I was a Teenage Psycho! Naoe Nagi of Weiss Kreuz
Title: I was a Teenage Psycho! Naoe Nagi of Weiß Kreuz
Author: Daegaer
Spoilers: An Assassin and White Shaman; Weiß Kreuz: Kapitel; Weiß Kreuz: Glühen; The Holy Children; Schwarz I and II.
Note: for the often confusing timeline of Weiß Kreuz in its various incarnations, one of the most helpful resources is this post by toscas_kiss. For the purposes of this essay I'll be relying mainly on the manga, An Assassin and White Shaman, and the two anime series, Kapitel and Glühen. While references will be made to some of the information in the audio CDs The Holy Children and Schwarz I and II, these will not be focused on as they conflict with the known timeline and make even less sense than the other media.
Acknowledgments: Many, many thanks to the people who responded to my questions with their views on Nagi and fic recs: luxetumbra, therck, toscas_kiss, lisa_bee, vr2lbast, penelope_z and hopeofdawn.
All artwork except the screen capture of Nagi and Tot comes from the Weiss Kreuz Gallery. The image of Nagi and Tot is courtesy of featherypony.
Crossposted to my own journal.
I was a Teenage Psycho! Naoe Nagi of Weiß Kreuz
Weiß Kreuz is one of those TV programmes that makes little to no sense, has low production values, a ridiculous premise, plot holes everywhere, and yet . . . With its florists-by-day, assassins-by-night "good" guys, its many and varied bad guys and its utter silliness, I love it. What I love most, despite being very fond of Weiß, the "good" assassins, is Schwarz - the unrepentant, cheerfully bad psi-assassins who grace far too few episodes. Where Weiß suffer angst, Schwarz has a laugh. Where Weiß's team leader is tragic, wracked with the urge for revenge, has a one-word vocabulary ("Die!"), Schwarz's smirks, chatters about his evil plans and likes to fight bare-handed against swords. Where Weiß's pretty-boy lady-killer, er, kills women and angsts about it, Schwarz's lays intricate plans to get the most enjoyment and entertainment value out of his lady killing exploits. Where Weiß's psycho-nutcase tries to disguise the fact that he is a psycho-nutcase because he suffers from guilt, Schwarz's just cheerfully gets down with his priest and nun-slaughtering side. And most important for my purposes, where Weiß's resident jailbait is amnesiac about his past and snogs his stalker/sister/cousin, Schwarz's jailbait remembers his past and hates people because of it, and gets to kiss a girl he isn't actually related to.
Naoe Nagi, the pre-teenage years
Like most of Schwarz we're not given a huge amount of backstory for Nagi, and what we are given contradicts itself rather dramatically. In the manga, An Assassin and White Shaman, Nagi has been with Schwarz since he was thirteen, and perhaps from an earlier age. He is already in Schwarz when Mr and Mrs Fujimiya are killed, two years before the events of Kapitel, when he is fifteen. In Kapitel, he appears to have joined Schwarz relatively recently, as the Eszett elders ask him how he is getting on as a member of the group. In the very brief information we're given on his childhood in Kapitel he is shown as a very small child, living on the streets and dressed in rags, with other children throwing stones at him. We are then shown him, wild-eyed and angry, in what appears to be the same uniform as is worn by the "Z Class" students in Glühen, while Crawford reminds him that society has rejected him and he hates it for that reason. In the CD The Holy Children, we are shown a ten-year-old Nagi who has lived in a Catholic orphanage for five years, since he accidentally killed his mother with his telekinesis. In this he is being talent-scouted by Crawford, of whom he seems afraid. After Weiß is responsible for killing the nun running the orphanage, Nagi swears revenge, and willingly accompanies Crawford to Germany for training. In the CDs Schwarz I and II, we are told that Nagi, like all of Schwarz, has spent time in Rosenkreuz.
All of this is rather contradictory. Was Nagi a street child, or did he live in an orphanage? Did he join Schwarz just before Kapitel, or has he been with them for at least two years by the time Kapitel starts? When was he recruited by Eszett and taken to Rosenkreuz - when he was ten, or earlier? The CD The Holy Children gives the most trouble - at first I thought it took place at the start of Fujimiya Aya's involvement with Weiß, and so was set two years before Kapitel. This of course gives the problem that Nagi is ten, and two years later is fifteen. However, I've since learned that according to the official timeline, The Holy Children takes place right after episode six of Kapitel, and so the problem becomes that Nagi goes from ten to fifteen in a matter of weeks, a few months at most. The easiest way to reconcile this is, I've found, to pretend that The Holy Children doesn't exist, which is what I'll be doing for the rest of this essay.
In fan fiction Nagi is often depicted as having undergone physical or sexual abuse in his childhood - neither is impossible, but canonically there doesn't seem to be any hint of such a past.
Naoe Nagi, Teenage Psycho
When he first shows up in Kapitel, Nagi appears to be a meek and quiet boy. He stands with the rest of Schwarz as Takatori Reiji chastises his mad scientist son, Takatori Masafumi. However, look at little close at Nagi as he stands there, facing his employer's son and his employer's son's bodyguards. He's smiling. A tight little smirk is firmly in place, and he looks distinctly amused. Outside the room, during a telepathic conversation, he is the one to say that Masafumi's regard for Schwarz has made him bring his bodyguards, Schreient, together as a pale imitation. Already in his very first appearance, Nagi's intelligence and lack of timid meekness are making themselves known. As the series progresses he talks back to Schuldig, is abrupt in speaking to Farfarello and is on occasion downright rude to Crawford. He rarely speaks to anyone outside Schwarz, but within the group he is not a meek and respectful child. In An Assassin and White Shaman we first see Nagi in a large and empty room, working on his computer with Schuldig by his side. He's angry that one of Schwarz's clients insists on picking his victims himself, instead of letting Schwarz give him women to play with. By the time he is seen in Glühen he seems quieter than ever from the outside, but is as dangerously unpleasant on the inside as ever, dispensing flat advice on the futility of physical attacks to his enemies, and preemptory orders to his friends. He seems happier by far not to have to deal with people at all, and is frequently shown using his computer (with which he must have rather a great deal of skill, as he hacks past Omi's security measures and infiltrates Weiß's private mail system).
