"Say what?" Allen asked and Kanda rolled his eyes.
"Stupid Bean Sprout. It's the four of us, not just the two of us." Kanda corrected him angrily.
"Well thank god Lavi and Lenalee are coming too. I would have to kill myself if it was us going on a mission together." Allen said with a sigh of relief.
"Tch." Kanda replied simply. Lenalee walked in with Lavi following her.
"Hey you two!" Lenalee crowed as she took her seat in front of Komui's desk. Lavi took his seat as well.
"So whats cooking?" Lavi asked Komui who was rummaging through a pile of papers on the floor. Komui whipped out a few paper triumphantly.
"Go here. Find innocence." He said while sipping his coffee hoping to fuel up again but to no prevail.
"Thats all I need to hear." Kanda said while walking out.
"Hey wait up Yuu!" Lavi called as he ran after him.
"We'd better go before we get left behind." Lenalee said to Allen who nodded in response. He grabbed the papers sitting next to Komui's head on the desk and followed Lenalee out the door. After all the preparations were made, the group finally made it to the town specified in Komui's messy papers. It was night by the time they got there.
"Oh, so soon?" Kanda asked sarcastically. It was pitch black and they all stumbled in the dark.
"Lets just get to an inn. I'm about ready to collapse of tiredness." Lavi complained with a yawn. The four began to make their way to sleep with a finder following close behind. It was then that Allen's eye activated and a boom was heard towards the other side of town.
"Akuma!" they all shouted at once and took off, Lenalee in the lead of course. They raced to the site where there were about five level ones in a cluster. Before anyone had a chance to attack, they all blew up light from the explosion illuminated the small silhouette of a girl, long hair whipping around her. Before anyone could approach her, she leapt away.
"Lenalee go!" Allen shouted as Lenalee began to follow after her although they didn't have to go very far. It was dark outside and the girl knew the town while Lenalee was completely lost. Lenalee unhappily made her way back to the who was at the inn at that point.
"I lost her." She announced sullenly.
"That's okay, Lenalee. What happened though?" Allen asked.
"Well it was dark and I had no I dea where I was going and she just slipped away into the shadows." She sighed.
"Ah, don't worry. Theres plenty of time to find her again. I doubt that this will be the last time we see that mystery girl. After all, she was probably the one who destroyed those Akuma so if theres more she'll be sure to come." Lavi announced before walking off to bed.
"We should get to bed now too. We can do some digging around tomorrow." Allen suggested and they both went to their rooms.
"Allen you shouldn't eat THAT much. We don't have that much spending money on hand for food and this isn't Jerry's kitchen. Be reasonable." Lenalee scolded him and he sighed and looked at the menu again.
"I'll just get two orders of the daily special then." He decided sadly. As they ate, they discussed the day's plans.
"We can talk to the locals of course, but when I was talking to the waiter before he said that if you were doing some 'digging' then to go to the library. All the people who actually know whats going on spend their time out there. It's like the hangout for the townspeople." Lavi said, somewhat weirded out by the information.
"Well that's great! Now we know where we have to go to gather more information!" Lenalee said happily.
"Ahh but he said one more thing. He mentioned that the townspeople are a bit wary of newcomers and visitors. It seems they're a somewhat edgy about the Akuma activity around this place. I don't know how easy the info will come, but nobody has been giving us dirty looks like in some other places we've been so maybe these people will be a bit more willing to dish out the dirt." Lavi added.
"Well then we should get started!" Allen announced while standing up from his empty plates. The group headed out to the library in search of more information. They got to a grand building in the center of town. When they entered the building, it was almost not even a library. Although there were endless amounts of books, there were tons of people there and a very light chatter was bustling about. It was like a big party was going on, but not noisy and less people.
"This place is awesome!" Lavi said, clearly amazed at the fact that a library could be cool.
"Yes it is certainly amazing." Allen agreed, looking up to the high ceiling. Just then, there was a call from the lounge like area in the first main room in the front.
"Lucky! Come here for a moment!" an older woman with glasses called, eyeing the exorcists with a smirk.
"Coming!" Came a voice from higher above. They all turned their heads in time to see a girl with a bandana covering her hair and a casual outfit glide over on the top of a rolling wall ladder across a gigantic shelf of books. She was obviously a librarian but was very young. When she got to the end of the track by the doorway to the lounge, she slid down the ladder with a few books still in her hand and skipped over to the woman. She took a small glance at the group,still standing in awe in the foyer area, before reaching the woman in the other room. They saw the older woman, still eyeing them, whisper something in the girl's ear which caused her to look over to them. She smiled and skipped away from them to the group.
