Character profile: Aya Fujimiya
F U J I M I Y A A Y A
"When I was sixteen, I slept with a woman for the first time. When I was eighteen, I lost family for the first time.
When I was nineteen, I killed a person for the first time.
This is my career."
Aya, Weiss Kreuz Gluhen: Fight fire with Fire
H I S T O R Y
Born as the first and only son of a traditional family, Ran was early on encouraged to learn fitting skills for the head of the family. While his sister would help their mother in household work, Ran was studying or working. His family was quite the ordinary traditional yet a slightly more common than their relatives kind of family. His father worked late, every day of the week, including Sundays and family holidays. His mother stayed home, taking care of the children and the house.
Despite what many wants to believe, he didn't start kendo from young age. He was offered the possibility but he instead choose to take German lessons after school, thinking it would help him much more in the future. Four days a week, he would work in a restaurant owned by his mother's distant relatives. For learning purposes his father had said.
When he was fifteen, his mother opened him a bank account where she would direct a certain amount of money every month, just like she did for his father. Buying his sister's birthday present with the yens he had earned himself was like growing old in a heartbeat, and he didn't mind the feeling in the least.
Taught to be modest, naturally shy and easily embarrassed, he grew up introverted and solemn. This didn't mean he had no sense of humor, on the contrary, he was witty and bright young man. His sister often teased him about being shy, and he would blush and demand her to stop at once.
Indeed, he had quite the ordinary life until the day when his parents died and sister fell into a coma.
He never did find out the real reason why his parents were murdered. Someone suggested silencing the witnesses, someone rituals for the damned demon of Esset, but when it boils down to the facts, he knew nothing. Nothing else but the fact that lifeless bodies were left behind. On the most paranoid moments he did have doubts about his own eyes and he wondered if the bodies he saw were his parents at all but then just a second after he realized he was betraying himself with such thoughts. Lying on the floor, shadows cast over their twisted bodies, his parents were murdered.
Aya-chan ran out of the house only to be run over by a car. He'd remember the face of Takatori Reiji for the rest of his life, watching him from the window of his car when his sister fell. The reason why he lived was just as lost to him as the reason for his parents' death.
Kritiker contacted him in the hospital just a day after and offered him a deal. His life for revenge. Nothing could have kept him from accepting at the moment. Later, when he had bloodied his hands and sworn endless hatred to Kritiker, he would wonder why it all happened so easily, so quickly.
They arranged a new hospital for Aya-chan in Tokyo, high tech equipment and best doctors available. Ran was sent to Sendai, to join his first team under the Kritiker, which was supposed to be formed into the first Weiss if things had gone like they were planned. He was not allowed to attend his parents' funeral and had to leave his sister to the hospital with only halves of her birthday earrings to connect them. One in her lifeless hand and the other in his ear.
He was just seventeen, impressionable, like Kikyo said. Shion, Kikyo, Kuroyuri and Tsubaki, the research team of Kritiker, the true forces behind the Sendai ikebana center. Shion tried to teach Ran more than just how to use the katana for killing but how to let others live by drawing his sword. Kikyo was like the older brother Ran never had, understanding, sharing the same tragedy.
In the end, they all died because of Ran's mistake. Or so he thought. A trap set out from Ran's information source, the only thing he was left with was Shion's katana and guilt.
Despite his hunger for vengeance, he was forced to stay behind, join non-lethal teams to hone his skills and patience. Only a year or two after his parents' death, he was bitter and frustrated. His time as a replacement Rook in Crashers was filled with impatience, endless fights with Knight and need to move on. To the revenge he so lusted after. Without his consent, awareness or even acceptance, Crashers all became his friends, Even Yuushi (,although he would never admit such) and he felt eventually the need to take his miserable, morbid life somewhere else, away from them.
Escaping from Kritiker had not worked before, but yet he had to try. After a year of doing his own research, morally right or not, working for money and personal goals, they caught up with him again. This time sending the assassin team after him. On the windy rooftop, he met Birman and his new team and was offered a chance to realize his vengeance under the name of Weiss, or be killed.
Weiss, the white hunters, the ones that would punish criminals beyond the means of law and police. Frankly, he found the whole thing a little too dramatic for his likings, too full of possible mistakes. But there was truth within the purpose, and he wasn't idealistic enough to complain if it didn't work as throughout moralistically as it should have.
Needless to say absorbing to yet another team wasn't painless. The first night he and Ken beat the shit out of each other and the flower shop, which served as Weiss' home base. Bruised purple and out of patience, he woke up from Yohji's bed the next morning.
