"Is that it?" Sin got off the step in the middle of the clothing room, grabbing her jacket from Lenalee and placing it back on.
"Yup, we've taken your measurements so we can make a uniform that suits your fighting style." Johnny wrote down the numbers on a sheet clipped on the clipboard, making some additional notes just in case he forgot.
Sin had been wearing what she was wearing from before she joined the Order; a medium thickness long coat, a long sleeved shirt and pants, along with worn out shoes. They were a little big on her, but it was fine for now until she got her uniform.
"Sin, do you want shorts, a skirt, dress or pants for the uniform?" Johnny questioned.
The Asian female glanced at Lenalee's skirt, and remembered Kanda's long pants under the long coat. She didn't exactly want either of them. She didn't think a skirt would be suitable for sword fighting, and long pants would be hard to manoeuvre in. A dress would be distracting and the possibility of tripping would become higher. Shorts sounded good.
"Shorts." She smiled. "Would it be possible to get short boots with them? And a medium length coat?"
"Yup." Johnny scribbled down some words.
"I hope this isn't too much to ask, but can you make the coat a little like a dress?" Sin asked uncertainly.
"Hm? Sure, okay. If you have an idea of what it should look like, can you draw it here?" Johnny handed her the clipboard.
"I do. Thanks, Johnny." Sin drew the top of the uniform like Lenalee's, but from the waist down, it became like a one layer dress, being longer at the back than the front. Once she was finished, she handed it back to Johnny.
The scientist looked at the design and nodded his head. "Yup. We can make this."
Sin sighed in relief and smiled, "Thank you so much!"
"I've been meaning to ask, what are your earrings?" Lavi poked Sin's cheek. He had come up from behind the female exorcist duo, with Bookman not too far behind him.
They stopped and turned to face the pair, seeing that Lavi was just smiling at them.
Lenalee chimed in, "Me too. They're very pretty."
"Ah…" Sin covered both her lobes, feeling a bit hesitant to tell them. She wanted to omit as much information as possible. "It was from my grandparents."
"Oh…?" Lavi's single eye widened in surprise and he nodded slowly. "I see."
"It's kind of like the flower on your hairpin, actually." Lenalee commented. "Except it's blue, and not a flower."
"I guess so…" Sin tittered.
"Well, I'm off now. I have to go on a mission." Lavi smiled and walked past them, waving lazily.
Bookman walked past without a word, following Lavi. He looked at Sin for a moment before going.
What was that? Sin thought curiously.
"We shouldn't leave Kanda waiting." Lenalee hooked arms with Sin and together they went to the training grounds, where Komui said that Kanda was waiting for them. They had already gotten held up once, with the uniform measurements, but that was with Kanda's knowledge.
The minute the door opened to the training grounds, something flew right past Sin, the wind ruffling her hair in the process. Her expression stiffened in surprise, looking to which direction the item had been thrown from.
In front of the two exorcists was Kanda, holding a wooden sword in one hand and a deadly expression.
"You're late!" He snapped loudly, growling through his teeth. He looked incredibly annoyed and angry, even more so than before.
Sin gulped. She had a bad feeling about this training lesson.
Lenalee frowned, letting go of Sin's arm. "Be nice, Kanda!"
"Tch!"
"Well, I have other stuff I need to do, so I can't stay here with you, Sin. Have fun in your training lesson, but do be careful because it's Kanda." Lenalee smiled and left with the wave of a hand.
Sin stood alone and felt the aura of an angry beast in front of her, ready to charge and kill. She gulped thickly and turned to face him, seeing the face of the devil when she did. She nearly ran away then and there, but she forced her feet to stay rooted on the ground.
Kanda observed the new exorcist and made a face, before going over to the wall and getting another wooden sword, since he threw the other one when they came through the doors.
"Oi." Kanda threw the sword at Sin, and she fumbled a little before catching it.
"T-thanks…" Sin murmured.
The long haired male took a couple of steps forward and swung his sword from above his body to just above the ground. "This is a slash. Copy me."
"O-o-oh! O-okay!" Sin fumbled yet again with the sword, not used to his teaching method yet, and began to do what he told her to do. After she did the movement, she looked to Kanda to see his face had twisted into one of utter annoyance.
"You're doing it wrong!"
And so, the lesson continued.
