FicWad

Author's note:Sorry it took so long to put up. I've been a little overwhelmed by things.
Thanks for reading, comments/criticism would be much appreciated.


My vision shifts in and out of focus as I stumble up the stairs, a jarring shift in depth and color swirling around me. I feel as if my skin is shrinking around my head, around my stomach, my clothes a terrible grating pain clinging to my body. I wonder if I take them off, whether they’ll take the skin with them. Good, that’ll be two problems gone. Fumbling with the hem of my shirt, I yank it over my head, popping buttons that scatter over the stairs.
Oops.
Hearing a high pitched keening noise, I look around, unable to find the source with my blurred vision, finally realizing the sound is coming from me, my throat aching and straining with it. Running my hands along the walls, I manage to stumble through the door, fumbling with my belt.
The kitchen whirls around me in a deluge of chrome and white, my hip knocks into the table, laughing I fall to my knees, trying to struggle out of jeans that feel increasingly more suffocating, more horrible against my skin. Pulling myself over to the sink, I pull a pizza roller from the draining board and slide it across the waistband, nicking at the seam until it pops open, releasing my leg.
The tile is cold, my head throbs with soundlessness, my laughter reaching shriller and more terrifying heights.
Naked, I crawl across the kitchen trying to get away from the icy floor, clutching my stomach as my throat lurches, my laughter becoming choked, narrow.
Scrambling up to my feet, I run to the bathroom off the hall, wrenching the door open and collapsing in a pile before the toilet, shivering and holding my knees to my chest.
The cool porcelain pressed against my shoulder, I can’t lift myself, trying to keep the convulsing bile in my throat down.
The light flicks on, silently, a piercing glaring pain in my eyes, driving me blind. Hands wrap around my waist, wrenching me to my knees and bending me over the opened toilet. Nails dig into my skin as I vomit, vast shuddering releases of a horrible fluid.
When I’m finally empty, the hands fly away from my shoulder, causing me to turn slowly, still dazed and vaguely nauseous.
Aya, half-obscured by the clouding of my eyes stands in front of me. I can’t make out his features with my blurred vision, but his hair is glaring. Reaching a hand towards him I slur
“Hey, Aya, wha’s, wha’s goin’ on?”
His voice hisses out, sinking in my stomach, causing me to dry heave.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
My eyes still reeling I glance down at my watch, taking a moment to decipher the hands and numbers. It’s only three am. I shrug.
“I’ve been ha’ing fun Ayan, you shoul’ try it sometime.”
The words are sluggish. With an annoyed grunt Aya yanks me off the floor, pulling me over to the sink and turning the water on.
In the mirror, I can see my flushed face and tousled hair, the prominent bruises along my neck. I half-grin remembering what happened earlier.
Sighing, I walked up to the door of her apartment, knocking briskly, impatiently. She opened the door almost immediately, dressed in a pair of smooth black pants and a tight yellow sweater, her hair tumbling green about her shoulders.
She smiled, motioning me inside.
“Sorry, the movie’s sold out. I cooked for us though if you want to stay.”
Shrugging, I let her take my coat, lowering myself into a chair, and smiling at her, keeping up a stream of useless chit-chat as she poured me a glass of wine. Her words flowed in and out of the glass, making my head reel and expand. Finally, dizzy, sick to my stomach off of it, I mentioned to Tsujii that I didn’t feel well. Smiling she grabbed us a pair of hangover pills, white tablets with labels printed into them. I swallowed mine. Next thing I can remember her teeth are locked into my neck pulling me down.
It was better than before.
Aya’s reflection frowns over my shoulder, pressing his hands to my forehead, his mouth tightening into a grim line.
Suddenly, he disappears, returning with a glass of water and a bathrobe, that he forces over my arms, wrapping it around my body.
“Drink this.”
His voice is hard, distant, but I hardly notice, running my hand up his spine, trying to duck my head to his.
He shoves my hands off of him with a look of anger and mute disgust and leaves again, returning with the medical kit and the phone from the mission room.
He whispers into the receiver, not letting me hear. Regardless, I can make out a few words.
“Drugged.”
“I don’t think…”
“No, I think we‘ve been….”
“I’m sure.”
He slams the phone down, his hands are tense as he bandages a bleeding cut down the side of my leg.
Oh yeah.
Finally, he shoves a set of pills at me.
“Take these.”
I hesitate, my tongue feeling as if its been filmed with cotton.
“Now.”
He slaps them into my hand. Once I swallow them, he takes the glass from me and leaves, passing the bathroom again on his way to bed.
I move to follow him on my shaky legs, flinching as the door slams behind him.
Feeling bile rise again in my throat, I throw myself vaguely in the direction of the toilet, pressing my head into it as more toxins pour out of me, my body shaking with the effort.
______________________________

I wake up in a groaning heap on the bathroom floor, my head aching in rhythm to Ken’s pounding on the door.
“Who the hell is in there? Get out! I need to shower, damn it.”
Clutching my stomach I peel myself off the floor, struggling to my feet and pulling the door open.
Ken’s fist pauses in the air next to my head, a look of concern spreading over his face.
“Wow, Yohji, you alright? You look like hell?”
I shrug, pushing past him to the kitchen. Grumbling at the early hour, at the pain spreading from my forehead down, between my shoulders, I flick the coffee maker on, watching impatiently as the dark liquid streams down into the pot.
When it’s finally done, I pour a cup, grimacing at the burnt taste of it, at the scalding on my tongue.
I never did make good coffee. One thing I’ve always liked about living with the rest of Weiss, someone knows how to make coffee. Ken I think, I’ve never seen Aya look at the machine with anything other than contempt and mild confusion.
Fuck.
Blurred images flood back at me, Tsujii’s skin, hair tumbled and pressed into my shoulders, the heat of her hips pressing into me. Aya’s cold voice and blatant anger, the door slamming in front of me.
Ignoring the taste of the swill, I tip the rest of the mug down my throat, choking it down quickly.
Still clutching the bathrobe around me I rush down the hall, my head swimming with the effort, or the hangover.
The door’s locked.
I sigh, pounding my fist into the door.
After a moment, Aya wrenches it open, his eyes narrowing when he sees me.
Exasperated, I try to step inside, but the bastard blocks my way, glaring at me. Bumping into him I realize that he must have been getting dressed, a white shirt is laid out on the shockingly made bed, his hair falling loose around him.
“Fuck, Aya, I’ve got to get dressed don’t I?”
Stepping aside, he turns away from me, his shoulders tense with anger. Quickly, I jump into the shower, trying to figure out what I can possibly say to him.
Drunkenness is not an excuse, not one he will accept.
I bite my lip under the hot water, scouring my skin away.
My promise glares back at me, the unspoken promise affirmed the other night, with the smile that spread across his face and the words whispered between us.
“This is not forgiveness.”
Nor, after this, does it seem I will ever have that again.
Disgusted with myself, I turn the water off, standing on the tile with water rolling down my body for a moment.
To throw back in his face all of his doubts, and anxieties.
Idiot!
I slap my head against my head, reeling momentarily at the jarring pain.
What the hell is the matter with me? I can’t even go for one fucking day, can I, without fucking things up, without proving to him once again that leaving me is undoubtedly the more intelligent option.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I step back out into the bedroom, resigning myself to a period of silence, of terrible calm before he finally leaves me.
So certain of his absence, I drop the towel by the closet, stopping shocked when I turn around to find him perched on the bed, watching me.
His voice is a strained whisper, rasping out between gritted teeth in an obvious attempt not to lose his temper.
“Where. Were. You. Last. Night.”
My heart flipping over, I unconsciously move towards him, blindly, foolishly glad at hearing his voice, seeing him here before me.
“Yohji!”
Now he does yell, a short bark that furrows his brows, contorting his face with anger. I pause.
“Aya, look I-”
He pushes himself off the bed, stepping up right in front of me.
“Why explain again? You and I both know what the fuck you were doing last night Yohji? How the hell could you be so fucking stupid?”
I’m confused. Not exactly the reaction I expected. I stare at him dazed, breathless, hope rising in my chest. Maybe- maybe it’ll be alright.
“What?”
I sound it too, my voice shooting out in a stupid questioning.
He exhales, his hands rising up to his temples.
“What did you drink last night? Did it seem strange?”
I shrug.
“Wine. It was pretty good.”
My voice is flat. What the hell is he getting at?
Last night flies back at me, clearer surely than I experienced it firsthand. Aya standing with the phone in his hand, arguing with someone on the other end.
“Drugged. Yes I’m almost certain.”
“Do you seriously think now that we haven’t been exposed!”
His snarl on the phone is almost perfectly mimicked now.
“Did you take anything else? Don’t you dare tell me you’re that fucking imbecilic.”
Stretching my mind back, I remember her hand outstretched, two white tabs in her palms.
“A hangover pill…..the wine was getting to me, Aya what are you-”
I am interrupted by the sharp sting of his hand cracking against my cheek.
“Idiot!”
Clutching the growing bruise, I glare back at him.
“What?”
“Don’t you know better than to take pills from an enemy? She drugged you Yohji!”
Frowning I shake my head, words rolling immediate, thoughtless off my tongue.
“Hey, we don’t know for sure she’s an enemy. I was just drunk.”
He glares, the look more chilling than any I’ve seen directed at me in a long time.
“Just drunk! Never mind that this essentially proves that we’ve been compromised, and we don’t even have all the information we need yet!”
The words swim around me, my head ringing with his voice.
Would Tsujii drug me?
Something doesn’t quite click.
“Tsujii wouldn’t drug me.”
“Are you defending her now? Damn it Yohji- it couldn’t be more obvious. What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s just another face, another goddamned Esset agent like that German bitch. You said the same thing about her and look how that turned out!”
His voice is heavy with resentment and a stifling jealousy. Narrowing my eyes at him I take a step back.
“Don’t you dare-”
“What? Don’t talk about her? Don’t make you realize the truth before you get us all killed? You’re endangering us all. I can’t allow that.”
Involuntarily I laugh, a harsh mocking sound.
“You can’t allow that? Sorry, Aya, but you’re not Persia, it’s still part of the mission.”
“Not if you’re going to handle it like this!”
A wave of disgust washes over me, for myself, for that green-haired bitch I’ve found myself defending, for Aya most of all.
“Because you’re handling it so much better.”
Intensifying his glare into a look of abject betrayal, Aya moves over to the door, pausing right before he leaves.
“Don’t forget your promises.”
After he leaves I break out in laughter, a thick choking sobbing sound rocking my shoulders forward, toppling me facedown on the bed.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Why shouldn’t I go? He seems ready to, acting so betrayed.
No, feeling strangely bound, strangely hopeful, I pull a random assortment of clothes on, careful to choose a turtleneck that will cover the bruises; tearing down the hall to the kitchen. Aya leans against the counter drinking a cup of tea.
“Aya.”
He doesn’t look up at me, his expression closed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be? ‘It’s still a part of the mission’”
“Please don’t do this Aya.”
An alarming note bares itself in my voice, a sort of anxious sob.
“Why the hell shouldn’t I?” He slams the cup down on the counter. “If you can’t keep your promises than why should I do it for you?”
Stunned, I move towards him, ignoring his seething face, the rage in his eyes.
“Tell me, how did I break any of them Aya?”
My voice is demanding, carefully, I soften it, almost whispering.
“Please, just tell me.”
Looking lost, an expression of betrayal on his face he steps back.
Cautiously, watching as his eyes close suddenly against me, I wrap my arms around him.
“It’s alright.”
Please, let it be.
“Get off me”
His frustrated whisper breaks me off my momentary reverie.
I pull back, watching him, feeling as if my stomach has had the bottom cut out from it and my entrails are showing, twisted by his hands.
Bile rises in my throat. Remnants of the night before.
Without looking back at me, he lifts his coat from hook by the door and leaves.
Listening, I can hear his footsteps down the hall, growing quieter and more distant until they are gone entirely.
__________________________________

