana aside and grabbed him by the shoulders, thinking that maybe she could shake some life and truth into him. It was only when she actually had him like that that she realized what an insane move she had made. He could do anything!

But he did nothing other than breathe and shiver in her grip. He felt so familiar. He even had a familiar scent, beneath the blood and leather and metal.

Then she realized and hugged him tightly. “Oh, Ran. What happened to you?”

“It was too early to let you know the truth before,” the foreigner said from behind her. “You would have denied it. When the evil one destroyed your parents and put you into a coma, Ran had no way to support you. He was alone. A group offered him the kind of work that could pay your high bills. All he had to do was kill for them.”

Aya wanted to scream No at him. Her brother would never accept such an offer. But what if it had been for her, to save her? He would. He’d already sacrificed so much just to make her happy. How much more would he do to save her life?

“I’m glad you’re not judging him for it. He was confused and full of anger and pain. He felt guilty too, for being the only person to get out close to untouched. He didn’t know that the group was led by another Takatori, one who could have saved your family but instead waited for it all to happen so your brother would be his perfect weapon.”

“But he did it for me, and I’m awake now!”

“Poor Ran is being led astray by the next generation of evil. He’s ashamed. He feels too stained to do anything else now, and he certainly doesn’t want to touch his pure, innocent sister with his bloodstained hands.”

And Ran wouldn’t touch her. He simply stood within her hug, bearing it. When she looked at his face, she saw cracks in the mask. But blood welled out from those cracks. The mask was his face.

“How can I help you?” she asked them, tears running down her face. “I love you! What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” Ran answered softly, still monotone. “It’s too late now.” He started to fade out of her grip, becoming insubstantial, a ghost, a shadow.

“It can’t be! I fought my way here through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. I won’t accept this!”

But he’d faded out of her hug and disappeared completely. Frustrated, she hit the wall with her fist, which was stupid but vaguely satisfying.

“There is something you can do,” her foreigner said, his blue eyes bright and gleaming like faceted jewels. “Don’t stop looking and asking for him. He’s out there, hiding and ashamed, and he needs you so much.”

Ran needed her. “I won’t stop looking.”

“Takatori may try to stop you. He means well, but he’ll get in your way. Play on whatever emotions he has left, but be careful, be subtle, be sly. His ruthlessness isn’t too far below the surface. He might hurt you if you’re too obvious or troublesome. But don’t dawdle. For all you know, Ran could be lying in a New York City hospital with a stab wound.”

“What?”

“See you around.”

Aya woke up gasping and sweating. She hadn’t had a dream like that in a long time. Crazy.

But she’d been thinking about that phone call from Ran, the first one he’d done in... forever. If she hadn’t somehow known it was him from some quality of the silence and said his name, he wouldn’t have spoken at all, she knew. He’d sounded so sad, so... doomed.

The foreigner’s story of Ran becoming a killer for hire sounded far too melodramatic to be real, but perhaps it had been her mind’s way of saying that Ran felt bad or guilty about something and that was why he stayed away. Bad and guilty over something ridiculous. He’d always taken everything so seriously.

She could try to subtly get some information out of Takatori Mamoru, since he came into the flower shop every so often while behaving almost as if he felt guilty over something. Although she didn’t have a definite link between him and her brother, she’d been suspicious of him for some time.

On the phone, Ran had asked her if she felt happy, and she’d answered Yes. Yes, she was, most of the time. But she couldn’t truly be happy with her brother out there lost and alone in the cold and dark.

She would find him and bring him home. Somehow.

  ***********************THE END**********************