Hey everyone! As usual, please read my A/N at the end of the chapter. I've written a lot, and there might be some mistakes. Sorry about that!

Chapter 3

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Lavi took a deep, shaky breath as he watched the fire in front of him.

The old man's death hit him hard only in that moment. He was now a real Bookman, and he had a duty to feel, but why was he feeling that empty and dissatisfied? He had never wanted to become a Bookman in that way. He had always imagined it was going to be something more formal, much slower and calmer than what had happened. Instead, everything happened so quickly that he still couldn't completely understand what he had went through.

He had seen thousands of deaths, hundreds funerals, yet that was the first time he felt so devastated by one. A Bookman's fate was to keep wandering even in the afterlife, as they couldn't have a real home. Born to watch and remember the darkest secrets of history, a real Bookman had no family and was bound to disappear with the wind. In that moment, such life scared him.

"I wonder…" He mumbled to himself, still staring at the grey ashes dancing with the wind. "Why do Bookmen exist?"

His eyes stung, and Lavi blinked in an useless attempt of stopping his tears; he felt so weak, so pathetic. He sighed, his eyes never leaving the fire, when slim arms wrapped around his waist. Lavi glanced down and saw Lenalee closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder. She was crying silently, and when she hugged him tighter, Lavi let his tears fall as well. Feeling both comforted and lost, he threw an arm around her shoulders and sniffed, biting his lips to stop himself from wailing.

In a desperate need of receiving the comfort he needed, he reached for Kanda's hand and grabbed it. Surprisingly, Yu didn't move at all and let Lavi interlock their fingers together, even if he froze and stiffened slightly at the gesture. The fact that Kanda was too somehow silently supporting him, made Lavi feel better. He didn't feel that lonely anymore.

He had never understood why he had to take part to the war; what was the point of being a Bookman when himself was part of that hidden history and he was also changing it? From a simple bystander he transformed into that ink on paper he loathed so much, but he didn't want to lose 'Lavi', because it was part of him… and after all he was glad about that. Lavi tightened his hold around Lenalee's shoulders and Yu's hand and closed his eyes; it felt so warm… it felt right. He smiled softly and sniffed one last time before opening his eyes again and letting his friends go.

"Whatever I'll say, I want you two to keep calling me 'Lavi'". He whispered.

Lenalee glanced at him, confused, and nodded as she rubbed away the last tears from her red eyes, while Kanda crossed his arms; Lavi took the eyepatch Mirajane gave him and put it on.

"Did you discover something about this place?" He asked quietly as he fixed his eyepatch. Lenalee shook her head, Yu only shrugged.

"It seems they don't know where London is." Kanda explained shortly. Lavi nodded and turned around; behind them there was Mirajane waiting for them, together with Erza and an old man who had introduced himself as 'master Makarov'.

"I have a strange feeling about this." Lavi sighed, walking towards them. "I think I'll have to stay in the local library for a while…" He mumbled, ruffling his hair.

Kanda and Lenalee walked next to him, both looking at him with worry. Their faces were still covered with bruises and patches, their arms full of bandages, and it was going to take a long while for them to recover; they needed to understand immediately if they were safe in that place.

"Now that I think about it, I'm sure I saw the Ark while I was falling…" Lavi he mumbled with a frown, unnoticed by his friends.

They reached Mirajane, Erza and Makarov in complete silence. "We're sorry for your loss." The old master said with gentle voice.

Lavi nodded, and stared at them before taking a deep breath. "I think you mentioned we fell from the sky and broke your… guild's ceiling?" He asked.

Erza nodded and smiled. "Let's get you back at the hospital before we start talking."

Even if it was rather late, it was easy to find Fairy Tail even from afar: the guild still had the lights on. Lavi glanced at it, as curious as ever, but followed quietly Erza and the others. He had to wait for another time to go discover that place.

"Are you three cold? Those hospital clothes are thin for such a chilly evening." Makarov asked, trying to make conversation. "It's fine, we're not that cold…" Lenalee reassured with a smile.

The group returned to the hospital and sat in the small, empty common room. Kanda still had Mugen in his hands, ready to attack at any moment, and Lenalee too was ready to fight if something was going to happen, but Lavi was more focused on talking: he couldn't fight since his Innocence was in bad conditions anyway.