"Welcome to the Catra Library!" She chirped with a smile. "I see you are all new faces here. How can I be of service to you today?" She asked. The group was a bit stunned. weren't the people in this town supposed to not like newcomers?
"Hello. We are all exorcists from the Black Order. We came here to gather some information about some strange things reportedly going on in this town." Lenalee explained kindly.
"Well then you've come to the right place! Let me take you to . She owns this library and runs it as can give you any information you need." she said happily while leading the group to the lounge area. The people seemed to eye them a bit, but not necessarily in a bad way.
"Welcome to the library, exorcists." she said with a smile. "I'm Gracie Catra as this youngster probably already told you. You can call me Gracie though." She turned to where the girl was, but she was already gone and stacking books on a high ladder. "Lucky!" she called somewhat sternly. She immediately slid down the ladder and ran over to the group.
"Yes ?" she asked.
"I want you to help these children here around the library. They're gathering information, so don't be stingy now!" she said with a wink. "You may all go with her and she will tell you what you need to know. go on now!" she said, ushering the girl ahead. They walked away from the main area and deeper into the library. She turned to them.
"So what are all your names, if I may ask?" she questioned. Lenalee of course was the one to talk.
"I'm Lenalee, this is Allen, Kanda and...wait wheres Lavi?" everyone looked around. "Well who cares. He can't have gotten too far anyway. What should we call you?" She asked, clearly taking advantage of the social moment with another female. She laughed.
"I'm Yaruta, but pretty much everyone here calls me Lucky." She said with a smile.
"So how did you end up with that nickname from Yaruta?"Lenalee asked, still enjoying the chit chat.
"Well ever since I came to this town, nobody liked me too much. There has been a long time Akuma problem here, but the only reason I'm telling you this is because you are exorcists and you're looking for information. Anyway, ever since I came, the townspeople had believed that all of the newcomers and travelers and such brought Akuma to the town, but I was special. They think I'm some sort of 'Lucky Charm' that keeps the akuma away." She explained with a laugh. "that's probably why nobody minds your presence here. The think I'm keeping them away and even if they come they know you'll all fight them off!" She said with a smile.
"Really?" everyone jumped at the sound of lavi's voice coming from the bookshelf behind Yaruta. She turned around to look at him.
"Strike." They heard him whisper when he saw her full on. She scurried over to him and picked up all the books Lavi had knocked down. She put her face close to the hole that Lavi's face was in.
"If you're not going to read them..." she began, lifting the books "Then don't take them off the shelves!" she growled, smashing the books back in the hole where Lavi's face was. The rest of the group was rolling on the floor laughing, save Kanda of course. He was leaning on the wall with a distant look in his eyes and a scowl on his face.
"So can we come back tomorrow, too? This place is great, but we want to hit other parts of town and grab some food as well." Allen said, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Of course! That's perfectly fine. You can all come back whenever you need to. Let's make our way back to the lounge again." she said. Kanda was still leaning against the wall deep in thought with that look on his face.
"Hey you." Yaruta said, addressing him. Kanda's head whipped up angrily. Before he could say a word though, Yaruta pushed up his cheeks into a smile. "You're not allowed to make such crabby faces here. Plus it doesn't suit you." She said to him with a wink and released his face. Kanda's expression remained surprised for a moment, then he went back to his old self.
"Tch." He said as he pushed off the wall and began to walk out. "Stupid girl." he mumbled. was still in the lounge when they came back.
"So how did you children fare?" she asked, breaking off conversation with an elderly woman and stuffing a a pencil in her chestnut brown hair.
"Well we didn't get much today, but we definitely want to come back tomorrow." Allen said cheerfully.
"Feel free! We're open all week and you're always welcome here." she said. "Lucky, you can show them to the door alright?" Yaruta fixed her bandana, shoving her obnoxiously red hair back underneath.
"Yes Ma'am!" She said opening the door for the exorcists. "See you all soon!" she said with a smile and they all disappeared out the door. She sighed and got back to work.
"So what did we find today?" Allen asked an open question between mouth fulls.