Weiss called him Aya, not Ran, which suited him just fine. Killing was not an easy thing to do on every day basis. Guilt, doubt and regret as his every day companions, he tried his hardest to not befriend these new teammates, murderers. Takatori Suichi, Persia, or King and the man called Marigold back in Sendai, he had been clever in picking up the assassins to Weiss III. All of them were young and impressionable, blinded by their own goals and ambitions, tragedies. And at least Aya and Omi arguably had a long and somewhat professional training behind them. Back then, Aya didn't care, as long as he was promised his revenge.
It seems that everything in his life always comes to a full circle. And so it happened with Kikyo as well. Soon after attaining yet another codename, Abyssinian, after a cat breed, Aya and the rest of Weiss were sent to a mission in Sendai. Through brief investigations and quick confrontation with the villain Aya found himself face to face with Kikyo again. He turned out to be a member in an underground group of rich people who, according to his own words, were bored of their usual SM stuff and were instead killing young girls to arrange their body parts with flowers into a work of art. The group was the very same that had set the trap years ago for Ran's first team. Kikyo himself had pulled the trigger for both Kuroyuri and Tsubaki. Aya's sword in his stomach, Kikyo told Aya there is no living sword or a killing sword, there's only a sword that is a tool for the hand guiding it.
Through Weiss' fight against Takatori Reichi and his sons happened a lot. It appeared that his sister had not aged a day since her falling in coma. He met a girl, Sakura, who reminded him of his sister and who fell in love with him. Omi, one of his teammates, regained his memories and was revealed to be Takatori's youngest son. Ken almost betrayed the team for his old friends. Team of assassins, Schwarz, killed Omi's just discovered sister. Weiss was publicly accused for terrorism. Aya left Kritiker once again to find his own way to revenge when it seemed Persia was not going to give him it through Weiss, but was brought back by an agent to rescue the rest of the Weiss from Japanese security forces employed by none other than Takatori Reichi.
But what was more important was that Aya got his revenge. He killed his personal demon, Takatori Reichi with his katana on the man's own building top after Weiss had successfully attacked right to the heart of the chaos.
After, he felt the justice he had been searching for had been dealt and he could move along. He quit Weiss and took Aya-chan with him to find a new life. Maybe there was hope for him still? He had to take care of his sister at least.
But like never before, breaking away from Kritiker wasn't that easy. Aya-chan was kidnapped and he attacked by an assassin from the group called Schrient. Grudgingly he went back to Weiss and begun to search his sister that way. Frustrated and angry, he continued with his job as an executioner.
Soon appeared that even if Takatori, both Suichi and Reiji were dead, there was another enemy behind the Takatori family, an organization called Esset, which was hungry for world domination and were striving for that by summoning a demon. Aya-chan was meant to be a sacrifice for this black ritual. In middle of all the chaos, another assassin group of women this time appeared, Schrient was there to revenge their master's death to Weiss. Sakura sneaked into Esset's laboratory and replaced Aya-chan's body with herself. And through mind control and fights, Schwarz had to get the right girl back.
It all burned down to the pinnacle of the ritual, Weiss had come to rescue Aya-chan and stop the evils of Esset, Schwarz had their own agenda of chaos and mayhem and Kritiker was in ruins. The building collapsed into the oceans during Weiss' fight against Schwarz and the world was saved.
Soon after Aya-chan woke up from her coma. Aya decided to continue with Weiss. While Koneko, their old flower shop, was being repaired, later to be taken over by Aya-chan, Weiss got an RV with a miniature flower shop and headed out of Tokyo, traveling across Japan, taking missions where ever needed.
After some time, and missions, Weiss was forced to meet a threat coming from the inside. Group calling themselves Weiss was taking out the same targets Aya and the real Weiss were sent after. They found out that Aya's old teacher Shion, who didn't die in the trap years back either but staged his own death, was leading a group of degenerated assassins against Kritiker and Weiss itself.
During this mission, both Ken and Yohji were forced to ponder a little closer their motivations and goals with both Weiss and assassinations, Omi met with his grandfather again and in the end agreed to inherit the name and fortunes of Takatori family. Aya was forced to battle with Shion, his teacher and the man he had looked up to. He was haunted by dreams about Kikyo who was coming to take Aya where he belonged, with Kikyo. Shion cut Ken and Yohji down and hurt Aya, who finally managed to shoot Shion with a gun like a true murderer and unlike the samurai so many mistakenly think of him to be. The wound however wasn't lethal and Shion impaled himself with his own katana.
Kritiker in ruins resulted with Weiss disbanding again. Aya left for America and stayed there two years working for another organization not much unlike Kritiker He returned back to Japan when Mamoru (Omi) invited him to gather a new Weiss under the rebuilt Kritiker and new Persia, who was none other than Mamoru himself.