I could not find a single room with Aya in it.
Walking into the lounge, I notice Tsujii’s smug smile as she registered the circles under my eyes, the turtleneck designed to hide the bruises along my neck.
For a moment, I believed Aya.
No. Tsujii’s a bitch, just gloating over the thought that she’s captured me, but not an Esset agent.
She doesn’t seem smart enough.
I almost imagine Aya’s face in the corner of the room, turning towards it only to have my face fall, a small groan of disappointment slipping past my lips.
“Tired?”
Tsujii pops up behind me.
I shrug, pushing past her
“I’ve got a class.”
Frowning, she moves aside so I can leave, staring after me, it seems, long after I step out the door, her eyes following me on invisible stalks, peering from corners.
Shaking the feeling off I go up the stairs, something I do not need to do, really.
Finally, pushing my way through a flood of students, I stop before Aya’s classroom, exhaling loudly before setting my hand on the knob.
Jerking back at the feel of someone tapping my shoulder I turn around, biting back a yell.
Sena glares at me, trying to make his face an approximation of Aya’s.
“Are you trying to compromise us?”
His voice is serious, accusatory. Fuck him.
“Yeah, you’re one to talk about that, running around when you’re supposed to be off the mission anyways. Or isn’t killing one teammate good enough for you?”
“I might ask you the same question.”
“What do you mean!?!”
I demand, trying to keep myself from hitting him.
Sullenly, he pulls away, turning down the hall.
“I don’t what Aya-kun thinks he sees in you.”
With that parting contemptuous shot, he disappears into the crowd.
Asuka’s face flashes in my mind, an unwelcome and thoroughly jarring hallucination. Pushing it away, sick to my stomach with his words and her torn body, I throw the door open, closing it behind me quickly.
Aya glances up from the desk, his eyes narrowing.
“What?”
I move over towards him cautiously, careful not to touch him.
“Please.”
One word drops from my lips, simple.
I wonder if it will explain everything.
“Leave me alone Yohji.”
Suddenly, he sounds exhausted, a worn gray cast taking over his face, his shoulders dropping limp. Looking up at me again, a flash of pain contorts his face for a moment, smoothing back out into that horrible weary stillness.
“Would you just tell me what it is! You said I broke my promise, fuck Aya, just explain it and I’ll go away. Please.”
My voice softens on the last word, waiting for him to look at me again.
Confused, I keep going, screaming my questions at his back.
“What? Is it because I slept with her?”
He turns around with the single nastiest look I’ve ever seen on his face, his eyes utterly closed off, they look nearly black.
“How do you expect me to trust someone who does just about everything he can to compromise himself, not to mention the rest of Weiss? You’re ‘not going anywhere’- have you realized that you might have gotten yourself killed last night for no other reason than you‘re stupid enough to take a pill from an enemy? What if it wasn’t just a narcotic Yohji? Did you fucking think of that?”
He pauses. I stand still, numb in shock at the barrage of words. His voice goes quiet, nearly inaudible.
“Or did you think of it?”
My fists clench, a strange confusion coming over me, moving the scene as if I’m watching from somewhere else, somewhere above the both of us.
“What? Aya- you don’t really think that I- you’ve got to be kidding me!”
So separated from my body, it’s ridiculous. My voice runs out in a strange high-pitch, a voice that is not my voice.
He simply shrugs.
“Look, Aya, if that’s what you meant- No. I’m an ass and an idiot and you can hate me, but trust me enough to know I wouldn’t do that, I’m not-”
I cut myself off before I finish damning myself. I’m not you, the words ring out in my mind, memories of all Aya’s attempted suicides, all his rages and somnolent contemplations after he somehow survived his death wish again and again.
“Get out.”
Stuttering, I try to formulate some explanation, something to clear the implication.
He doesn’t look at me, the air hangs broken between us.
“Aya I-”
“Get out Yohji.”
“Just give me a-”
“No.”
We both fall silent, everything ringing together tense and horrible, reverberating off the walls. White pills, Aya screaming, his sword bent before him, tearing his way through lines of bodies without stopping once to block himself, Tsujii’s smirking eyes, my reeling head and tongue filmed with vomit.
The betrayed contempt and distrust in his voice.
Desperately, I move towards him again, frantic not to let him pull away again and leave me here in the wreck of my own promise shored up against me.
I am met by his hands, clenching my shoulders and pushing me back towards the door. Dropping one hand down, he turns the knob, pushing the door open and me out into the hall. Stunned, I watch as he steps back through the doorway, his back turned to me.
“I told you I wouldn’t have my trust abused.”
His voice rings cold into the empty hall, chilling me through. Looking away from me, his voice becomes cool, rational. Empty.
I wait silently for him to continue, like someone waiting for their sentence to be pronounced.
It never comes, or it comes undecipherable, with the door slammed before me yet again.
_____________________________