"I wonder how she's faring." Reever commented, drinking some of his soda on break. He swung around on his chair, seeing the others were furiously finishing off the rest of their paperwork, having nearly finished the pile that they were supposed to do.
"Who?" Tap looked up, finishing the last piece of paper. He sighed in relief and drank the coffee that had been sitting on the table, exhaling with satisfaction after he did so.
"The new girl—Sin." The Science Division leader answered.
"Oh yeah, she was going to train with Kanda, right?" Johnny looked up, adjusting his circular lenses. He had also just finished his last piece of paperwork and was now unwrapping a chocolate bar.
"Kanda's pretty notorious for being one with a bad attitude." Reever shrugged, "Can't say I blame her if she decides to change her Innocence into something else after this training session."
Johnny, Tap and Number 65 shivered as their imaginations showed them the results of the training.
"I wouldn't blame her either." Tap and Johnny said in unison. Number 65 shook its head, agreeing with the other scientists.
"Speaking of Sin, how's her item coming along?" Johnny got off his seat and went over to the leader, seeing him with a design of the item requested. "This should be finished in a couple of days."
"Yeah. It's not too bad." Reever nodded and placed his mug of soda down.
"Let's get to it."
Lenalee scribbled some words down onto the sheet attached to the clipboard, regarding Sin. She still needed to fill out a lot of other forms that needed to be submitted to be kept in the archive as part of the Order's exorcist registration.
As she filled out the boxes, her mind wandered off to the first time she met Sin, when she was on a mission in the city of Madrid in Spain.
"We've arrived, Lady Exorcist." A Finder from the Order informed the Dark Boots user.
Lenalee glanced around the city. It was bustling with people and the fragrance of plenty of fresh and cooked food filled their nostrils, resulting in their stomachs growling in need of food.
"Let's go somewhere to eat first." She laughed and led the two Finders that came with her to a café, where they ordered some snacks and drinks.
Over the meals, they reviewed the mission they had at hand.
There have been sightings of akuma around the city of Madrid in Spain, some accumulated in certain areas, such as the outskirts of the town or the road leading up to the city. It's caused some concern particularly because it was close to an area where there was a large concentration of people, and thus to reduce possible casualties, Lenalee was deployed with 2 Finders to investigate. The possibility of finding Innocence was fifty-fifty, so they only sent one exorcist.
"After this, we will search the border of the city to see if there are any disturbances." One of the Finders said. He glanced at the other Finder and they nodded in unison.
Lenalee thought for a brief moment, "While you inspect the borders, I'll look around the city to see if there's anything suspicious or odd." She decided. "If you find anything, just use the golem to contact me."
"Yes, Lady Exorcist."
Once they were finished, they left. The Finders began to scour the outskirts, their eyes like a hawk's when doing their job. Lenalee walked around the city on guard, seeing the behaviour of the people.
It didn't take long until a few hours had passed. Lenalee hadn't seen anything suspicious from within the city, and the only thing that the Finders found were that there had been a couple of akuma spotted outside, but they didn't wander into the city.
Strange...so there really is nothing happening, Lenalee thought with a thinking face.
The light around the area had started to diminish as the sun started to go down. It was late afternoon. The street lamps started to light up upon this, but still let enough light illuminate the path for people's way.
It's getting late…Lenalee glanced at the time and turned to her flying golem.
"It's getting late. We'll finish soon." She spoke through the intercom.
"Alright, Lady Exorcist." The Finders responded in unison.
Lenalee looked around and spotted a person holding a paper bag of groceries. They had short black hair, and they were wearing slightly oversized looking clothes.
The reason the exorcist looked over was that she saw someone following the person, though it wasn't as blatant obvious as a stalker, and wondered what was up. This person was wearing a scarf around the lower half of their face, so Lenalee couldn't see what they looked like.
She saw the person carrying the groceries turn a corner to a different street, and the person follow after them. Narrowing her eyes, Lenalee debated whether to follow them or not. But when she heard a loud scream from that direction, she didn't hesitate to bolt over, sprinting as fast as she could.
Once she reached the area, she skidded to a halt and her eyes widened when she saw the scene unfold before her. The scene she saw was in an alleyway between two buildings.