To me, this says that Nagi is not a cowed and frightened boy. While he may have been nervous around Schwarz at first, by the timeframe of the manga and/or the series, he is fitting in well and has been accepted as part of the group. His reticence seems to be by personal choice, rather than as a result of fear of others. He speaks to people outside his group only as a matter of necessity - he speaks to Aya to deliver Crawford's message that Aya-chan and Sakura should be exchanged; he speaks to the Eszett elders in response to a direct question. In Glühen he speaks to Z Class again as a matter of necessity, he speaks to Omi briefly on the phone to tell him a threat has been eliminated. In none of these cases does he betray the slightest amount of fear or anxiety. The only non-Schwarz personnel he makes an actual effort to communicate with as other than a matter of necessity are the youngest member of Schreient, Tot, whom he loves and treats rather better than his team-mates, and the Rosenkreuz agent with whom he fights in Glühen, Layla (to whom he merely says "Goodbye" just before he has her hit with a lightning-bolt). It looks very much as if Nagi willingly limits his communication with other people to those whom he sees as insiders. Outsiders are spoken to only if and when necessary.
Outsiders are not only not spoken to; they are the targets of Nagi's active and passive hostility. Nagi, not to put too fine a point on it, hates people. He assures Crawford that his feelings for Tot haven't made him forget hate, that he remembers he wants revenge on society for "treating [him] coldly", that nothing will change him from being a member of Schwarz. In Kapitel he manipulates photos to make Omi seem friendly with Takatori, and hacks into Weiß' secure computer system to leave an anonymous warning that Omi is Takatori's spy. He uses his telekinesis actively against the guards Takatori assigned to guard Schwarz (disorienting them by turning off the lights) and against Omi in the final battle against Weiß. His telekinesis is also used indirectly against the last Eszett elder, cancelling out his telekinetic attack on Schwarz, although Farfarello is the one who actually kills him. Nagi causes Hell's death, however, through the use of telekinesis - Weiß are not shown killing her, and she most probably dies in Nagi's destruction of the house. Nagi's passive hostility to others - or deep, deep indifference, if preferred - shows up in his lack of interest in the fate of any member of Schreient except Tot, and his reactions to the torture of Sakura (which he finds amusing due to the frustration Schuldig undergoes) and the deaths of the Eszett elder and the guards assigned by Takatori, both of which he seems rather bored by. In An Assassin and White Shaman, the thirteen-year-old Nagi's response to the fate of women abducted by a client (I'm not too sure of their fate - they are perhaps being made into "dolls" by the client, although I don't know if they are still alive, or have been killed and preserved) is to express irritation that the client doesn't leave the selection and abduction of the women up to Schwarz. He also accompanies Schuldig on the mission to kill Aya and Aya-chan's parents, and is the one to set off the bomb that destroys the building and injures Aya-chan. (The boy with Schuldig is those panels is not identified as Nagi, true, and his face isn't shown. However, his hair is the same as Nagi's in the previous panels, Schuldig and he seemed to be acting as a mini-team in those previous panels, and the unnamed boy's irritation with a mission that doesn't go exactly right - he curses as Schuldig lets Aya live with a cheerful "Good luck, boy" - echoes Nagi's earlier irritation with their client. To assume that the boy with Schuldig here isn't Nagi introduces an unnecessary extra character for those few panels, and one, moreover, with the same hairstyle and irascibility as Nagi.) In Glühen he saves Aya's life, presumably on Omi's orders, but is supremely uninterested in Weiß' attempts to stop him. His advice to Z Class to stop trying to attack him is given in a flat and again uninterested tone, and he goes much further than he needs to in order to stop them, breaking all the bones in their bodies when he could have stopped them by breaking their legs.
These things taken together suggest to me that Nagi has a very limited number of people whom he considers to be "people". In the manga and Kapitel this group is limited to Schwarz and Tot, while in Glühen it is Schwarz and Omi. These are the people with whom Nagi is willing to communicate and protect. So, for example, he saves Tot's life in Kapitel and saves Crawford, Schuldig and Omi in Glühen. A rather larger group of people have a protected status either because of their links with someone among Nagi's inner group, or because they are protected for professional reasons. Such people would include Schwarz's client from the manga, Takatori's sons in Kapitel, and Weiß in Glühen. Most people, however, do not seem to exist in Nagi's world - he has no pity for the women mentioned in An Assassin and White Shaman, nor for Sakura in Kapitel, nor for the indoctrinated and cloned children of Z Class in Glühen. For Nagi, detonating a bomb, or calmly noting that Farfarello has gone on one of his priest-killing sprees means nothing, because people are nothing. These reactions indicate that Nagi is a sociopath - the normal restraints societies put on their members just aren't there for him, either because he never learned them in the first place, or perhaps because they were overwritten by his time in Rosenkreuz, or perhaps because he is arguably also a psychopath and lacks the ability to feel or understand normal emotional responses. The vast majority of the emotions he does feel are negative - anger and hate seem to be his predominant modes. He seems to have even those emotions under strict control by the time of Glühen, and is reduced to a flat, quiet, icy calm. Fighting with this desire for control and his negative emotions are Nagi's desire not to be rejected by society, and to be loved. His very hatred of people for rejecting him shows how much he wants acceptance, and when he gets it from Tot he falls head over heels in love with her.
Teenage Psi
Like the others in Schwarz, Nagi has psi-talents. He is, according to the Rosenkreuz agent, Berger, psychokinetic. He can affect matter both physically, by moving it around, and on an energy level. At first, this talent is shown in a perhaps small-scale but very finely controlled way, when Nagi types on his computer without touching the keyboard. He then somehow psychokinetically manipulates photos of Omi and Takatori, acting as a sort of human scanner to transfer the resulting image to his computer. The next use of his talent is again very small-scale: he switches off the light when Schwarz is being kept under arrest, allowing Farfarello to kill the disoriented guards. It comes as a surprise, then to see him fully unleashed when, in a moment of blind rage and grief as Tot is killed in front of him, he reduces Masafumi's country mansion to rubble. When I first saw that episode of Kapitel I was utterly confused as to what actually happens: Tot dies in Nagi's arms; Nagi starts screaming, at first in grief and then in what is very clearly completely uncontrollable anger, and the mansion begins to shake itself to pieces; he rises to his feet lifting Tot with him in a way that looks as if he could be levitating; a pulse of energy radiates out from where he is standing, destroying what's left of the mansion; another pulse of energy shoots up into the sky. After everything has quietened down, Weiß find Nagi and Tot in the rubble, apparently dead. Yohji puts their hands together, and Weiß leave. Almost immediately thereafter there are two lightning flashes, and Tot stands up looking rather more dazed than usual. This confused me utterly (for a few moments I hoped I was seeing a zombified Tot, but this was not in fact the case) - had Nagi just raised Tot from the dead? Had he known beforehand that he could? Earlier, when Tot cries and tells him Neu is dead, he says he can't do anything about that and Tot runs away - leaving Nagi musing to himself that if he did do anything about it, he'd die too. To me, that implied he at least had an inkling of what he might be capable of. However, he is clearly worried that Tot will die, and doesn't seem to think he could fix such a situation. In the battle against the Eszett elder, Nagi casually and easily stops an earthquake, which literally dies away as it reaches his feet. He then demonstrates his telekinesis again by slamming Omi into a pillar so hard that the stone crumbles. In the Schwarz CDs, Nagi uses straightforward telekinesis against the team's enemies, and sets up a "telepathic barrier" that seems to be powered by electricity. It is in Glühen that Nagi's powers seem to really come into their own. Described by Berger, the leader of the Rosenkreuz agents as "psychokinesis", Nagi's powers include telekinesis, telepathy, what appears to be teleportation, and manipulation of the weather. He fights the children of Z Class and Layla telekinetically, apparently teleporting in his fight against Layla - he leaps into the air and fades from sight, coming down from his jump in either another room or, finally, on the roof. He contacts both Crawford and Schuldig telepathically, helping them in their respective battles against Berger and Giesl. He moves both Berger and Crawford into Crawford's mind, and confuses Giesl with an illusion of Schuldig jumping into the fire. Most spectacularly, he strikes Layla down with summoned lightning, a feat that seems to exhaust him.
