Chapter 1: The Reunion
A girl in a gorgeous white dress walked into the room. Her brown hair was in a half up-do and the rest was flowed carelessly to her mid-back. Her face is adorned with a silver white mask revealing her soft chocolate brown eyes and on her back was a pair of snow white wings.
The ballroom fell into a hushed murmur, all attendees wanting to know who the mysterious girl was behind the mask, but couldn't since it was an animal masquerade, and the girl was dressed as a swan.
The murmurs were cut off when the lights suddenly went off. The spotlight came and revealed a man clad in black, his white hair shining in the artificial light and his blood red eyes shone in excitement.
"Welcome to my masquarade," he spoke in a smooth accent. "It brings me great joy to have you all here and I would want nothing more than to start the event without having a long speech, but I do recall saying that only those with invitations can enter. With that mentioned, I do believe we have an intruder."
Another spotlight came, and it revealed a lady in a silver white outfit that hugged her figure nicely. Her blonde hair curled above her shoulder, and she dressed like a dove. The lady giggled seductively, "Oh, stop, you give me too much credit."
The lights went off, and when it came back, the man in black had his arms around the dove lady, a hand around her neck and a knife near her stomach. The crowd cried out in fear and surprise as the few guests scampered towards the door in panic.
The man scoffed, "Humans."
The swan lady who had not left the room and had remained hidden prepared herself in case things didn't go according to their plans. Plan A involved the dove lady to be the bait, so all she was waiting now was her signal. Plan B wasn't ready, nor had they prepared any.
The man in black had chuckled again, "what is a hunter like you doing here?" He let his hands graze over the mask on the dove's face. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"Capturing old rotting people like you," she said and swiftly repositioned herself so she was holding the knife. Successfully removing the guys mask, revealing a handsome immortal man, she pulled out a stake, stabing him in his stomach.
"A stake? Are you kidding me?" he removed the stake and laughed, "you angel's believe in those stuff? It would take a lot more than that to kill me."
The dove lady shrugged, "It was worth a try, which brings me to plan B," she cut her palm using a feather from her wings, and blood started to spill. The Vampire eyed it greedily; he immediately started to suck on her blood.
The swan lady revealed herself, her hands extended forming an X shape. "Demon Removal," she spread her hands and a golden staff formed from the air. She grabbed it and used it to point at the vampire, "Elimination."
The room was filled with a bright white light, lasting not more than five seconds. As the light resided, only the dove and swan lady were left standing in the room, an odd pile of black ash near the feet of the dove lady who removed her gown and revealed a white skirt and a camisole. She snapped her fingers and a white collared shirt and a long coat with golden hems appeared on her. She removed her mask.
"Good job, Swan," the blonde girl teased.
The swan lady rolled her eyes, and smiled, "You too, Yuuki."
Yuuki laughed, "Right. I've got another demon to bait, so I'm gonna leave you with that now."
She left the swan lady in the room, who got a feather from her wings and laid it above the pile of ash. She watched the feather suck the ash away, turning the feather to black, before picking it up.
"Building 2, room 512, box 113," she tossed the feather in the air, the feather zooming away to the direction she had spoken.
She looked at the glass roof the ballroom had offered and stared into the moon, silently hoping that her friend would rank up soon so as her friend would not be used as bait anymore.
All angels were divided into categories, and each category has 3 ranks or positions. At the moment, her friend was at the lowest rank whose purpose was to be used as Demon bait. She, on the other hand, was one of the few persons in the highest rank, who had proven themselves and had the privilege to summon one of the 7 golden staff.
Each of the golden staff was named after the seven capital virtues. She was able to summon the staff Chasitity, the staff of purity, at a very young age.
She flew towards her apartment, making sure no one would see her and then she retracted her wings. She unlocked the door to her apartment and then entered. Just as she was about to walk into her room, she tripped.
Someone was in her apartment.
"What a beautiful, clumsy princess," said a voice she recognized. She immediately looked up, and thanked heavens she had retracted her wings before she entered.
