Ten Things to Do Before I Die

By: Wordsworth 13

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrono Crusade.

Chronology: After Chapter 18 in the manga timeline.

Chapter 1: All Abroad

Sister Kate read over the letter again. Surely not; the New York division was understaffed as it was, and yet these people were asking for assistance. 'Hold on a second' she thought 'I could send her; she is in the Militia after all! It would keep her out of my hair for a couple of weeks.' Sister Kate put her teacup down and slowly emerged from the door greeted by a daydreaming Azmaria who was supposed to be sweeping the floor. "Azmaria." She said. The white haired girl was slightly startled and practically yelled

"Oh, Sister Kate. Um, I was just uh…" She trailed off, trying to think of an excuse. Peanuts in the eye wouldn't cut it this time. "Azmaria, could you please fetch Sister Rosette for me please." She chimed.

"Oh, yes Sister Kate." Azmaria stuttered, scampering off to track down the single most dangerous person in New York.

Chrono looked down at the small leather, ring bound book, with his name on, inscribed in gold letters. He looked up at Elder questioningly. "You can use that any way you want." The old man who, as usual was wearing goggles for no apparent reason, told the boy in the red coat. "I would suggest keeping names and addresses in there, I know some girls are into younger boys, eh?" He leaned in to nudge Chrono suggestively but doing that to someone who isn't there can prove to be difficult. "Chrono?" He asked the empty room. He suddenly began to smile. "He must have gone to pick up some chicks!" He yelled proudly. Chrono had made his hasty exit, now breathing heavily ducked outside the door, knowing that Elder brought up women in just about every conversation that wasn't about weapons, and some that were. God only knows how he'd act if he ever met Satella.

The boy could easily be told apart from humans due to his fangs, red eyes, slit pupils, purple hair and pointed ears. But, as it was with humanity, no-one noticed. Yes, the human race is comprised mainly of morons, but what are you going to do? He adjusted the jacket and sat down on a bench next to the fountain, which he had walked over to so he wouldn't be in a ten foot radius of the biggest pervert on the planet. There was a small pencil in the rings that held the pages of his personalised note-book that he plucked out and examined. It was pretty uninteresting.

As his mind always did when he hadn't anything else to think about, it turned to one particular subject and he subconsciously wrote a single word on the first page of the book. He looked down at it, realising what he had done. Oh, well, it couldn't hurt to experiment could it? He began moving the pencil across the page with more skill than he knew he had. Well, now he had something to do for the nest half hour.

'Oh, God! What did I do now?' Rosette wondered, following Azmaria back to Sister Kate's office 'I didn't completely destroy the car this time!' Azmaria stopped and looked towards the door to Sister Kate's office. The blonde exorcist trotted into the office as the twelve year old apostle picked up her broom and resumed sweeping.

Stood before the lacquered brown desk, Rosette sighed and asked "What did I break?" Sister Kate laughed, as if she was forcing herself to find a bad joke funny.

"Nothing, why would you think I called you for that?" She laughed, still creepily

"'Cause that's always the reason you call me here." Rosette said, somewhat confused at the fact that Sister Kate wasn't yelling at her for accidentally sinking Hawaii or something like that. She was in a strangely good mood. "No, no, I've got an assignment for you." Rosette tilted her head to her left. "You see, today I got a letter from the London division of the Magdalan Order, asking for some help with a few exorcisms they're having trouble with."

"Wait, don't they have Militia in England?"

"All their Militia were killed by the demons you're going to be fighting."

"What! You're sending me to England, but I'm going to San Francisco to look for Joshua!"

"Well, actually, you're train tickets are for next month, and you'll be back before then. Don't worry; hotels and transport have already been sorted out." Kate lied, tearing up a small piece of paper behind her back. This was probably why she was being so cheery. It was pretty unusual for anyone who dressed in all white, black and grey to be cheery. It wasn't as if Rosette actually had a choice. "Fine." She breathed.

Chrono was, as usual, smiling in quiet contemplation, enjoying the sun, as he always did when Rosette wasn't dragging him from task to task. "Chrono!" Boomed a familiar voice, coupled with a hand that enveloped his wrist and wrenched him forcefully upright "Pack your bags; we're going on a trip!"

"A trip?" The violet haired demon enquired to the hyperactive nun.

"Yes, to England."

"England?"

"Yep, we're setting sale tomorrow. Azzy's comin' too!" Rosette was being awfully happy. Chrono assumed this was for his sake, as he knew anything that would delay her search for her brother was not something easily welcomed. Chrono decided, just this once, to be daring and inquire into her joyous mood. "I would've thought you'd object to this. Weren't we about to search for Joshua?"

"Nah," the exorcist chimed "turns out our train's not for another month, plus, I wanna see the world in the time I've got." As usual Chrono felt a pang of guilt as he heard the words 'in the time I've got' and glanced forlornly down at the pocket watch that symbolised the life draining contract he held with Rosette.

