Warnings: character death, animal cruelty, murder
Ellie felt uncomfortable being around all those girls. Even though she had on a swimsuit she still felt dirty. The gym teacher Klaud Nine blew the whistle and all the girls got in the pool for volleyball. She stayed in the corner of the pool while the other girls played. She was startled when the ball landed a few feet away from her.
"Come on Ellie, served the ball," Klaud gently encouraged. Ellie hesitantly picked up the ball and went over to her original spot. When she tried to serve the ball it hit Lenalee Lee, the most popular girl in school, in the back of the head. The girl slowly turned to glare at her while the other girls chuckled. "Try again."
XXX
Ellie hid herself and slowly moved to the showers, the girls already dressing. Her muscled started to relax under the warm spray of water as she ran her thin fingers through her shoulder length white hair. She grabbed a bar of soap and ran it over her body, her eyes closed as she washed herself. When she opened her eyes again she noticed there was blood on her hands.
She looked down and realized it originated from between her legs. Why she was bleeding she didn't know. She did know that she was terrified. Was she going to die? Would she bleed to death? Ellie asked herself those two questions over and over. She looked at her bloodied hands again and her vision blurred slightly in fear.
A loud scream escaped her lips. Grabbing her towel she covered herself and ran to the others girls.
"Help! Help me! I'm going to die!" she screamed. When they saw the blood on her hands they did the exact opposite and backed away. Some of it got on Lenalee's shirt and she screamed.
"You got blood on her new shirt!" one of Lenalee's friends yelled.
"I think she got her period," another girl said.
"Please help me! I'm going to die!" Ellie was in hysterics now, trying to reach out for help from the people that offered her none. Lenalee turned around and got a tampon from a locker stocked with things like that just in case.
"Plug it up freak," she said, tossing it to Ellie. The other girls followed her example and started throwing feminine products from the locker at her.
"Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!" the girls chanted. Ellie fell to the linoleum floor, crying and still begging for help. Lenalee took out her phone and took a video of the embarrassing moment.
"What's going on here?" Klaud asked pushing through the crowd of girls. When she saw Elle on the ground with blood on her towel she knelt down beside her. She covered the poor girl in her jacket, not caring that blood was getting whipped on her. She held her as she cried and whispered in her ear words of reassurance that she wasn't going to die. When she finally quieted down she glared at the girls. "Everybody out now." Her voice left no room for argument and the girls all but ran out of the locker room. "It's alright Ellie. Let's get you cleaned up okay?"
Ellie nodded and allowed Klaud to lead her back to the shower to get rid of the blood on her body. When the teen turned off the water she handed her a fresh towel. She opened her locker and handed her the clothes she had on earlier after fixing her underwear so she wouldn't ruin them.
Klaud then brought her to the Komui Lee, the Principal of Black Order High School. Ellie sat down awkwardly in a chair across from the man, wrapping her arms around herself. Klaud had her hands on the girl's shoulders for reassurance. She explained to him what happened in the locker room. His eyes widened at the mention of his precious little sister.
"Surely you're mistaken. Lenalee would never bully Ellis," Komui said.
"Ellie Walker. Her name is Ellie," Klaud corrected. "Principal Lee something has to be done about those girls. They cannot go unpunished." Komui sighed.
"Can I leave them with you? For now I'm going to call Ellie's dad." Ellie's downcast eyes snapped up at the mention of his calling her father.
"No, no, please don't call him," she pleaded.
"I have to. The state already had problems with him wanting to home school you."
She was hyperventilating. Everyone was shocked when the water cooler was sliced into pieces and fell apart. She immediately left the office.
Until her father came she sat outside the principal's office. When student walked past her they snickered and pointed. She tried so hard to ignore their jibes at her as they mocked her. She looked up when she saw someone block her path. She was immediately on her feet when she saw the long red hair.
He grabbed her around the shoulders and led her to his car. He opened the door for her so she could get in, closing it after her before getting in himself. As Marian Cross, her father, pulled away from the school she caught a glimpse of long dark blue hair among a crowd of jocks and pretty girls, one of which was Lenalee. Everyone except the long haired Japanese exchange student was laughing at whatever the pretty girl was showing on her phone.
"Are you okay Ellie?" Cross asked once they entered their neighborhood. She looked at her father before returning her eyes to the road.
