Lavi woke up feeling unsettled, and he wasn't sure why. However, it was still very late at night - he could tell because the hole above them allowed the moonlight inside. Still, they had their lamps on just in case, and Lavi was currently sleeping near their prisoner, who was gently bound to prevent him from escaping to who knew where. Esperanza was asleep on the far side of the corridor. Now that they did not have the excuse of sharing a tent, nineteenth century decorum kicked in hard. Despite how chilly it was in the night air underground, Esperanza was adamant that they slept apart, and Lavi had been inclined to agree, only half-heartedly joking that they should sleep next to each other if only for safety in numbers against the ghosts of the ruins. Now, he scanned the dark with his eyes, wondering where she might be. Finally, he caught the light of her lamp, and he sighed.

He scratched his eyebrow, idly trying to remember what had woken him up, when a voice said, "You still haven't figured it out, have you?" Lavi scrambled back as the apparition that had appeared to him in the forest stood right next to him. The little boy was wearing the same outfit - a poncho, standard working clothes, boots, his eye patch, and a small bag. His hair was unkempt, and his eye patch seemed to glare in the dark. Lavi swallowed, trying to think of what to do. After all, it wasn't every day he talked to some sort of hallucination.

"You're a horrible excuse for a Bookman," the boy said, spontaneously appearing behind Lavi this time, and he quickly got up, walking away from the phantasm. Maybe if he ignored it...

"You can't even remember what her tattoo means. That should be more than enough information for you to remember. How could you forget, anyways?" the voice asked, and the boy reappeared in front of Lavi. He changed his direction on a dime, walking quite fast now without any regard of where he was going. The boy appeared at his side instead, saying, "Or, maybe, you just don't want to remember. And why? Oh, yes. Because it would hurt? Bookmen can't hurt, you idiot. Only you can." Suddenly, Lavi tripped over something, and he let out a sharp, "OH SH-". He flailed for a few moments, entangling his limbs with someone else's, until finally he was pinned down by two strong legs straddling his chest and a knife to his throat.

"Quien soy? Eh? Respondeme!" Esperanza snarled, and Lavi was pinned by an overwhelming sense of fear he'd never known. For that fraction of a moment, he knew without a doubt that Esperanza would've slit his throat then and there had she not restraint and mercy. And with this knowledge, he also inferred something else. When truly, verily angered... she would be a force of nature, one that could tear and rend apart with ruthlessness. The dejavu he had been experiencing suddenly made sense. Lavi knew why Esperanza looked so familiar.

She had killed hundreds of people, many of them innocents. She may not have done it herself, but she had facilitated and carried out some of those death warrants. One of them was almost Lavi's own.

"Esperanza... it's me," Lavi said quietly. The memory was a crystal clear gem that he could see from every angle and examine without difficulty. For that reason, he had tried very hard not to realize it. Now, it was inescapable. He had to face a truth he did not want to see about his new friend. For a moment, he was afraid that she might slit his throat anyways... but then, the pressure was relieved from his throat, and she climbed off of him.

"I am... sorry, Lavi. You should not sneak up on me like that. I could've killed you," Esperanza said without inflection. As always, she was deathly calm. Lavi sat up, and he looked towards her. Her lantern was farther off, and he realized why he'd tripped on top of her. She'd moved in her sleep away from the lantern, and he hadn't been able to pinpoint her - only her things that were piled near the light. He walked slowly over to her, and he sat down next to her.

"Esperanza, if I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?" he asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. Suddenly, he found himself slipping off the mask that was Lavi and putting on the one that was Bookman Apprentice. It was easier than he remembered it being these past few months. Perhaps it was because this subject hurt so much, and he could not bear to be so wounded. He had to escape that pain and put it somewhere else. Esperanza didn't answer after a pause, and she said, "All right. Ask me." He turned his head to look at her. She was just barely outlined in the incandescent glow of the lantern, her face in shadow. That made it easier. It dehumanized her and made the question easier to ask.

"Were you a bomber in the Guerra de los Gatos Montes?" he asked. He could tell that she had stiffened. The air was dead and still, as if the very air itself was waiting on her answer. The Bookman Apprentice waited patiently for her answer. After several minutes, she whispered, "Yes. I was." He knew that. He had known it the minute he saw her. What sort of person forgets a face that scarred and distinctive? He had been burying the fact because he had begun to like her, but partiality would pull him apart.