Weiss included two new members and the remaining three, even if Aya vehemently disagreed with Mamoru about Yohji joining Weiss again. Ken and Yohji were sent to Germany on a mission while Aya was left behind with the two younger assassins.
The mission started as an investigation for the mysterious suicides in a highly appraised school, Koua academy. Aya posed as a teacher and the rest as students. It didn't take long to find out that the school poised as one of the biggest strong points for Esset (turns out they aren't just an organization for summoning demons). Yohji and Ken were sent back to Japan to join forces with Aya and the kids to defeat Esset in one blow.
They discover special groups of student undergoing more than just their regular curriculum, being taught fighting and unusual talents. Both of the younger assassins die, Weiss unites forces with Crashers and Schwarz at the end to defeat the Esset agents, their weird science experiments, and of course, world domination plans.
After Ken was seriously wounded and sent (by his own request) to a jail, Yohji was left behind to the crumbling building only with Aya's katana with him and Mamoru returned to his position in wealth and power. Aya continued to work under Mamoru until one day on a crowded street a boy runs into him and stabs him. He falls to the ground, thinking it's better not to call for help.
When he wakes up, he's not dead, which is a bit of a disappointment, but at Landel's.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
At the very core, he's still the Ran he was years ago, shy, passionate and gentle. But years and world have taught him not to let this darkest secret of his slip to just about anybody to exploit.
His most important personality trait is his survivor's instinct - he does what he has to do to go where he has to go. He has a moral backbone and isn't blind enough not to see what he does is not right. But someone has to do what he and Weiss do, and since he does not have much to live for, he's the right man for the job.
He's temperamental but has mellowed down over the years, no childish displays or temper tantrums to be seen any time soon. Yet he isn't beyond those if you push the right buttons. Despite the fact that outwardly he seems very cold and distant, he has determined heart under his exterior.
At his best he's loyal, protective and someone you can trust to, steadily doing what he sees necessary and never straying from the path. At his worst he's possessive, needy and cruel, not feeling much guilt over knocking some sense into you if it's needed.
A P P E A R A N C E
Aya, like his weapon of choice, is slim and fit. The endless training with his katas keeps him in shape, wiry muscles and flexibility. He has red hair with eartails and likes to hide his violet eyes behind his messy bangs. His skin is pale and has several scars due to his profession.
His colors might be somewhat unusual for a Japanese but he has stopped caring ages ago.
N A R R A T O R
Aya's last memory had been the gray sky, the stench of alcohol bitter urine on the cold asphalt where he had been laying, waiting for the silence. His fingers cold and slippery with sweat, and the hot blood streaming down his arm.
He had been ready to go. He already was gone.
The hospital room was too white. It hurt his eyes when he opened them slowly. His throat was dry and the sterilized smell of antiseptic clinging in the air, tasting on his tongue.
His hazy consciousness clung to the little details around. The almost nonexistent tightening of the tape that kept the IV attached to his wrist. The weight of the bandage around his ribs. The cold touch of the metal from the side of the bed when he moved his arm. The crimson mess of his hair, sweaty and dirty, clinging over his eyes.
The scream was building within him; he could feel it rising. He needed to get away.
The bed rattled when he tried to move his arms that were tied on the sides of the bed. His body trashing violently from side to another as the heat of pain struck through him, falling into the pulsing haze of anxious panic.
Breathless, erratic pants falling from his cold lips, he stared at the nurse that came in running. She didn’t bother trying to hit his vein with her needle but quickly changed the tube of his IV to the other bag of liquid that was hanging on the stand, a little ripples of blood spraying over her white shirt. He could have had his name written on there.
If only he had a name.
She stood there to wait, ignoring his heated snarls. She didn’t understand him. They were both glad for that.
The world slowly slipped into white noise of nothingness and her face was soon just one of the meaningless people gathered around his listless body lying on the hospital bed. White, so damn white.
--
Tearless eyes, blood red and swollen, blinked open to flinch at the bright light pouring right down on him. Headache pulsing into life behind his eyes as he lifted his head slightly to spy the surroundings.
When he woke up, the room was different. No strains on his wrists, no IV attached to his arm. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a haze of words was about to be breaking out, screams building.
His hand on the white sheets pale and bloodless, short nails, clean. He could have blended to the walls like a chameleon, only the ripples of blood red hair reminding him he was still alive.
White, so pure and perfect.
Shaking his head violently, a silent moan escaped past his lips as the splinting headache promised to crack open his scull. He needed to get a grip! Nervous churning of his stomach reminded him of the wound, which didn't seem to bother him too much at the moment. Numb.
The drug-induced bliss wouldn't last too long. He had to find some answers while he still could.
Where was this?