"Yes papa," she said. When they returned home Ellie went straight up to her room. She curled up in the fetal position the moment she was on her bed. Cross sat down next to her and stroked her hair as she cried.
XXX
The following day during gym all the girls minus Ellie, who was given a study hall instead because of the incident, were lined up outside. Klaud was walking back and forth in front of the girls with a smile on her beautiful yet scarred face.
"Who's excited for prom?" she asked the girls. They broke out into small smiles and looked at each other. "You already have your dresses and your dates. Lenalee, who're you taking to prom?"
"Lavi Bookman," she said, slightly uncomfortable being on the receiving end of Klaud's piercing gaze.
"Lavi huh?" She backed away from them and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're doing suicide drills. I don't want those legs to stop moving otherwise you can forget senior prom."
"Ms. Nine, you can't do that to us!" Lenalee exclaimed. "My brother wouldn't allow this!"
"He gave me permission to punish you any way I see fit. I think this is nothing compared to what you girls did to Ellie. None of you had the right to bully a fragile girl like her. Now get to it! If you stop you'll be suspended and no senior prom." The glare she sent them was enough to get them started.
She ran them like a drill sergeant would their soldiers, pushing them beyond their limits. Lenalee stopped when she had enough and glared at the gym teacher. "I said keep moving."
"No! This' bullshit!" she exclaimed. All the other girls stopped to watch the exchange.
"I said keep moving!"
"Don't listen to her! She can't do this to us! We didn't do anything wrong! Miranda, you have a heart condition! She can't make you do this!" Miranda looked away, her legs shaking. Everyone else looked away too. "No one's going to stick up for me?" Her question was met with nothing but silence. "We did nothing wrong!"
"That's it Lenalee, you've just been suspended. Get out of here now." The popular girl stomped away angrily and everyone watched with pity. "What are you staring at? Keep moving until I say stop." The girls continued to do their drills without protest.
XXX
Ellie stared at herself in the mirror of the girl's bathroom. No one was snickering at her. They were full on laughing at her. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and traced the red scar over her left eye. It stood out against her pale complexion. Cross told her many a time that it was a symbol of her curse, of her mother's sin.
"Am I really cursed?" she asked herself and she scratched her face. She used the same hand to punch the mirror. The shards of glass fell into the sink but not a single one pierced her skin. From that very hand she saw thin white tendrils surrounding her fist. Curiously she opened her hand and the tendrils unraveled but they were still there. She moved her hand over the shards of class. The tendrils wrapped around individual shards and lifted them in the air. She moved her fingers around and the shards of glass moved with them.
When she heard someone else enter the bathroom she grabbed her backpack from the ground and left, avoiding looking at the girl. She heads to the library and decides to do some studying for her next class. She looked through poem books. None of them particularly reached out to her until she found one. It was dark and depressing but it put a smile on her face
It was perfect.
The bell rung and she checked out the book. Like earlier Ellie kept her head down to avoid eye contact with the other student who snickered. She sat down in her seat and the teacher started asking people to share their poems. She focused her attention out the window to the flag pole.
She pointed her finger at the flag and one of the tendrils shot out the window, leaving a tiny hole where it silently went through. Slowly she curved her finger down and the tendril left a gash in the metal.
"Ellie," the teacher said, snapping her from her thoughts. "Why don't you come up and share your poem with the class?" Ellie got the book she borrowed earlier and clutched it to her chest as she approached the front of the class. She opened it to the bookmarked page and started reading, ignoring the snickering.
"This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of Hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last in sight
Of both my Parents all in flames ascended"
The class went completely silent, some with weird looks on their faces. The teacher had the same look before clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention.
"That was…dark, disturbing and probably the most you've spoken the entire year. Do you have anything else to say after scaring the class?"
"Asshole," someone said. Everyone looked back at Kanda who was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest.
"Would you like to repeat that?"
"I said it was a lot better than anything everyone else said," he said gruffly, keeping his eyes closed. "Don't you think so?" The teacher looked embarrassed, telling Ellie to go to her seat and he continued teaching. Ellie looked over at Kanda and gave him a small smile even though he didn't see it.
XXX
Lenalee sat in her brother's office with Klaud standing behind her, arms crossed and face unhappy.