"Well based on what I got while chatting with Yaruta she could be the candidate we're looking for." Lenalee announced.
"Tch. She's probably just a stupid librarian. she's noisy and bothersome, but then again that seems to be a running quality in exorcists back at the order." Kanda said before sipping at his tea.
"Ahh Yuu don't be so negative. You're just angry because she touched you and got away with it. I'm actually really surprised you kept your cool there. Whats gotten into you these days, huh?" Lavi teased.
"Yea that's right! What have you been taking for that anger? It's obviously working." Allen joined in.
"I suggest if you don't want to end up dead you'll shut up, you stupid pirate. That goes for you too, idiot Bean Sprout." Kanda replied, fingering the hilt of his katana. The two got the hint and Lavi changed the subject.
"Well anyway, when I disappeared for the little while, I was rummaging through some of the historic records and got some pretty good info, if I do say so myself!" Lavi said proudly,
"Lavi! Stealing is wrong! We were going to gather that information willingly, not theft!" Lenalee scolded.
"Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do... I doubt this is anything they would have handed out for free anyway. After some digging around, I found out that is actually Yaruta's adoptive mother Although Yaruta's last name isn't really Catra either. Her last name is actually-" He glanced over at Allen who was having some sort of nostalgic moment before whispering in Lenalee's ear "Marian. But I don't believe it has anything to do with the general at all. The order would have known about it by now especially if it was local like this." He whispered.
"Lavi, should we be concerned about Allen at all? He seems like he's been under for quite a while..." Lenalee said, concerned.
"Yea whatever. Maybe he'll tell us about what he's thinking." Lavi said. "Hey...hey Allen..." Lavi said while shaking Allen's shoulder. He eventually snapped out of it.
"So what was that all about?" Lavi immediately asked.
"I'd rather drop it..." Allen said, looking a bit sick.
"Well anyway, we can go back tomorrow and still ask about stuff, but if we want the real info we're probably going to have to snoop." Lavi declared with an evil grin. Lenalee face-palmed and sighed.
"We'd better get going now. We have a long day tomorrow and I want to be alert and ready." She said while getting up. "I'm going to sleep so I can think about all this." she said before leaving. They were all in the room when Allen's eye activated again.
"Again?" they all asked at once. "This is our chance! lets go!"they all leapt out the window and headed to the scene. When they got there, there was a level 3 and as expected, the mystery girl. The level 3 turned to them after slamming her into the wall, pinning her.
"Exorcists, huh? You must have come for your little friend here. Well she's property of Noah, sorry." It finished saying before Allen lunged to attack with all the others following him. It was a surprise attack, four against one and with Allen's new innocence, they were able to take down the single Akuma after some time. The girl started to go when Kanda stopped her. He pinned her to the wall once again at sword point.
"Wait." He said to her irritably. She kept her head down as she spoke.
"What do you want?"she asked angrily as the others came over.
"We want you to join us! You have innocence, the ability to fight demons! You can really help us." Allen said.
"Sorry, no" She replied coldly, shoving Kanda's sword from her face. She started to walk away and Kanda grabbed her wrist and pulled her back a bit. The girl stopped short and waited for a moment before she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
"...Kanda..." She whispered desperately. Kanda released her wrist in shock and pulled back a bit. The girl smiled then.
"Tch. Baka." she said to him with a sinister grin before leaping off into the shadows, escaping. The whole group remained silent for a moment.
"...Well what the hell was that, Yuu?" Lavi said, completely confused. Kanda was still too stunned to answer.
"um...Kanda? Are you okay?" Allen said fearfully watching the evil aura around him grow.
"I'll...I'll kill that bitch!" He roared, running off into the darkness after her.
"I'm not too sure if we should go after him just yet. I think he's going to be too riled up with murderous intent for a while..." Lenalee said cautiously.
"Should we fear for that girl's life?" Lavi asked nervously.
"I'm not too sure. I think for now we should just go back to the inn and...yea I don't know what we should do." Allen said while scratching his head.
"Let's just return to the inn for now. If Kanda doesn't come back soon we'll go out to look for him. I think the girl will be okay...for now..." Lenalee decided.
"Sounds like a plan." Allen and Lavi responded simultaneously. They all made their way back to the inn. Kanda was already there and he was angrier than ever.
"Lets just avoid him for now..." Lavi whispered. They all agreed and went to their rooms for bed. The next morning they would go back to the library for more answers.