Hallo peoples. Thank you yet again for keeping with me and those who have taken interest in the story. Because I'm trying to crank out as much as I can while my fluctuating attention span lasts my addresses to the many faves and reviews will not be nearly as long as they should be considering how much they mean to me, but please know I greatly appreciate them. I've also included thank-yous from reviews for ch 8 as well as im my furious row of typing I realized too late that I forgot to put them in. So sorry!!!
SharinganJ- thank you for the generous compliments :D and to be quite honest, I COMPLETELY agree with you on the good guy getting tortured thing. I don't know why, but I love it as well. Shows in my writing, I'm sure. ;) and I'm off my brother's game, no worries. He sort of stopped being generous.
Blueballad- -smothers self in pancakes- thank you for ye another all-too-kind review :) you really help me fulfill my daily needed dose of happiness. I'm trying to balance out the seriousness and the jokes, cause it's always good to have a bit of a rest for the brain, right?? XD
I'm Hallucinating- thank you very much for the review and the compliments X) and hello fellow lucid dreamer! And I guess that's the good thing bout knowing you're dreaming; you can stop it when it gets bad. It is rare though, isn't it. Some people even give me looks when I try explaining XD
Addenza – ahaha yes indeed I did, though most of it I admit was done for completely different purposes than the plot of this story… I tend to have enough trivial knowledge rotting here in this excuse for a brain to fill buckets. In short, I'm a geek. XD
Kit turned Mighty- many apologies for an update getting to be so late. This was a hard chapter to write as its sort of an inbetween… Thank you for such a wonderful review. I hope this chapter keeps up to the expectations. : )
Me- I'm glad you liked it. Sorry for the delay, and hope you enjoy this chapter too.
Anyway, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to pick this project back up from its ashes again… but for those of you who keep with me and my sad excuse for a D-g.m fic, many thanks.
Enjoy.
Chapter 10
When the other two awoke, they also received a briefing on the supplies, and Ravi rejoiced in being fully clothed as well as getting his wounds bandaged up. Allen gazed apologetically at the bandages but Ravi gave his head a good nudging, telling him that the only thing he should be sorry for is the fact that he hadn't trusted them earlier. When he still seemed unconvinced, Ravi responded with a huff, and told him quite simply that it was "a problem of finding a way to destroy the akuma as soon as possible, and that's that".
Linaly on the other hand was delighted to find that the girl seemed to be getting along well with the finder William. Reluctant to leave Linaly's embrace, she clung to her skirt with a determined grip but with soft urging from both her and William, she wiped away streaming tears with her sleeve and took William's hand. Linaly had leaned down to pat her on the head and wish her a safe journey when the girl stretched up onto her tip-toes and whispered in her ear.
"He did that to me too, and then he made a sad face and told me he would only be around while the moon lasts."
Linaly furrowed her eyebrows in puzzlement. "He?"
Instead of answering her question, the girl simply pointed with a delicate finger at the closed city, and looked Linaly in the eye with a sincere look. "Help him."
---
After seeing the group of finders off with the girl, the three got down to discuss how to go about the mission.
"Especially with the number of akuma gathered in there, the possibility of something being there is very high," Allen stated, and Ravi nodded in agreement.
"And the girl's been saying stuff, talk about a 'he' protecting something or the other." The point was followed by silence, as all three of them were truly puzzled by this aspect of the story.
Linaly broke the silence with a light huff and a smile on her face. "The only way to find out is to go check it out ourselves."
They nodded in agreement, and started drawing out plans.
What they decided to do was to examine the situation from the outside first before heading in to the city, as the small welcoming party from the other day was no easy job, and they were in no condition to take on an unknown number of akuma, or worse, an ambush. They took turns in pairs, as they decided it was safer to have two of them in case something happened, and looked in on the city from above. Allen, with the help of his eye, gave an approximate head count of the number of akuma and at which level they were at; there were at least 35 Lv.1 akumas, and 4 Lv.2s. It was a large number, but not impossible. The other objective of their exploration of the city was to find some kind of clue as to who or what the 'he' in need of help was.