“Are you alright?”
Frowning, Tsujii runs a hand along my shoulder. I shrug, not bothering to look her in the eye. I wonder absently if she can tell that I’m only here to distract myself.
“Well, anyways, dinner should be here soon. Do you want a drink?”
I open my mouth to respond in the affirmative, accept the only thing that could make this situation bearable.
Aya’s glare, his fingers digging into my heaving shoulders, the anger and accusation in his voice.
Doors closing.
Instead, I shake my head, sinking lower into the couch, glancing furtively at the clock as soon as she leaves the room.
Only eight. Damn.
I don’t know why I keep up this charade, why I keep returning to this bed, this suffocating enclosure.
I have not seen Aya conscious in three days. Not really, a glimpse of his back in the hall, the sound of him in the shower, traces of his scent on the bed, covers strangely left up around me, a still silent body next to mine at night. Even asleep he won’t touch me.
The chime of the doorbell interrupts my thoughts, my miserable reflections on the aftermath of my own stupidity.
No matter whether I think Tsujii’s Esset or not, there is no excuse for risking myself like that.
Not in Aya’s eyes anyways.
“Could you get that?”
Her voice rings out through the small apartment, grumbling, I get up to retrieve the take out, handing the guy a twenty. Should cover it, I guess.
The sullen teen that delivered it shrugs, pockets the money, and stalks off, leaving me alone again.
After dumping the food on the table I retreat back to the living room, collapsing back on the couch.
Aya’s hand clutching mine, cold clammy fingers digging tight, feeling as if they could snap the bone, the only sensation able to pierce through a searing headache, the stabbing pains shooting through my chest.
His eyes narrowing as he looks at me, suddenly awake.
“Aya?”
My voice rasps. Glancing around I register the beeping monitors, the I.V. hooked into my arm, the bandages wound around my chest, the cast on my shoulder.
It comes flooding back, the circle of security guards, my buzzing hangover, Aya’s accusing glare as we left the car, slipping quietly into the office building where the target was hiding.
Yohji Kudou, master of stupidities and betrayals.
At least I’m honest.
My eyes trained on Aya’s back, apologies hissing out between my teeth as we skulked through the shadows, weapons ready.
His answering silence.
Finally, after countless attempts at explanation, cajoleries, he turns around, seething.
“You ever do or say something like that again and I will not hesitate to kill you. Do you understand?”
I nod, swallowing carefully, reflecting on the last few days of absolute silence, the utter loneliness.
I never again suggested that he let his sister go.
Staring gratefully at his back, I almost missed the sound of his yell.
“Balinese!”
He jumps ahead of me, his sword flashing out, catching a security guard in the throat.
Still dazed by his apparent forgiveness, I am paralyzed, watching him as he lets the guard’s body fall, then proceeds to kill another one.
A gunshot, quickly followed by a yell, mine or his, through the haze of my ears ringing I can’t tell.
“Yohji!”
I drop to my knees, trying to locate the center of the hot pain flooding through my chest. As he lunges past me, another shot goes off, lodging itself in my shoulder, causing the world to go back.
And I am returned to his burning eyes, his grim mouth, the whisper of his voice.
“What the hell possessed you to be so careless?”
I am silent, solemnly predicting his next words, when he will drop my hand and stalk away, closed to me.
Instead, to my surprise, he sighs.
“You-you really scared me.”
Stunned by the confession I merely squeeze his hand.
He leans closer, cautiously wrapping his arms around me, trying to balance and shift his weight so as not to put pressure on my wounds. His breath comes slowly, heavily across my chest.
“I’m so relieved you- that you”
Fear erodes the next two words so much that they’re nearly inaudible.
“woke up.”
Smiling I pull him to my chest, not giving a damn for the pain spreading from my shoulder as I do.
His grip tightens, his voice hardening.
“But if you are ever so stupid again, if you ever place yourself at risk like that for no reason than I will not hesitate to-”
He pauses, his voice growing rough.
“I will not lay my trust on an idiot.”
Exhaling in a long silent sob, he presses his head into my neck, smearing it wet with tears.
“I told you I wouldn’t have my trust abused.”
The betrayal, the accusation in that sentence makes me wonder what possesses me, what compulsion forces me away from him, no matter how I grasp towards him, trying to bridge the chasm forced open by my actions, the swimming distance I am beginning to fear I may never cross again. The same words rising again, memories bleeding over into each other.
If I cannot hold him again, have my love reflected in his eyes, my equilibrium restored- how will I ever be saved?
Saved- the thought is clumsy. Between the two of us, we’ve forsworn redemption, never fully forgiven until forgotten. I just want his eyes again, those brilliant stars that light me forward, blinding me to the misery about us, strewn by our hands.
Replaying his voice again and again in my mind, those last terrible words, I hardly notice when Tsujii comes back into the room.
“Hope you’re hungry, I think I ordered too much.”
I nod, standing to follow her into the kitchen. She gives me an odd look, tilting her head to the side. A pang of recognition brings Asuka’s bemused face into my mind, smiling quizzically against and over her hollow features.
If she’s beautiful its only in the way a husk is, a doll at best, a corpse at worst.
“Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve hardly said anything tonight.”
Or the two nights I wasted here before this. You just didn’t mention it then.
Certain situations mask silence rather well I suppose.
“I’m sorry, I’m just a little preoccupied.”
My voice is so flat, the truth sounds like an excuse.
“You want to talk about it?”
The note of concern in her voice rings equally fake.
“No- it’s nothing. Let’s just eat.”
Silently, with her eyes boring into me, we carry the boxes of Chinese takeout from the kitchen back into the living room and flick the t.v. on.
Glancing from the flickering screen every so often, I find her staring at me, a strange assessing look on her face. Flinching internally, I turn my attention back to the stupid horror movie on the television, letting the ridiculous plot and shitty effects distract me.
When it ends, with the credits still rolling to a terrible hip-hop track, I pull her towards me, using proximity as an excuse to close my eyes.
She’s as good a body to while away time with as any other distraction, a suitable oblivion for me to drown in.
I feel thrown back, returned suddenly to those furtive years of bar-hopping after Asuka’s death, the empty nights searching for relief, even of the most temporary kind.
The average male orgasm lasts between thirty seconds and one minute.
And that doesn’t even factor in the amazing quantities of alcohol I usually imbibed before and along with those encounters.
By now, you’d think realizing that there is no real absolution or relief in this, I would have stopped. Once quieted, tamped down by physical sensation, the thoughts rush back as soon as the moment ends, laden with doubt and a faint revulsion.
In my life, I have only been able to look three people in the eye after sex.
Afterwards, I don’t even bother to watch as she gets up and goes into the kitchen, carrying the leftover takeout with her.
_____________________________

I’m sick of doors closing around me, forcing me farther away and more isolated.
I used to curse an unjust world for taking everyone away from me, wondering what sort of punishment it was and for what.
Strange that the only thing I could ever come up with is that it was pre-emptive, but who ever heard of a punishment that presupposes, necessitates even, the crime it is meant to balance.
I am made to be alone, and then go out to kill, sanctioned by a loneliness, a punishment that has already commenced.
What sense does that make? My footsteps echo slowly down the empty hall of the school, slower than they could be, almost hesitant. Glancing around me, it seems darker than it should be at this time of year, the sky a dark inky black through the windows.
Closing my eyes I can move just as well, have just as much light to see by. The night has never felt so dark.
I stiffen slightly in the night wind, a surprisingly cold tug on my clothes, on my hair, as I get into the car, starting the engine hurriedly, anxious to create a barrier between myself and that wind. As usual, the heat doesn’t start immediately, sending a blast of cold air straight at my face. Frowning, I lean over the seat to find my coat, my finger scrambling in the dark. Finally, my hand bumps against something and I pull it forward, smiling when it turns out to be the leather jacket I was searching for.
As I put it on, something drops out of the pocket, a folded piece of thick white paper dropping onto my lap. Without looking, I carefully slip it back into the pocket, remembering the lines and details of its face unfolded without having to see it. May as well be a mirror.
The smile fading, I pull out of the parking spot, too fast apparently, as my ears ring with the screeching of tires, the roar of the accelerated engine, and tear off towards the road.
As I drive furiously, I wonder why I’m bothering to hurry. The only one in the apartment is Ken, drowning his sorrows in voyeuristic enthusiasm for athletics. Though who am I to criticize-he’s probably the healthiest of all of us.
“Tsujii wouldn’t drug me.”
Yohji in his pallid skin, still managing somehow to look beautiful despite the haggard eyes and worn voice, the veins prominent in the whites around his irises, making the green that much more vivid, more stunning. I have never wanted to strangle him more.
His sad looks behind me, trying to catch my eyes as I walk past him, his careful hands brushing against my cheeks when he comes in at night, whispering.
“I’m so sorry.”
“If you only knew how I hate myself.”
“That little bastard’s probably right, why the hell do you stay with me?”
The frustrated sob in his voice as he finally surrenders himself to sleep, careful to position himself so that I will not have to wake up touching him.
I don’t know. Why would I know these things Yohji? Do you? Have you guessed some secret behind our compulsion?
I doubt you would ask me if you had. I scream at the windshield, a wordless voicing of my aggravated confusion, this sense of irrational betrayal that has left me no peace.
“Tsujii wouldn’t drug me.”
Said so simply, why should I care?
Suddenly, I find myself in front of the building, a pull the car to a screeching halt, barely managing to skirt the sidewalk. Blithely I wonder what the hell I’m going to do with myself once I get up to the apartment.
I can’t even read anymore, every conflict resurging to mirror my own. How trite. That used to be the appeal in it, seeing the resolution that seemed so impossible to me enacted in books.
Resigned to another night of sleepless thoughts, remembrances, scenes played over senselessly in my head, expanded to impossible proportions- I head upstairs, nodding to Ken as I pass by the living room, not acknowledging his eyes following me.
Throwing the bedroom door open, I gag on the thick reek of smoke, a gray cloud hanging over the floor. Yohji leans against the bed, his head resting heavy on the cover, staring up at the ceiling. His shirt is stained wet, traces of liquid dripping down his chin, in sticky streaks on his neck, spilling from the bottles lines up next to him. Glancing quickly, I can’t tell how many are already empty and which haven’t been opened.
Quietly, I close the door behind me, staring at him, at this miserable elusive bastard that I can never seem to escape, my eyes lingering after him.
What reason does he have to die? He speaks of it mockingly, a game he can send out from his hands and call back, nothing to touch him.
Sickened, horrified by the dull cipherous look of his features, the sallow cast of his skin in the moonlight, I step closer to him, taking in the lips parted in a grotesque smile, the eyes twisted in a broken laughter.
It is only when things are broken in on themselves that you see the perfection in them. His promise is written in the pulse of his temple. His eyes roll over to me, widening, stripped down raw in shock, swimming dark with a strange sort of implacable misery- Schmerzlust- as the Germans call it. Desire expressed as pain.
His voice rasps out between his teeth, between bursts of involuntary laughter and swigs from his bottle.
“You know- he- Aya, you know, I never believed in karma or divine retribution or fate or any of that. Never. I never bought into salvation either, I mean, what are we being saved from? If we’re saved, shouldn’t everything change, same with redemption- I’ve always wonder what we’re being saved for, redeemed to- what’s left- you said something like that-”
His voices trails up, his eyes grasping up at me. Leaning over him, here, in the dark, I catch a brief glimpse of what he could have been, what joy those features were meant to form, those eyes to witness. Not a series of empty ideals, attempts at a causeless martyrdom that falls apart at a single question.
“Without what we’ve done, without all that we’ve seen, we would lose everything that we are and still escape nothing.”
I sound cold, almost catatonic over him, bitterly tasting the words in my mouth.
A morose boy with shocking eyes crouched over himself, staring at a book, glaring at the people across the room, internally reeling with the first threads of guilt that make him wish he could tear his tongue out and clean it of what he said, no matter that he’s forgotten the words exactly, the precise method. Instead, before his eyes is a crying face, bald chastised surprised eyes welling with tears, spurred to misery by his ignorantly cutting words. And how- he remembered- his heart had welled up when first he went to say them, some miraculous sentence he was sure, not this gutting cruelty that it seems to be.
The same image in my head, sword in hand, gleaming too bright in the faint light outside the building, the vanity lights mounted over the door. The men around me, I cannot recall, just that child, that stupid, damning child, whose emotions had neither emptied nor changed by circumstance.
I almost wonder how I came to believe that at all.
He rolls his head over to look at me.
“You really think?”
I stare down at him, stunned.
“What else do we have Yohji?”
He laughs.
“Than why not lose it all Aya?”
He sits up, whispering the words harshly, quietly, almost to himself.
“Why not lose it all?”
“Yohji-”
My voice comes out strangely choked, almost a supplication, almost a warning. My head runs strange with familiar impulses, clawing at the inside of my skull, the need to do something, anything, to wrench myself forward and through anything at all. To act-and still feel as if you’ve never done anything at all, still mired in your terrible and wondrous limbo, an awe you can’t control or suffer, and rather regurgitate. What substance.
“What?”
Nothing. Nothing at all. Yohji sighs, exasperated, leering at me lazily.
“Do you think that’s it then- the reasoning behind the stupidity?”
I look at him with a faint mixture of confusion and a rising horror. Shocked mute, words sliding back down my throat uselessly.
“Damn it Aya, can’t you answer anything?”
His yell is strangely animalistic and half indecipherable, slurred by the alcohol.
When I don’t respond, he drops his head, his mouth contorting back into that terrible smile.
“Guess not.”
Anger welling up in me at the disappointment expressed in the set of his jaw, in his eyes a moment ago, I regain speech, words rolling out low, agonizingly savage as they’re spoken, his head jerking back up at the sound.
“I’m not going to let you have an easy out.”
“You’re not going to let me? The hell do you think you are?!”
His voice rises in pitch as he speaks. This time I answer, sickened at my irrationality, my fury and its accompanying stupidity even as I answer. It is spoken with the utmost simplicity.
“You promised me.”
Fool.
“What- I promised you, I promised you Aya- fuck. That gives you no right to-”
“To do what? Stop you from killing yourself and endangering all of us?”
I wonder whether my voice sounds as cold to him as I am suddenly gripped with the realization that I am half vindictive in the way I hold onto that promise. If I could not take that easy out, neither will he. The bastard will hang around and keep his promise whether he likes it or not. Whether I like it or not.
“Why should you get any reprieve?”
His eyes narrow.
“Why? Because I’m a murderer? We don’t deserve it?”
“No.”
“Then why do we deserve this either, oh great martyr, my saint of vengeance- sorry Ayan, you don’t look as pretty painted as a hypocrite.”
Enraged, I go blind, waking up with the resounding crack and tear of air as I slap him across the mouth.
“The hell do you want me for anyways? Are you really that sick for punishment Aya?”
His voice is threatening, harboring an accusation I don’t quite understand.
I glare at him, my stomach turning at the sight of his anger.
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m tired of being the sinner, the penitent. I don’t care-” He laughs, cutting himself off, a bitter sound “No, that’s not true. If I didn’t care I’d be busy fucking Tsujii right now.”
Suddenly he sounds exhausted, his eyes looking up at me raw, unguarded or gouged by anger.
“I can’t chase after you anymore. Even I can only take so much of being unwanted.”
Stunned, I reach out to touch his hand. He slaps it away, looking up at me curiously, with an almost mournful expression.
“What do you get from this Aya?”
He speaks with a hush, an odd questioning in his voice. His hands trail up my chest, hesitating on ribs, nipples, clavicles, a hesitant memorizing touch that I unconsciously lean into, letting the fingers drift up to my chin, my cheek, the back of my head, all grasping together. Abruptly, he pushes my mouth into his, locking on it furiously, tearing at the skin around my lips, ripping into the soft flesh, sobbing into my mouth. Almost as suddenly, he pulls back, his face smeared with blood, a thick taste of liquor in my mouth. For once, it doesn’t bother me. His eyes bore sadly into mine, pressing our foreheads together.
When he speaks again, after a long while, it is with a bemused voice, a wondrous tone.
“Maybe you should leave Aya. That way, no one has to break any promises.”
The words evoke a horrible terror from me. I wrap my arms around him, clutching him to my chest.
He whispers again.
“If I’m going to be alone, I may as well do it truly alone.”
He wrenches my arms off of him, not looking at me again as he throws himself into the bed, pulling the covers up around his shoulders. A pain quickens in my stomach, my heart throbbing anxiously in a sick tension.
Alone. Biting my lip, I watch as his breath slows. His melancholy figure- how sickening I’m getting.
Starkly, numbly I recall all the beds I’ve ever watched. My resolution upon her awakening to never watch one again.
Turning my back to him I silently pull a stack of books into my arms, carrying them out of the room.
Where now?
I contemplate leaving entirely, carrying the pre-emptive resignation to any agent, to Omi’s quick shot.
He promised me. One, right through the skull.
I want to look him in the eyes as he does it. The first thing I asked him after he became Persia was that if I ever left Weiss again, I’d never return to it.
“That way, no one has to break any promises.”
He stays. Nothing happens to me, still swarmed with doubt.
Disgustedly numb, I slowly move my belongings into the mission room, shoving the desk with its computer and the couch over to one side, by the huge television screen.
Silently, I skirt my way around the pile of my belongings on the floor, tripping over a book.
Balanced on my elbows, I draw it out from under me, staring mutely at the title.
It’s a collection of Shakespearian plays. My eyes widen, gripping the cover tightly as I pull myself off the floor and creep back into the darkened room where he sleeps.
I watch him for along while as I set it on the bed, wondering if he’ll even remember tomorrow.
Collecting my anger to me, ignoring the jagged ruins of the separation, the laughable realization that he asked me nothing- if not to hold him again. To speak to him.
Sick at myself, I grab my car keys off the counter and vanish, determined, into the night.
_____________________________