Mirajane smiled kindly. "I think it's better if we introduce ourselves again. I'm Mirajane, I work as a waitress in Fairy Tail, but I'm also a mage!" She chirped.

"I'm also a Fairy Tail mage." Erza said quickly with a small smile.

"And I'm Fairy Tail's master. I run the guild and I take care of payments when someone destroys something…" Makarov said with a grunt, making Mirajane grin in amusement.

"Mages… does it mean you can make things appear? Can you cut a person in half?" Lenalee asked, with a curious look.

Erza chuckled and shook her head, standing up. "I'll show you what being a mage means." With a quick snap of her fingers, she changed her armor in a much sophisticated, heavy looking one, and several swords appeared and danced around her. Lavi, Lenalee and Kanda gaped, both amazed and fascinated by such transformation. "Magic helps us to show who we really are. We can use magic however we want, we can adapt it to our style. It's part of us, almost like a blessing." She explained before changing back to her clothes.

Lavi hummed and nodded. "Somehow it resembles Innocence…" He muttered with a frown. "But I guess your kind of magic is not as invasive as Innocence."

Mirajane widened her eyes in confusion. "...invasive? What kind of magic do you guys use?" She asked softly, almost worried to hear the answer.

Kanda huffed and rolled up one of his sleeves, showing a cross-like scar on his arm. "Innocence is not something we chose to have. We don't want it, yet our whole life will be dictated by it." He murmured with a glare. "Blessing, huh? Innocence is a curse for us."

Erza sat back, taking her time to understand what she had just heard. Those three in front of her were somehow cursed by a type of magic never heard before; they looked way too young to go through a curse. While Kanda rolled back his sleeve, Lavi sighed.

"We'll talk about that in a minute." He said with a smile. "We need to introduce ourselves before anything." Lavi explained, watching the three mages focus on him. "I have no name for you, but you can call me Bookman!"

"Bookman…?" Makarov mumbled, staring at the red haired man with a frown.

Lavi nodded, sending him a small grin. "Yup! My job is to keep track of history. But I'm also an Exorcist, together with Lenalee and Yu." Kanda sent Lavi a glare. "It's Kanda." He growled, visibly annoyed. Lavi smiled, not minding Kanda's usual behavior. "The sleeping boy in our room is Allen. I'm sure you all noticed his left arm..." He continued, noticing that the mages nodded. "That's Innocence. That's why I said it's invasive, some types lie within a body and change it, sometimes completely."

Erza shivered, both in fear and disgust. Why anyone would want to have such type of magic? Who were the people in front of her?

"We're from a city called London and we work for an organization called Black Order. Our job is to fight and destroy Akuma…" Lavi explained changing the topic, seeing that the other three were visibly uncomfortable. Erza, Makarov and Mirajane gasped loudly, staring at them in amazement.

"You fight demons?!" The white haired girl exclaimed, leaning towards them. "Actually I'm talking about machines called Akuma…" Lavi chuckled at their reaction, typical of those who had never heard about Akuma before. "A machine born to kill." He explained, getting serious again.

Makarov frowned. "Does such thing really exist?" He wondered out loud.

"I think our wounds speak loudly for ourselves." Lavi continued, not losing his calm look. The three mages glanced at their bruised faces: demons were bad news if they were created from Zeref. "Akuma are born where grief and death lie… Before we fell here we had just finished fighting."

Erza kept silent while listening carefully to Lavi's explanation. "You seem to have lots of experience…" She finally muttered. "But we've never heard of anything like that."

Lavi didn't say anything for a long minute: he tried to reorganize his thoughts and everything he had seen in that strange place, and his bad feeling only grew. "You've never heard of London…" He mumbled, still deep in thoughts. It was impossible that they had never heard about such huge and important city. He could understand they didn't know what Akuma were, but…

"What is this place called again?" Lenalee asked kindly.

"Right now we're in my guild called Fairy Tail, in Magnolia…" Makarov said, glancing at them with a deep frown.

"Never heard of it." Kanda grunted before crossing his arms.

"We're… in Fiore…" Mirajane added, hoping it could help them.

Lavi shook his head and huffed. "This is no good." Lenalee and Kanda stared at him, not used to his calm, collected behavior; he was acting like the old Bookman would have done. Lavi's new side was something they had never seen before, as he was always been lively and ready to joke around.