"Lenalee, you know I have to suspend you not only from the locker room incident but for disobeying and disrespecting your teacher," Komui said.
"But brother, we were only helping her!" she exclaimed, trying to play victim and it worked briefly on her brother who was about to say he knew she would never do something so cruel. Klaud noticed this and spoke up.
"A video was posted of the incident not long after. Something like that is incriminating to everyone in it, especially to the person who took it. I think you should check her phone to see if it's there. If it is, suspend her. If not I owe her an apology and she can go to prom." Klaud was never one to tolerate bad behavior and would punish those involved accordingly. Komui held out his hand.
"But I didn't do anything," she pleaded softly but her brother nor Klaud were budging.
"Just hand me the phone."
"No." She grabbed her things and stomped out of the office.
XXX
Kanda stood in his room looking at the tuxedo his adopted father got him for prom. He didn't plan on going but Tiedoll got really annoying when he wanted people to do something for him.
The man always got his way.
He ran his fingers down the fabric and sighed. Maybe he could make good use of it
XXX
Ellie sat on her bed with books written by people with unnatural powers strewn all around her. Her mind wandered back to the white tendrils that protected her hand from the shattered glass, carried that same glass, left a hole in the window without it making a sound or shattering the window and left a gash in the flag pole.
She opened her hands and the white tendrils floated out. One by one she lifted the books up with the tendrils. Soon her bed was lifted as well. She moved her fingers and everything the tendrils had touched moved with them. She spun everything round and round until she heard a knock at her door. Everything came crashing down and she pretended to sleep just as Cross entered her room.
The sound of shuffling reached her ears as he moved around to pick up the books that had fallen on the floor, placing them on her desk. He sat down next to her on her bed and kissed her scar before quietly leaving.
XXX
Kanda enters the cafeteria with a bento in his hand. Looking around he finally spots the unique white hair in the back. Ignoring his lacrosse teammates he went to sit down in front of the loner. She didn't look op from her books. He read the spine of the book she was reading that held the title and author, a name he recognized.
"Moyashi, you into magic?" he asked, uncharacteristically interested in another person. Startled she jolted up. He saw the recognition on her face and watched her cheeks turn red. She didn't answer and he got a little angry. "Oi Moyashi!"
"I'm not a beansprout," she said. "Why are you talking to me?" Ellie looked to the side to see the attention of the entire cafeteria was on her and Kanda.
"I'm taking you to prom." It was an order leaving no room for argument.
"Wouldn't you want go with someone…pretty?"
"Who would want to go with any of these girls? They all act and dress like sluts."
"Miranda doesn't."
"I'm not interested in her. You're going to prom with me Moyashi."
"Don't try to trick me Kanda," she said after a lapse of silence. "It's really cruel."
"I'm not…" Ellie didn't even give him a chance. She picked up all her books and ran out the cafeteria. Kanda slammed his fist down on the table, cursing to himself.
XXX
Ellie was sitting on one of the benches in the girl's locker room, knees pushed close to her chest by her arms as she sobbed. She didn't hear anyone enter but someone sat down next to her and placed their hands on her shoulders.
"What's wrong Ellie?" the voice she recognized belonged to Klaud Nine, the only person who never looked at her like she was a freak besides her father. "Did those girls do something to you again?" She shook her head. "Then why are you crying?"
"Someone invited me to prom," she said after turning her eyes to the beautiful woman. She didn't say anything at first but soon a smile curved on her lips.
"That's wonderful. Senior prom is the day every girl looks forward to. Who asked you?"
"Yuu Kanda."
"Captain of the lacrosse team huh." As if sensing the girl's worry she stroked her white hair in a motherly manner. "You think he's playing you?" She nodded. "I don't think he'd do that."
"Why? Everyone hates me and thinks I'm a freak. He wouldn't willingly ask me to go to prom. It must be part of a bet." Klaud was shocked. She knows Kanda's father and the student himself.
"He wouldn't do that. Do you know he doesn't like more than a single handful of people?" Ellie shook her head. "I know he can be mean but he, without a doubt, is always honest even if he denies it. You should give him a chance." She took a lock of Ellie's hair in her hand. "Maybe curl your hair, put on a little make up. You're beautiful Ellie. I see it in you and I think Kanda sees it too."
Klaud left after lightly squeezing Ellie's shoulder for reassurance.