On the ground was the person with short black hair, their light blue eyes wide open with horror at the huge monster that had appeared before them. The person's groceries were scattered to the right of the alleyway, rolling into the puddle of dirt and mud from the rain the night before.
The short haired person inched backwards slowly, their eyes never leaving the monster before them.
Lenalee looked up and saw that the monster was an akuma, but only a level 1. It just fit in the small width of the space between the buildings, fitting well within shooting space of the short haired person.
Before Lenalee could instruct her Innocence to invoke, she saw a bright green glow from where the short haired person was, which momentarily distracted her. The feeling she got from that green glow was unmistakeable.
"W-what?!" The person exclaimed, their voice pitch high, probably with fright.
That person reached inside their clothing and pulled out something long, and once they took it out, it elongated into a long spear like sword, the glow around it brightening immensely.
"Innocence!" Lenalee whispered to herself, shocked to find that she found an accommodator. "Dark Boots!" She mumbled under her breath.
The black boots that covered her feet began to change in shape, changing her thigh high socks into knee high boots, with a hexagonal symbol that marked the side of her thighs. A green glow that resembled fire appeared around her ankles as she lurched forward towards the new Innocence accommodator.
The level 1 akuma, noticing Lenalee's interference, adjusted the barrels of the gun like objects that it had sticking out of its body, making them face the new accommodator. Soon, bullets made from dark matter shot out of its body with a loud explosive sound, making the new accommodator's eyes widen.
Lenalee was quicker than those bullets, quickly taking the other person from harm's way by jumping up to the rooftop. The person was quite light, which surprised the Dark Boots user.
"Who?!" The person's voice contained shock.
"Don't worry, you'll be safe." Lenalee smiled reassuringly, landing on the rooftop.
Before she could let the other person down, that person jumped from her arms, which astonished the teen. Her mouth opened in shock, seeing that the person didn't do it consciously, but rather, the Innocence had pulled them so that it flew down to where the alleyway was, bringing the accommodator along with it.
The new accommodator let out an inaudible scream, being led to where the monster was lurking. The sword had led them to the monster, who had noticed that they were coming from above. Readying and adjusting its guns, it fired. However, its fire came short when the sword sliced the monster in two, causing it to explode and expel smoke with it.
The person coughed from inhaling the smoke, which felt like a burning sensation in their chest. They were stunned by the view when they were brought up by Lenalee, who had witnessed the battle and brought them back up to see if they were hurt.
"W-what…" The short haired accommodator stuttered. They stared at Lenalee, then the sword, then at Lenalee again, and so on and so forth.
Lenalee took a good look at the person. When she first saw them, she thought it was a boy due to what they were wearing, but now she had doubts. The voice was a lot higher, but it wasn't so feminine that it was a dead giveaway, but for all she knew, they could have been a young boy; their face had a feminine touch to it, but it was the type of femininity that could be mistaken for androgynous, as either a pretty boy or girl.
"Are you okay?" Lenalee asked worriedly, checking up on the person. She checked to see if they had any wounds, but found none. She nodded once, "You don't seem to be hurt."
"W-what was that…?" The person's eyes widened and they turned towards the alleyway. "That…that…that monster…" Their throat felt dry and parched, as if they were deprived of water for days.
Lenalee stared at the person, who had turned back to look at her. "That monster is called an 'akuma'. It's a destructive machine that only destroys."
"Destroys…?" Their voice went up a higher pitch and they gulped thickly, their hand clutching around the sword.
"Yes," Lenalee nodded, "But they can be destroyed by Innocence. Innocence are weapons like these boots I have," She pointed to her Dark Boots, "And like the sword you have." She pointed to the sword that was in their hand.
"This…it was a hairpin before…" They seemed to have calmed down a little bit. They examined the sword and blinked a few times, "Innocence…"
"If it was a hairpin before, it should be able to revert back to it." Lenalee explained. "Since that is your Innocence, please take care of it." She let out an inaudible gasp, "Oh! I forgot to ask your name. My name is Lenalee."
"My name is Sin." They said slowly, unsure of what they were getting into.
"Sin…how would you like to work for the Black Order? Your Innocence could help many people." Lenalee suggested, standing up. She offered her hand to Sin, who took it and pulled themselves up.
"The Black Order…?" Sin questioned, "Does the Black Order use Innocence to kill…to destroy those, those monsters?"
"Yes."