"Of course you've never heard of London before." Lavi continued with a deep sigh. "It's because it doesn't exist here. Just like Fiore doesn't exist where we came from! We arrived here through a gate…"

Erza gasped. "Then it's like you're from… another world." She whispered, her eyes wide in amazement.

"Where did the beansprout bring us?" Kanda growled, throwing a glare towards the mages, his grasp on Mugen even tighter than before.

"Are you aliens?!" Mirajane exclaimed, gasping loudly. "Are you here to invade the planet?!"

"Why would we do that…" Lavi groaned before ruffling his hair. "Before we fell the 14th had killed the Earl for good and then…" He trailed off, thinking out loud; Lenalee stared at Lavi and nodded. "And then we fell through the Ark." She finished in realization. "I thought I was dreaming when I saw that. But that still doesn't explain anything…" Lenalee mumbled, before a thought crossed her mind. The 14th or Allen himself had brought them in that place, but what if he did the same with the rest of the Order? Was her brother also somewhere in that world?

She teared up at the thought and gulped down a sob. Was her dream coming true? She had always wanted to wake up at the smell of breakfast and her brother calling her… was there the possibility for everyone to live a normal, quiet life?

"Maybe…" She whispered to herself with a small spark of hope in her heart. Lavi glanced towards her and placed his hand next to Lenalee's, giving her a reassuring smile.

In front of them, Makarov sighed. "It seems something inexplicable happened. Let's finish talking another time." He said with a grin. "But master…" Erza started, not expecting him to act so calm about what they had just discovered. "Some things can wait. Fairy Tail is open to those who got lost. I'm more worried about Natsu's odd behavior!" He laughed loudly. "It looks like he's getting sick or something. I asked Wendy to help him, but it's seems she's not feeling well too."

Erza took a deep breath and nodded. She wanted to know more, but from what they said, those strangers were just unlucky kids stuck with a terrible curse-like magic; she wanted to ask for help to Lucy and the other mages, she needed to know more about those four.

"Well, thanks for the help." Lavi interrupted her train of thoughts standing up, followed by Lenalee and Kanda. "We should head back to our rooms now." Erza and the others stood as well. "Of course." The red haired girl said immediately. "Today was a hard day for you."

The young Bookman smiled and shook his head. "Nothing new!" He said, his eye seemingly empty. "Lavi…" Lenalee muttered with a sad tone, loudly enough for Lavi. The Bookman smiled warmly and tugged his friends away.

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Meanwhile, in Fairy Tail, Natsu sat up from the table, still looking sick. "The fish cured him!" Happy exclaimed, shoving more fish in Natsu's mouth; the dragon slayer started chewing on it and gulped it down with a frown.

"Those four smell…" He mumbled. Lucy rolled her eyes at them. "You mean those strangers? That's not a nice thing to say!" She reprimanded them. "Even Wendy thinks that! I'm sure!" Natsu exclaimed, slamming his hands on the table. "They are bad guys! I'm sure!" He continued, pointing somewhere towards the hospital was.

"That's enough Natsu." Erza said, walking inside the guild. "It's hard for them to be here. I doubt they want to hurt us." She explained with a calm tone. "Me, Mirajane and the master talked with them. There's still something strange about them, but I've decided to trust them."

Natsu, though, got annoyed seeing Erza was so unconcerned about them. "I'm telling you they are bad people!" He screamed with anger, taking a step towards Erza. Gray sat up and took his arm to hold him back, sending him a glare. "Hey Natsu, calm down. What's so bad about them smelling anyway?!"

Lucy groaned and stood as well. "I'm sure Natsu meant something else…" She said, looking expectantly her friend, who nodded and calmed down a bit.

"I swear! It's enough to make me sick!" He explained with what looked like a disgusted frown. "When you'll know what I'm talking about you'll be horrified!"

Erza glared at him and sighed. "Then tell us what you smell…" Natsu bit his lips and took a deep breath. "They smell like…"

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"Blood."

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"Ah, Lavi, your wound…!" Lenalee exclaimed, grabbing his arm and staring at the now red bandage with worry. "We need to change your bandages. I'll go call a nurse!" She said before running outside the room.

