Sorry for taking so long to update! I was feeling uninspired for a while.
I've done a character profile of Kiara, along with some sketches. You can find the link on my profile.
Thanks to Lathya, crazy10118, Shoten Shinzui, anna vetra, kArah, Skitter, mfinga19, Peter the Otaku, kate4394, , Kirorokat and Camm for reviewing! I love you all!
I may not be able to update regularly for a while. Reason being after the exams, I no longer have an excuse to sneak onto the computer, so…yeah. Hopefully I can (somehow) wrangle permission from my parents to use the computer during the school holidays. (Chances of plan failure: 99.999999%.) So it will be a hiatus of sorts, because I will probably only be able to update on weekends. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Disclaimer: Don't own nothin'.
*****
"You two will be going under the guise of siblings."
Kiara was the first to recover from shock, and stood up, scraping the chair back.
"You realize," she ground out slowly, "that the charade won't last very long."
Komui blinked.
"What, you mean the fact that you two quarrel a lot? Aw, siblings quarrel all the time."
"I'm not even Japanese! How can we pass off as siblings if we don't look the same nationality?"
"You both look Asian. It will do. You two will be going by Kiara's surname."
At Kanda's raised eyebrow, Kiara explained for Komui.
"You hate being called by your first name, ne? If we use your surname, I'll have to use your first name. Or come up with a different first name, which will be forgotten soon anyway."
"…Che. Whatever. Gimme the mission specs."
-----
A day later, Akatsuki Kiara and Akatsuki Kanda sat in a train carriage headed for London. Kiara stared absently out the window, her hand moving on its own, sketching out a picture on her sketchbook. Eventually, sighing, she snapped her gaze away from the window and looked at what her pencil had created on the paper.
Kanda watched in mild amusement as the girl opposite him glanced down at her sketchbook, before her cheeks turned rose pink. Her gaze flicked up to him for one second, then back to the sketchbook, before she slammed it shut and stowed it away, still blushing.
"What happened?" he asked, smirking.
"Nothing," she replied, scowling at him.
"Really?" he asked, eyebrows raised, a taunting light in his eyes.
"Sh-shut up!"
"What's this? I thought the younger sibling is supposed to have some measure of respect for the older one?"
Kiara glared venomously at him. She whacked him soundly on the head with her sketchbook, before folding her arms and looking out the window, choosing to ignore him for the rest of the train ride. Kanda closed his eyes and leaned back on the seat. The playful banter had stirred up something forgotten. A forgotten experience.
As much as he refused to admit it, teasing Kiara had been…fun.
-----
It was when the innkeeper took her and Kanda to their room, that she realized the full implications of their disguise as siblings. They didn't just have to act very close.
They had to share a room.
"You have got to be kidding me," breathed Kiara. "There's only one bed!"
Kanda smirked at her obvious discomfort.
"Siblings, remember? Baka."
"Teme," she huffed in reply. "I'll sleep on the sofa."
She tossed her suitcase unceremoniously onto the sofa, and stalked out the door, heading downstairs to meet the Finder. He had registered earlier than them, and had gotten a separate room. Of course, she could have asked that he switch with her, and give her a room of her own, but her mission partner was Kanda, after all. She was one of the lucky few who could put up with him. No Finder deserved such a fate.
With that in mind, she entered the first floor, scanning the room for a man in a beige coat. She spotted him, and quickly headed towards him.
"My name is Matthias," said the Finder. "Greetings, Exorcist-dono. But where is your partner?"
"Here," grumbled Kanda, reaching the duo.
Matthias nodded, and began to explain their solution.
-----
It had started a month ago. When the mayor's daughter had received her inheritance, a beautiful silver bracelet, an heirloom in her family. The girl's maid had said that the moment the bracelet was slipped onto the girl's wrist, it glowed green. The next day, the mayor and his family became piles of ash. The bracelet was all that was left. That, and a few servants who had been spared.
The bracelet was sent to the girl's relatives, but the next day, they, too, were nothing but ash. Since then, the bracelet had passed from relative to relative, all with the same results. Now, half the village was gone.
-----
Nothing unusual had been sighted so far that day. Kanda, Kiara, and Matthias the Finder were finishing their dinner, when a scream interrupted them. Dashing to the window, Kiara saw a young woman standing at her open doorway across the street, staring at the package on her step with horror.