XXX
Kanda drove over to Ellie's house after school. He stepped out and leaned against the passenger side door. He only waited a few minutes before he saw Ellie walking down the street. When she noticed him she ran up to him with a glare directed at him.
"Why are you here?" she demanded.
"I said I'm taking you to prom," he said. "I'm not leaving until you say yes."
"Why are you being so persistent?" Kanda watched her look back and forth between him and the street. Her eyes had widened, both seeing the black SUV rolling down the street. She turned back to him. "I need to be home by 10:30." Kanda smirked
"I'll pick you up at 7 tomorrow." With he left just as her father pulled into the driveway.
"Is something wrong?" Cross asked his daughter once he got out the car and saw a small smile on her face.
"I'm going into town for a bit. I'll be home before curfew." Her father agreed, knowing she was always good for her word.
XXX
Lenalee walked angrily down the street. She couldn't believe her own brother had turned against her because she helped Ellie Walker.
Ellie Walker.
She loathed the girl even more than before. The freak had gotten her suspended so she couldn't go to prom with Lavi. She had been looking forward to it for years and it was taken away from her in a single day.
"That freak has got to pay," she said to herself. She looked up and noticed Ellie walk into a boutique that had the best dresses in town, the place she had gotten her perfect prom dress. Lenalee walked up to the window so see what the girl was doing.
She was picking out a dress!
Ellie looked at the price tags and frowned making Lenalee smirk.
"Of course the freak could afford anything normal." She watched her move to the back where Ellie found a silk fabric. It was peach with a stripe of black. She ran her hands over it and smiled. "How dare she? How dare she be happy while I suffer!" Lenalee didn't notice she said it out loud, drawing the attention of others. "She'll pay very dearly."
She stepped away from the window and called her boyfriend.
Revenge will be so sweet.
XXX
Ellie started preparing for prom the following afternoon. First she had taken a bath and made sure her usually rough akin was nice and smooth. Then she curled her hair and put on a little lipstick like Klaud had suggested. For the first time she liked the person she saw reflected in the mirror.
She laid out the fabric she bought from the boutique and started cutting out the design after laying it out. She made sure the edges were even before sewing it together. Once finished she held it up and smiled. She took off the clothes she was currently in and slipped on the dress.
It hugged her body like her gym swimsuit. The black stripe on the otherwise peach dominated fabric hugged her chest while the peach hugged the rest of her before flaring out at the hips, the dress ending at her ankles. She slipped on a pair of black elbow length gloves and a matching pair of short heels.
Ellie stood in front of the mirror and twirled for herself, wishing Kanda would like how she looked as much as she did at the moment. Excited she ran up to her room and locked herself in.
XXX
Lenalee, Lavi and two of his friends went over to a local farm. They hopped the fence, Lavi carrying a sledgehammer with a knife in his pocket.
"Come on baby, pick one that looks like her," he said with a cruel smirk. Lenalee walked around the pig pen, ignoring the disgusting smell. She found the fattest, ugliest pig in the pen and pointed to it. Lavi handed the sledgehammer to one of his friends.
"Okay piggy, I'll make it nice and quick!" he laughed as he lifted the weapon over his head. He looked into the pig's eyes and hesitated.
"Hurry up!" Lavi urged. His friend lowered the hammer and sighed.
"I can't do it man," he admitted.
"You're a pussy." Lavi snatched the weapon from his friend and, without hesitation, slammed it on the pig's head. It squealed before falling over, dead. He took the knife out of his pocket and handed it to his girlfriend. "You can do the honors."
"No," Lenalee said after a few seconds.
"You're the one who wanted to get back at Ellie." He shoved the knife in her hands and she, despite her earlier protest, sliced the pig's throat. Lavi poured the blood into a bucket until it was mostly full. They group ran away and placed it in the car.
They drove slowly to the school so the blood didn't spill. Everyone was at home getting ready for prom so no one saw Lavi and Lenalee break into the school and set the bucket up over the stage where the prom king and queen would stand.
"When she steps onto the stage just pull this rope," Lavi instructed. Lenalee once again started to protest. He grabbed her shin and made her look at him. "This is criminal assault Lenalee. We'll go to jail for criminal assault if you don't do it. Do you understand?"