"But…my friends…I can't leave them behind…"
"Your friends might be in danger if you have Innocence and the akuma find out that you have it." Lenalee spoke. That alerted Sin, whose eyes had widened upon her answer. "Akuma don't care who or what they kill. That's why we have Innocence—to destroy akuma so that they don't hurt people. That's my job. I'm an exorcist."
"Exorcist…" Sin's lips parted, then pressed together again when she thought of her friends that she'd be leaving behind. "If…If I can keep my friends safe, then...can I visit them when I have time?"
Lenalee's dark eyes widened slightly, but then she looked to the ground in a brief flicker. "It will be hard to find a time to, considering exorcists are always on missions."
Sin's expression morphed to one of shock. "I won't be able to see them…?" Her mouth had gone dry, like her throat. "Then…I won't become an exorcist!"
"It's not that you won't be able to see them, Sin. It's just that you might be too busy to see them." Lenalee said gently.
"My friends are like my family to me…I want to be able to see them…" Sin's eyes went to the ground, a look of worry crossed bitterness in their expression.
Lenalee understood Sin's form of thinking. They were very similar to her own. She exhaled through her nose, "Sin, if you use your Innocence to destroy akuma, there will be less of them that can harm people. That includes your friends."
Sin pressed their lips together, feeling that this was a very hard decision to make. While they wanted to see their friends again, they didn't want them to be in harm's way, and thus, Sin was conflicted.
"Where are your friends now?" Lenalee asked.
"They're at the train station." Sin replied quietly, thinking things through. "If…if I become an exorcist, I'll be able to make sure that there are less monsters—less akuma that hurt my friends—and the people, right?"
"Yes."
"…is it okay for me to go to my friends and tell them that I'll be going off to another job?" Sin's voice was quiet, but Lenalee could just hear them.
"Yes. Do you want me to come with you?" She offered.
Sin shook their head, "No, I'll be fine. Where should I meet you?"
"Hm…I'll wait at the city centre, how about that?" Lenalee suggested.
"Okay. I'll see you there, then." Sin took a couple of steps forward, but then realised that they were on a rooftop and they had no idea how to get down. They turned back to Lenalee, "How do we get back down?"
With a laugh, Lenalee brought Sin down onto the ground level with her via Dark Boots.
"I'll be going now, then. I'll see you soon." Sin waved at Lenalee and went off to the station.
Lenalee looked to where her golem was, and found that it was by her side the whole time. She looked at it and spoke, "There will be a new person joining the Order." She was speaking to the Finders.
"Okay." The Finders reported from the other side.
Lenalee went back to the scene of where the akuma had come from, which was inside the alleyway. She glanced around, seeing if her suspicions were right. When she saw that the same scarf that the person following Sin earlier was on the ground, she knew that she was indeed right.
The person that had been following Sin was an akuma.
But did they know that Sin had Innocence? Lenalee thought, eyeing the area a little more.
Her eyes landed on the groceries that Sin had dropped from shock. There were many fruits and vegetables, along with some other cooking materials.
It's a shame all of them are going to waste…Lenalee thought.
She turned on her heel and headed to the city centre, where she would wait for Sin. While waiting, she called the Finders back to the city, and told them to meet at the same place she was meeting Sin.
Lenalee waited for about 10 minutes before the Finders found her and they exchanged information. They waited for half an hour before Sin had come back to meet them. It was just becoming the evening when she arrived back.
"Sin? What's wrong?" Lenalee asked, going up to the short haired accommodator.
Sin's eyes were red and looked like they had been crying. They sniffed a couple of times and shook their head with a small smile, "They gave me their blessings. I'll be going with you, Lenalee."
"I see." The exorcist stared at Sin, realising that she might have misunderstood the situation just a tad bit, thinking she was upset instead of just missing her friends.
"Are you a girl or a boy?" One of the Finders asked directly at Sin. He was unsure of their gender, considering everything seemed like a trap.
The other Finder hit him, snapping, "That's rude! Apologize!"
"Oh, um, I'm sorry…"
"It's alright…" Sin smiled small at the Finder who asked the question, and an image of her friends flashed into her mind. "I'm a girl. I dress like this to stay warm."
Lenalee was a little surprised that Sin took it with no offence, but she was glad that someone had asked the question. She would have found out sooner or later, but she was glad to find out sooner.