I return an hour later, dragging a small u-haul from the back of the car.
Silently, carefully, I carry up in succession a small dresser, a long mirror, and my old futon, the sheets still hanging around it.
Ignoring Ken’s questioning looks I drag them into the mission room, assembling them by the window.
“That way, no one has to break their promise”
The words replay through my head as I shove the futon into place, shoving my clothes into drawers and piling the books on the dresser.
My stomach turns over every time they begin, hating the inevitable response, the same sickening observation that’s resurged again and again, with every glance at him, every sighting of that bitch in the hall.
It’s too late to worry about that, the promise lies in shreds between us.
“I’m not going anywhere”
It’s not something as empty as jealousy, his physical ties to Tsujii or even his stupidity, his flagrant attempts to jump off that only affirm the obvious absence of what he is and what he has become: someone too fragile, too sick on guilt, too impotent with contempt and misery for me to carry. It’s not as if I’m stable, secure, enough to hold anyone up, suffer his ills along with my own toxic overwhelm. We are steadily poisoning ourselves, enamored with the venom that sustains our decay and disguises it.
I wonder whether Yohji is simply showing his symptoms first, his defeated movements, relinquishment of everything that seems intrinsic to him- or have I missed it all along?
I’m sick of doubt, doubt that clogs my breath and composes my wine. Inescapable, I wonder when I renounced all other opiates in favor of this numbness.
His rolling, dulled eyes, defeated smile.
Traitor. I ignore the tears welling around my eyes You think you can abandon yourself that easily, that this hell will be nice enough to blind you before it suffocates you? That you can numb yourself when I-
I cut the thought off, trying to force my mind blank, calling up an image of Koua.
What I must focus on. Routing Esset, crippling them. Aya’s face rises in my mind, cold, flat, tinted with the marks of drugs, shadowed with flickering candles.
My hands tighten into fists.
It does not matter. I don’t need the distraction anymore. Maybe we could have finished Esset sooner if not for my distraction.
Stupid! I smack my fist into the wall, denting it slightly, plaster clinging to my skin.
Unsuccessfully repressing the thought, wondering whether that managed to wake him, I rip my clothes off with equal fury, throwing them to the ground in a pile.
Stumbling into bed, I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force sleep where it isn’t coming.
________________________________

“Aya!”
My voice comes harsh, drawing blood up, a deluge from my throat. The car fades black into its own exhaust, dissolving in the night. No face to follow.
I run over to the body crumpled in the street, slipping in the blood pooling beneath it. The dark hair tumbles around me, clumping in hard pieces as the blood dries. Struggling to a sitting position, I pull her into my lap, rolling her over so I can see my sister’s face, bruised and bleeding, cuts crossing over her features, a gaping wound on her left temple. Sobbing, my hair hanging as a curtain over my eyes, blocking the worst of it, a strange involuntary respite, I raise my hand to her cheek, brushing along the pale skin.
As I touch her, her features slide away, melting into a flat blank surface and erupting again with new shapes, new bones jutting up under the flesh, forming beneath my fingers, the hair strangely lightened in its coat of blood.
Yohji’s eyes fly open, fixing me in the eyes with a desperate stare, a lost confused laugh breaking from his throat as he searches in vain for my hand, which I bury in my hair. When he cannot find it the laugh stops and he disappears, a few strands of bloody hair clinging inexplicably to my palm, I can‘t tell whose they are, mine, his, hers. His eyes hanging over the bleak scene.
I bit my lips, looking vaguely in distaste at the sheets clinging sweaty to my thighs, around my waist.
If anything- if anything, it should firm my resolve.
I repeat the thought over and over as I bury myself deeper into the pillows, trying to ignoring the laughing, mocking voice in my head.
Fool.
_______________________________

