An exasperated sigh escaped from a soft mouth and the mouth's owner and her level eyes gazed at the corridor where she was sitting, upside-down with her feet propped up against the back of the chair. Her arms supported her head and neck as those strangely focused eyes, pale-blue/grey in color and dull with boredom, blinked slowly and then closed tightly with concentration. Another sigh making its way past her lips as her futile attempt to overhear the conversation in the next room failed yet again.
/how unfair is this?/ she asked herself inwardly, sighing for the third time in mere minutes. /…the first time I really get a chance to have some fun with an even vaguely interesting case and they make me wait outside…/ Her lips screwed up in a mix between and scowl and a grimace as she expressed her distaste for the arrangement.
Folding her arms behind her head, she relaxed her legs and let them hang off either side of the chair, the boredom evident in her posture and expression as she closed her eyes again and tried her best to imagine what they could possibly be talking about that would take such a long time.
/Is it that difficult just to decide whether or not to let a girl -- with no life, no family and hardly fifteen years of living under her belt – join a mass murder case?/ Said girl snorted, /even if it was HIS idea in the first place. Not --/ her expression softened; /-- that I wouldn't love to help out these guys. /
Well she supposed they would object – she already knew the plan that He was proposing to them as she thought, but she also knew that they all had a strong sense of justice, unless He was convincing enough, the plan wouldn't stand a chance.
/then again. . ./ the girl wiggled her feet in barely withheld excitement. /. . .I heard there are a few people only a couple years older than me! All He has to do is be as quick-witted as usual because if they don't allow me too they would be contradicting their previous actions!/
She swung her head back down and smirked, giving herself some leeway for a giggle or two. /I'll get to meet L-kun then, there's no way they won't allow me to join!/ Her blue-gray eyes glimmered with anticipation. / I wonder what L-kun looks like. . .? Is he old? Young? What color is his hair? Does he have any? What's his favorite food? Do world-renowned detectives eat normal food? /
She kicked her feet idly, her thoughts continuing. /Or maybe. . . / a slow smirk spread across her face, darkening it with a mischievous light. /-- maybe he's actually a she?/
There was a slam, and a rush of incoherent words shouted. The girl pulled herself up, leaving her legs hanging off either side, and looked at the door a few feet from her with a sort of quiet curiosity. If anything at all, it'd shut her thoughts up, especially since she knew that voice. And it probably wasn't helping her case with his yelling all of a sudden.
Resuming her previous position, she slid her head-phones over her ears, giving up on trying to hear the conversation and instead just deciding to wait for the inevitable outcome. Not like she could do anything if she listened in, anyway. She turned her music up and closed her eyes, hanging her head down with her arms loosely clasped behind it, she spaced out. Looking all the world as if she was asleep if, that is, if any person who walked up could even dream that someone could sleep in such a position.
Sneakered feet trudged along an old street, the scent of late fall- decaying leaves that crunched when trodden on- seemed to weigh on the air heavily as the figure made it's way down the road in the swiftly gathering dusk. Clothed in a thrice-too-large sweatshirt and baggy jeans with a dejected-looking backpack slung over a thin shoulder and a skateboard tucked under one arm, it was obvious this girl wasn't from around here. Even if she was, she wasn't planning on staying long, or so implied the arm held out and thumb sticking up straight in the air.
The wind whistled through near-bare branches that protruded from the trees that lined the road. Dropping the raised arm with a frustrated sigh, the girl stopped and adjusted her headphones, sliding them over her ears and turning on her music before crossing the street and trudging on. Hidden behind a lonely house with a perfect view of that patch of street, a black van with tinted-black windows started, and, easing from it's hiding place, followed the girl. Leaves crunching under it's suspiciously slow-moving tires as if in warning to the unsuspecting youth that the vehicle pursued. Soon enough the houses that had lined either side of the street turned into buildings, old, decrepit looking ones whose empty windows that glared down, accusing the girl.