"Bou-san!" She said and the Monk lifted her up, eyeing her suspiciously, until a loud smack was heard and he set her down.
"Hands off the lady, you pervert!" said Ayako.
She laughed softly and then another knock came. She opened the door and the person outside revealed to be the Man who had rejected her feelings years ago. She felt a pang of hurt rush through her, but it was gone as fast as it came. She was done hurting although she was left with a small crush on him.
Kazuya Shibuya or Naru entered her apartment, with Lin behind him. He sat on the couch opposite to the seat Masako, John, and Yasu was sitting on. Bou-san and Ayako then sat on the bean bags at the floor.
There was silence as she fumbled her fingers among themselves, avoiding the stare of the man who just entered.
"Where's Mai?" Monk asked, breaking the silence.
Her jaw dropped in disbelief, "What do you mean 'where's Mai'?" she asked the confused Monk.
"He means to ask, if you know any Mai? This is her apartment right?" Ayako asked her, "or did she move away?"
Mai could not believe her ears, she opened her mouth but only bubbles of laughter came. The entire gang stared at her in confusion. She walked over to sit on the couch, but she accidentally stepped on her dress and slipped forward, falling into the laps of Yasuhara and Naru respectively.
Yasuhara places a hand on her waist to catch her and Naru had his hand on her shoulder, both had fast reflexes due to a certain brunette they had worked with before.
A soft clang resonated and Mai realized it was her mask that fell, she heard a few gasps and she looked up at het ex-boss who was staring at her with an unreadable expression.
If Naru was surprised, he didn't let it show, he was still in his usual calm façade.
"MAI?!" Bou-san, Yasu and Ayako said altogether, which cause Mai to another laughing fit, leaning further at what she was leaning on.
Yasu wolf whistled, and Bou-san quickly got her off both men's lap, "Jou-chan! Why are you in a gown?"
Ayako rushed over to her, "I almost didn't recognize you, you changed a lot! Do you go to gym?"
'Yeah since I had my job tight in schedule, since I have no more excuse to delay it', Mai had thought to herself.
She was petite and right on the places, but she was still small and clumsy on her feet. Her hair had grown, and her eyes had turned to a much beautiful shade of brown. "Imagine me at a gym; I'd probably hurt myself before I could hold a barbell."
"I see you finally figured that you're an idiot" Naru smirked.
"Well, excuse me for being an idiot!" Mai said angrily, and then smiled, "When did you come back anyway?"
"An hour ago, my parents can handle themselves at England, so they sent me back here," Naru frowned.
Mai opened her mouth to speak but Ayako cut in, "Why are you in a gown anyway? Did you finally get a boyfriend?"
Mai blushed.
"What boyfriend? You said he would get through me first before you get one!" the monk said feigning hurt.
"Judging from Mai, she probably could get any guy around her hands. You look beautiful, Mai" John said. Mai blushed an even darker red, then she felt a cold stare, she looked at the Medium who was glaring at her.
Masako covered her mouth behind her kimono sleeve, "But she still clearly doesn't know how her feet works." Before Mai couldof a retort to tell Masako, she heard Naru clear his throat.
"Back to the reason why we're here, I have a proposition for you guys."
Everyone looked at Naru, "I'm back to handling SPR, and Lin suggested to tell Yasuhara, which brings to where we are," The entire SPR looked at Naru as if he had grown a second head.
Lin, however, decided to make it clearer, "We are hiring again, if you guys would still be up for ghost hunting."
"Of course we would!" everyone, except Mai, said in unison.
They all looked at Mai in surpirse as she looked a bit unsure. She still had a lot of demon to hunt, though most low rank demons are nothing, the higher ones were tougher to handle.
'But it would still help, since Kami made sure that the ones we catch are the ones I am assigned to eliminate.'
Mai looked up, looking at Naru straight in the eye and smiled, "I'm in!"
If the team wasn't so busy with catching up from each other, they would have seen the small smile Naru gave, "You're hired."
Edited 3/4/16.