Wincing, I pull the covers over my head, my fingers feeling suddenly thicker, clumsy as I wrap them around the sheets. They smell of smoke, vaguely, through the fog of the hangover, I wonder why Aya hasn’t kicked me out of the bed yet, even just to clean the damned sheets.
Shifting, I notice something brushing against my foot, some weight on the bed. Kicking it aside I roll over, sighing at the thud it makes as it hit’s the floor.
Fuck it. Hopefully someone will have made some coffee.
Spots of color surge before my eyes as the throw the covers off, the sun a jarring ball of white heat searing against my retinas. Fuck- blindly I grope for the string to draw the blinds closed. Finally, succeeding I turn back to the bed, trying to decide whether its worth my time to try and make it.
The clock read 10:23 a.m. My eyes widen as I dash over to the closet- how the hell am I more than two hours late already? Why the fuck didn’t Aya get me up!
My head rings with the sudden movement, a familiar jolt of pain as I jerk the closet door open to find it half empty, my clothes pushed over to one side and the rest of the bar bare. Stunned, I turn and stare at the rest of the room, finally taking in the empty bookcase, the dresser drawers left open, baring their empty insides.
My moan echoes around the suddenly cavernous room, too wide, expanded by this absence, as I sink down to the floor, pressing my chest to the grainy wood.
“Then why not lose it all Aya?”
My voice is bitter, a sick heavy sound, tainted with fucking drunkenness. I thrash my arms out, toppling a line of bottles, some empty, smirking as the red liquid seeps up on the fool. In the overly bright sun it could be a mirror for his hair, or the scene of our mission waiting to be cleaned. Blotted from memory, as if merely whiting the stains could remove them.
“Why not lose it all?”
The night reflects itself at me in shards of glass, torn paper soaked red and cleared of words speaking back at me in long runs of accusations. My breath hitches
“Are you really that sick for punishment?”
“Maybe you should-”
“If I’m going to be alone, I may as well do it truly alone.”
My raw admittance. My skin claws at itself, pricking up in a sudden chill.
Even drunk- I never thought he’d-
My hands dig into my temples, bruising, drawing a string of blood.
I want to drown in it, gashing my hands deeper, half vengefully, pressing in with the force of this abandon- my eyes close, filmed by the slow hail of blood around them. Thoughtlessly, I roll over onto my back, my skin grated by the broken glass scattered everywhere. It looks so beautiful- picking up light, taking its beauty whole, reflected perfect on the flaws and scratches in the glass.
His seething glare fills my mind, his eyes swimming dark and terrible.
My hand flicks out, hopelessly, releasing my skin. Glancing up, I marvel at the skin run dark. I look rusted. The nails caked dark and black.
I drop the arm, flinching as it hit’s the floor, jarring my shoulder.
It hits something, a dry edge pressing into my wrist. Fumbling for it, I manage to pull it over blanching as I recognize it.
Shakespeare.
Cold, indifferent, it stares back at me, recreating the blank stare he will be sure to follow with.
Panicked, I sit up again- what if he went out and never came back again-
What, what if he left Weiss?
Thoughtlessly I run through the apartment, searching the kitchen and living for any sign of him.
Not a damned thing.
My breath coming in long shuddering gasps, suppressing the building tension in my temples, the wetness rising around my eyes, I turn back towards the bedroom, staring ahead at nothing.
Strange- the door to the mission room shouldn’t be open.
Sighing resignedly, I lean over to pull it closed, pausing when I glimpse the stacks of books, the futon and mirror pushed over by the window.
Relieved, I stumble back towards the bedroom, picking the book up to add it to his things.
He didn’t leave.
I pause with my hands on the book.
But he didn’t stay either. My fists clench around it, bending the cover as I begin to sob, long muffled sounds filling the room, clashing with the sunlight.
I pause when I hear paper tearing, brushing the strained cover reverently with my fingers.
At least he didn’t slam the door in front of me this time.
Sick- I never imagined it would be so much worse on the other side of it.
I drop the book on the bed, resigning myself to getting dressed, already feeling distant, separate from the night before as if there had never been a time when I could dare to touch him or see myself born in his sparkling eyes.
Already attuned to this new misery, this hell of watching him retreat again and close his eyes against me, glaciers erected between us to fill the void, which once so reviled, now I almost miss.
At least I could see him across it.
The thought brings on a new set of tears, my hands tightening around the shirt I’m holding so hard that it rips in a loud shredding sound, my shoulders shaking.
Emptying myself out, I resolve not to think.
Blank, I mechanically dress, trying to blot out the face clouding everything before me and extending behind, to mask any destiny I could have wavered from to find him.
_________________________________

Stupid. My distraction glares back at me from every angle, cornered into an irredeemable waste.
Rubbing my eyes, I pull up to Koua, ducking in, averting my eyes from every face, every set of eyes fixated on my pallid skin, bloodshot eyes hidden by dark glasses.
“Not factored in of course, were the cultural conflicts and resentments stemming from hundreds of years of influence and occupancy that exacerbated the atrocities at Nanking-”
Thoughtlessly, I pause outside the open door, taking in the flat blank tone of his voice.
He doesn’t see me. Standing, I watch him as the minutes tick by, trying to memorize his face and gestures so clearly that I will forget them.
I flinch as I feel a series of eyes rake over me, recognizing faces. From a far corner Sena glares at me, narrowing his eyes.
Returning the look, I leave, imagining Aya’s eyes had drifted toward me for one moment, bringing back everything.
No.
It’s better if he didn’t.
________________________________

Tsujii pants, pushing her hips up against mine, locking her hands behind my neck, strands of that damned virulent green sticking to me face as I lean down to bite her.
“Ahhhhh, Yohji!”
Her voice in ecstasy is shrill, terrible. But who better to drown myself in?
My contempt for her fuels my thrusts forward, her eyes sliding shut as she goes tense, clenching around me in a white roar.
Half awake, I roll off her stomach, my arms limp and useless, exhausted.
She smiles in satisfaction, running a hand over my lips before turning away, presenting me with her back to sleep.
Lying back on the pillow, I puzzle at the taste in my mouth, too sweet, from Zinfandel and her touch, her skin flavored with lotions.
I have drunk every night since and never felt such oblivion as this, unable to count the days even.
Drunk, I can ignore Aya’s early retreat every night, his distant voice, Sena’s smug looks across the table when, rarely, someone reminds me to eat. Doubt rises at me, exuded from his pale skin and unearthly eyes.
I study the pattern of shadows on Tsujii’s back, letting the wine draw me into a comatose sleep, bereft of dreams.
And somehow, I cannot fully form the thought tonight, that this is better.
__________________________________

The room seems smaller reduced to just his things.
I settle myself on the bed, my face set, resolved to impress one thing on Yohji.
The promise, as he said, was not broken.
One thing I must remain certain of.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the door, I avoid glancing about the mood, warding off memories.
Soon the door opens. Yohji coming in to change. It has become a routine.
Get up. Go to Koua. Return to the apartment, change clothes, go to Tsujii’s. Stumble in drunk and silent at midnight, or not at all.
I’ve caught his eyes paused on me, a terrible lost doubting look in them, a maniacal suffering.
He steps towards me hesitantly, stopping a few feet from the bed with a puzzled look, a repressed relief.
Anger wells up in me, suddenly.
“Why should you get any reprieve?”
My words scream back at me. What haven’t I accused myself of?
I can feel my gaze harden into a glare, Yohji staring at me with increasing confusion, that in turn straightens itself into resolve, misery bleeding from his eyes.
“If you don’t mind, I need to get dressed.”
The words provoke a sort of horror in me, an unprecedented anger.
His questioning eyes tearing away from me constantly, each time tainted with a resolve and regret.
I will not be the source of his goddamned self pity.
“I will not be ignored.”
I cringe internally at the facetious statement.
“You will not be ignored? I think you have to deign to be in the same room as someone to be ignored by them Aya,”
He grits his teeth, tension rising in his voice.
My voice spits out, low, contemptuous.
“You suggested it.”
His face contorts grotesquely, the tension snapping as his voice lowers dangerously.
“I did.”
His hand reaches for me, seemingly unconsciously, a look of pain flashing across his features as he stops it.
All thoughts of reconciliation vanish.
“Why?”
I demand, my voice rising in pitch, a lacerating scream muffled by the walls echoing between us.
He is silent, averting his eyes again.
I stand, moving so I am leaning close into his face, our bodies brushing against each other in tandem to our breath.
“Get away Aya.”
When I don’t move he repeats himself, yelling.
“Get away!”
“Why the hell should I? You always ask me that- why should you? So tell me!”
“We can’t do this.”
There is a desperate tinge to this exclamation.
Narrowing my eyes, I take a step back, clenching my fists as I note his relief at my renewed physical distance. My voice is a hiss.
“You’re weak.”
He stands before me without a word, his eyes fixed on my mouth. Recklessly, uncaring, I move on, spilling my contempt before him.
“You care so damned much? You’re fucking tired of being a sinner? Then walk away. Now, but have the fucking strength to do it, to make a break. Not this shallow distraction and wallowing in your misery.”
I can read it in his eyes: ‘because you, Aya, were so capable of doing that’
Driven on by my awareness of my hypocrisy, the self loathing that springs from it, I continue, my voice rising to new terrible heights with each accusation, my nails digging cuts into my palms, a strangely fitting crescendo.
“But no one is making you be a penitent, forcing you to any of this. If you can’t bring about your own end, don’t use others around you for it!”
Fear turns my voice rough
“Don’t lay claim to anything you can’t withstand- it just proves how fucking incapable of it you are. What you do, no matter your words, is drown your sorrow in all of them, in Tsujii, in all those nameless bodies.”
“And you too I suppose?”
He whispers, looking me hard in the eyes.
I nod, seething, trying to form more words to gore him with.
Nodding sharply, he turns and leaves me stuttering alone to an emptied room; the door swinging behind him.
_________________________________

He stumbles in every morning, hiding his eyes and with Tsujii trailing after him. He acts as if he does not see her, or anything.
His bed is untouched every morning.
I do not wonder where he is sleeping.
Silently, I go over his scheduled classes in my mind, trying to pinpoint a time. I can’t remember.
The phone in the mission room ringing, a shrill irritating noise. The receiver cool in my hand, against my cheek.
“Abyssinian.”
“Hn.”
Persia’s voice echoed in the receiver, half whispered, tinged with anxiety.
“Are you making any headway on Epitaph’s identity?”
“We still suspect that it is the headmistress, but no one seems to have any contact with her except for-”
I pause, not willing to pronounce the name.
“Except for?”
My voice hardens around it, distorting the word.
“Tsujii.”
“I see. Has Yohji found anything.”
“He has not reported back in two days.”
Mamoru is silent over the phone.
“And the rest of you?”
“Nothing but that my certainty that they know we’re there.”
“What about Z-class?”
“According to the school, they do not exist. And our collective encounters with them have revealed nothing except that they are associated with Epitaph and most likely under their control.”
After a long pause Mamoru finally responds.
“Find out what Yohji’s discovered about Tsujii. I want the report on it tomorrow. And Aya-”
His voice softens around my name.
“Should we be concerned about him?”
I don’t know. I do not answer, wondering if Mamoru can sense my doubt over the phone.
“What about his involvement in the mission?”
“Despite his handling of it, Yohji has the closest lead of any of us. It would be too risky to pull him out now.”
Mamoru sighs.
“You’re right- but Aya?”
“Hn?”
“Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself again. I’m- I’m-”
Stammering, he sounds like Omi again.
“I’m worried about him.”
Wordlessly I hang up, biting my lip.
I blink, thankful that the lounge is, for once, empty, and drop my head into my hands, breathing deep to quell the nausea rising in my throat.
____________________________________