Gray-blue eyes saw the reflection of her and the stalking van in an abandoned antiquity store, or maybe she didn't, because her footsteps didn't falter or stop and her eyes didn't look as if they had registered anything. As she came to a sudden halt, the van turned off on a different road like it had meant to do so all along. The girl's breath formed crystalline clouds in the chill air as she resumed walking, a uncomprehendable look in her startling eyes. As she drew away from the road it'd turned off on, the van backed out of the road and back onto hers, continuing the chase.
Abruptly, she broke into a mad sprint, disappearing down a nearby alleyway with the confidence of something that had been premeditated. The van came to a screeching halt, and, knowing the game was up, raced off after her. Coming out of the alleyway far before the van, she ran along that sidewalk before sprinting down another alleyway that lead to her original road. The van barreled into the street she'd just been on, and, catching a glimpse of her running down the other alley, pursued. As she heard it growl after her, she grinned and turned into yet another alley, this one barely smaller than the first and second. She made sure to slow down enough so the van would just barely catch a glimpse of her. Sure enough, it raced up her alley, it's engine groaning as the driver pushed it faster to chase the girl.
Suddenly, she was nowhere to be found. The driver swore at his steering wheel and pushed the car faster still. It lodged between the walls of the narrowed alleyway with a sickening lurch that set the airbag off in the man's face. More swearing. And the wind continued it's ghostly whispering through the leaves. There was a audible thump as the girl jumped onto the roof of the van from the fire escape she'd climbed, jumping off the van, she pushed a dumpster up to it's back doors, lodging it there with a cinderblock. There. She dusted off her hands in a business-like manner as she retrieved both her backpack and skateboard from her savior fire escape.
He would be stuck there for quite a while, when the police came to tow him out, he could hardly say the real reason why he was there. Once the cops let him go, if they let him go, she would be long gone.
"Easy as pie." She proclaimed to no one in particular with more than a hint of pride in her voice. And people thought kids couldn't watch out for themselves. She smirked, that'll show them. Her headphones hung from the front of her sweatshirt, previously forgotten until this moment. Stopping to slide them over her ears, she pulled out a complex-looking mp3, manipulating the buttons as she stood amidst a shower of multicolored leaves from a tree above her as an autumn breeze rushed past.
"That was a wonderfully clever little strategy you executed to get rid of that van." A weathered voice said softly and simply, the girl whirled around to see an old man; wearing a trench coat, an old fashioned hat and dark sunglasses, he didn't look as if he were the one that had addressed her since he was leafing through a Sunday paper as he sat upon a bench at the bus stop behind her.
"Talking to me?" She asked, the typical disrespectful teenager as she decided to feign ignorance and exercise caution. The old man folded the paper with a sigh and removed his glasses.
"Do you see anyone else I could possibly be talking to?" He retorted with a knowing chuckle, his shielded eyes seeming to bore into her. She blinked, then checked.
"No." She said sheepishly after finding the street just as deserted as it had been before.
"Well then, there's your answer." He indicated the space on the bench beside him with a gloved hand.
She shook her head, knowing better than to get too close to a man she didn't know, instead she took a step back. He sighed. "Leontyne, we both know you have nowhere else to go."
"H-how do you know my name?" She asked, the startled quiver in her voice obvious as she took yet another step back.
"How I know isn't important." He said and raised a hand to stop her response as he continued. "There is a place for children that are special like you. Wouldn't you want to have friends who can keep up with you?"
Leon stopped backing up. "I'm not special."
"On contraire, Leontyne, you are special in the way only the profound can be." He replied. Leon stared at him incredulously. Unsure what to say to such a statement, she went for the safest route, and said nothing. He smiled at her, and the look in his dark eyes was somewhat familiar to her. She'd seen it in the faces of parents who kissed their little ones good bye as the bounded off to school, grandparents who shared ice cream with their grandchildren, and even sometimes between best friends.
