The reason why I grow my hair? To conceal my face! This sinful face, once caressed by "her," now splashed and stained by blood for more times than the ability to count.

Only the blood, only the thrill of the hunt and kill can help save me from the never-ending reminders of my sins before. But this endorphin producing method only brings upon me more sins. All I live now is a lie, a paradox. It’s all okay now… I laugh, I smile, I eat, drink, sleep, and talk though all the false and true sins of mortal men weighed upon my shoulders.

When will the drug dealers kill me? When will I roll over on my back one day in a hotel room finding that a woman’s holding a gun up to my head? Tomorrow? Tonight? In the next hour? I’ve already used up all my digits trying to count the times I slashed my wrists...it never works. It seems that every time I do it, that man will always have to come. Does god really want to see me be tormented this way? Perhaps so… God hates me. God wants me to live longer so that he can have as much fun as he wants torturing me. Death, he thinks, is too quick of a way to end it…

********************

"It’s already been four days…and there’s all this work going on…" Birman muttered, throwing a few folders onto the coffee table in front of Uriel. She sighed, rubbing the tension out of her temples. "At least you’re doing really good. We will try hard not to get you on a hard mission just yet. We can’t keep on using ‘a hangover’ as an excuse for not showing up for certain things," she proclaimed, "Nobody gets intoxicated that often."

Uriel sighed and shifted on the sofa in the basement of Koneko Sumu Ie. The idea of Youji being an assassin bummed him out more or less on the first day Aya explained it to him, but now it’s starting to become clear of why Youji never called in those two years.

********************

I tugged lightly at the tight Armany sweater on me. I’ve always felt uncomfortable sitting alone with a woman, especially in a dark place. I shifted again in my seat as I watched Birman babble on about the rules and everything that I’ve heard nearly ten thousand times from Aya.

"Oh yeah," Birman seemed to remember something, "Sorry that this is so sudden, but you have a mission tomorrow night!"

"What?!" I nearly screamed while turning my head so fast I wish I could’ve broken my neck.

"Don’t worry," Birman assured, "You guys are just going to investigate a crime site. It’s only for a few hours."

"I can’t do it…!" I shouted, the wavy bangs that escaped the imprisonment of the rubber band framing my face, "I have a problem with my eyes… I can’t see at night!" Birman almost laughed at my weakness, "Don’t worry, there will be lights at that place, it’s just that you have to dodge some policemen. It’s alright if you make a few mistakes since everyone thinks you’re more or less intoxicated these days."

How did this happen…?

"Youji! You’re late!" Ken shouted from the side of the van that was to take us to the mission site, "You didn’t even come for the debriefing, are you gonna be all right?! Don’t be troubling the others!" I rubbed my temples, trying to release the sleepy feeling within me, pressing the sunglasses to my face to hid my nervousness. "Sorry…" I mumbled, "I understand…"

My head…feels like it’s going to explode!

"Disperse!" Aya shouted, "I will go with Youji. Ken you go with Omi! We meet at 2300 hours!" Ken turned around and waved, signaling his acknowledgement with a "Roger!"

Before my eyes…my head is a complete blank! The blood on the ground…the smell of rust…

I looked at Aya as he crouched to check out the scene of the kill, staged to look like an accident. A sudden tug came at my trench coat, hard and desperate. My gaze moved down to see a hand, stretching out from the loom of my shadow, pulling at the coattail.

"That’s not your place!"

A face appeared, following another hand, covered in blood, gazing at me. Brown hair. Green eyes, the emerald orbs that stared at me, framed by the brown hair that was caked in blood.

"Get away! It’s mine!!"

I made an effort to scream, but nothing came. The hands worked their way up the trench coat, as if to pull itself up from the depths of the blood pools of Hell. The voice was Youji’s…

"Give it back to me!!"

His nails, running red underneath the glass-like exoskeleton, pierced into my skin. The pain was excruciating, the nails drawing blood. I was wearing his face. He wanted it back…

A dreadful rip was heard. My face…his... came tearing off like a stuck Halloween mask on the face of a child. Only it wasn’t. This tear left blood, the rich crimson running out the mouth and from the eyes like tears.