"There is a chance that 'he' is another remaining survivor," Allen suggested, but then bit his lip in guilt as he realized how weak of an argument this was when said out loud. "…Never mind."
Linaly looked up hurriedly and tried to keep him from losing hope. "No, Allen-kun, we know what you mean. I thought that too," she said.
"Yeah, but," Ravi sighed, and scratched his head in discomfort. "We've been looking at the city for about 4 days now, but with that many akuma… It's just, you know," he mumbled.
"Highly unlikely, I know," Allen said, completing the dreaded statement. A somber silence settled upon them. They let it hang, as if paying their respects to the loss of something, perhaps the many lives that once thrived in the city, or perhaps their hope for there to still be something to save in the now akuma-infested city.
Settling the plans for tomorrow, which consisted of covering the only remaining corner of the city not searched yet, Linaly and Allen went off to their rooms to sleep. Ravi took the first turn to keep watch.
---
Taking his coat off to throw it upon the back of the chair and fumbling with the ribbon around his neck, Allen realized there was no use taking off anything else except maybe his boots. He sat down on the couch that was soon to become his bed, and noticed just before he was about to slip his shoes off that he had almost forgotten the little present from Komui-san. He walked back out into the dining area and picked up the eye pillow from the table to find Ravi coming in through the front door, hammer still small but securely held in his hand. Seeing that it was Allen, he abruptly let out the tension in his shoulders and re-holstered his weapon.
"Geez, it was just you," he said. He let a sheepish smile warm his expression, but eyed him with a sharp look before fully taking his hand off his hammer, asking "it is you, right Allen?"
"Yes it is, don't worry- I may be sleep deprived, but even then I take longer than that to fall asleep." He shrugged the moment off and Ravi let the last of his caution slide away. Allen tried to ignore the sharp stabbing emotion of guilt he felt for having to make his comrade so nervous about him; he knew that his alarm against him and the ease at which it was discarded with but a mere few words from his mouth was Ravi's way of showing the mutual trust between them. Ravi trusted him that he was a comrade to the core and would only attack under the influence of the akuma, and Allen trusted him that Ravi would stop him no matter what if the akuma was controlling him. Something must have shown in his expression though, because Ravi let out a short laugh that sounded slightly defeated.
"Really man, if you don't stop feeling so bad over this whole business I'm going to start sledge-hammering you for reasons completely unrelated to the damn akuma. I have the strangest feeling that it's going to take that much to get it through your thick skull that it's nothing for you to worry your pretty little head over," he said in jest, and Allen had to laugh at that.
"Thick skull? Pretty little head? You have to remember to direct the comments at the right person when you describe yourself, Ravi," he said, as Ravi flashed a grin at his come back. "One would almost think you were talking about me."
"You little-," was all Ravi managed to get out before his complaints were drowned out by the sound of the two of them scurrying around the room after each other and laughing while trying to get a jab at the other. They only stopped when a disgruntled looking Linaly opened the door and threw a pillow at them and went back to trying to sleep, while the two just laughed harder.
They felt the muscles in their cheeks straining after so much laughter and slid on to the floor panting. It took a while for them to catch their breaths but when they did, Ravi spoke up first.
"It's way past your bedtime buddy," he said and gave Allen a small nudge. "Leave it to me and just go sleep."
"Hopefully this will keep me from having to leave anything up to you," Allen said, holding up the eye pillow for Ravi to see. He raised an eyebrow in response.
Poking at the object if it were a bomb ready to go off, he said, "something Komui made? We'll see if it works if it doesn't blow you up in the process." Allen managed to smile at the comment, but it sounded slightly forced as they both knew Ravi was only half joking.
To Be Continued…
Just needed to get that bit out. Should be more action on it's way after this as the plot gets moving. Sorry for such an unexciting chapter after such a long wait. Happy Holidays!