Chrono Crusade II
The Children's CrusadeBased off the anime: Chrono Crusade
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Disclaimer: I don't own Chrono Crusade. I didn't make up the original idea or the scenario or most of the characters, but some of it's mine. I just thought Chrono Crusade needed a decent ending.
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Episode 1: Sister Azmaria
The year was 1931. It was three years after the fall of Aion.
The place was a hallowed stone church that had seen it's fair share of joy and pain. A cross stood behind the center alter, a statue of the virgin mother to the left of it silently watching over the empty pews.
Before the gates of this church demons have fought and guns have been fired. Upon this alter the dull light of a black sun and a red moon has been cast, the blood had been cried from Mary's mournful eyes. Here a celebration of Christ's birth had been sung by a beautiful, young apostle girl. Here hundreds of young people have prayed for strength, courage and wisdom. Today, only one prays, and not for strength or wisdom, but for the souls of the departed.
"Azmaria!"
The young girl jumped. He head shot up as she gasped, startled out of her prayer. "Y-yes?"
"Come on!" An older, red-headed young woman shouted impatiently from the doorway. "We've got a complaint. Sister Kate asked us to go with you."
"C-coming."
The red-headed sister glanced around the church and sighed at the unsightly hole in the ceiling and the pile of rubble that obstructed the aisle. "I see the roof still isn't fixed from that last riot, huh? Don't trip, Azmaria."
Azmaria smiled gently to herself and the sister as she daintily and gracefully stepped and leaped over each piece of broken rock. She was so overjoyed with not having tripped over a single piece of the broken rubble, that she didn't notice the door as she collided face first into it.
"Oh, Azmaria," sighed the sister.
Azmaria appeared from behind the door blushing and holding her nose. "Ow." She giggled, slightly embarrassed.
-----
They all quickly loaded into the car and putted off to a destination currently unknown to Azmaria. She didn't mind, though. She was use to having no idea where she was going.
Azmaria was seated in the front passenger seat, the red-headed sister in the driver's seat next to her, and two more sisters about the driver's age were sitting in the back with the supply box.
"What were you praying for when I came in, Azmaria?" Sister Anna asked.
"Oh!" Azmaria jumped, still always seeming to be caught off guard. "I was praying for Rosette and Chrno." There was a slight pause, as if Azmaria was preparing to list off all the rest of the people she prayed for, but the blonde sister in the back leaped into the conversation. "What's it been, now? Three years?"
"Mmhmm," Azmaria nodded with a plesent nostalgic smile.
"But almost four since you met them, right?" confirmed Sister Anna who was driving. Azmaria nodded again, smiled and seeming to want to cry at the same time. The other sisters had similar expressions. The people in question had both left very deep marks on their hearts.
"Pretty soon you'll be driving and you'll be able to visit her on your own." The driving sister ruffled Azmaria's habit a bit with a free hand. The blond sister in the back sighed loudly again. "It doesn't feel like it's been three years. It feels like she's out on a mission and blowing something up and she's going to be back any minute to have Sister Kate scream at her."
"Yes, that is what is feels like," said brown-haired Sister Claire in the back, her hands neatly folded in her lap.
Azmaria felt a quiet calm fall over the girls and quickly tried to lighten the mood and bring the cheerfulness back. "Hey, speaking of Sister Kate; you guys will be old enough to do that soon too, right?"
"Ha!" Sister Anna laughed. "Yeah, maybe, but I'm not the right type for a desk job. I want to be there fighting the bad guys, ya know?"
"Yeah!" the blond one agreed. "I want to be out there helping people!"
"I don't think I'd like having a desk job either," the brown-haired one commented. "Though being away from Sister Mary's shouting would be nice."
"HEY! SISTER CLAIRE!" The blond Sister Mary shouted indignantly, causing a laugh to rise up in the car.
Azmaria laughed with them before leaning back into her seat and looking back out the window, slowly being lost again in her nostalgia. "Yeah. Rosette wouldn't have liked a desk job. Though," she paused. "I don't think she'd like quelling riots, either."
"Too many people getting hurt and hurting each other," said Sister Claire with a sigh, resting her head on one hand.
