Chapter 49
RecordingTheCrash & Livxwire

Disclaimer: Don't own; don't sue. Blah, blah, blah. You get the gist.

Summary: When evil does evil, the world continues to turn as expected. It's only when sheep start leading their own to the slaughter that it screeches to a complete halt. Faced with just what humans can do, it's hard not to feel betrayed. [Lavi x Lenalee, Kanda x Lenalee]

Note: This is a chaptered story that primarily focuses on Lavi, Lenalee, and Kanda coming to terms with the world and each other. The tale is told from varying perspectives and will include mystery, action, drama, humor, and, yes, even romance. There will be backtracking involved, as different characters give their own thoughts on transpiring events, so if that seems tedious to you, then feel free to sit this one out. If you don't enjoy dark themes, this might not be the story for you either. Otherwise, expect updates every one to three weeks, sometimes sooner, and, please, enjoy!

Contact Information: Check out Livxwire, my totally awesome co-author, on Tumblr! You can find me there as well at RecordingTheCrash (my D. Gray-Man blog) and PilotingDaCrash (my personal blog).

Prologue

It was the start of another chapter, the forty-ninth chapter, to be exact, and as the page turned to finalize the segment of one story, fresh ink was scrawled upon untainted paper to begin the journey of another. The young Bookman had been through this before, erasing his past cover and replacing it with another, the endeavor now routine, making the boy almost forget who he really was. Almost. It had all become a game to the redhead, a twisted game of charades that he played while he mingled with the players to write his story. Appear friendly and amiable, with just an ounce of charm, but never influence and never become involved. These beings around him were not friends, they were not toys, merely tools to tell the tale, nothing more, nothing less. Bookman Junior was content with that. At first, when he was young, the idea of knowing secrets that others did not was enough to keep his mind distracted from the desire for human companionship, but as time went on, as the scribe dictated war after war, atrocity after atrocity, and after watching humans shed so much blood for ideals they no longer remembered, the boy no longer cared to associate himself with the heathens. There was nothing of value left within the human world, and if being a Bookman taught him one thing, it was that history repeated itself, and that history was drenched in blood. He wanted no part of it; however, that did not mean the redhead wouldn't take a twisted form of pleasure from recording it.

As the two sat there on the couch, the mentor and the apprentice, Bookman gave a warning to his pupil, an attempt to keep his brash student from getting in over his head. This war would be different, the old panda said. They would be writing as soldiers, as contestants in the war, the old man advised, but no matter what side they fought for, they were still to remain neutral. It was to be the first true challenge his junior would face, to be so involved but yet remain true to his actual duty, to be able to remain unattached and impartial as they paddled through the waves of crashing turmoil, to not be sucked into the whirlpool of emotion.

The redhead was confident and cocky, smirking at the old panda as his wrinkled face hung heavy with worry.

"I'll be as friendly and sociable as always," the youth smoothly smiled, his expression filled with the devil's mischief.

Gramps didn't believe his student. Not one bit. Headstrong and naïve, despite all the boy had come to see so far, Bookman knew that his disciple was not ready for the challenges that lay ahead, for even though the boy held a distinct bitterness towards the world, there was still a lot of temptation it had yet to offer. It might have been easy to remain neutral from the sidelines, but from the center, it was hard for the lines to remain clear and not blurred.

But that was all the pep talk the teacher was able to provide before the start of their new story, of their forty-ninth tale together, before the opening of the Chapter of Lavi.

Their waiting was over. Finally, Bookman and the newly-named Lavi were introduced to the director of the Science Department. He was a tall, Asian man with a playful smile, yet deadly serious eyes. A childish charm floated about the one called Komui Lee, but, for those who also held deep secrets, it was easy to see the cold chill behind his falsely bright eyes. The redhead smirked at the interesting specimen that stood before him, holding his bright blue coffee cup as he leaned back on the desk, kicking away the loose papers that cluttered the floor, as he went over the details of the arrangement with the senior scribe. Bookman Junior was only paying half attention, his eyes darting about the room and soaking up as much information as he could gather, learning more than any normal person would about the director. It was the little things that gave away the honest truth about a person, the things one never expected, like that blue coffee mug Komui grasped tightly in his hands. The man, with his dramatic movements and clumsy habits, gingerly held the cup, cradling the possession as if it were a piece of delicate china. He used it every day too, Lavi could tell by the softly worn and rounded edges along with the warmly faded color around the mouth of the mug. To the record keeper, this let him know that this oddly decorated beverage holder was a gift from someone special and, guessing by the bright pink bunny, it wasn't a lover or a significant other. That left a sibling, mostly likely a sister, and by how the man treasured the item, how he held it protectively, he probably assumed some sort of parental role with her.

Needless to say, Lavi was chosen to be the successor of the Bookman line for a reason.

Eventually, the scholars were led out of the cluttered office, taken on a tour of the facility, Komui rambling about his makeshift home and those he shared it with. There was a sense of care and compassion as the director spoke, an underlying message of family and comradery for those who chose to make the Black Order their home. Lavi wanted to gag, but instead, he answered with a smile, his eye alive with a false sense of excitement.

How long were they going to be working on this chapter again?