He grabs my wrist as I go to leave, masking the grip in the sea of students. Digging his fingers in, he drags me up to the roof, staring ahead, his lips moving against themselves as if repeating a mantra. Something not to be forgotten.
Suddenly, he whips his hand away, slamming me into the wall.
“Why did you fail to report last night?”
His voice hisses out, low and suspicious. I shrug.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“And the night before that?”
His voice is toxic, horrible, carrying all the hatred and disgust of a few nights before, finding him sitting on our- my bed.
What a shock, the hesitant hope that overwhelmed me. I wanted to pull him into me, apologize again, do anything and everything to disprove what I‘d said to him, negate it, pretending that such things could be.
Then he spoke, words I refuse to recall.
Infected by the memory nonetheless my voice becomes mocking, spiteful.
“If you can make love on a schedule, you do it.”
He blanches, dropping his hands to his sides and stepping back from me, his eyes going cold.
Unfeeling bastard. No doubt he’s calculating the effect on the mission.
Fuck him, he always accused me of resentment, of hiding things.
His callousness and the rest my blind stupid hope.
Irrationally- I try to throw it back at him, hungry to see any emotion, any proof of pain to vindicate- everything.
“She’s waiting in the car. Let’s hurry up and finish this.”
Sick, I watch his face, searching it for a sign of emotion; cursing internally as he turns away, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Let’s hear it.”
I may as well be suffocating.
I recant what little I know mechanically, reciting the useless information that I’ve gleaned.
“Tsujii Mayumi- she’s been teaching at Koua since the school was established. Her file seems to be completely spotless.”
His voice dripping with spite he interrupts
“You can’t trust information found in papers.”
“Tough to please aren’t we?”
I swear I see him flinch Tamping down the vindictive hope at that thought, I continue, blocking out memories of Aya’s face with Tsujii’s. A sickening recourse.
“She seems to own a mansion near town.”
“That’s-”
I have no idea what he might be saying.
Mocking.
“Information I obtained from a non-paper source”
He is silent for a long while, his shoulders hunching up.
Smug, I imagine that I’ve hurt him.
Suddenly he speaks again, his voice devoid of anything readable.
“I’ll investigate the papers here. Keep in contact with her.”
The permission sliding past his lips, I feel a sudden hesitance to leave. He turns around to look at me.
God Aya, why did you even pretend that you cared?
I never understood him.
“You’re starting to sound like Persia.”
He glares, turning away again. I wonder if he’s trying to hide his expression.
“If you don’t like it, Ken’s getting irritated. Explain the situation to him.”
I want nothing more than to run, my stomach turning.
My hand reaches for the door.
“Yohji-”
He calls out, his voice suddenly thick with something, some waver that I can’t read.
Wincing, I pause. I want to leave before I break the game. I wonder if he’s avoiding it consciously as well.
“What about you?”
Quickly I leave, running down the stairs. Forgetting to close the door.
His voice echoes in the stairwell.
“What about you?”
________________________________

The taste of the words burn in my mouth, a stale horrible feel. Stiffly, staring into the dark open gap of the stairwell, I listen to his quick footsteps, trailing away.
They echo back for a long time, snaps of his step against the linoleum of the floor.
I never want to hear another human voice.
Rage tightens in my throat, blind.
Immobile. I never move forward, taking the same thoughts again and again, gaining nothing but a series of accusations, holding my memories to me desperate, like a man drowning.
And so detached. I slam my fist against the wall, gritting my teeth against the pain that jerks up my arm, pulsing up to my head in a searing anger. A pause.
Always apart, I feel as if I’ve dropped everything from my hands.
Wind tears at my hair, the cool breeze sending a cold shock down my spine. Tense, it breathes faces across my eyes, masks with empty eyes, like the stoic statues of gods, unfeeling, demanding a worship in their bearing that is met numb. There is something in their presence, their blank smile that refuses it.
Again I imagine the heat of the bullet rushing towards me, the promise. I wonder if he would smile, who he would be as he pulled the trigger.
When have I moved forward? Renunciation is not the same as progress.
All I have done is pushed everyone away, creating an illusion of distance, of movement forward towards something.
I have moved towards nothing, suffocating in this airlessness.
A resolve forms, terrifying and peaceful, a sort of relief mounting in my stomach.
What need do they have of such a cipher?
Contempt washes over me, imagining my mute form receding.
Stunned, my thoughts trail off as my phone rings out from my pocket.
Slowly, I pull it open- pressing it to my ear.
“Hello?”
Ken’s voice is quick over the phone.
“Meet me tonight.”
I don’t respond, even so, narrowing my eyes at the demand.
“I’ll find you.”
With a click he hangs up, a bitter trace to his voice.
Only a little longer.
Determined, I walk down the stairs.
“What about you?”
There is nothing I can say for that anymore, my words forced back at me. I’m tired of words.
His face staring back at me, a naked misery run through them. Beseeching.
I flinch as the thought forms itself, a doubt welled up from my very veins, steeped and preserved in all the violent blood I’ve taken in, the blood I have no choice but to claim or die from.
Impotent, I cannot wake him either.
_________________________________

Asami looks up as I enter the lounge, wondering how long it will be before Ken comes and I can get that off.
Not that there’s much purpose to expediting it- what else do I have to distract me?
Until we learn anything, I’m just wasting time. I’m sick of it, the doubt it rises.
All the thoughts my unoccupied mind can give rise to.
“O- Fujimiya-sensei-”
“I’m sorry, if I interrupted something I can leave.”
I’m not in the mood for her overwhelming and almost incredulous cheerfulness.
“No- wait- Actually, Fujimiya-sensei, I’m finishing up the arrangements for the cultural festival, you know, flyers and stuff like that and-”
She pauses, swallowing
“Well, I’m running out of time and if you don’t mind could you-”
“You need some help?”
She nods, an odd look flashing across her face.
“Not much, but if you could help me run off these flyers-”
There’s a desperate tired tinge to her voice.
Glancing out the window, I can’t see anything, the sky already dark. Vaguely, I wonder how long I stood on the roof after Yohji left.
Nodding, I sit down.
“So what exactly needs to be done?”
At least it’s a distraction.
She smiles, handing me a piece of paper.
“Well, the flyers actually. I don’t know how to make them on the computer, they need to have this information on it.”
Turning the computer on I open a design program and pull up a new document. Patiently, I guide her through the tools of the application, almost relieved at the substitute for conversation as well as the absorbing, though mundane task.
Thoughtless- it’s actually meditative.
When we finally finish, I’m shocked at how calm I feel, how strangely refreshing that was.
Asami smiles, collecting the sheaf of prints in her hands.
“Done! Thank you so much Fujimiya-sensei.”
I can’t help but smile myself, grateful for her company.
As I respond, I hear the floorboards creak somewhere behind me, my ears pricking up at the almost inaudible sound.
Ken must be here.
Asami shoots me a curious look, I must be staring.
“Ahh- I meant, its nothing like that, I just wanted to check how much the tape for the fair would cost and if- well, would you be busy? I’m sorry for being so forward but-”
I nod, half amused at her nervous stuttering.
“No- I’m free tomorrow.”
“Really?”
She beams, the excitement in her voice stunning me with its resemblance to Aya-chan’s.
I hardly hear the rest of what she says as she stumbles out through the door, embarrassment rolling off her tangibly.
Aya-chan.
For once, it’s a relief to think of her, her wide grin, the bright laughter always present in her eyes.
I wonder if she’d recognize me.
“Come out.”
Ken leans out from the shadows, grinning.
“Yeah- sorry to bother you.”
“Is this about the mission?”
My voice is curt, clipped off harshly.
Strangely, I wonder if Aya-chan would come find me if she knew where to look. Rex said Aya was told the Koneko is a safe house owned by the witness protection program Manx convinced her she was a part of; because of Esset, it seemed easiest to explain the reason for Kritiker’s protection of her in those terms.
Better a witness than a bargaining chip.
He nods, leading me silently out of the room and through Koua, stopping once we reach that damned gazebo.
“What haven’t you told us?”
His voice is anxious, the implication clear- what is Persia hiding?
“There are conflicts within Kritiker. I suspect that Persia is being pressured to pull out.”
Ken’s eyes narrow.
“He supports my decision to stay, but I don’t know how long he can hide our continued presence here. I don’t know for sure, but there are indications that Weiss has been requested for other missions. If any of those become too drastic- he may have no choice than to remove us forcefully. There’s a possibility he’ll attack us with his other personal team, the specialized demolitions unit, Crashers.”
There is a long pause between us, Ken searching my face for something. I’m not sure what he wants or expects to see.
I am careful to keep my face blank. Cut this off if possible.
“But I doubt we could lose to Crashers, I mean-”
I’m not going to waste all night speculating.
What else are you going to do? A voice mocks form the back of my skull.
“What did you call me for?”
I drown it out, interrupting Ken.
“Damn you’re no fun to have a conversation with. Fine. I’ll be straightforward, you seem to like that, whatever it gets you-”
Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.
Honesty is necessary for its devastation, everything it bares and sets in motion.
My body is lined with honest scars.
“-and ask you this: Aya, why did you refuse Persia’s order?”
He sounds faintly indignant as he says this, a flicker of an old instinct in his eyes, his face suddenly more innocent, less lined with all the hate he’s gathered to himself.
I turn away so I don’t have to see it, similarly destroyed faces flashing across my memory in quick and incessant succession. It’s a wonder I can see anything at all, these faces always showing themselves.
“Why did you remain here?”
He laughs, I can hear a rustle of fabric as he steps towards me.
“Probably the same reason you did- but I want to hear you say it Aya. Why did you ignore the evacuation order? Why are you continuing to investigate here?”
The same reason as always- to grasp the motions of a redemption I’ll never attain, to feel for one moment the liberator, rather than the damned animal I am, the paid killer- is there any more material?
It all ends the same regardless of intent.
Without revenge as a purpose, there is nothing to obscure the bleak machinations that necessitate Weiss. Me.
Once Esset is gone, another organization will have room to ascend and claim their power, appropriate what remains of their data, most of which Kritiker will claim.
Maybe they will be the ones to rise.
Closing my eyes, I spit out the first excuse I can think of.
“The enemy knows my identity. Try to avoid contact with me.”
I start to walk away, leaving Ken to wrestle with the dubious freedom I’ve granted him.
Your cage unlocked, Ken.
He steps behind me, grabbing me by the shoulder.
“Let go”
It’s laughable- you who should be the last to stop me. Take your freedom and disappear.
I wonder if Ken realizes that he is the only one Mamoru would not go after.
“I’m afraid to ask you, maybe because of what I say you’ll-”
I interrupt, turning around to face him, eyes narrowed. You alone who could have freedom mourning it? Anger weals red before my eyes, my hand whipping out to catch him in the jaw.
“You-”
I stop, letting the rest of that truth fade as his hand blocks mine.
Let him stay here if he’s so blind.
There is more than one kind of freedom.
His voice is tight, accusatory, an echo I don’t want to remember.
“You’re going to leave Weiss are you?”
Two voices splitting apart, one suspicious, spat in my face.
The other- whispered low, resigned, horrified, to my back.
When I don’t respond, Yohji moves behind me, hesitating, his hand hovering over my shoulder.
“Don’t”
Callous. What else am I to do with this despair, this hollow aftermath, my limbs still aching from a revenge I meant to take upon myself as well.
Takatori’s cold face- almost as beautiful as her smile.
Yohji winces, pulling away.
I ignore the urge to hold him, to take him with me or follow him.
While I still have control.
“I don’t know.”
Snapped back to the moment the words rest heavy on my tongue, splintering, falling apart.
I wonder if I will remember this also and shrug it off- what’s one more face to cast off?
Sickened, I stare Ken full in the face. It is a horrible thing that I will never be able to forget him either.
My hand streaks out, slamming into his stomach.
He drops to his knees, his face contorted in pain.
There is an unspoken understanding between us- no respite.
Confused by the sorrow I feel for Ken, a sympathy I ‘d thought I’d lost the capacity for- I turn away, listening to him gasp behind me, trying to force breath back into him.
It amazes me how unconscious the will to live is, how it flouts and forsakes everything.
My katana streaking before me, blocking blows I’d rather have taken. Able to recover, your body becomes a tyrant.
He yells after me-
I don’t hear a word. His voice drowned by all the faces in my mind.
__________________________