"I didn't even realize it opened." Lavi muttered, sitting on his bed and staring at his blood pooling on the bandage. "What about your wounds, Yu?" He asked, glancing at Kanda who just shrugged. "I remember Komui telling me that years ago you could heal in less than a day. You should be more careful from now on!" Lavi continued, waiting for a reaction.

Kanda, instead, stared back at him. "I don't care. Just explain me why you want to be called Bookman." He growled.

Lavi widened his eye, not expecting such question from Yu. "Huh." He mumbled. "Are you still suspicious of me?" He asked back, with a small chuckled; actually, he hoped that Kanda wasn't going to mention it again, since it was something that made him feel uneasy. "Shouldn't I?" Kanda glared at him, still waiting for an answer.

Lavi sighed and shrugged. Yu had all the reasons to be suspicious of him, but he had changed a lot in those years and Lavi knew that well: he felt that the Order changed himself a lot. "Sometimes… I wish 'Lavi' didn't exist." He whispered instead, his gaze lowering in shame. He could feel Kanda's eyes on him, probably judging him and his words, but in that moment Lenalee came back, followed by a nurse, and Lavi immediately started smiling again.

"You should pay more attention to your movements! If you keep moving this much, you will never heal properly!" Lenalee reprimanded him with a pout.

"It's okay, it's okay! I'm used to this, I'll just sleep a lot!" Lavi chuckled, holding his arm still to let the nurse change his bandages. "By the way, you two are so lucky your Innocence is crystal type. My hammer is cracked, I can't use it at all…" He whined loudly. "At least you won't be able to destroy any building…" Lenalee said, hiding a smile behind her hands.

"I'm not that bad!"

From the other side of the room, Kanda watched them in complete silence. What was Lavi going to say with that? Was he talking about his Bookman position? He didn't know much about Bookmen, the first time he heard about them was when Lavi arrived at the Black Order; Komui had mentioned something about them, but nothing that actually explained what they were doing there. He never cared enough to ask more about Bookmen.

Lavi at first was a witty, sly, cold looking guy who despite everything made friends with everyone pretty easily due to his smiles and friendly attitude; Kanda could see immediately that despite he was acting so nice, his eye was empty of emotions. Yu was sure that he had seen well-cealed disgust and annoyment towards the fellow exorcists in that green eye; yet, with time those disappeared were replaced sometimes with worry, sometimes with tenderness.

The nurse walked away only after making sure Lavi understood he couldn't move that much his arm as he wanted. "It won't be easy to stay in the library, then…" Lavi mumbled, looking at his own arm.

"Just think of resting, you won't be of much help if you'll fall asleep on the books!" Lenalee chuckled, patting his arm. "Kanda, you too! Don't think of sneaking out!" She said, turning towards Yu who frowned and looked away.

"I'll come later for dinner." She smiled, walking again out of the room.

"What were you saying?" Kanda asked as soon as Lenalee disappeared; he jumped down from his bed and quickly reached Lavi's one. The red-haired man widened his eye and rubbed uncomfortably his neck, not sure of how he could explain himself.

"It's just that…" He trailed off and sighed, shrugging again. "It's just that wherever I went I had to see a war. This one was just different." He explained, with an uncharacteristic soft, low tone. Yu hesitated a bit before sitting next to Lavi, signaling him to go on with his explanation.

"Because you had to fight?" He wondered out loud; Kanda had never seen Lavi acting so unconfident and scared to speak before of that moment.

"Ah, no, actually I was trained to fight…" Lavi explained weakly. "It's just that… having comrades, a place to call 'home'... it's something a Bookman shouldn't even think of needing." Lavi glanced up, meeting Kanda's confused gaze, and smiled weakly.

"A Bookman is someone who records history. To do so, a Bookman needs to stay unbiased, he comes and goes like the wind and leaves no trace behind. He will never be remembered…" Kanda seemed to understand what Lavi was trying to say and nodded. "I admit that at first I wanted to have nothing to do with exorcists. It's just that at some point…" The young Bookman continued talking and sighed. "At some point I started to ask myself if it was really forbidden to me to have… friends."

Yu took a deep breath, staring at Lavi in complete silence. He still didn't understand what happened to the red-haired exorcist, but Kanda was sure that Lavi too had some secrets he didn't want to think of.