I think that up to Tot's death, Nagi's powers seemed much more small-scale to Eszett than they really were. He was always telekinetic and able to manipulate electricity in some way, and may always have been minorly empathic (many people interpret his manipulation of the photos and his ability to construct a convincing "warning" about Omi to empathy). However, it was the trauma of Tot's death that really let his talents loose; his complete loss of control in the mansion freed them up totally - or, alternatively, broke Nagi in a way he has to compensate for very carefully. In every instance in Kapitel, the Schwarz CDs and Glühen where Nagi uses more than simple telekinesis (probably his most basic talent) he is shown as being either completely controlled, unemotional and successful (Kapitel and Glühen), or wildly furious and unsuccessful (his attempt to tear down Sergei's psychobarrier in Schwarz II). This extreme control is in definite contrast to his sarcasm to Schuldig when manipulating the photos, his rather cocky air when he steals Tot's umbrella or his annoyance when he turns the lights off to disorient the guards. Whether Nagi is to be seen as having had his psi-talents freed, or as being somehow broken, in either case it seems to me that he is conscious of the need to control himself lest he cause the same sort of destruction he did at Masafumi's mansion.
So what can he do? Telekinesis, certainly - he's shown time and again moving things and people around. Sometimes he uses hand gestures, but these are most likely a simple visual aid for him to help bolster mental concentration (he puts his hands up when he slams Omi into the pillar, or raises an arm when he makes the wind blow the dandelion clocks up around Tot). For his really big feats (lightning summoning, for example) and for ones that seem second nature and thus require no concentration (typing without hands), he uses no gestures. Empathy, perhaps - Nagi feels society's rejection very strongly, is highly emotionally attached to Tot, despite seeing her very infrequently, and in the Schwarz CDs is quite obsessed with the idea of love and ensuring Farfarello and Sally have what Nagi considers a happy ending. Telepathy - by the time of Glühen, he certainly has this, and can both project and receive other's thoughts. He also seems capable of constructing illusions, and makes Giesl think Schuldig's flung jacket is in fact Schuldig himself. I think that the image of "Farfarello" that appears in Crawford's mind and kills Berger is in fact Nagi, who has just forcibly dragged both Crawford and Berger from Berger's mind to Crawford's. Why he would appear in this guise is, I think, connected to his views on love and friendship expressed in Schwarz II. Teleportation - I think the only possible explanation for some of his actions in Glühen is that he in fact can teleport, as can Layla, who is cloned from his genetic material. This may be seen as part of his psychokinesis, or may be a separate ability. He appears to levitate in the ruins of Masafumi's mansion, but that is more likely to be a function of his telekinesis. Psychokinesis - this is what Berger describes Nagi's powers as, and is, as people kindly explained to me, the ability to manipulate energy. It's this that allows Nagi to control winds, as he does in Kapitel to amuse Tot, and lightning - the culmination of both his big psi-talent scenes is a lightning storm, and it's very possible that once a certain level of Nagi-activity has been reached, lightning happens whether he wants it (Glühen) or not (Kapitel). This is given some backing by the fact that he doesn't seem to be concentrating particularly hard on the rooftop in Glühen - the only thing he does is ground himself by flattening himself against the wall, leaving Layla the only target for a lightning strike. His entire fight with her may have been dragged out purposefully until he felt the lightning build. It is this talent that somehow raised Tot from the dead - and she was very definitely dead, by all the conventions of television I've ever seen - although as Nagi was probably unconscious at the time, he may not know how he did it.
Teenage Psychos in Love
There is, as toscas_kiss puts it, a very small list of People Nagi Doesn't Hate. The only people on it, I think, are Crawford, Schuldig, Farfarello, Tot and Omi/Mamoru (and Schuldig and Farfarello aren't always in his good books). His relations with the rest of Schwarz are generally good - he lets Schuldig use his computer in Kapitel, and seems to be the one Farfarello tells when he's going out clergy-killing. He feels able to question the others' actions and even be obnoxiously rude to them (in the final episode of Kapitel he is rude to each of the others, and even tells Crawford that his beliefs "are all crap", to which Crawford makes the very mild rejoinder, "Well, I believed them"). He is, however, dedicated to the team - he may talk back to the others every so often, but is ready to assure Crawford that nothing will ever stop him being a member of Schwarz. That he makes this assertion so fiercely and freely, without any resentment, right after Crawford has just slapped him full-force in the face says, I think something about Nagi's relationship with his team leader. The blow seems to shock him, but what shocks him more is Crawford doubting his commitment. He sees himself as an equal to them, it would appear - he never uses honorifics when speaking to members of Schwarz, and only once uses honorifics when speaking to anyone. (In the CDs, he addresses Sally as "Sally-san" at the end, telling her to take care of Farfarello). Schwarz is by no means a democracy, but Nagi is quite clear as to what it is to him. Schwarz is made up of his friends, as he explicitly says in Schwarz II ("Fighting for your friends is RIGHT!"), and as he shows in Glühen, saving both Crawford and Schuldig although he is exhausted from his fight with Layla. Nagi's commitment to Schwarz is underlined by the fact that he goes back to them after Farfarello has killed Tot, and he himself was left for dead. This is either extreme loyalty to the group, or because he feels he has nowhere else to go. I think it's loyalty to Schwarz as his friends - by the time of the CDs he has apparently forgiven Farfarello, and fights to protect both his life and his relationship with Sally. Nagi's apparently easy relationship with the rest of Schwarz argues against him being the victim of their abuse - he never shows any hint of being afraid of any of them. His response to being hit by Crawford is shock, as if this has never happened before.
