Weiss Kreuz - slash_me_twice - 028. Innocence
028. Innocence
*
Rosenkreuz had a chamber of people just for the telepaths to practice on. Schuldig remembered one person who came in especially well: she was four years old, and had never experienced real pain-only happiness. Schuldig used to dive into her mind when he was lonely and just relive her happiness. She was kept in stasis-eternally blissful, eternally four even as her body grew.
She was six when the orders came that she be killed; she’d outlived her usefulness. Schuldig volunteered to be the one to do it. He wanted to have a last look into her mind before the inevitable murder. He got his last look. He would always remember the way her mother smiled when the little girl put on her favorite dress. It was the last night she would ever be awake.
Schuldig knocked out Fujimiya Ran and took him from the restaurant just before Nagi blew up the building across the street with Ran’s parents inside. Nagi made sure a concrete panel fell on the sister, Aya, as she was walking to the restaurant to see her brother.
And like that, the Fujimiyas were gone, and no one was the wiser about Ran’s missing status until much later, when his body wasn’t found in the building’s wreckage. And by then, Schuldig had him sleeping in a little bed on the floor of his apartment, never to wake without Schuldig’s help, his body’s needs cared for by tubes and Estet doctors.
“Why do you keep him?” Nagi asked him once. He put his small hand on Ran’s pale arm and looked up at Schuldig, as if surprised it was still warm. “What is he to you?”
Schuldig shrugged. “Innocence? Happiness? I can’t really…” He dived into Ran’s mind, his newest haven, but this time he pulled Nagi with him. There was Aya-chan at the sakura festival, pulling her blushing brother along and saying, “You have to try this!” There was Ran staring at his first crush and feeling the heat coil in his belly. There was Ran’s father with a booming laugh, and his mother with a soothing smile. There was seventeen years of family history, seventeen years of being unconditionally loved and supported.
Seventeen years of bliss, trapped in the mind of this prone body. And it all belonged to Schuldig.
Nagi’s eyes opened, and Schuldig wasn’t surprised to find the same smile that was on his face also decorated the chibi’s. “Oh,” Nagi said. “What will you do with him when you’re done?”
Schuldig shrugged. “Wake him up, probably.”
“But-why?” That would be cruel.
Another smile. “Aah. It would be.” But then, Schuldig has come to appreciate a tortured mind as much as a blissful one. And when the time comes, he will let this little butterfly loose into the world to grieve, to be hunted, and to be caught again.
*
Rosenkreuz had a chamber of people just for the telepaths to practice on. Schuldig remembered one person who came in especially well: she was four years old, and had never experienced real pain-only happiness. Schuldig used to dive into her mind when he was lonely and just relive her happiness. She was kept in stasis-eternally blissful, eternally four even as her body grew.
She was six when the orders came that she be killed; she’d outlived her usefulness. Schuldig volunteered to be the one to do it. He wanted to have a last look into her mind before the inevitable murder. He got his last look. He would always remember the way her mother smiled when the little girl put on her favorite dress. It was the last night she would ever be awake.
Schuldig knocked out Fujimiya Ran and took him from the restaurant just before Nagi blew up the building across the street with Ran’s parents inside. Nagi made sure a concrete panel fell on the sister, Aya, as she was walking to the restaurant to see her brother.
And like that, the Fujimiyas were gone, and no one was the wiser about Ran’s missing status until much later, when his body wasn’t found in the building’s wreckage. And by then, Schuldig had him sleeping in a little bed on the floor of his apartment, never to wake without Schuldig’s help, his body’s needs cared for by tubes and Estet doctors.
“Why do you keep him?” Nagi asked him once. He put his small hand on Ran’s pale arm and looked up at Schuldig, as if surprised it was still warm. “What is he to you?”
Schuldig shrugged. “Innocence? Happiness? I can’t really…” He dived into Ran’s mind, his newest haven, but this time he pulled Nagi with him. There was Aya-chan at the sakura festival, pulling her blushing brother along and saying, “You have to try this!” There was Ran staring at his first crush and feeling the heat coil in his belly. There was Ran’s father with a booming laugh, and his mother with a soothing smile. There was seventeen years of family history, seventeen years of being unconditionally loved and supported.
Seventeen years of bliss, trapped in the mind of this prone body. And it all belonged to Schuldig.
Nagi’s eyes opened, and Schuldig wasn’t surprised to find the same smile that was on his face also decorated the chibi’s. “Oh,” Nagi said. “What will you do with him when you’re done?”
Schuldig shrugged. “Wake him up, probably.”
“But-why?” That would be cruel.
Another smile. “Aah. It would be.” But then, Schuldig has come to appreciate a tortured mind as much as a blissful one. And when the time comes, he will let this little butterfly loose into the world to grieve, to be hunted, and to be caught again.