Rosette noticed his gaze and put a hand over the watch. "I told you to stop worrying about that. This is my choice, remember? Everyone has to die sooner or later, I'm sorry I brought it up okay." She rested a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. He nodded "Yeah, okay." He turned around and began to saunter towards the Elder's workshop. "Where are you going?" asked after him

"To pack." He replied simply, his gentle smile returning.

Chrono folded another shirt and placed it in the small leather case Elder had leant him. Once the strange old man had heard he was going on a trip with Rosette he'd started making comments. Chrono told him hotel rooms weren't supposed to be used for that and that he had a sick mind. Besides it wasn't like Chrono was even attracted to the girl, at least, he told himself he wasn't. He sighed and glanced at his notebook, which had been carelessly tossed onto the bedside table. Then his eyes widened slightly as an idea hit him. "Everyone has to die sooner or later…" He murmured to himself, quoting Rosette's words. It was actually quite a good idea, a better use for his notebook than Elder had suggested at least. Chrono went about folding a couple more shirts and then set to work on his latest idea. Certainly, the book had about eighty leafs of paper, but now he had a use for about eleven, that was a pretty good dent right?

"Oh, Rosette?" Elder said in a questioning tone as the door to his study opened. "If I'd known you were coming I'd have hidden under a table!" He cried, grinning like a moron, rather than the lecherous genius he was. "Whatever," Rosette sighed "I need some supplies for a trip."

"Okay, what do you need?" The old man asked

"Four Gospels, eighty Sacred Spirits and a Cross Barrier, I guess,"

"Okie dokie." Elder said, beginning to gather up some silver bullets and crucifixes for a Principatus Barrier, and once she had gotten her things she left to tell Azmaria of their little excursion, and on the way to the often drably garbed girl's dormitory she began to wonder what England was actually like. She'd never been before, all she knew about it was they ate 'fish and chips'. Why anyone would want to eat fish with fried slices of wafer thin potato she couldn't figure out. She came to Azmaria's room and knocked, preparing to give her the same explanation she gave Chrono, but without the jerking around and general roughing up that the purple haired 'twelve' year old was treated to.

A day had passed. It was eight o'clock in the morning and rosette was barely awake. Chrono, as usual, was being treated like a pack mule, carrying the ammo case, as well as his, Rosette's and, though she insisted she carried it herself Rosette insisted Chrono carried it, Azmaria's suitcases. But he was used to this. Sister Kate and Father Remington had come to see them off, the second part of the pair Rosette was, as usual, swooning over. Sister Kate pulled a folded piece of paper from practically nowhere, if she had any pockets they were hard to find. She unfolded it into what appeared to be a map of two very small, lumpy islands. It had UNITED KINGDOM printed at the top in one of those fonts that's made up of block capitals with really thin lines that you can hardly read. "You will be travelling on a round trip around Britain, sailing to Ireland where you will drive to Dublin, then sailing to Edinburgh, and then taking a train down to London, driving to Cardiff and sailing back to Dublin to be picked up by the captain and sailed back here. Any questions?" Rosette shook her head.

A few metres away, two rather nondescript men in overalls were hauling a number of wooden crates off of a fishing ship. The man whose hair and eyes were slightly darker than those of the other's hauled one up and gasped. "Jesus! This one's a little heavier than the rest." The other man shrugged.

"Maybe there's a swordfish in it." He said uncertainly. The first man let out a huge gasp as he let the crate down

"Can you give me a hand with this, Ted."

"Roger that, Roger." Ted laughed, saluting.

"Don't do that," Roger said sharply, glaring daggers at his co-worker. The two heaved the box up and began uncoordinatedly staggering off the boat, Ted several times nearly tripping. Eventually an expression of strain began to make its way across Roger's face. Noticing this Ted chuckled "Not much farther, come on." However his words of 'encouragement' made no difference, as Roger then dropped his end of the pinewood box, narrowly missing his toes. The box popped off, and Roger was greeted by a huge, opening eye with a yellow iris.

Rosette's eyes widened as she heard a blood curdling scream and a terrifying roar, and she turned as quick as lightning towards the source of the noise. "Let's go!" She yelled at her two partners before running off before they could even acknowledge she'd said anything to them. Trying, failing but trying, to keep up with Rosette Chrono and Azmaria jogged sweating buckets, they turned a corner she'd passed about half a minute ago and were surprised to see that she'd stopped, but even more surprised at why she'd stopped. Before them was stood a sky blue fish with muscular human arms and legs, catfish whiskers, and a posture like an ape. "What is that?" Azmaria gasped.

"My guess would be that's where legends about mermaids and Atlantis come from. I'd say it qualifies to be the King of the Sea!" During the exchange of words rosette had loaded some Sacred Spirits into her Government and was poised to fire. The fish creature leapt to one side, well before her finger was even on the trigger to reveal a mangled, half eaten corpse and a cowering fish porter named Ted. Seeing this the exorcist's eyes narrowed and she glared at the demon. It was game time.

Yay! Chapter 1 done, and I've left it at a cliff hanger that should have you expecting some quick violence in the next chapter. By the way, a lot of jokes in this will be the way English English and American English get some of their words mixed up and the misunderstandings this can create. But Rosette's right. Who would want to eat fish and crisps, really.