But what of feelings of more than friendship? There are two candidates for Nagi's love: Tot and Omi.
Nagi loves Tot. She's the only person it's possible to say that of canonically. He seeks out her company, feels protective of her, betrays Crawford for her sake and risks his life for her. As to why he loves her, when she is - to be kind - not quite operating on Earth logic, well, she's young, she's pretty, she seems to like him and he's fifteen years old. He has already noted that Masafumi created Schreient as an echo of Schwarz, so Tot may be, in Nagi's mind, an aspect of himself, one that he can actually like.
Their courtship is one of the funnier things in Kapitel, veering between sweetness and embarrassment and overwrought angst. It starts when Nagi brings himself forcibly to her attention by stirring up a wind to steal her umbrella, which somersaults over to him and lands very neatly in his hand (making me wonder how long he practiced). It's at this point that Nagi does one of the most amusing things he does in any incarnation of the story. All of the fan fiction that suggests Nagi is a sort of mini-Crawford may have some kernel of truth, but it's his pick-up lines he seems to be learning from Crawford rather than anything else. His little bow, his upward look and his superior little smile as he introduces himself are all pure Crawford (and in fact are identical to Crawford's little show of courtesy when he stops Farfarello fighting Hell and Schön, later). Sadly for comedy potential, Nagi gives up all pretence at being a suave, experienced lover at that point and falls back on doing party tricks with winds and petals for her. His inexperience is shown by him using this very same tactic to try to cheer her up when she's crying over Neu's death (with the added touch of hormonal teenage boy as he makes the wind lift her skirt). When Schreient are readying themselves to fight Weiß, Nagi declares himself further, betraying Crawford's plans to Tot, and despairing when he is not believed. He does, however, get a declaration in response, when she says that after Schreient has killed Weiß she and he should live together. It's only at this point that Nagi tries to kiss her, in a perfect moment of awkward fumbling and adolescent shame until she takes over to show him how it's done (at which point his face is a fine example of "Oh-my-God-I'm-kissing-a-girl!"). In the fight between Schreient and Weiß, Nagi's attempts to save her are whole-hearted and desperate, and he very nearly succeeds. His horror and grief at her death at Farfarello's hands are completely unfeigned, and in the throes of his grief he may have hoped he would die as well in the destruction he unleashes.
A lot of people don't like Tot because of her silliness and her bizarre little girl act, but I like her quite a lot. Nagi may not be a damaged child who could be cured by love and hugs, but Tot, I think, is. She loves and was loved by Nagi and her surrogate family, and while I think she and Nagi would be disastrous for each other in the long-term, it would be very unlikely that anything long-term could happen even in the best of circumstances. As a first-love teenage romance they were, and would have been, just fine. The scene at the end of Kapitel, where a gust of wind sends cherry-blossoms past her face and she turns round eagerly to see -- nothing -- is one of the saddest of the whole series, I think.
The other possibility for a romantic partner for Nagi comes two years later, in the form of Takatori Mamoru. Nagi and Omi have no interaction in Kapitel bar the final battle, and do not meet in the manga, the OVAs or the CDs (the scene in the above picture never actually takes place, in other words). However, at some point prior to Glühen they have met, and Nagi has started working for Mamoru. There are, unfortunately no canonical details to my knowledge other than what Mamoru says in Glühen, when, as toscas_kiss says, he acts very much like the old Omi in his attempts to stop Aya fighting Nagi. All Mamoru says is that Nagi is "our partner," has been keeping an eye on an organisation in Germany, and it's "sort of a long story." Significantly, he addresses Nagi the way he has always addressed his friends in Weiß, calling him "Nagi-kun" both in speaking about him and speaking to him. Nagi's response to his thanks, however, may squash ideas about them being friends or lovers: "I didn't come to save you, I came to finish a battle we had started." Mamoru (startled): "Then--" Nagi: "I came after them" (the Rosenkreuz agents).
This rather non-romantic interchange, and the even less romantic one where Nagi rings Mamoru to tell him that he has eliminated an assassin aside, there are no canonical meetings between them. However, they clearly have been in contact while Nagi was off killing Rosenkreuz agents in Germany, and from Mamoru's view at least, they are friends. I think they're probably friends from Nagi's side as well, and that Mamoru is more than just an employer. I don't know if they're lovers or not - while Nagi is older and has presumably got over his attachment to Tot, he seems far more guarded with Mamoru than he ever was with her. This may be simply because we're only shown them together in two tiny sequences, it may be because Nagi has given up in love in a fit of adolescent woe or it may even be, as people pointed out to me, because Nagi could well be living with Tot. She's still alive, after all, and he knows she loved him. Perhaps he got his happy ending after all (which might account for his glum demeanour in Glühen - a full time relationship with Tot would eventually drive him mad, I think).
Nagi in Fan Fiction
There isn't a lot of Nagi-centric fic to be found. He's far more likely to turn up as a secondary character or in an ensemble piece. Fanon-Nagi is often physically or sexually abused (without somehow remembering he's a telekinetic who can easily snap necks), and equally often is a shy boy who just needs a few hugs to give up his life of crime.
The following fics don't do that.
Rheotaxis, by therck - a post-Kapitel AU in which Nagi is slightly older, and very much Not Nice.
Stand Alone by vr2lbast - Nagi refuses to show weakness
Vielleicht, by toscas_kiss - Glühen-era. Nagi lets go of old memories.
Nagi and Farfarello go to the Ball - Nagi's first mission. (All of the estet_missions stories featuring Nagi are well worth reading, and can be found here)
My own Nagi-centric fic:
Mind Games - Nagi is subject to teasing by Schuldig
Teamwork - Nagi gets a lesson in what it means to be in Schwarz
Driven Crazy - Crawford teaches Nagi to drive
Five Things That Never Happened to Naoe Nagi - and he's rather glad they didn't.
The following fics aren't Nagi-centric, but he is a significant character in them:
V-Day by emungere - Nagi and Schuldig buy Valentine's Day cards
Glass Houses, by viridian5 - a post-Kapitel Schwarz AU
Thankful, by ladyjaida - Schwarz at Thanksgiving. (All ladyjaida's stories that feature Nagi are worth your time. This is merely the most recent)
Two fics by me:
Reunion I: America; Reunion II: Japan - a post-Kapitel AU in which Crawford tries to reform Schwarz
Bleed Into One -19th century science fiction AU in which, due to the conventions of genre, all of Schwarz are somewhat softer than I usually write them
Author: Daegaer
Spoilers: An Assassin and White Shaman; Weiß Kreuz: Kapitel; Weiß Kreuz: Glühen; The Holy Children; Schwarz I and II.