She nodded frantically and they made out a bit before leaving, both with smirks on their faces.
XXX
Kanda knocked on Ellie's door at 7 just as he promised. He had expected Ellie to answer the door but the door opened to reveal a tall red headed man with a mask covering right side of his face and a single eye glass frame covering his left eye.
"Who the hell are you?" Cross asked, his voice threatening.
"I'm here to take Moyashi to prom," Kanda replied in an equally threatening manner.
"What is a Moyashi brat?"
"I mean Ellie. Where is she?" On queue Ellie came running down the stairs but stopped when she saw her father blocking her way. He was glaring at her and his hand was twitching. She knew it meant he wanted to reach for Judgment, his gun, and shoot Kanda, possibly kill him. The pleading in her eyes made him step aside but the look on his face told her they would talk when she got home.
"I love you papa," she said, standing on her toes to kiss her father on the cheek. He returned it by kissing her forehead. Ellie hooked her arm around Kanda's as he led her to the white limo parked out front. The driver opened the door for them before getting in himself and driving to the high school.
"You look beautiful," he said, taking her hand in his. A light blush dusted her cheeks. He looked down at her chest and noticed her corsage was in the wrong spot. "Let me help you with that." He undid the pin that held it to her dress and pushed it around her gloved wrist.
The driver opened the back door again when they arrived. Kanda got out first and held out his hand for Ellie to take. She hesitantly did and he led her inside. One of Kanda's adopted brothers, Marie, and his girlfriend Miranda met up with them.
"I love your dress Ellie," Miranda said shyly. Ellie knew she wasn't involved in the locker room incident. She was, in fact, the one who asked someone to notify Klaud. "Where'd you get it?"
"I made it," she answered just as shyly. Miranda looked amazed. The four of them found a table and took a seat but Marie got back up and dragged Miranda to the dance floor. Ellie watched them dance, Kanda noticing instantly.
"Do you want to dance?" he asked. He could tell by the look on her face that she didn't feel comfortable. "Why don't we wait for a slower song?" She nodded and looked back onto the dance floor. Klaud was there dancing with the teenagers in a knee length black dress. The woman caught her gaze and smiled. She approached Ellie and they hugged.
"Wow Ellie. You look amazing," Klaud said in a breathless manner. Kanda got up and asked the two whether they wanted punch. Klaud declined but Ellie nodded so he left. "I'm glad you came. You look so happy."
"I am."
XXX
When a slow song came up Kanda dragged Ellie to the dance floor. She repeatedly told him she couldn't dance but he wouldn't have it so he taught her what he knew. They swayed together, Ellie's hands on his chest and ear over his heart and Kanda's arms around her waist with his chin on top of her head.
They had to sit back down when the Komui announced they were going to vote for prom king and queen. Ellie had insisted they didn't vote for themselves but called her modest and voted for her. The ballots were collected and no one noticed the originals were thrown out and replaced. They danced to another slow song before the announcement was made.
"This year's prom king and queen are Kanda and Ellie!" Everyone started clapping for the two. Kanda grabbed Ellie's hand and led her up to the stage. She stood on top of a star with Kanda next to her, a smile on her face as a bouquet of white roses was handed to her.
She was so happy but everything was soon ruined.
Ellie was covered head to toe in pig's blood, some of it getting on Kanda's white tux. The crowd gasped but soon started laughing except for Klaud, Komui, Marie and Miranda. On the screens on either side of the stage was the video of the locker room incident from a few days ago.
"Who the hell is responsible for this?" Kanda demanded but no one heard him. They were too busy laughing at Ellie. She dropped the bouquet and looked at her bloodied hands and back out to the crowd.
Her anger reached its boiling point and her screams cut through the laughter. Her silky pale left arm turned black and her fingers grew into long claws, shredding her glove into pieces. A long white cloak appeared around her shoulders and her white hair stuck up behind her head, a masquerade mask on over her eyes.
Everyone looked at her in shock. A single swipe of her newly formed claw made the floor crack and sent everyone sprawling to the ground. The lights over the stage exploded, setting fire to the entire stage. Kanda tried to make her calm down but wouldn't listen. The cloak wrapped around Kanda as well as Klaud, shielding them both from harm though they were both immobile.