"Did you or did you not bomb a hotel named The Ennsdown?" he asked, and Esperanza's answer was pained.

"Yes."

"Why?" There was another pause.

"... I was angry. I was hurt, and I was angry. I was also young," Esperanza said, the inflection leaving her voice. Now it was just a thing that was speaking for her. Like Lavi, she was also putting on a mask, except instead of masking pain and fear, she was masking guilt and shame. There was a period of silence again, this one pregnant rather than dead. There were many things to be said, but neither of them knew how to say it.

"Did you know I was in that hotel?" he asked quietly. "Did you know innocent people were there?" He realized he was becoming too personal by asking if she knew that he, not they or people or white gentry or any sort of generalization, but he couldn't stop himself. It just came out of his mouth.

"Did you know that I broke my leg in three places? And that I ended up in the hospital for a week? Did you think about what would happen to those people in the hotel?" he asked, his words gaining venom. Esperanza turned to him, and she quietly stated, "I did know. I wanted to watch you all die. I wanted it to be slow and painful. I wanted you to watch your children burn, your legs crushed, your hands cut open. I wanted many things, amigo."

"Why did you do it? Why did you go and hurt people because you hurt?" he asked, putting on his mask again before it could slip off. He couldn't be Lavi in this conversation. Lavi was Esperanza's friend. He was her comforter and her partner in crime, he was her companion, and he... he loved her too much. She had thrown him a birthday party. She had taken good care of him. She had done so many things, and yet at the same time, she had hurt him in so many ways. To him, Lavi and Bookman Apprentice were two different people, but to her they were one and the same. That had to change. He wouldn't be able to face the truth, the one thing he was supposed to do.

Love is not a victory march. It is cold and it is harsh. It will break you when you least expect it.

"My father, my... my real father... he left my mother to die. He would not claim responsibility for her. He could not accept that he had a child by her and that he had loved her, because it was shameful in the eyes of those who he served and lived with. I... I was grieving. I thought my mother was going to die. I was angry because I had nowhere to go... Amigo, this is all the past. I have learned from my mistakes. Why must we bring this up now?" she asked, her voice trembling as she fought for control. The Bookman Apprentice stared into her, as if he could discern all her secrets and all of her iniquities, examine them at his leisure and imagine that she was nothing but another drop of ink on a piece of paper, inconsequential and therefore not worth his sentiment if she squirmed.

"One more," he asked. "Did you bomb a school?" He had watched that one. He had watched from a rooftop as fifteen people, all of them wearing black, dispersed in the rush hour crowd as people came to come and get their children. All of them had been white children, most of them of the poorer aristocrats that couldn't afford a governess. He had seen them surround the school, unobserved and unnoticed, when simultaneously they all threw something over the fences into the schoolyard where children were playing or parents were talking. Only minutes later, the bombs went off and there was nothing but death, ruin, smoke, and the screams of children as they held onto their dead parents or lost their limbs. Parents wailed over small, inert bodies. Teachers wandered listlessly in the smoke, tripping over dead children with looks of far off horror. In the streets, people had screamed, and the black jaguars that had so stealthily sneaked into their midst sneaked right back out.

"Yes."

An image of all the children at the house Esperanza had stopped by came to mind, and the Bookman Apprentice briefly touched on the fact that humans could be so uncaring as long as their ideals were met. He stood up, and he walked away without another word, leaving Esperanza to wallow in her own guilt and freshly overturned hurt. Perhaps she deserved it. Perhaps she didn't. It was not his job to decide. He only collected the information, after all.

"See? All better, right?" the apparition said in the dark where he couldn't see it. The Bookman Apprentice sat down on his bedroll. On the inside, he knew that what he'd just been told bothered him. Lavi was screaming out, knowing that his friend, one he'd shared stories, thoughts, a tent, and at one point a bed, was a murderer of men, women, and children. However, the Bookman Apprentice silenced those screams, muffling them so that they were bearable.

"Yeah. All better."

Their trek continued without words. The prisoner didn't make a single peep as he lead them, and both Esperanza and Lavi seemed to have suddenly fallen dumb. Their walk through the underground was tense as they scaled up and down ruins and blockages until finally, they came to a very large cavern. Springs bubbled, and it was beginning to get dark. The man whimpered something in garbled Spanish and English. Esperanza finally spoke for the first time that day.