Note: for the often confusing timeline of Weiß Kreuz in its various incarnations, one of the most helpful resources is this post by toscas_kiss. For the purposes of this essay I'll be relying mainly on the manga, An Assassin and White Shaman, and the two anime series, Kapitel and Glühen. While references will be made to some of the information in the audio CDs The Holy Children and Schwarz I and II, these will not be focused on as they conflict with the known timeline and make even less sense than the other media.
Acknowledgments: Many, many thanks to the people who responded to my questions with their views on Nagi and fic recs: luxetumbra, therck, toscas_kiss, lisa_bee, vr2lbast, penelope_z and hopeofdawn.
All artwork except the screen capture of Nagi and Tot comes from the Weiss Kreuz Gallery. The image of Nagi and Tot is courtesy of featherypony.
Crossposted to my own journal.
I was a Teenage Psycho! Naoe Nagi of Weiß Kreuz
Weiß Kreuz is one of those TV programmes that makes little to no sense, has low production values, a ridiculous premise, plot holes everywhere, and yet . . . With its florists-by-day, assassins-by-night "good" guys, its many and varied bad guys and its utter silliness, I love it. What I love most, despite being very fond of Weiß, the "good" assassins, is Schwarz - the unrepentant, cheerfully bad psi-assassins who grace far too few episodes. Where Weiß suffer angst, Schwarz has a laugh. Where Weiß's team leader is tragic, wracked with the urge for revenge, has a one-word vocabulary ("Die!"), Schwarz's smirks, chatters about his evil plans and likes to fight bare-handed against swords. Where Weiß's pretty-boy lady-killer, er, kills women and angsts about it, Schwarz's lays intricate plans to get the most enjoyment and entertainment value out of his lady killing exploits. Where Weiß's psycho-nutcase tries to disguise the fact that he is a psycho-nutcase because he suffers from guilt, Schwarz's just cheerfully gets down with his priest and nun-slaughtering side. And most important for my purposes, where Weiß's resident jailbait is amnesiac about his past and snogs his stalker/sister/cousin, Schwarz's jailbait remembers his past and hates people because of it, and gets to kiss a girl he isn't actually related to.
Naoe Nagi, the pre-teenage years
Like most of Schwarz we're not given a huge amount of backstory for Nagi, and what we are given contradicts itself rather dramatically. In the manga, An Assassin and White Shaman, Nagi has been with Schwarz since he was thirteen, and perhaps from an earlier age. He is already in Schwarz when Mr and Mrs Fujimiya are killed, two years before the events of Kapitel, when he is fifteen. In Kapitel, he appears to have joined Schwarz relatively recently, as the Eszett elders ask him how he is getting on as a member of the group. In the very brief information we're given on his childhood in Kapitel he is shown as a very small child, living on the streets and dressed in rags, with other children throwing stones at him. We are then shown him, wild-eyed and angry, in what appears to be the same uniform as is worn by the "Z Class" students in Glühen, while Crawford reminds him that society has rejected him and he hates it for that reason. In the CD The Holy Children, we are shown a ten-year-old Nagi who has lived in a Catholic orphanage for five years, since he accidentally killed his mother with his telekinesis. In this he is being talent-scouted by Crawford, of whom he seems afraid. After Weiß is responsible for killing the nun running the orphanage, Nagi swears revenge, and willingly accompanies Crawford to Germany for training. In the CDs Schwarz I and II, we are told that Nagi, like all of Schwarz, has spent time in Rosenkreuz.
All of this is rather contradictory. Was Nagi a street child, or did he live in an orphanage? Did he join Schwarz just before Kapitel, or has he been with them for at least two years by the time Kapitel starts? When was he recruited by Eszett and taken to Rosenkreuz - when he was ten, or earlier? The CD The Holy Children gives the most trouble - at first I thought it took place at the start of Fujimiya Aya's involvement with Weiß, and so was set two years before Kapitel. This of course gives the problem that Nagi is ten, and two years later is fifteen. However, I've since learned that according to the official timeline, The Holy Children takes place right after episode six of Kapitel, and so the problem becomes that Nagi goes from ten to fifteen in a matter of weeks, a few months at most. The easiest way to reconcile this is, I've found, to pretend that The Holy Children doesn't exist, which is what I'll be doing for the rest of this essay.
In fan fiction Nagi is often depicted as having undergone physical or sexual abuse in his childhood - neither is impossible, but canonically there doesn't seem to be any hint of such a past.
Naoe Nagi, Teenage Psycho
When he first shows up in Kapitel, Nagi appears to be a meek and quiet boy. He stands with the rest of Schwarz as Takatori Reiji chastises his mad scientist son, Takatori Masafumi. However, look at little close at Nagi as he stands there, facing his employer's son and his employer's son's bodyguards. He's smiling. A tight little smirk is firmly in place, and he looks distinctly amused. Outside the room, during a telepathic conversation, he is the one to say that Masafumi's regard for Schwarz has made him bring his bodyguards, Schreient, together as a pale imitation. Already in his very first appearance, Nagi's intelligence and lack of timid meekness are making themselves known. As the series progresses he talks back to Schuldig, is abrupt in speaking to Farfarello and is on occasion downright rude to Crawford. He rarely speaks to anyone outside Schwarz, but within the group he is not a meek and respectful child. In An Assassin and White Shaman we first see Nagi in a large and empty room, working on his computer with Schuldig by his side. He's angry that one of Schwarz's clients insists on picking his victims himself, instead of letting Schwarz give him women to play with. By the time he is seen in Glühen he seems quieter than ever from the outside, but is as dangerously unpleasant on the inside as ever, dispensing flat advice on the futility of physical attacks to his enemies, and preemptory orders to his friends. He seems happier by far not to have to deal with people at all, and is frequently shown using his computer (with which he must have rather a great deal of skill, as he hacks past Omi's security measures and infiltrates Weiß's private mail system).