Light spills into the dark apartment as I open the door, suddenly exhausted, letting thoughts overwhelm me without acknowledgement or consideration.
Pushing the door open to the mission room, I pause, frowning at the figure perched on my bed.
“When did you move in here?”
I glare at Rex, crossing my arms.
“A few days ago. Why are you here?”
“Tactful tonight, aren’t we?”
Her smile drops off quickly, replaced by a grim look.
“Let me explain- we’ve had other agents tracking Sena.”
Unsurprising.
“So?”
“They lost track of him.”
“What?”
I lunge at her, grabbing her by the collar.
“Where was he going?”
She stammers, looking confused.
“He seemed to be heading towards Koua- but there’s no reason to worry, we just wanted to alert you. I’m sure he’d contact us if he-”
Growling low in my throat I push her away. Naïve bitch.
Not looking at her, I strip down, pulling my mission gear on, strapping my katana to my waist.
“I want you to be gone when I come back.”
Without another word I run back outside, flushed with fury and adrenaline, gripped with a certainty that Z-class, Epitaph, Esset has taken him. Yet another person stolen.
Sena- I can’t make for anything by saving you.
Rushing towards the school- that doesn’t matter.
Parking the car in the woods, I run towards what seems to be the only source of light.
A shape finally forms itself- the stadium.
I can hear wordless yells from over its walls.
Speeding up, I run blind until I can see Sena, cowering in the dirt, the female Z-class member leaning over him.
Screaming- I let my arms take over, pushing my body forward without thought, running my blade through the sneering bitch from behind.
Sena smiles, a wide innocent gratitude expressed in his features.
Yet another reflection to count.
I turn to face the male, he yells, accusing me. I let his words slide away unheard, watching his body for movement.
I am not surprised when he lunges, his fists colliding with the steel of my sword held in front of me, his voice rambles on, taunting, daring me to listen.
I hold my sword to him, daring him with equal force to attack.
He blanches suddenly- his mockery cut off
“I see it! Unforgivable sins- what I’m fighting is a phantom of the past. You’re nothing to fear! Nothing!”
Laughing maniacally he runs towards me, his arms swinging at my head. His eyes roll about as I impale him.
“Why-how can you fight as a phantom?”
Rasping.
“I am no phantom.”
I let him drop, my eyes closing over the words.
Unforgivable sins.
Is my curse written in my face?
They say Cain too was marked, and that it made him more beautiful and also more feared.
The thought is pushed away by Sena’s groaning, clutching at his side.
Kneeling, I pull his arm over my shoulder, dragging him to the car.
_____________________________

Rex is gone when we return, the medical kit laid out on the kitchen table. An apology, I imagine.
Silently, not looking at him, I rip through Sena’s clothes, dabbing his wounds with antibiotic, ignoring his gasps of pain at the stinging fluid, winding bandages over them.
Luckily, there seems to be nothing broken, and nothing deep enough to warrant stitches.
When I’ve finished, he stares at me, a question playing over in his eyes.
“Aya?”
I shrug, letting my exhaustion get the better of my stoicism.
“Can you ever make up for what you do? Do you think- I mean-”
I cut him off, waving my hand irritated.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been able to.”
“Oh.”
His voice is low, disappointed across the table.
“Is that why- “
He stops, flashing his eyes up to mine.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t-”
Hesitantly, he reaches over the table, placing his small, almost feminine hand over mine.
If the nails were painted-
I shake the thought away, focusing on his face.
“But don’t you have to hold on to what you can regardless- I mean, can’t that save you, even a little?”
“Sena- what do you think redemption is?”
His eyes are incredible. Serious with all the wisdom of innocence.
“Being able to recall your actions without suffering them again.”
Weighing that, I hardly notice as he rises, leaving me alone, my head pressed against the table.
_______________________________

It’s dark when we pull up to the sprawling building.
“So, I thought teachers didn’t make that much.”
“It’s inherited.”
I frown, as we pull the backs from the trunk.
Didn’t she say her family was from Yokohama? Why would they have a mansion outside some small town, a half hour from Tokyo?
Uneasily, I follow her inside, carried along by memories of an uncanny likeness, an intrepid fascination, bruises along my neck.
I shake the apprehension off, smiling at her as we drop the bags, settling on the bed.
“Hungry?”
She smiles slightly, at me, tilting her head to the side.
I shrug.
The evening passes on, a transplanted version of all the nights spent in her apartment.
The only difference is that when I pull her down to the bed, the only soundtrack is the chirping of crickets outside the window.
_______________________________

“Closer”
Her eyes flash with a neon glare, a strange almost hollow light behind them.
Pressing over her, I try to peer into that depth, discern the hold it has on me.
Collapsing, she smiles and pulls my hair along her fingers, long hair, dark streaks of gold cutting across her silvery skin. I press my lips to her breast, smiling apologetically as I get up, taking a pack of cigarettes with me, one leaning from my lips, smoke curling up white, clean into the night. Nicotine merging with residual pleasure.
It falls to the ground, I choke, suffocating on the smoke caught in my throat by pressing wire, a thin bright flash before my eyes. Twisting around, I catch a glimpse of her blue hair and lips, her cat suit shimmering with the same tone as if her whole body had been deprived of air, her eyes obscured by a visor. The line of her lips tightens as she pulls, my daze brought on by the hollow fragments swimming through her eyes, now beautiful, now disturbing, empty. My arms flail forward, trying to catch her neck, catch the wire, wrapping around nothing.
“I only wanted to save you”
A paper airplane--
Light flickers across her face, fading into the sheets. Her hands press at mine, trying to dig at the fingers. Her eyes are wide, imbued with some consideration, something brought alive by fear.
“Please…stop..”
Her voice rasps out from between my fingers.
“I-”
I go to repeat myself, remembering suddenly that my words mean nothing here, will ring strange and empty to her.
Still fixed on those illuminated eyes, I drop my hands from Tsujii’s throat and run from the room, collapsing outside the door, knotting my fingers in my hair.
“You were always at your most beautiful and terrible in love.”
A hand rests translucent on my leg, a kneeling figure gazing up into my eyes.
“Asuka.”
It’s a whisper, untainted by fear. Panting, still worn through from what happened in the bedroom there is nothing more welcome than her face.
She smirks, a familiar look even after so long, evoking a conflicting sensation of agony and joy.
“Your relationships have never been peaceful have they?”
In her upturned eyes a series of faces present themselves. Blue-lipped Neu, her wig balled at the foot of the bed, Michelle with her swept up hair and easy smile, her facetious and endearing airs, Aya, a wistful smile breaking through his glare, his eyes light and beautiful.
I bite my lip, affirming the reality of her presence with the metallic bitterness of my blood, the taste pooled in my mouth.
Her own body sacrificed twice to this miserable vitality of mine, this uselessly preserved life. And for what?
“To love.”
She smiles, her eyes growing somber at my shock.
I do not question it, whether a hallucination or the reconciliation I’d prayed for so long in bars, in every possible depth.- she continues, her voice spread in one long elegy, calling up images, memories.
“You’re just being true to yourself, at every moment, reacting-.”
Aya’s eyes narrowing, our voices colliding in terrible accusations, evocations of doubt, my heart pounding to the hurried anger in his voice.
“Never lying- because in that moment you loved them.”
A thin chain pressed against her neck.
“You shouldn’t have.”
Michelle’s smile, fingering the pendant. Radiant.
“And they loved you.”
Aya’s skin in the sun, stretched, a thin smile on his face, hair fanned around him on the pillow.
His back turned to me, shoulders hunched over, hair falling in a tight braid down his back.
“What about you?”
Echoes. My throat tightening amidst this incomprehensible sea of conflicting imagery, my sense of being lost arrayed before me.
“There was no sin in it.”
She states it absolutely. The words bring tears around my eyes, images of broken body, her form lined in a different light than now and broken.
“You’re only restraining yourself with guilt. Don’t punish yourself for anything you did honestly- not for me.”
“I don’t want to forget you.”
I try to grasp her hand, my fingers falling instead to my leg.
“You have to. Otherwise you’ll only continue to suffer.”
Aya’s face suddenly mingles in hers. Is memory somehow earned by suffering it.
“It makes me glad to see you radiate when you love someone. Please love someone with all your being, you are not yourself when you’re clouding yourself with such misery.”
“That’s not it!”
Panicked, I try to grab her hand again, missing it.
“What’s not it?”
This ongoing frustration! This pain that can’t be explained- everyone names their pain, attributes a definite cause to their agony- true pain seems causeless, rootless and yet inextricable.
“I don’t know. Asuka I’m-”
Lost.
The door creaks open behind me, Tsujii silently extends her hand towards me.
Asuka’s vanishes as hers draws closer, gripping mine and pulling me up, back into the room.
Lingering a moment, I watch for a trace of her light.
Disappointed again, I let the door click shut, imagining her face lingering shadowed in the hall.
_____________________________