"U… Youji----------!!"

Aya’s voice shouted a name not my own, but the concern was to me. My gloved hands covered my face, or what’s left of it, and I fell to the ground, the darkness surrounding me…

********************

"He fell to the ground covering his face with both hands? Hmm…" Birman mumbled, "So it was too early! But no matter what, this plan has got to work… He is the man that would hate and be hated even in death! Youji…"

********************

"What the HELL is wrong with you?!" Omi shouted inside the van, seemingly a bit drunk, bringing out the hidden anger he never showed people before. "I’ve never heard of a former detective who can’t investigate a crime scene when it knocks him in the face!!" he continued, advancing towards me. Ken grabbed him by the shoulders, feebly trying to stop Omi from tearing me to shreds with his darts. "Don’t say that," he tittered, "He didn’t do it on purpose!" Omi apparently didn’t hear him. Who could when Omi is screaming and Ken’s voice can’t even be heard in the van with that screaming? "What’s with your face anyway?! Move your hands! Let’s see it!!"

My face. I can’t let them see it… "Youji" tore it away…

"Move your hands!!" I heard the high-pitched voice shout again.

Slowly, I drew my hands away from my face, my eyes scanning them for blood or perhaps chunks of flesh. Nothing. There was not a trace of the destruction or even a drop of "Youji’s" blood that was on his fingers. My fingers shook violently, my palms clammy from the amount of pressure and the on coming scream from the child.

"Nothing’s wrong with it!!" said that shout, "Jesus! Don’t think that just because your face is able to pick up women that you can pull this joke!! Who do you think you are?!"

"Omi! Calm down!" Ken’s voice joined the small shout salsa.

********************

I had to take Uriel home since he wasn’t all that familiar with Japan yet. He seemed so shaken up; much like a kitten left out in the rain.

"You’ll have to forgive Omi," I explained as he tossed the black trench coat onto the bed, revealing the arm where he had an imitation of Youji’s tattoo. I sighed; "He’s going to be having finals soon, and things aren’t going so well…" Uriel nodded, but said nothing.

********************

My eyes glanced at the railings at the balcony and then back at the pillow where the gun was.

"Uriel?" Aya spoke up, making me jolt in my boots, "Are you okay?"

I then remembered what happened on the first day. Ken had asked Aya where his car was… That black Jaguar… And what Aya said that day…

"Why don’t you take him out for some air?"

Is he the one that wanted to kill us? Then why did he save me when I was falling…?

"Uriel?"

No! Maybe he really wanted me to fall…

Aya heaved a sigh as I failed to answer his questions or his call. "I can’t believe it…" he started, "You look so much like Youji…and he would actually have a replacement…" His back was to me… This was my chance to ask him.

********************

I heard a click behind my back as I was ready to leave. The click was an unpleasant one, so I turned around to see Uriel holding a gun up to me. His eyes held mixed emotions, hatred, sadness and confusion. It reminded me so much of Youji’s…

"Aya…" Uriel whispered, "You… You killed Youji, didn’t you?!" A year ago, I would’ve done a quadruple take when I heard this. But now, I just stood there and stared at him.

"Did you?!" Uriel raised his voice, aiming point blank at my head.

********************

"There are no bullets in there," Aya whispered, "That’s a toy gun I gave Youji on his birthday."

"Eh?!" Uriel turned the barrel towards himself to look more closely at the gun. "I lied!" Aya shouted, knocking Uriel to the ground in one quick motion, grabbing the gun from him. "All right," Aya sighed, pointing the gun at Uriel, "Now I’ll ask you. What gave you the stupid idea that I killed Youji? Talk or I’ll shoot." Uriel turned his face at the gun, attempting to squirm away. "You… You can’t shoot!" Uriel exclaimed, "You can’t shoot…" Aya pulled the trigger. Nothing. "Oops, hand slipped," Aya chuckled, "You were lucky this time. But the next shot does have a bullet. I can see it very clearly from here, you better spill it." Uriel began to get nervous. He shifted again and glared at Aya. "There’s no bullet in there…" he squeaked, "You’re…lying…"

Aya smiled, his violet eyes gleaming in the lamplight. "All right," he whispered, "Let’s try it then… One… Two…" He began a countdown, making Uriel’s nervousness heighten to a peak. "BANG!" Aya shouted into Uriel’s ear as the man screamed.