She noticed a girl pick up her laptop and try to run. She tripped her with a tendril from the cloak and watched, satisfied as she was trampled to death. She then commanded the tendrils to pick up another one of the girls and threw her into the flaming curtains.
"Scream pig," she said to herself as she moved to another part of the gym. Students were trying to hide behind the bleachers. When she saw one of the sources of her pain she used her clawed hand to push it in until the boy was crushed.
One girl tried to stop her by running at her with a stiletto but Ellie used her claw to leave deep gashes in her face. As the school burned she could hear the sound of fire engines and police approaching. She left the school in an instant and set Kanda and Klaud down on the grass, leaving them looking after her as she walked away.
Ellie practically floated down the street after a red Camaro. She had seen Lavi's green headband near the bucket and knew that him along with Lenalee were behind the entire thing. Tendrils of her cloak dug into the ground and came up in front of the car like stalagmites in a cave until Lavi had to turn around.
"Run her over," she heard Lenalee say. "Run the bitch over!" Lavi hit the gas and sped towards Ellie, hoping she would die but the exact opposite happened.
The cloak wrapped around Ellie protectively so when the car hit her it did no damage to her, instead leaving a large dent in the metal. Lavi hit his head hard on the steering, smashing his skull in and killing him instantly. Lenalee, who still lived, panicked and tried to escape but Ellie's cloak had wrapped around the entire car and lifted it entirely off the ground.
"Satan has a special place in hell reserved just for you and you other sinners," Ellie said before throwing the car into a gas pump. It exploded instantly, leaving behind only fire and scorched metal.
Ellie took off her heels and carried them home with her the claw, cloak and mask were gone and her hair had returned to normal but her left arm remained black.
When she got home she immediately took a bath to wash herself of the blood. She felt disgusting when only a few hours earlier she was told by both Kanda and Klaud that she was beautiful, when the first time ever she called herself beautiful.
Once she was clean from the filth that stained her body she put on a pale blue nightgown and went down the stair. Cross was down there waiting for her. He held out one of his arms and she ran over to him, curled in his lap and cried.
"They made me do it! They made me do it! They made me do it!" she chanted over and over as she sobbed. It was supposed to make her feel better, to make herself feel less guilty. It helped to an extent but she still felt bad.
"It's not your fault," Cross said in her ear. He rocked her back and forth to try and sooth her but it didn't help. "It was never your fault."
"Ellie," someone said from the door. Only Cross turned to see Kanda at the open door, jacket gone, but parts of his face and tux were covered in blood. "Ellie needs to leave."
"We're not going anywhere," Cross said.
"She killed five people, injured fifty more and burned down the school! People saw her do it and didn't hesitate to tell the police! They're coming here right now and if you don't leave now she's going to jail and possibly executed!" The urgency and panic in his voice shocked him. He looked down at his daughter and sighed.
"Go home boy. We'll go." Cross picked up Ellie, who had fallen asleep. He bought her out to the car, buckled her up in the back and covered her with his coat. When he started the car Kanda got in the passenger side. "I said go home boy!"
"I'm not leaving her!"
"The hell you aren't!"
"The longer we argue the closer the cops get! You're not going to make me leave!" Cross then got out of the car and pulled Kanda where he was sitting seconds ago.
"Then drive and get the hell away from here. I'll keep them off you."
"How are you…"
"Protect my little girl with your life." Kanda reluctantly nodded and drove away leaving Cross behind. The red headed man smiled sadly as the mask on his face shifted and changed his entire body. "Just make sure mine doesn't go to waste."
The police surrounded him, thinking he was Ellie. He pulled out Judgment and shot a few officers. The others responded immediately to the hostility and fired. Bullets pierced his body one by one, none hitting anything serious until he took one to the head.
XXX
Kanda kept looking in the rearview mirror, constantly checking if Ellie was still sleeping. When he stopped at a recently turned red light he looked back and was shocked to meet her steel grey eyes staring right back at him.
"Where's papa?" she asked him. He had no idea how to answer that because he didn't have an answer. "I want my papa Kanda! Take me back home!"
"He told me to take you!" Kanda shouted making her flinch. "The cops are after you Ellie! Do you have any idea what you did earlier?"
"I want my papa! I need him! I need…" She stopped suddenly and clutched her heart. More tears cascaded down her cheeks. "They killed my papa."