Silently, Tsujii shoves a glass of wine at me, gesturing for me to sit on the bed, and stares out the window, fingering the stem of her glass.
“Were you disappointed to see me talking to myself?”
How about strangulation?
“You’re just tired.”
She says it offhanded, as if I’d forgotten a small detail, stumbled or left something behind.
“Well…….if I hurt you in any way-”
My voice is scared hesitant, my hand tightening around the glass until I fear its going to snap, gutting my palms.
Words I dare not remember- wires pulled taut enough to shred through my protective gloves.
I am certain that crushing a wine glass would leave similar scars.
She shrugs
“Don’t worry about it. We’re adults, we both have episodes in our past we haven’t told each other about.”
She turns around, a slight smile on her face.
Her eyes, so animated with my hands on her throat, are hollow now calmed, deadened.
A flat surface reflecting nothing.
“I too am stained with a past-”
Her voice trails off, the smile flickering out of existence for a brief moment before reforming.
“Then we can forget about what happened tonight.”
“Then I’ve forgotten.”
Stepping towards me, she pours another glass of wine for us both, fingering the label on the bottle as she sets it down, musing.
“This wine- the name means throwing away the past. It’s supposed to make you forget- if you drink it maybe you’ll be able to forget it all too. Or are the only memories you have ones that you don’t want to forget?”
Stiff, I swallow the wine in a deep gulp, tilting my head back to take it in.
Even so, it trails down my chest we I lean forward again, dropping down to my chest.
She laughs slightly, tilting her head again, mannerism I’d never seen her display before.
“There’s something I want to show you.”
_______________________________________

She has me close my eyes as we drive, pulling us along a winding road. I can feel the curves as we progress, the night wind stinging my cheeks.
Finally, at long last, we stop. I open my eyes to see an enormous complex, wings spread out half completed- shooting her a confused look I open my mouth to ask.
She sets her finger against it, smiling, her eyes suddenly alive again.
“Shh. Don’t ask any questions. Not a single one. That’s the rule for tonight’s game.”
“Game?”
I sound incredulous. She holds up her hand.
“Now don’t give it up before its even begun! Follow me.”
She guides me through dark halls, line after line of closed doors. Occasionally, ahead, one will spill out light from the bottom, a sort of beacon we will pass by, listening as the voices behind them quiet until we are long gone, our footsteps presumably out of range. Shooting me a wide grin, she throws a door open, a wide metal opening. It opens onto a metal platform, railed with steel. A low buzz of muffled conversation and electricity comes from it. The room exudes a faintly chemical smell, and the scent of burning.
Stepping in, I look down over the railing, at the room proper, and gasp at what I see.
Groups of technicians, assistants, all spewing questions or making notes, examining what seems to be layers of bodies. Here and there I can spot a red uniform, glaringly familiar, hanging around contorted bodies, the cloth charred and pooling up, rustling in the smoke and shrapnel.
“That song……”
Unconsciously I begin to whistle, hitting the same beginning notes over and over with my teeth, Tsujii shooting me an odd look.
Neither the lab technicians, nor the Z class members look up at the sound, letting it drift by them.
In a circle of monitors, whirring machines, is a set of glass tubes. Peering closely, I can just make out the shapes of faces.
Whipping around, I set my hand on my watch, not caring whether the wire will cut me as well without gloves.
“You-”
She interrupts, clapping her hands together, all veils falling away from her eyes leaving a ruthless, mechanical stare infused with a strange, almost contradictory glee.
“You did well not asking questions. The game is over now. You win.”
Her voice is shrewd, calculating. Her face settles into something at once inhuman and more natural to her.
Almost insect like, clacking her jaw together with a smug assurance. Bitch- I lunge swinging my fist at her stomach. She dodges, quickly, but not so fast that I can’t see every stage of the movement.
Not as quick as-
I shake the image off. Tsujii’s lacking the maniacal look, the affected calm.
Her calm is genuine. Disgusting.
“Don’t move!”
I pull the wire out, slicing my fingers. Blood streams down the metal strand, thickening it, turning it dark with beads of blood.
She smirks at me, watching the wire sink through my flesh.
“You won the game. Don’t you want your prize?”
She smirks, stepping back with each word, trying to calculate a distance out of my reach.
“I’ll allow you to forget the past-”
I glare.
“You can change.”
“I’m not going anywhere!”
The words hurled angrily, held back inside my skull.
“With my powers you can forget everything and start over-”
I pause, guiltily, hesitantly lingering over the idea. Start over, free of ghosts.
Aya’s face peers mournfully back at me, an expression I do not quite recognize, his head balanced on his hands, his shoulders shaking.
“With the technology of Esset, altering a mind is easy. Dispersing only the memories you want to forget and implanting the peaceful memories you’ve longed for.”
Esset? I guess that confirms the connection. Irrefutable.
A good way to make a slave.
“They can all work to my benefit”
Aya’s face spreading with rage, his katana slashing across the night spilling bodies.
My voice fills and is strengthened by his spite, his vicious contempt.
“I won’t go so low as to become Esset’s dog. Shit- you slept with me just for this, huh? Nice recruiting policy.”
“Are you any different? Did you sleep with me because you loved me?
Michelle’s shrill unbelievable voice, caught up with a hidden tension
“The villain? You tricked a woman, stole information from her, and now that she’s of no further use, you’re going to kill her. Then I guess Esset is the good guy.”
I extend the wire.
“Why did you bring me here now? This place you’ve been hiding from me?”
“Did you sleep with me because you loved me?”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s substitute again.”
Aya’s voice, tremulous, broken by a frantic breath, the flush of his cheeks and his clenching hands, the fear swimming deep in his eyes.
I shrug.
“Oh well, the mission’s complete. I found out the identity of Epitaph and-”
“I’m still left.”
Michelle’s desperate uncomprehending eyes, warped into cruelty by her smile. It is the first thing to die on her face, that fake, forced mask of a smile.
Tsujii stares at me, interrupting, maskless amidst this cacophony of exposing faces.
“Did you sleep with me-”
The cacophony rises around me to an unbearable timbre, provoking a scream.
“Shut up! Moment by moment-”
I grew to hate you more, disgusted by your pretension, your clever stupidity, your vapid malice now transfigured here and menacing, locking me for my blindness.
“Tsujii wouldn’t drug me.”
Aya’s face crushed, eyes narrowed with an acute and alarming disappointment.
“Did you not love me?
“I-”
“Did you not love me?”
Asuka’s voice echoes through my head, spurring the cavorting images on, exchanging faces, eyes, smiles, voices bounced over and back, reverberating wild in this dance around my eyes.
“It makes me glad to see you radiate when you love someone.”
My fingers drop for the wire. I jump back as it snaps into the watch with a quick grating sound, and fall to my knees, cradling my head in my hands, hiding her face from my sight.
Tsujii’s voice rings out regardless, harsh, piercing me with its venom.
“Kudou Yohji, you never truly love anyone. You know it. You know it and yet use these exact words to protect yourself.”
Her pronouncement makes me sick, a terrible nausea presenting itself to expel those words.
“That is your sin.”
“There was no sin in it.”
My hands passing through hers, her sorrowful smile.
Tearing away from her hateful voice I run, my footsteps echoing through the halls as I rush back to the car.
“You can forget everything and start over.”
The strange appeal in the words is not lost as I start the car, tearing back towards the lights of the town. I can’t be far.
“You can’t change what you have become so easily. It’s delusion.”
His voice harsh and questioning over the phone warring with Tsujii’s tone, their words embattled, confused.
My hair spread in a pattern along the sink. A brightness I don’t deserve and cannot hope to hold, guilt rising fitfully behind my eyes, breaking through the barriers erected by passion, everything overwhelming and immediate.
All that can impress me anew.
If I was blank- everything would be a revelation.
Horrified I streak on towards the town, my stomach turning as the sun begins to rise in the mirror, as if the dawn itself was chasing me away.
Afterwards, would I know what I had lost?
Or would nothing at all remain, not only a loss of impressions, but of my whole existence, born new in a scarred body and unable to explain the marks I bear.
Throwing the door open, I do not even question why Aya is hunched over the kitchen table, his head couched in his arms.
A strange cry emerging from my throat, I grab him from behind, holding him tightly.
There is sin.
____________________________________

Authors Note (part two): next chapter should be up soon, before next thursday, since i want to get it up before my classes start again. I know i tweaked the Tsujii/Asuka part. but it makes more sense, to me at least, this way. (insert disclaimer here: me= does not own Weiss).
Also, we broken 200 pages. kinda.....wow.