It took a lot of effort for the younger Bookman to bite back his annoyed sigh, looking over his shoulder to catch sight of the sea of coffins below the platform they stood on.

A funeral, huh?

The redhead was suddenly interested, turning to face the lobby, curiously gazing upon the ceremony that was taking place. Death was nothing new to the scribe of war. He had seen so much of it that the sight no longer had an effect on him. All death was to Lavi was an inevitability and the only certainty in life. The sounds of falling tears and hollow sobs were just background noise to him now; it had become more and more uncomfortable for the Bookman to display a reaction of forced compassion over time. Thankfully, from his current vantage point, Lavi could observe without hesitation, without concern of blending into an emotionally-surged crowd. With a blank stare, the youth cocked his head to the side, intrigued about the different set of mourning rituals the Black Order seemed to hold within its own walls. The redhead committed it all to memory, no detail overlooked, so that he could write it down later; however, his observations were cut short. A spark of electricity crackled to his left, pulling his attention into the crowd, his eye locking with a girl kneeling beside one of the coffins. Long, black pigtails framed her pale face, her cheeks wet with tears, but despite the despair surrounding her, the girl's eyes held a sense of hope, an undying light that still burned bright despite the river of sorrow that so openly flowed from them.

Lavi suddenly, if only for a moment, found it hard to breathe, as if the air had been knocked out of him. For some reason, his heart pounded heavy in his chest for a beat or two, which the boy pushed off as a random irregularity, nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, Bookman Junior found himself unable to move, as if he was stuck in place. That was peculiar, and just as the young scribe began to grow concerned, his attention drawn away from the captivating young woman, she left, darting out of the lobby like a ghost, the boy not even aware she had fled before he was pulled into the next room.

Due to their late arrival, the two Bookmen were allowed to retire to their new rooms after the tour, instructed to meet back up with the director in the morning for their Innocence selection and uniform fitting. The old panda attempted to close the evening with some words of warning-filled wisdom, which his pupil brushed off like the brash and arrogant young male that he was.

"Yeah, whatever, Gramps. I got it covered," the redhead waved off as he walked into his room, closing the door behind him and completely missing his mentor's instructions to wait for him in the morning before heading down to the mess hall.

Expanding her world was a painful and clumsy process, but she couldn't complain because putting any more strain on her point of fixation, the center of her, admittedly, small universe, her brother, wasn't an option. Of course, the guilt and concern over hindering him and the residual bitterness left clinging to her bones against the Black Order got in the way of her desperate attempts to care for something farther down her line of sight, which didn't naturally extend past the glare of Komui's glasses and the ridiculousness of his pale blue mug. She remembered doodling an absurdly pink bunny over the periwinkle ceramic back in the day to get his attention. Now that she had what she asked for, however, the brunette found herself struggling under the intensity of the weight. So after failing time and again to let something other than whiplash mood swings, played up for her amusement and benefit, no doubt, get under her skin, she valiantly gave the endeavor another shot. And another. She had plenty of opportunities to try, after all, caught in a neverending stream of unfamiliar faces in familiar uniforms. And it wasn't until she pinned the French accent of the finder accompanying her on an assignment to Italy and marked Rosh Hashanah on her calendar because the line cook helping Jerry would smile if she remembered to wish him good health in the new year that something creaked, and scratched, and wailed, but moved.

Her mentality stretched and bent to accommodate the influx of information that followed: the oriental cuisine she hadn't ever thought to taste, the austere customs of British society outlined in classical literature that one of the exorcists she barely knew sheepishly admitted to her were still very prevalent in his culture, the seven languages in which she learned to pronounce a passable greeting, Reever's excited, little squeaks of triumph at finding the species of bird indigenous to the region he had always hoped to study, and the warmth that came with knowing how each and every man in the Science Department took his coffee. Before she realized it, the map on her dorm room wall was full of pins with names and faces attached to destinations she never visited but had heard so much about, and it struck her suddenly, with blinding clarity, as if written out in bold letters between the red, plastic heads, that she wasn't the only one who was homesick, still homesick, so many years past. Nostalgia is truly an infectious disease, and, maybe, in a way, that's good. Because they all had something in common, and she found that if she only listened, everyone was willing to talk.

Lee had no more choice in the Black Order members than others did in parents, she knew, and it took some time to put her thoughts into a coherent sentiment, but, in the end, she decided, that was fine. Because family can't really be chosen.

Unfortunately, many other, much less pleasant, things aren't meant to be chosen either. The convenience of picking a death date, for instance, is beyond humanity, and Lenalee learned that the hard way when over two hundred coffins filled the echoing void of the first basement floor.

Her world suddenly shrunk, and she found herself thinking that, maybe, expansion is a lot less painful than constriction.

But then, just as her knees buckled under the weight of the shock and her still fresh injuries, just as her vision blurred and the ends of her hair tangled and curled into her cheeks, just as icy dread began enclosing her heart in a thick film of apathy, something searing and insistent surged up her spine, drawing her attention up and up, where she searched out an unfamiliar, acid-green gaze, a little widened, a little unsteady, but definitely there.

And so, the oscillation continued, past her point of origin, through her brother's hands.

To be continued.