"Right," the turquise-eyed Anna agreed silently. "Where ever she is, she'll be happier there."
Azmaria smiled at the red-headed sister, before turning back to the window. The small smile lingered on her lips as she watched the city buildings pass them back and she wrapped a hand around the silent clock around her neck. "Yes."
The car stopped infront of a row of buildings. Through the dirty alleyway, they could see great gobs of people running by.
"Don't trip when you get out of the-" The driver's warning came to late to keep Azmaria from stepping on the edge of her dress and almost falling on her face. She stumbled, but barely managed to catch herself and didn't actually fall, which was a great improvement for her.
"Oh, Azmaria, is that your new mission outfit?" asked Sister Claire, looking the young woman over.
"Oh, yes," Azmaria replied, blushing slightly as she usually did.
Sister Mary grinned brightly. "It looks just like Rosette's!"
"Except for the collar," Anna pointed out.
"And the slit's not as high," added Claire.
Azmaria's blush grew as she laughed to herself, "well-" She was cute off by a shout. Sister Cliare turned so Azmaria could get into the supply box. It was time to get down to business. "Is it a riot complaint of a demon one?"
"Both. Sounded like a demon was stirring up a crowd. Probably someone being possessed again."
Azmaria loaded something of a pistol and quickly shoved it into her hoster. She checked her holy water supply, then pulled out a large tranquilizer gun, seeming something like a giant hunting rifle, out of the supply box. She was ready to roll. "Okay. Let's go!" She ran ahead down the alleyway and the three sisters stood and watched her a moment. "She's sure gained a lot of confidence since she first came here."
"If she wasn't so clumsy on her feet, she'd probably be in Militia by now."
"Yes, ever at her age."
Azmaria bolted down the alleyway and stopped at the end when she met a mass of people. The three sisters caught up quickly behind her.
"What's going on?"
"Look over there. Looks like the preparations for some kind of whacked ceremony."
A large crowd of people where gathered in the middle of the street, a heavy overcast of clouds quickly forming overhead. A man was standing atop a makeshift platform, shouting something absurd about the future, like most possessed crackpots did. They weren't concerned about what he was saying.
"He's got a baby!"
The man held aloft a small, screaming child. The poor thing was bleeding from its feet and wrists where it had already been cut. "Look how it screams!" the possessed man shouted over the crowd, thunder beginning to roll in the background to accompany the small child's cries. "Look how it cries! Look at our future! What happiness can this thing bring?"
"Let's just tranq him now," growled Sister Mary.
"We can't until we save the kid," hissed the red-head.
"AZMARIA!"
Without a word, Azmaria had already rushed into the crowd, slipped around the side pressed against the buildings and squeezing through, trying desperately to get to the front.
"Cover her, you!" shouted Sister Anna to Mary who was currently carrying the other tranquilizer. Anna and Claire had already taken out their rifles loaded with scared rounds for taking down a demon. "Okay, guys, there's probably a demon here somewhere. Spread out!"
The rioters were blind to their presence. The three sisters took up positions around them as Azmaria pushed through the crowd and shoved her way to the front. The man had marked the sign of the cross on the baby's forehead with its own blood and was about to drown it in a blow of water set upon a predestal on the stage. It was all some sick and twisted baptism. Before the man lowered the baby, Azmaria leapt up onto the stage and threw holywater at the deranged man. The man dropped the baby into the bowl and violently drew back, holding his face painfully as he screamed and wraithed. Azmaria dropped her tranquilizer and quickly pulled the baby out of the water, delicately wrapping it in her habit. The demon that broke free and arose from the man was quickly shot with the gun drawn with Azmaria's free hand, and the man's collapsed.
With the collapse of the man, the rioters voices began to grow. Azmaria holstered her gun and turned to them quickly with the child held tightly in her arms. "People! Please listen! This is not the way to salvation! God does not want death! He does not want sacrifice! He wants love and faith and charity and good will towards man! You cannot atone this way!"
But the enraged rioters were deaf to her pleas. "She has the sign of the Magdelene order!"
"Heretics!"
"Get her, quickly! Don't let her get away!"