"It’s…it’s cuz you have that black Jaguar that was chasin’ us and then you told Ken to take me out to the balcony! I’m not lying!!" Uriel babbled quickly, shielding his head with both hands. Aya stood up and grabbed a throw pillow, shooting the bullet into it. Uriel squeaked and forced himself into a corner.

"Let me enlighten you a bit, then," Aya sighed, "I didn’t kill Youji. The only people who would want to kill him might be the boyfriends of the girls he went out with, people he’s had business with both as Weiss and a private detective." Uriel’s suspicion was still hungry for proper evidence. "Then…what about the railings?! And…your black Jaguar! We were being chased by that car on the night of the accident!"

Aya crouched down and smacked Uriel in the face with a heavy envelope. "Mister, listen here and listen good," he voiced, "This is a package that I received from Youji the day of the accident." Uriel peeped at the envelope bulging with its contents. "It’s…Youji’s…?" he whispered. "In it, there was the watch he uses, a journal, the keys to his apartment, and rose petals all covered in blood," Aya explained.

Blood red petals…

"When I saw those things," Aya sighed, "I thought, ‘The biggest troublemaker of the world has slashed his wrists again!’ Youji often had suicidal tendencies; this was of course a top secret subject to the other members of Weiss. He would always let only me know, and have me save him. When he mailed me the keys to his apartment, it meant, ‘If you don’t come and save me, it’d be your fault I died!’ His actions are like a dumped woman who goes to the house of the man who dumped her to hang herself. I couldn’t stand his little charade anymore… I was thinking that everything should be okay…

"But I was still a bit worried, so I drove from the flower shop to the apartment. I was thinking about going to the hospital after I checked him out, so I left my car by the sidewalk. I went up to his apartment with a bad feeling in my heart… And when I got up to his apartment, he was not there and his car keys were gone as well!

"When I finally trudged down to my car, I found that it got stolen!!"

Uriel’s eyes popped wide open. "Stolen?! Then the one I saw was the car thief…" Aya looked over at Uriel and sat down on the chair he pulled up. "I can’t believe he’s dead though…" he whispered, "I always thought that he would be the last one among us to die… That man…he never kept any of the promises that he made with us." Uriel stood there, watching the man talk.

"What is this, though?" Uriel asked, holding the watch up. Aya glanced at it and puffed out a breath. "It’s his weapon. I’ve never actually seen how he takes out the wire, but he is really skilled at using it to kill. Only he can use it… Whenever the enemies come, something triggers him and it seems like he’s just struck or possessed by something. If he’s really dead, then the technique died along with him." Uriel stared at the watch for a few seconds, then handed it back to Aya.

"We are the last existence of what is white and pure in this otherwise filthy world…" Aya started, burying his face into his crossed arms, "We have taken justice into our own hands… But sometimes it seems that he doesn’t even give a damn about it. He can be as stubborn as a child sometimes, saying things like, ‘Because of Weiss and Aya, I can’t go and do things I want freely…’ So sometimes I think that he actually hates me."

A sympathetic look from Uriel’s eyes encouraged Aya to continue. "Oh yeah," Aya recalled, "I’ve read a section in the journal he sent me about you. He wrote that he hates, loves, and envies the cousin who is as pure and innocent as a piece of fresh white paper. Youji for some reason thinks of himself as unclean. So you know what? Youji’s really envious of you."

********************

Youji was…envious of me?! Years ago when he came to America to visit me, he looked so bright and outgoing. That kind of cousin was my entire pride and envy’s center…

Aya glanced at me and stood up, handing me the gun. "There’s one bullet left in there. If you still don’t trust me, fire away. But before you do anything foolish, you have to promise me you won’t try to suicide. You’re not Youji…you’ll keep your promise, right?" I took the gun within my two hands, the icy steel piercing through my now-tanned skin. "Hmm…" I nodded.