"He wishes to go home. He promises not to return. His child was one of the hostages," Esperanza said in clipped tones, and Lavi only nodded to her. She cut him loose, and the man ran as fast as he could with all of the supplies he could carry back towards town. The two looked at each other. Once more, there was no buffer between them. Esperanza had noted the change in Lavi's behavior, and he had noted the sudden distance she'd put between them both. Still, it felt as if their very edges were rubbing together, becoming too close for comfort even in the short time it took for their third companion to leave.

"We should probably take a bath in the springs," Esperanza said. Lavi recognized the tactic. She wanted to get as far from him as possible. That was fine by him. It made things easier. Esperanza set down a lamp, and she said, "There's enough light from the hole in the ceiling that you can bathe without a lantern. I'll live this here so we know where to go to find each other."

"And if the Akuma come after us while we're taking a bath?" Lavi asked with a quirked eyebrow, slightly amused. Esperanza rolled her eyes.

"You really think they're down here? They're above ground. This cavern can't go far. We're near enough to the surface that light comes in very bright. We are close to the exit," she said. She put down her things, only rummaging for her clothes before taking off for the gurgling sounds of the springs. On the other side, there were more pools, and Lavi hesitantly began to wander towards them. He'd stripped down to nothing and gotten into the water when he suddenly realized he felt odd. The water was incredibly warm, almost scalding, and the dirt, grime, and wear of travel seemed to just slip off of him. As he relaxed, he reviewed all that had happened in the past few weeks. Everything was so... so topsy-turvy. He wasn't sure how he felt, but that was nothing new. However, there was a curious numbness in place of his confusion. He didn't really care if he couldn't make heads nor tails of how he felt about any of the people with whom he'd traveled.

All better now. The phrase rung in his head, and he slipped deeper into the water. He was either regressing or moving forward. He didn't know which. Before he knew it, though, he was slipping into another memory, as bright and crystal clear as the day it was made

and the day was fine, beautiful. Or at least, it had been. It was night time now. The hotel was a nice respite, but a Bookman could work anywhere with whatever he had, and it wouldn't affect him any different. That didn't stop him from thinking this was a nice place to stay while the War of the Wildcats continued. The papers had kept it quiet, and the government had kept it covered up as much as possible in order to keep up the city's morale, saying the bombings were actually faulty gas lines. Still, they knew the truth. Unruly, hurt, angry, frustrated migrant workers were lobbing bombs into white businesses and hotspots. There was no doubt of their target. He walked towards the window, looking out over Buenos Aires, or what he could see of it. However, as he admired the skyline, he noticed five to ten people running towards the building. In hindsight, he realized he'd been stupid not to have figured it out, but he had been young and was not yet seasoned enough to see danger where it lurked. Now, danger was at their doorstep. It was only when he saw the flash of a flame that he began to worry. "Jiji, some people are lighting something down there. I don't know what they-"

Lavi was jarred out of the memory by the sound of footsteps scraping rock. He quickly got out, drying himself as best he could with his dirty clothes before dressing in a new set. He picked up his hammer, suddenly suspicious. Any of the humor he'd had left in him was gone. That was either Esperanza walking somewhere in the cave, which was likely but, knowing her and her bathroom habits, scant, or there were people here, and in either case Lavi would've had to put on some clothes anyways. He definitely didn't want to be surprised while in his birthday suit.

The redhead carefully looked around. There wasn't much to see - it was getting dark. Clouds must have been gathering overhead, because the light was suddenly dimmed. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all. Kanda may be able to fight in the dark (he knew that for a fact - he'd had his butt handed to him when he woke him up without warning in a dark room), but Lavi was most definitely better at fighting when he could actually see his opponent. He heard a few grunts as well as the sound of something smacking flesh, and he hurried towards the noise. He stopped at the lantern that Esperanza had placed in the room as their sort of guide point to find each other, and in the darkness he could see someone approaching. The silhouette wasn't very tall, and he couldn't see much of their figure...

Esperanza stepped into the pool of light, wearing everything she had brought with her but a shirt. She was dragging behind her two unconscious men.

"There is one more. They startled me. I think there are more out in the cave, but they haven't found us yet," Esperanza said, dumping the two. Lavi stared at them both. There were no marks other than round bruises around their faces and necks. At least she'd taken them out without stabbing them. Lavi looked back over at Esperanza, and he blinked as he noticed that blood was slowly blossoming on her pants, trickling down her leg.