"I'm sure he's still…"
"He's not Kanda. They shot papa because he protected me." Ellie clutched her father's coat around herself protectively. "He's dead because of me."
"He's dead because he loves you and wanted to protect you. People don't sacrifice their lives for nothing. You mean everything to him."
"What about you?" He looked at her as if she grew a second head. "You're risking everything by helping me."
"You're the only one who means anything to me." They soon left the town where they had lived to start life anew. They were barely in the next town when Ellie broke the silence that had befallen them.
"Do you love me?" Kanda pulled the car over and crawled into the back seat next to her. He held her now black left hand and brought the back of it to his lips.
"I love you very much Ellie." He gently brought his lips onto hers and pulled back to see her reaction. Her eyes were wide and more tears were running down her cheeks.
"Do it again Kanda," she said quietly. So he did. He kissed her as much as she wanted him to until she fell asleep once again. He sat back behind the wheel and, within a few hours, they were two towns over.
XXX
Kanda, using the money he saved over the years, rented a small but comfy apartment for him and Ellie. They had lived there for three years as husband and wife. Ellie dyed her hair a brownish red, covered the scar on her face with makeup and wore long sleeves all year round. Kanda stayed the same but had his katana Mugen shipped from his old home in Japan for his own reassurance.
They both owned a popular book store in their new town. Now they were sitting on the couch watching TV, Ellie curled in Kanda's lap. A breaking news story replaced whatever they were watching.
"It's been three years since the tragedy at the Black Order High School where teenager Ellie Walker killed five students, injuring over seventy others and burned down the school. Today we were able to finally get an interview from Klaud Nine, the school's gym teacher."
It shifted to a man simply known as Bookman, a reporter, a historian as well as Lavi's father.
"Ms. Nine, do you have any idea what could have caused Ellie to kill those kids?" he asked. Klaud didn't say anything at first. She had looked down so the camera couldn't see her face. When she looked back up her face was filled with rage.
"Everyone called her weird, a freak because she didn't have any friends, because she had white hair and a scar on her face. They looked down on her and mocked her because she looked different from everyone else. There was an…incident in the locker room and a video of it was posted on the internet. Then at prom Lenalee Lee, Lavi Bookman and a few of their friends did something very cruel.
"They poured pig's blood all over her when she was crowned prom queen and showed the locker room video to everyone. Lenalee wanted to get her back for something she herself did. I guess that was the hay that broke the camel's back. She…changed. Her arm turned into a black claw and a cloak and mask appeared out of nowhere. She made sure the students that humiliated her died but she personally saved me and her prom date from burning in the school."
"What exactly are your thoughts about Ellie Walker?"
"Ellie Walker was a sweet girl but she was terribly shy. I could never have kids of my own which is why I became a teacher but she always held a special place in my heart. They pushed her too far and she retaliated. I will admit they didn't deserve death but bullying to this extreme is criminal and should have warranted lawful intervention."
"And what about her prom date, Yuu Kanda?"
"He was the only student who didn't think she was a freak. I heard from one of her teachers she read a poem in his class that was…depressing and admitted he was put off by it and rudely commented. Kanda was the only one who said something to defend her."
"Do you know what happened to him or her father Cross Marian?" Klaud shook her head. "Can I ask one more question?" She nodded. "All of the other students and teachers said terrible things about her and, from what I've been told, they thought this way before this tragedy. Why didn't you?"
"I always thought her white hair was unique. The scar on her face stuck out against her pale complexion. She was so beautiful but no one other than Kanda, Cross and I could see it. Even she refused to believe it. I could see the pain hidden beneath her eyes that I myself had as a teen. I always knew she was special and believed she would go on to do great things. She excelled in all of her classes but never applied herself to the extent of her potential. Now that opportunity was cruelly taken away from her."
When the interview ended Kanda turned off the TV. Tears stained Ellie's cheeks.
"I never knew Ms. Nine thought about me like that," she said quietly. "I feel bad letting her believe I'm dead."
"It's necessary," Kanda said wiping the tears from her cheeks. "We can't have anyone catching on." He moved his hands down from her face to her extended stomach which held their growing child. "We can go visit her and pay respect to your dad one day. For now the only thing we need to worry about is growing inside you."
"The product of our love."
"A symbol of life." Kanda stroked her hair before bringing his lips to hers.