Moonlight danced across the waves. Waves that concealed the twisted dreams of the Esset Elders and the ruins of the Ani Museum. Ruins that had become the final tomb for two groups of killers.
Or perhaps not.
Aya struggled for life, fighting the undertow, the chunks of masonry and the desire to just give in and die. He was almost surprised when he made it into shallower water and was able to see the shore ahead.
His surprise turned to amazement when he realized that, through it all, he'd managed to keep a grip on the katana. Seemingly he still had some sort of purpose, some reason for surviving.
He literally crawled out of the water and collapsed on the beach, his strength finally deserting him and the darkness descending to swallow him whole.
Yohji staggered onto the beach, shivering and drenched in sea water. He felt as if he'd spent the last hour rolling around inside a cement mixer filled with rocks, and he badly wanted a smoke but didn't even bother to check the pack since he knew it was hopelessly sodden from his sojourn in the waves. His sunglasses were gone, lost in the waves like his team.
He could replace the glasses, but if the others were gone... if he was the only survivor.
No, he wouldn't think about that. Not just yet.
He stood at the edge of the sea and scanned the beach, aware that his legs were trembling beneath him, his whole body shaking from fatigue.
Sea stung eyes caught the shape of a dark lump unmoving down the beach and Yohji stumbled toward it, fell, muttered at himself in annoyance and hauled himself back to his feet.
When he was still a few yards from the lump he realized it was Aya, not because he could discern the man's features in the dark, but because of the katana still clutched in the red-head's hand.
He dropped to his knees beside the other killer and rolled him over, not sure if the other Weiss was alive or dead.
"Aya?" he queried softly as he brushed sand from the pale cheek.
There was an annoying buzz in his ears, the lightest of touches to his cheek. He muttered something incomprehensible and tried to escape back into the darkness. It was impossible. He was too cold to do anything more than shiver.
Sighing slightly he forced salt-crusted eyelids to part and stared at the figure bending over him. It took him a moment to recognize it due to fatigue and the fact that the moon was behind whoever it was.
The figure spoke. One word. His borrowed name. He recognized the dark brown voice.
"Yohji?"
"Hai, Aya," the blond replied as he pulled the younger man close.
Aya felt chilled, maybe from the shock of their ordeal, probably from exhaustion. He could sympathize, all the older Weiss wanted to do right now was curl up somewhere warm and sleep for a week. His whole body ached. Instead he was sitting there in the wet sand, holding a team mate and wondering where the other two were.
"Are you hurt?"
Aya thought about that for a while. He did a quick, mental scan of his body and could find only minor gashes and abrasions from the chunks of building that had battered him.
"Ile," he said finally.
Yohji's jade eyes scanned the beach but there was nothing else to see. No one else, moving or otherwise.
"Think you can walk?" he questioned. He wasn't sure he could carry Aya, but he would do his best if it came down to that. Aya had helped him on more than one occasion when he'd been wounded and unable to walk without assistance. And the man had saved all their lives during the SD ambush.
He owed Aya, and Yohji never forgot things like that.
Aya slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and waited for the world to stop spinning before he answered. It didn't matter whether he could walk or not, he had to. They had to get off this beach and get warm if they were to survive.
"I can walk," he said eventually.
There was something missing. Something he should be able to remember but his brain didn't seem to be working too well. Shaking his head he climbed painfully to his feet. Then he realised what it was he was trying to recall.
"Ken? Omi? Have you seen them?"
Yohji stood, sighing as his legs protested the movement. He glanced at the red-haired man, frowned. Aya didn't seem too steady on his feet, but then he supposed he wasn't doing that great either.
"No. Not a trace, but I can't say that I've searched either. I saw you first and wanted to make sure you were alive."
How ironic if Yohji and he were the only survivors of Weiss. The younger two still had some hope, some reason to go on. He had done what he'd set out to do and saved his sister. There was no more he was needed for, nothing that needed his attention.
And Yohji was haunted by his own demons, his own memories. Yet here they both were and no sign of the others.
"We ought to search," he said. "We made it ashore. They may have done so too." It was unlikely really. The last he'd seen of Omi, he was having his ribs kicked in by Farfarello and Ken had seemed dazed as he sat there just watching it happen. Could they really have made it to the shore?
He glanced up at Yohji, as if asking him to make the decision.
"Let's stay together, just in case we run into any of those bastard freaks. Neither of us is in any condition to fight them alone, and with our luck, Berserker will be the one we find alive."
Yohji slipped his arm around Aya, seeking to give the man a little support, wanting the stability of another person to help him stay on his own feet.
Aya nodded, glad not to have to make any decisions for now. He found he did have a question, however.
"Where are we going?"
He didn't want to find Manx or Sakura right now. The girl's obsession with him was beginning to freak him out and Manx, hopefully, would have lost no time in getting Aya-chan back to the hospital. It didn't leave them with a great deal of choice.
"Up the beach. Maybe we'll find Ken or Omi. Either way, I parked Seven in the trees by the road just up that hill," Yohji told him, pointing out the hill he mentioned.
He didn't really expect to see either of his team mates. He'd seen the slab of concrete that had fallen into the water where both Omi and Ken had been and had little hope either of them were alive. And if Farfarello were dead, then it would be from the same huge slab of ceiling taking him to the bottom with their younger team mates.
For some reason he was reluctant to tell Aya about what he'd seen, possibly because he couldn't state unequivocally that they were dead. Not yet anyway.
Aya looked at the hill, took a deep breath and nodded. He could make it. He had to make it. He didn't know why but he felt as if his death would be somehow catastrophic which was ridiculous but never mind. He supposed it was just his mind playing tricks in order to force his body into action.
He knew they wouldn't find the others. He too had seen that large slab come down where they had been and, like Yohji, said nothing.
"Let's go then."
"Right."
Yohji started off with the red-haired assassin, the pair moving slowly, Yohji discovering some bruising along his left side which the warmth that was returning to his body made more apparent. He wondered if any of his ribs were broken, but didn't really care. For whatever reason, fate, karma, god, he was alive and so was Aya.
Maybe what they said about only the good dying young was true. Omi had been good, Ken too in his heart.
He and Aya? Well they were who and what they were, and it was too late to change that now.
Peaceful beauty hiding death beneath the calm waves the same way the pair of men hid the souls of killers beneath their attractive exteriors.