To me, this says that Nagi is not a cowed and frightened boy. While he may have been nervous around Schwarz at first, by the timeframe of the manga and/or the series, he is fitting in well and has been accepted as part of the group. His reticence seems to be by personal choice, rather than as a result of fear of others. He speaks to people outside his group only as a matter of necessity - he speaks to Aya to deliver Crawford's message that Aya-chan and Sakura should be exchanged; he speaks to the Eszett elders in response to a direct question. In Glühen he speaks to Z Class again as a matter of necessity, he speaks to Omi briefly on the phone to tell him a threat has been eliminated. In none of these cases does he betray the slightest amount of fear or anxiety. The only non-Schwarz personnel he makes an actual effort to communicate with as other than a matter of necessity are the youngest member of Schreient, Tot, whom he loves and treats rather better than his team-mates, and the Rosenkreuz agent with whom he fights in Glühen, Layla (to whom he merely says "Goodbye" just before he has her hit with a lightning-bolt). It looks very much as if Nagi willingly limits his communication with other people to those whom he sees as insiders. Outsiders are spoken to only if and when necessary.
Outsiders are not only not spoken to; they are the targets of Nagi's active and passive hostility. Nagi, not to put too fine a point on it, hates people. He assures Crawford that his feelings for Tot haven't made him forget hate, that he remembers he wants revenge on society for "treating [him] coldly", that nothing will change him from being a member of Schwarz. In Kapitel he manipulates photos to make Omi seem friendly with Takatori, and hacks into Weiß' secure computer system to leave an anonymous warning that Omi is Takatori's spy. He uses his telekinesis actively against the guards Takatori assigned to guard Schwarz (disorienting them by turning off the lights) and against Omi in the final battle against Weiß. His telekinesis is also used indirectly against the last Eszett elder, cancelling out his telekinetic attack on Schwarz, although Farfarello is the one who actually kills him. Nagi causes Hell's death, however, through the use of telekinesis - Weiß are not shown killing her, and she most probably dies in Nagi's destruction of the house. Nagi's passive hostility to others - or deep, deep indifference, if preferred - shows up in his lack of interest in the fate of any member of Schreient except Tot, and his reactions to the torture of Sakura (which he finds amusing due to the frustration Schuldig undergoes) and the deaths of the Eszett elder and the guards assigned by Takatori, both of which he seems rather bored by. In An Assassin and White Shaman, the thirteen-year-old Nagi's response to the fate of women abducted by a client (I'm not too sure of their fate - they are perhaps being made into "dolls" by the client, although I don't know if they are still alive, or have been killed and preserved) is to express irritation that the client doesn't leave the selection and abduction of the women up to Schwarz. He also accompanies Schuldig on the mission to kill Aya and Aya-chan's parents, and is the one to set off the bomb that destroys the building and injures Aya-chan. (The boy with Schuldig is those panels is not identified as Nagi, true, and his face isn't shown. However, his hair is the same as Nagi's in the previous panels, Schuldig and he seemed to be acting as a mini-team in those previous panels, and the unnamed boy's irritation with a mission that doesn't go exactly right - he curses as Schuldig lets Aya live with a cheerful "Good luck, boy" - echoes Nagi's earlier irritation with their client. To assume that the boy with Schuldig here isn't Nagi introduces an unnecessary extra character for those few panels, and one, moreover, with the same hairstyle and irascibility as Nagi.) In Glühen he saves Aya's life, presumably on Omi's orders, but is supremely uninterested in Weiß' attempts to stop him. His advice to Z Class to stop trying to attack him is given in a flat and again uninterested tone, and he goes much further than he needs to in order to stop them, breaking all the bones in their bodies when he could have stopped them by breaking their legs.
These things taken together suggest to me that Nagi has a very limited number of people whom he considers to be "people". In the manga and Kapitel this group is limited to Schwarz and Tot, while in Glühen it is Schwarz and Omi. These are the people with whom Nagi is willing to communicate and protect. So, for example, he saves Tot's life in Kapitel and saves Crawford, Schuldig and Omi in Glühen. A rather larger group of people have a protected status either because of their links with someone among Nagi's inner group, or because they are protected for professional reasons. Such people would include Schwarz's client from the manga, Takatori's sons in Kapitel, and Weiß in Glühen. Most people, however, do not seem to exist in Nagi's world - he has no pity for the women mentioned in An Assassin and White Shaman, nor for Sakura in Kapitel, nor for the indoctrinated and cloned children of Z Class in Glühen. For Nagi, detonating a bomb, or calmly noting that Farfarello has gone on one of his priest-killing sprees means nothing, because people are nothing. These reactions indicate that Nagi is a sociopath - the normal restraints societies put on their members just aren't there for him, either because he never learned them in the first place, or perhaps because they were overwritten by his time in Rosenkreuz, or perhaps because he is arguably also a psychopath and lacks the ability to feel or understand normal emotional responses. The vast majority of the emotions he does feel are negative - anger and hate seem to be his predominant modes. He seems to have even those emotions under strict control by the time of Glühen, and is reduced to a flat, quiet, icy calm. Fighting with this desire for control and his negative emotions are Nagi's desire not to be rejected by society, and to be loved. His very hatred of people for rejecting him shows how much he wants acceptance, and when he gets it from Tot he falls head over heels in love with her.
Teenage Psi
Like the others in Schwarz, Nagi has psi-talents. He is, according to the Rosenkreuz agent, Berger, psychokinetic. He can affect matter both physically, by moving it around, and on an energy level. At first, this talent is shown in a perhaps small-scale but very finely controlled way, when Nagi types on his computer without touching the keyboard. He then somehow psychokinetically manipulates photos of Omi and Takatori, acting as a sort of human scanner to transfer the resulting image to his computer. The next use of his talent is again very small-scale: he switches off the light when Schwarz is being kept under arrest, allowing Farfarello to kill the disoriented guards. It comes as a surprise, then to see him fully unleashed when, in a moment of blind rage and grief as Tot is killed in front of him, he reduces Masafumi's country mansion to rubble. When I first saw that episode of Kapitel I was utterly confused as to what actually happens: Tot dies in Nagi's arms; Nagi starts screaming, at first in grief and then in what is very clearly completely uncontrollable anger, and the mansion begins to shake itself to pieces; he rises to his feet lifting Tot with him in a way that looks as if he could be levitating; a pulse of energy radiates out from where he is standing, destroying what's left of the mansion; another pulse of energy shoots up into the sky. After everything has quietened down, Weiß find Nagi and Tot in the rubble, apparently dead. Yohji puts their hands together, and Weiß leave. Almost immediately thereafter there are two lightning flashes, and Tot stands up looking rather more dazed than usual. This confused me utterly (for a few moments I hoped I was seeing a zombified Tot, but this was not in fact the case) - had Nagi just raised Tot from the dead? Had he known beforehand that he could? Earlier, when Tot cries and tells him Neu is dead, he says he can't do anything about that and Tot runs away - leaving Nagi musing to himself that if he did do anything about it, he'd die too. To me, that implied he at least had an inkling of what he might be capable of. However, he is clearly worried that Tot will die, and doesn't seem to think he could fix such a situation. In the battle against the Eszett elder, Nagi casually and easily stops an earthquake, which literally dies away as it reaches his feet. He then demonstrates his telekinesis again by slamming Omi into a pillar so hard that the stone crumbles. In the Schwarz CDs, Nagi uses straightforward telekinesis against the team's enemies, and sets up a "telepathic barrier" that seems to be powered by electricity. It is in Glühen that Nagi's powers seem to really come into their own. Described by Berger, the leader of the Rosenkreuz agents as "psychokinesis", Nagi's powers include telekinesis, telepathy, what appears to be teleportation, and manipulation of the weather. He fights the children of Z Class and Layla telekinetically, apparently teleporting in his fight against Layla - he leaps into the air and fades from sight, coming down from his jump in either another room or, finally, on the roof. He contacts both Crawford and Schuldig telepathically, helping them in their respective battles against Berger and Giesl. He moves both Berger and Crawford into Crawford's mind, and confuses Giesl with an illusion of Schuldig jumping into the fire. Most spectacularly, he strikes Layla down with summoned lightning, a feat that seems to exhaust him.