"Oh, my," breathed the innkeeper's wife, hand over her mouth. "It's the bracelet. She's been given the cursed bracelet!"
Kiara took in her words without comprehending them, staring instead at the black shadow that she had seen slip behind the house across the street and disappear into the darkness.
Did that shadow place the bracelet there?
Kanda sighed.
"Oi. Go to bed, Kiara."
She shook her head mutely.
"Something's bugging me. There's something fishy about this bracelet scheme."
"You still need to sleep."
Without waiting to hear her reply, he grabbed the back of her Exorcist coat and began yanking the stumbling girl back to their room. She sputtered indignantly and tore herself free from his grasp, before dashing to the room and shutting the door. By the time he entered, her Exorcist coat had been flung onto the sofa, and the toilet door was locked.
Ten minutes later, Kiara emerged, clad in a white long-sleeved blouse and shorts. She shot a resentful glare at him, still grumpy about being dragged by the collar, and headed to the window.
-----
Midnight. It was midnight and her silhouette was still at the window, outlined by moonlight. If he'd bothered to look closely he would have seen a worried frown on her face as she scanned the street repeatedly. But Kanda was half-asleep, and he only saw the bright patch of silver light on the floor that kept distracting him from sleep. The silver light and the unmoving shadow cast on it.
He must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing he knew, he was blinking open his eyes, woken by the blast of cold wind that swept through the room when Kiara opened the window.
"What are you doing?" he asked groggily. She shot him a scathing look.
"Akuma, baka."
He got up, more alert than before.
"I don't hear them."
"They've erected a barrier around themselves. Around the house of the woman who got the bracelet," she said, pulling on her Exorcist coat.
Kanda sighed, and grabbed Mugen, before leaping out of the open window after her. Sure enough, there was an eerily purple barrier surrounding the house opposite the street. Inside it were three or four Akuma. One of them must have had the power to create barriers.
Kiara landed just outside the barrier. Back turned to Kanda, she examined the barrier for a while, head cocked to one side. Finally, her hand reached up to her face, and back down again, before she activated her Innocence.
"Once I break the barrier," she said without turning, "I want you to get in there and start beating them up, okay? I may not be able to fight that much, because I need a great deal of energy to break the barrier."
"Hn."
Kiara took his grunt as assent, and walked up to the glowing purple wall. She held her hands out, and tendrils of black fire appeared, wrapping around her until she was bathed in its unearthly light. Then, with sudden force, she planted her glowing palms onto the barrier, which crackled and fizzled under her touch. Slowly, bolts of black began spreading across the half-dome barrier, dancing across its surface like so many lightning bolts.
Crack.
A glowing white crack appeared on the barrier, right beneath her hands. Then another appeared. And another. Gradually, they branched out, creating a delicate spiderweb of white cracks, contrasting with the purple dome and the black energy trying to destroy it. With a final, resolute crack, the dome exploded, sending purple shards flying in all directions.
Kanda dodged the flying shrapnel, and ran towards the now-exposed Akuma, Mugen in hand. Activating the Second Illusion, he sliced through five Level Ones and headed for a Level Two. Behind him, Kiara, thrown violently backwards by the explosion, picked herself up and began to run, wobbling, towards the house.
Slipping past the Akuma, she ran into the house, only to find the woman gone. All that remained in the house was her furniture, and a small pile of ash sitting in the middle of the floor. And on top of the ash pile was a small, open wooden box. Nestled inside it was a gold bracelet with an emerald charm.
Kiara's right eye twinged painfully, and she lifted up her eyepatch. Now, she could see a faint green aura coming from the bracelet, which she took to be the glow of Innocence. Smiling slightly, she pocketed the bracelet, and headed out to help Kanda.
She skidded to a halt right outside the house, ready to activate her Innocence, just in time to see Kanda fall from the head of the very tall Level Three.
Time seemed to slow down in that time it took for him to tumble down from his altitude, to land on the hard, unforgiving ground. There was a loud crack. Then, when he tried to stand up, he trembled violently, before he collapsed to the ground, and lay there, unmoving.
Kiara screamed.
*****
Sorry for the lame ending there…Next chapter (a long time away), I am planning more KandaxKiara fluff. (Or at least, my pathetic excuse for fluff.)
Anyways, please review! Your reviews make me happy. ^^
~espeon16