Azmaria stumbled back, frightened and frusterated at her failure to reach them (after all, it works in all the other animes). She snatched up her tranquilizer gun wth her remaining hand and ran. Glowing red eyes followed her as she went.
The three remaining sisters sighed. "Come on. Let's get the car and go find her."
It took a minute to find Azmaria and fish her out of the manic crowd and to safety, but they were use to it at this point.
"Why do you keep doing that? You try to reason with them and you'll only get them more mad at you.
"I have to!" Azmaria cried back, her voice having grown louder in the past four years, though it was still choked with tears. "If we don't try to help them then they have no one left. I can't give up on them. Not when there's still hope."
Anna, the driver again, became a bit frazzled since Azmaria short speech seemed to have have come from Rosette's mouth. Anna tried to concentrate on the road again. "So, how's the baby?"
"Well, we've bandaged the little guy," whispered Claire.
"He's sound asleep, thankfully," sighed Mary.
Azmaria turned around in her seat to look at him. There wasn't much of him to see since he was all wrapped up. "Will be he all right?"
"The Order will fix him up good, don't you worry!" grinned Mary. Azmaria sighed with relief and her hand found the worn clock around her neck again.
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Back at the order, Azmaria was speaking with the nurse trainee who had been put in change of the baby. "How is he, Sarah?"
The young woman with glasses looked over from her note pad to the worried sister. They were roughly the same age and height, though Azmaria was obviously prettier. "Oh, don't worry, Sister Azmaria. He'll be fine. Now let me patch up your forehead." Azmaria winced, having not even noticed the lovely little cut right below her hairline. She wondered for a moment if she had gotten any other cuts without noticing (which she had. She had scrapped up both her knees).
Sister Anna hurried up behind Azmaria when she was all bandaged up and was watching the small child sleep. "Azmaria? I forgot to tell you: Sister Kate wanted to see you when we got back."
"Oh!" Azmaria yeped in surprise. "Thank you! I'll go right now." And she hurried off.
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Sister Kate looked the same as when Azmaria had first met her. She still was as sophisticated as ever with the same serious face, the same gentle smile, and the same piercing eyes. "Sister Azmaria," she started.
"Yes, Sister Kate?"
"I hear you stirred up another riot today."
"Yes, Sister Kate, I'm sorry. But I don't think there was a way not to stir up a riot if I was to save the child." Azmaria responded like she was very use to these types of scouldings.
"Aw, yes, the chid. Well done with that."
"Excuse me, Sister Kate, what will be done with the child?"
Sister Kate was moving papers around on her desk and signing others while she spoke. "I believe, which it's well enough, that we'll be sending it to Seventh Bell."
"Oh, thank you, Sister Kate. He'll be welcome there."
"Indeed." Sister Kate looked up at Azmaria, back down to her papers as she put them aside, and then back up to Azmaria again as she folded her hands. "Concerning other matters, Sister Azmaria. I think it's high time we founds you a partner."
"Oh, but Sister Kate, you know that-"
"We'll make sure that they're well aware of the risks. But you know, Azmaria, not even Rosette would work alone and Chrno was no ordinary partner, either."
Azmaria's head fell as she brought her hands from her face and let them fall back down in front of her, the silent clock clinking as it shook. "Yes, Sister Kate, I know. I just don't want anyone to get hurt on my account."
Sister Kate sighed with a smile, this behaviour all too typical of Azmaria. "Then we'll have to find a partner that surpasses you instead of the other way around. I can't keep sending those three with you if you're going to run off on your own."
"Yes, Sister Kate. I'm sorry."
"Very well. You may go now."
Azmaria nodded, looking downcast. As she turned to leave, Sister Kate threw in one final request, "Sister Azmaria? Do try to take care of yourself as well."
"That girl," Sister Kate sighed to herself. "I don't think she realizes that Rosette could never do things on her own, and that it was teamwork and that closeness to others that gave her strength."
There was a pause, but only a slight one as Sister Kate looked out her stain-glass window and reminisced. So much had changed since those days. She turned in her seat and picked up the phone. "Father Christian? Send word out. Sister Azmaria Hendrick needs a partner."