She smirked, her eyes still closed. She had visited that old man day after day, sitting next to him at the bus stop amidst the leaves and hoarse droning of the autumn wind. And every time when the old, vandalized bus would crawl up the street, he would stand, tuck his paper under his arm and ask her if she would like to go with him. To make a long story short, she only accepted the invitation once. /And now look where I am, five years later./ the current Leon mused with pursed lips, /I wonder, if he hadn't come, would I have turned out differently?/
"Ahem." Pale eyes snapped open, every muscle in her body tensing with renewed awareness as she quickly realized that all she could see of the man before her were two legs dressed in gray slacks. Noticing it was not enough, she pulled herself up, using the back of the chair to more or less right herself with her legs still hanging off either side, she looked at the man now behind her blankly.
"Hai?"
"Miss. . ." He peered at the clipboard he was holding, "Leon?"
She rolled a lock of dark hair between her forefinger, index and thumb absently as she waited behind her startling eyes that her posture and overall appearance so contradicted. "That would be me."
"uh--. . . " Made nervous by her gaze, he stumbled over his words as he feigned interest in fidgeting with his tie and collar. "Would you mind. . . –"
"Following you to the room?"
"A- anou. . . Hai."
"I don't think I have a choice, now do I?"
"No miss."
"Well, that's all well and good then, because I didn't really care in the first place." Thin shoulders covered by a one-or-two-size-too-big sweatshirt shrugged nonchalantly as she slid from the chair simply, as if she'd been prepared to leave all along.
"You are Leontyne Altaira. . . Correct?" A man, or at least leon figured it was a man by his voice, with his face cloaked in shadow asked suspiciously.
Leon sighed, stupid, pointless questions. . . she hated them. Looking bored, she slumped as any other defiant teen would, her hands shoved into her jean pockets so that her sweatshirt sagged just-so, hiding her tensed muscles.
"Duh." She replied bluntly. The air in the room shifted to annoyance and Leon had to fight to contain the smirk that tugged at her lips.
"YOU single handedly saved thirty children, two teachers, and a police officer from a group of terrorists?" A different man on the other side of the room growled, obviously angered at the thought of a young girl being able to pull such a stunt off. Leon turned to him, swiftly noting that he, too, hid in shadow.
"Yes." She said simply.
"Your file says you were seven at the time. How did a seven-year-old manage to incapacitate a group of terrorists?"A voice on her other side queried.
She shrugged, "There were only three of them." She commented to accompany her shrug in demurring the incident, "Anything else you'd like to know?"
The first man leaned forward upon his hands and Leon could almost feel his smug smirk in reply to her own. "Your file is nothing less than remarkable. Other than that case, you had four others in which you saved many lives and assets. But. . ." He trailed off.
"But?" Leon prodded.
"But it seems much too remarkable to be true. Can you prove all this?"
Leontyne stared at him, her expression impassive. "I'm assuming you have something in mind?"
She felt his smirk widen and deeper in one foul movement and inwardly she scowled with distaste towards him, however, on the outside she remained as vacant as usual. "Actually. . . We've been having difficulty with two minor things that someone of your. . . talents should easily be able to handle."
She raised an eyebrow, "Two minor things?"
He steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them, "Yes. The first mission will be the initial test, the second the final test in whether we decide to hire you to the case. . . or not. Depending on how you do."
Her eyes flashed with something not one person in the room could identify. "Then we best begin. Wouldn't want me to be late for my first day on the case."
The men in the background gasped in usion and a flurry of murmurs circulated the room as Leon stared blankly into space again.
"What a cocky little –"
"She's only a child –"
"Can she really –"
"- even think about letting someone so young –"
"- is this legal? –"
"What would her parents say about this?! –"
"Sad days when children throw away their lives to get attent—"
The first man raised a hand and all talk in the room silenced.
"Very well, Miss Altaira –"
" – It's Leon."
"Miss Leon—"
"No miss. Just Leon."
"Leon?" asked a voice in the background.
"Hai, that IS my name, after all."
The first man leaned on his steepled hands again. "Very well then – Leon – here is your first assignment. . . "