The Finder gulped and apologized again, saying that he was in the wrong.
"For tonight, we'll have to stay here. It's too dark and dangerous to go out at night, so we should rest up before heading off tomorrow." Lenalee looked up at the sky, seeing gleams of light that belonged to distant stars thousands of light years away.
"What about the mission, Lady Exorcist?" One of the Finders questioned.
"Since there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, it should be fine to go back." She spoke after a brief moment of thinking.
Sin followed Lenalee's gaze up towards the sky and felt nostalgia creep up on her.
"Okay, let's go have dinner." Lenalee clapped her hands together. "Anyone have any preferences?"
"Whatever you choose, Lady Exorcist."
"Anything is fine." Sin smiled.
Lenalee led them to the closest restaurant, then afterwards, they rented out a couple of rooms to stay in at the hotel to rest.
The next day, they were on their way back to the Black order.
"To believe that was just a couple days ago…" Lenalee mumbled to herself, finishing off the last sheet. She pulled the papers from the clipboard and put them into a file specifically for Sin's exorcist information.
Which reminds me…Lenalee paused for a brief moment, how is her training with Kanda going?
Sin let out a silent and suffocated groan when she awoke the next morning, feeling the muscles in her body burning with passion. Her head hit the pillow again and she tried to move her limbs again, but she could barely do it. It was incredibly sore.
She remembered back to the training session the day before with Kanda, and a memory of his demonic face flashed in her mind, making her go pale, knowing that she would have to face him again today.
With a small sniff, she closed her eyes and prayed that Kanda wasn't as harsh as he was yesterday, before trying to, and failing miserably, to get up.
In the end, it took her a very long time to get out of her bed, dressed and out the door. Walking to the cafeteria was the most painful thing she had experienced for a long time, and it reminded her of the days when she used to do days on end of dancing amongst other things.
"Hm? Morning, Sin!" The bright, chirpy voice she heard; she knew exactly who it belonged to, and was surprised they came back from their mission so quickly. "Are you okay? You're holding onto the rails pretty tightly."
Sin smiled when she saw Lavi's face. He was right beside her, walking at her slow pace. "I'm…fine…" She accidently hit her toe on one of the poles and gasped soundlessly in pain, feeling it go up her foot and to her leg.
Lavi had a look of surprise on his face, seeing her like this. He remembered her yesterday, being all fine and completely normal. But now she needed help walking?
"Did something happen yesterday?" Lavi asked. He was on a mission most of the day and only got back just then, so he was on his way to his room to nap when he came across the newbie.
"Training…" Sin looked away, feeling the pain from the training come back to haunt her. She proceeded to make her way towards the cafeteria.
"Training?" Lavi racked through his brain, wondering why she would say that, and then remembered that he heard something interesting when he came back in the morning. He had overhead some people talking about Kanda training the new girl and that he was a demon from hell for his training methods.
It might be just that…Lavi laughed a little, placing a hand on Sin's head, ruffling it lightly. "You'll get through it."
Seeing this gesture from the brightly coloured red head, Sin couldn't help but tear up slightly when remembering something dear.
"Ah! What? Don't cry!" Lavi panicked slightly, seeing that her eyes had become more watery.
Was the training lesson that hard? Lavi thought with slight doubt.
Sin shook her head and smiled at him. Though she was smiling, Lavi could see the pain behind that smile.
He took his hand off her head, wondering if ruffling people's hair was a bad thing. He forced a smile on his face, "Do you need any help getting to the cafeteria?"
"Thanks, Lavi. I think I'll be fine, though. I'll try to get there by myself…" Sin tried to walk by herself and nearly stumbled, but steadied herself. She could feel the burning soreness in her legs, but she was determined to make it to get food.
Lavi was on standby and was ready to catch her when she falls, but since she had caught herself, he wasn't needed.
He watched after her as she headed to the cafeteria at the pace of a snail, which amused the Bookman apprentice. He didn't want her to fall so easily, but he was sure that she could make it, so he just watched, just in case. When she was out of his sight, he went back to his room, feeling something nudging at the back of his mind.
The old panda wasn't there, thus he had the whole room to himself. Lavi lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what he was wondering about. He was thinking of something, but it was subtle and he couldn't recall it.
What was I thinking about?