"Hey, you're injured," he said suddenly, kneeling down to get a better look. Esperanza was probably more surprised than he was, but she quickly said, "Uh, amigo, I'm not -" Lavi stopped a moment, and he looked up at her from his position at her feet. She looked sheepish, and Lavi realized-

"Oh." Of course. She was a woman, and woman did that... that thing every once a month where they turned into monsters that would eat anyone with a Y chromosome. Except... Esperanza hadn't shown any signs. That was particularly odd, considering he was used to the whole... scary woman type thing. Even Lenalee got a little testy, though she was still pleasant as ever, and Miranda just seemed to swing between deep depression and absolute euphoria. And Klaud... Lavi suppressed a shudder. He didn't even want to think about that. He'd gone on one mission with her. Nice lady, but definitely not a person to make enemies with. She wasn't a general for nothing. And a pissed off general with PMS and a weapon...

"Amigo, you can get up now," Esperanza said in a slightly amused tone of voice, "unless you want me to bleed all over you. I need to change. And these were my last pair of pants, too..." Lavi quickly stood up, embarrassed. He hadn't... hadn't meant to...

"The thought was nice, amigo," Esperanza said in passing as she walked into the darkness to change clothes. Lavi rolled his eyes - and then slowly thought about what he'd just done. He hadn't been thinking at all. He'd quickly just... kind of jumped to helping her, despite the fact she wasn't injured.

It was something he definitely would not have done two years ago. The Bookman habits were being broken, and he was suddenly afraid. He thought he'd fixed it. Never mind that, though. It was a small instance. He'd do better next time. He stood up, surveying what little he could see by the light of the lantern. He noticed figures moving in the dark, and then he heard the sound of a body dropping. It had come from Esperanza's direction, and Lavi thought nothing of it. She'd probably went and got the drop on another poor, unlucky guy.

There was the noise of pebbles being sprayed into water, and Lavi whipped his head around to follow the noise. There were shouts in Spanish, all from Esperanza's direction, and he realized that, perhaps instead of Esperanza getting the drop on some man, some man had gotten the drop on her. Just as that thought entered his head, something was launched his way. He didn't even have time to react as something heavy and hard hit him in the head dead on. He staggered backwards a few paces, confused and dazed as he tried to blink away the scramble of thoughts that ran around. Blood trickled into his eyes, and he wiped it off with a fuzzy glance. His balance was suddenly off, and he fell over. Blood poured out over his face as his heart beat faster, suddenly anxious and paranoid.

Just like that, he suddenly went out like a light. The last thing to go was his hearing. The final words he remembered before he completely blacked out were, "Kill her, keep him. He knows things."

Darrin watched as the sun slowly made it's way down from its zenith. High noon had come and gone, and now it was on its downward course towards the west. Clouds had momentarily come by, and for a moment or so it looked like it'd storm, but they never managed to clump that big. Darren patted his donkey affectionately as he stared up at the small, puffy clouds that looked like freshly picked cotton. He narrowed his eyes, squinting in the bright light as he stared at the sky.

"You've been waiting for hours," a voice said in another language from behind him, and he turned to glance over his shoulder. The old leader of the village stood behind him, a hulking tower next to a stump. Darrin shrugged, standing there near the mouth of the cavern. It'd been nearly two days. They had only enough supplies for a few hours. A man had come up from the shaft, sobbing and scared with limited oil and a small portion of food. He tried to speak, but he was too dehydrated and confused to say much of import. They were still trying to get his story out of him.

"Have you eaten?" the man asked, and Darrin shrugged again. The town leader looked Darrin over. He had always been gaunt and skinny, with a waxy complexion and that definitive, long nose. Now, he looked even smaller with the fatigue of sitting there, waiting patiently for his two traveling companions to come out of the ground. The man pulled out a long loaf of bread from a bag at his side. He'd guessed that the man had been sitting here for a while. He handed it to Darrin, and he took it without protest.

"I'm thinkin' 'bout goin' in after 'em. At this rate, they ain't comin' out. I don't got much choice, do I, Rico?" Darrin asked, his voice a dull growl as he stared into the blackness of the shaft. Little light shone down into it, and yet it seemed to almost glow. Rico frowned as he stared at the hole, the sound of children ringing in his head as they played behind them in the woods.