"'Lavi' for me was just a name." The Bookman muttered, lowering again his eye towards his own hands. "It could have been 'Henry', or 'Marco' or whatever you want. I just didn't see myself as 'Lavi', but that changed and I'm glad about this."

Lavi decided that he wasn't going to tell that to anyone else. Lenalee was probably going to cry if she ever heard that - and he didn't want that, he cared for her and Lenalee had went through enough. He also didn't want to be pitied, they all had a sad story behind them and he was no different from them. Yu was the only one who was going to listen without giving Lavi the feeling of being judged.

"Hey." He heard Kanda murmuring. "You're crying."

Lavi looked up right when he felt a light touch on his cheek. Yu had reached out for him, not to wipe away his tears, but to grab the eyepatch and carefully lift it and take it off from Lavi's right eye, briefly brushing his skin with his calloused fingers. The young Bookman stared at Kanda in awe, holding his breath; what was he seeing in Yu's gaze? Lavi blinked a couple of times, his right eye quickly getting used to the light, and he focused on Kanda's face.

"If you want to cry, then do it with both of your eyes." Yu whispered, sending him what looked like a small grin before turning around without walking away from the bed. Lavi bit his lips and let out a sob, before scooting closer to Kanda and wrapping an arm around his waist, resting his head against his back. Yu stiffened and was about to complain and retort, but when Lavi mumbled a small, almost shy 'thank you', Kanda relaxed, letting him cry next to him.

Only when he couldn't hear Lavi sniffing and sobbing quietly anymore, he elbowed the Bookman, still without looking at him. "Don't fall asleep on me!" He reprimanded loudly, crossing his arms. Lavi chuckled lightly, squeezing Kanda's waist a bit tighter for a few seconds before releasing him.

"I'll go wash my face." Lavi said with a soft smile, standing up. Yu let him go without adding anything, watching his figure walking out of the room.

The eyepatch was still in his hands. Kanda placed it on the bed and stood up, thinking of what had just happened. Lavi had never shown his weak side to anyone, but he had made an exception for him; Yu did too something different from usual, he would have never let anyone hug him like that. Except Lenalee, no one ever had the audacity of touching him like that; perhaps Alma was the only one who used to do the same as Lenalee and Lavi.

A rustle broke him from his thoughts. Kanda glanced up, and he barely took a glimpse of Allen sitting up on his bed before a hand grabbed his neck and threw him on the floor. He screamed in pain, and his vision blurred after his head hit the ground; he felt dizzy, but when he tried to stand up, a hand pressed him down and another grabbed his neck again, clenching dangerously and making breathe difficult. Yu widened his eyes, meeting a dark gaze and a large, unamused smile.

As golden eyes appeared and the skin darkened, the hold on Kanda's neck tightened even more.

"Where is that young Bookman?" Neah, the Fourteenth, was hovering him with a menacing glint in his eyes; his smile didn't reassure Kanda at all, as the aura around the Noah was deadly, cold. Yu's vision got even more blurred and he scowled, trying hard to stay awake and focused on Neah, but he didn't answer, knowing that whatever that Noah wanted from Lavi, it was definitely going to be something dangerous for them. Kanda gritted his teeth: if only he had been more careful he would have Mugen on the Fourteenth's neck by now.

"Yu!" A voice screamed.

The pressure on his neck disappeared, and Kanda coughed a couple of times; he turned around, trying to get on his knees even when his whole body aching in pain, and he saw the Fourteenth grabbing Lavi forcefully and shoving him on the hallway's wall. Their conversation was confused, he could barely hear their voices: the injury on his head was probably too big and he was losing way too much blood, he was losing consciousness. A blur appeared in front of him, kind, small hands grabbed him and a warm feeling invaded his body. Kanda closed his eyes and fell, fainting.

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A/N:
Hey everyone!
I hope you guys liked this chapter. This time I've really written a lot... that's because I wrote the chaper and then added another part, that I liked more that the previous one.
So I hope I didn't forget to delete the old part.

I've also changed Elsa to Erza! And I've used a website to check everything, but... it doesn't work perfectly. If you have suggestions, please do tell me!

Also, I hope to read more reviews 3 and I'm sorry if you think some characters are OOC. Kanda is the most difficult one to write...