Youji wanted to kill himself… He wanted to become me…

********************

The phone rang suddenly, and Uriel rushed to pick it up. "Birman?" he asked, holding the phone with two hands.

"I heard about the mission tonight," her mechanical voice rang through the receiver, "Your teammates are starting to doubt. So before anything happens, I want to you go on a solo mission in two weeks!" Uriel’s hands shook, daring to drop the receiver. "No, I can’t do it!" he exclaimed.

Aya grabbed for the receiver, his anger almost at its summit.

Youji is not the sacrifice of Weiss!

"He’ll do it! But, it’s the last mission he’ll go to under your command," Aya proclaimed over the phone line, "And after the mission, Uriel’s gone!!" With that, he slammed the receiver down.

"Aya!?" Uriel inquired, looking at Aya with near-bulging eyes at what Aya had just done. "You’ve been expecting this, haven’t you?!" Aya shouted, grabbing Uriel’s bony shoulders, "There is no backing out now! This is for your freedom! Do this at least for your cousin’s sake!" Uriel looked at Aya with earnest eyes. "…Understood!" he whispered, "Don’t worry… I have this. It’s my guardian angel if anything happens…" He glanced at the heavy pistol in his palm.

"Are you going to take it with you?" Aya asked, his hand moving to Uriel’s neck, "Then make sure they don’t see it. You’re only allowed the weapons you’re assigned to." His pale fingers glided to the back of Uriel’s neck in a squeeze-and-release massage motion, hoping to relieve the other man of some tension. Scraping away a scab left from the car accident, Aya’s eyes flew open at the sight that he saw, his voice becoming silent. "Aya?" Uriel turned his head to face Aya, "What’s wrong?"

Aya hung his head and took Uriel’s arms in his hands. "If you…get lost in a nightmare again, I’ll be there to guide you once more," Aya muttered, pressing his forehead to Uriel’s chin, "That is my promise to you."

********************

I’ve never actually known all that much about my cousin Youji, but his family relations seemed to be a bit jumbled up. First his parents divorced for some reason, and only when Aunt Charlotte, his mother, died did Youji move in with his father. And anything before that, I’ve never heard about…

"Youji…"

Aunt Charlotte?

"Youji…you would stay with Mommy forever, won’t you?"

Her fingers caressed my neck, the collarbone where it connected with my chest. I felt disgusted. Her nails threatened to pierce my neck with its pressure, her slender figure hovering over me.

I’m not Youji, Aunt Charlotte! Stop it…please!

I awoke nearly retching in the bed. The dream felt so real…why?

********************

On the night of the mission, Aya walked into the flower shop to see Omi typing something up on his laptop. For some reason, he felt curious enough to peek over the boy’s shoulder. The screen showed Youji’s files in the archives of Weiss. The boy, too immersed in his work, didn’t notice Aya until Aya’s rapidly speeding breath began to heat his neck.

"A…Aya!!" Omi shouted, spinning around in his chair, "What are you doing? You scared me…"

"What are those files doing opened? I though they were confidential, even to you," Aya whispered coldly. "Well…um…" Omi fiddled with his fingers, glancing at the laptop screen.

"Well?!" Aya screamed, pulling the boy up off the chair by his collar, "What are you doing?!" Tears sprung to the boy’s eyes as he gasped to answer the redhead. "I thought you knew, Aya… Ken and I both know…"

"What?" Aya hissed. Omi shook his head and sniffed.

"Youji’s not going to come back from the mission, Aya."

"What are you saying?"

"It’s a suicide mission. Youji’s gonna die."

Die…

Author’s rants: What am I doing?! It gets worse and worse by every part… I don’t really know if this is working all that well, but everyone should be able to see that Birman is the designated villain in this fic… Although I like Birman a lot, too, but I just needed a villain. By this time, I already have Part VI in the works, but it’s still in need of getting typed up… I finished typing this at school, dammit!! I need more time…only 2 more weeks till I go back to Taiwan and you won’t hear from me for the next 2 months. *the world cheers with joy* Flames and rotten veggies (no corn, please. I’m allergic) to youkofujima@hotmail.com.