I think that up to Tot's death, Nagi's powers seemed much more small-scale to Eszett than they really were. He was always telekinetic and able to manipulate electricity in some way, and may always have been minorly empathic (many people interpret his manipulation of the photos and his ability to construct a convincing "warning" about Omi to empathy). However, it was the trauma of Tot's death that really let his talents loose; his complete loss of control in the mansion freed them up totally - or, alternatively, broke Nagi in a way he has to compensate for very carefully. In every instance in Kapitel, the Schwarz CDs and Glühen where Nagi uses more than simple telekinesis (probably his most basic talent) he is shown as being either completely controlled, unemotional and successful (Kapitel and Glühen), or wildly furious and unsuccessful (his attempt to tear down Sergei's psychobarrier in Schwarz II). This extreme control is in definite contrast to his sarcasm to Schuldig when manipulating the photos, his rather cocky air when he steals Tot's umbrella or his annoyance when he turns the lights off to disorient the guards. Whether Nagi is to be seen as having had his psi-talents freed, or as being somehow broken, in either case it seems to me that he is conscious of the need to control himself lest he cause the same sort of destruction he did at Masafumi's mansion.
So what can he do? Telekinesis, certainly - he's shown time and again moving things and people around. Sometimes he uses hand gestures, but these are most likely a simple visual aid for him to help bolster mental concentration (he puts his hands up when he slams Omi into the pillar, or raises an arm when he makes the wind blow the dandelion clocks up around Tot). For his really big feats (lightning summoning, for example) and for ones that seem second nature and thus require no concentration (typing without hands), he uses no gestures. Empathy, perhaps - Nagi feels society's rejection very strongly, is highly emotionally attached to Tot, despite seeing her very infrequently, and in the Schwarz CDs is quite obsessed with the idea of love and ensuring Farfarello and Sally have what Nagi considers a happy ending. Telepathy - by the time of Glühen, he certainly has this, and can both project and receive other's thoughts. He also seems capable of constructing illusions, and makes Giesl think Schuldig's flung jacket is in fact Schuldig himself. I think that the image of "Farfarello" that appears in Crawford's mind and kills Berger is in fact Nagi, who has just forcibly dragged both Crawford and Berger from Berger's mind to Crawford's. Why he would appear in this guise is, I think, connected to his views on love and friendship expressed in Schwarz II. Teleportation - I think the only possible explanation for some of his actions in Glühen is that he in fact can teleport, as can Layla, who is cloned from his genetic material. This may be seen as part of his psychokinesis, or may be a separate ability. He appears to levitate in the ruins of Masafumi's mansion, but that is more likely to be a function of his telekinesis. Psychokinesis - this is what Berger describes Nagi's powers as, and is, as people kindly explained to me, the ability to manipulate energy. It's this that allows Nagi to control winds, as he does in Kapitel to amuse Tot, and lightning - the culmination of both his big psi-talent scenes is a lightning storm, and it's very possible that once a certain level of Nagi-activity has been reached, lightning happens whether he wants it (Glühen) or not (Kapitel). This is given some backing by the fact that he doesn't seem to be concentrating particularly hard on the rooftop in Glühen - the only thing he does is ground himself by flattening himself against the wall, leaving Layla the only target for a lightning strike. His entire fight with her may have been dragged out purposefully until he felt the lightning build. It is this talent that somehow raised Tot from the dead - and she was very definitely dead, by all the conventions of television I've ever seen - although as Nagi was probably unconscious at the time, he may not know how he did it.
Teenage Psychos in Love
There is, as toscas_kiss puts it, a very small list of People Nagi Doesn't Hate. The only people on it, I think, are Crawford, Schuldig, Farfarello, Tot and Omi/Mamoru (and Schuldig and Farfarello aren't always in his good books). His relations with the rest of Schwarz are generally good - he lets Schuldig use his computer in Kapitel, and seems to be the one Farfarello tells when he's going out clergy-killing. He feels able to question the others' actions and even be obnoxiously rude to them (in the final episode of Kapitel he is rude to each of the others, and even tells Crawford that his beliefs "are all crap", to which Crawford makes the very mild rejoinder, "Well, I believed them"). He is, however, dedicated to the team - he may talk back to the others every so often, but is ready to assure Crawford that nothing will ever stop him being a member of Schwarz. That he makes this assertion so fiercely and freely, without any resentment, right after Crawford has just slapped him full-force in the face says, I think something about Nagi's relationship with his team leader. The blow seems to shock him, but what shocks him more is Crawford doubting his commitment. He sees himself as an equal to them, it would appear - he never uses honorifics when speaking to members of Schwarz, and only once uses honorifics when speaking to anyone. (In the CDs, he addresses Sally as "Sally-san" at the end, telling her to take care of Farfarello). Schwarz is by no means a democracy, but Nagi is quite clear as to what it is to him. Schwarz is made up of his friends, as he explicitly says in Schwarz II ("Fighting for your friends is RIGHT!"), and as he shows in Glühen, saving both Crawford and Schuldig although he is exhausted from his fight with Layla. Nagi's commitment to Schwarz is underlined by the fact that he goes back to them after Farfarello has killed Tot, and he himself was left for dead. This is either extreme loyalty to the group, or because he feels he has nowhere else to go. I think it's loyalty to Schwarz as his friends - by the time of the CDs he has apparently forgiven Farfarello, and fights to protect both his life and his relationship with Sally. Nagi's apparently easy relationship with the rest of Schwarz argues against him being the victim of their abuse - he never shows any hint of being afraid of any of them. His response to being hit by Crawford is shock, as if this has never happened before.
But what of feelings of more than friendship? There are two candidates for Nagi's love: Tot and Omi.
Nagi loves Tot. She's the only person it's possible to say that of canonically. He seeks out her company, feels protective of her, betrays Crawford for her sake and risks his life for her. As to why he loves her, when she is - to be kind - not quite operating on Earth logic, well, she's young, she's pretty, she seems to like him and he's fifteen years old. He has already noted that Masafumi created Schreient as an echo of Schwarz, so Tot may be, in Nagi's mind, an aspect of himself, one that he can actually like.
Their courtship is one of the funnier things in Kapitel, veering between sweetness and embarrassment and overwrought angst. It starts when Nagi brings himself forcibly to her attention by stirring up a wind to steal her umbrella, which somersaults over to him and lands very neatly in his hand (making me wonder how long he practiced). It's at this point that Nagi does one of the most amusing things he does in any incarnation of the story. All of the fan fiction that suggests Nagi is a sort of mini-Crawford may have some kernel of truth, but it's his pick-up lines he seems to be learning from Crawford rather than anything else. His little bow, his upward look and his superior little smile as he introduces himself are all pure Crawford (and in fact are identical to Crawford's little show of courtesy when he stops Farfarello fighting Hell and Schön, later). Sadly for comedy potential, Nagi gives up all pretence at being a suave, experienced lover at that point and falls back on doing party tricks with winds and petals for her. His inexperience is shown by him using this very same tactic to try to cheer her up when she's crying over Neu's death (with the added touch of hormonal teenage boy as he makes the wind lift her skirt). When Schreient are readying themselves to fight Weiß, Nagi declares himself further, betraying Crawford's plans to Tot, and despairing when he is not believed. He does, however, get a declaration in response, when she says that after Schreient has killed Weiß she and he should live together. It's only at this point that Nagi tries to kiss her, in a perfect moment of awkward fumbling and adolescent shame until she takes over to show him how it's done (at which point his face is a fine example of "Oh-my-God-I'm-kissing-a-girl!"). In the fight between Schreient and Weiß, Nagi's attempts to save her are whole-hearted and desperate, and he very nearly succeeds. His horror and grief at her death at Farfarello's hands are completely unfeigned, and in the throes of his grief he may have hoped he would die as well in the destruction he unleashes.
A lot of people don't like Tot because of her silliness and her bizarre little girl act, but I like her quite a lot. Nagi may not be a damaged child who could be cured by love and hugs, but Tot, I think, is. She loves and was loved by Nagi and her surrogate family, and while I think she and Nagi would be disastrous for each other in the long-term, it would be very unlikely that anything long-term could happen even in the best of circumstances. As a first-love teenage romance they were, and would have been, just fine. The scene at the end of Kapitel, where a gust of wind sends cherry-blossoms past her face and she turns round eagerly to see -- nothing -- is one of the saddest of the whole series, I think.
The other possibility for a romantic partner for Nagi comes two years later, in the form of Takatori Mamoru. Nagi and Omi have no interaction in Kapitel bar the final battle, and do not meet in the manga, the OVAs or the CDs (the scene in the above picture never actually takes place, in other words). However, at some point prior to Glühen they have met, and Nagi has started working for Mamoru. There are, unfortunately no canonical details to my knowledge other than what Mamoru says in Glühen, when, as toscas_kiss says, he acts very much like the old Omi in his attempts to stop Aya fighting Nagi. All Mamoru says is that Nagi is "our partner," has been keeping an eye on an organisation in Germany, and it's "sort of a long story." Significantly, he addresses Nagi the way he has always addressed his friends in Weiß, calling him "Nagi-kun" both in speaking about him and speaking to him. Nagi's response to his thanks, however, may squash ideas about them being friends or lovers: "I didn't come to save you, I came to finish a battle we had started." Mamoru (startled): "Then--" Nagi: "I came after them" (the Rosenkreuz agents).
This rather non-romantic interchange, and the even less romantic one where Nagi rings Mamoru to tell him that he has eliminated an assassin aside, there are no canonical meetings between them. However, they clearly have been in contact while Nagi was off killing Rosenkreuz agents in Germany, and from Mamoru's view at least, they are friends. I think they're probably friends from Nagi's side as well, and that Mamoru is more than just an employer. I don't know if they're lovers or not - while Nagi is older and has presumably got over his attachment to Tot, he seems far more guarded with Mamoru than he ever was with her. This may be simply because we're only shown them together in two tiny sequences, it may be because Nagi has given up in love in a fit of adolescent woe or it may even be, as people pointed out to me, because Nagi could well be living with Tot. She's still alive, after all, and he knows she loved him. Perhaps he got his happy ending after all (which might account for his glum demeanour in Glühen - a full time relationship with Tot would eventually drive him mad, I think).
Nagi in Fan Fiction
There isn't a lot of Nagi-centric fic to be found. He's far more likely to turn up as a secondary character or in an ensemble piece. Fanon-Nagi is often physically or sexually abused (without somehow remembering he's a telekinetic who can easily snap necks), and equally often is a shy boy who just needs a few hugs to give up his life of crime.
The following fics don't do that.
Rheotaxis, by therck - a post-Kapitel AU in which Nagi is slightly older, and very much Not Nice.
Stand Alone by vr2lbast - Nagi refuses to show weakness
Vielleicht, by toscas_kiss - Glühen-era. Nagi lets go of old memories.
Nagi and Farfarello go to the Ball - Nagi's first mission. (All of the estet_missions stories featuring Nagi are well worth reading, and can be found here)
My own Nagi-centric fic:
Mind Games - Nagi is subject to teasing by Schuldig
Teamwork - Nagi gets a lesson in what it means to be in Schwarz
Driven Crazy - Crawford teaches Nagi to drive
Five Things That Never Happened to Naoe Nagi - and he's rather glad they didn't.
The following fics aren't Nagi-centric, but he is a significant character in them:
V-Day by emungere - Nagi and Schuldig buy Valentine's Day cards
Glass Houses, by viridian5 - a post-Kapitel Schwarz AU
Thankful, by ladyjaida - Schwarz at Thanksgiving. (All ladyjaida's stories that feature Nagi are worth your time. This is merely the most recent)
Two fics by me:
Reunion I: America; Reunion II: Japan - a post-Kapitel AU in which Crawford tries to reform Schwarz
Bleed Into One -19th century science fiction AU in which, due to the conventions of genre, all of Schwarz are somewhat softer than I usually write them