"Why do you go after them?" Rico asked. He had known Darrin for quite a while. They'd met several times when Rico had stayed in the Guide's Moving Village when money got tight. This was the first time Darrin had come to his village, though. In the time he'd known Darrin, he'd noticed that the man was usually pretty isolated. He liked his privacy and distance with people, and the few friends he had were far between and very close to him. Many were fighting the war in America, on one or the other side. They were guides just like him, and Rico had only ever heard of them before. However, he had watched that sort of friendship work between Darrin and his companions. At the least it was... surprising.

"Shoot, they owe me four hundred pesos and two cases a' whiskey," he said with a crooked smile, his rotten tooth gone, no doubt spat out at an earlier date. He waved to Rico lazily, and he said, "I'll buy them supplies off a' ya, and then I'll get a move on down there, see what I kin find. I'll come back in three days. If we ain't done by then, we's all dead as doornails anyhow." Rico smiled as the man walked away.

Something told him it was more than just the four hundred pesos and cases of whiskey that were drawing old, cantankerous Darrin into that hole in the ground away from the light, air, and his ever present donkey.

"Go get them, Mountain Man. Go get them."

First, he got his hearing back. He knew he'd heard voices, all of them chattering in the background. His sense of touch came back soon after, followed by the sensation of cracking blood as he frowned, his brow furrowing and breaking the crust of blood on his face. His sight was slowly restored, and he could make out blurry shapes. The iron taste of blood slowly insinuated itself into the rest of the information being relayed to his brain, and he finally smelled the blood on his clothes. He also noted the pain his shoulders, wrists, and ankles, seeing as he was tied in a rather uncomfortable position to a chair with his hands behind his back and his ankles to the legs of the chair. His first thought ran towards humor, wondering idly, I don't remember Esperanza being into bondage...

As his mind took a more serious turn, he figured that he'd been injured. He didn't remember how, but from the blood on his face he figured that a head wound must've been the culprit, which meant that he couldn't remember because of retrograde amnesia (which was fine by him - it meant that his body was the perpetrator on his memory, not himself). He took in his surroundings carefully, noting each scrap of detail. The tent was canvas, and it had two tables and a large, winged chair. No doubt, that was either for Dominguez or for Lulu Bell. He must be inside some sort of office tent. However, the ground was dirt, and the air was clear. All right, he was above ground. He wasn't surprised to find that Esperanza wasn't there, seeing as she was resourceful enough that if they'd been put in the same room, they would've no doubt have gotten out with their combined desperation and ingenuity.

Suddenly, Lavi heard the sound of a firing gun, and an icy ball clumped in his stomach. A sick feeling overtook him as he realized that, perhaps, they had not even bothered with keeping her separate. Perhaps they had only wanted her dead. He himself, however, was a different story all together. A Bookman knew information, important information, and to be in the hands of an enemy who knew that they had a treasury of knowledge on their opponent...

Bookman had only ever touched on this subject lightly. He had given Lavi the basics: don't talk, don't stare them in the eye, don't give anything away. However, he hadn't given him the techniques of going about these simple rules. Lavi had heard rumors from other apprentices during their brief stays with one another that sometimes Bookmen came back missing limbs, parts, pieces. Especially the ones who weren't careful. Lavi halted his thinking. The more he started dwelling on it, the harder it would be to conquer his panic. He had to find a way out, first. Right! First things first - get out of the chair. Second, get the hell out of Dodge. Third, try to find out where he was in the first place. Wait, wait, wait, maybe the second step should go before the third, but his main priority was to get away, yet he wanted to also stay alive and figure out a way back...

As he was wrapped up in his escape plan and the order it was supposed to go, Lulu walked in with a small man carrying a rather large case that was half as tall as he was. Lulu sat in the winged chair, and Lavi finally noted her. He looked up and momentarily sat there, still, as he stared into Esperanza's face. She had assumed her form... but for what purpose? She smiled fully, a predatory grin, and any doubts Lavi had about his partner being who she really was dissipated like smoke. Esperanza hardly ever smiled, and if she did ever smile, it wouldn't be the grin that was on Lulu's, or rather Esperanza's, face.

"What, are you shocked? I thought I'd take on a form you were more comfortable with. After all, I'm here to negotiate, not fight," Lulu said in suave tones. The voice was so disproportionate from the face that Lavi's brain had a hard time keeping up. He licked his lips before saying, "Negotiate?" They both knew that wasn't an option.

"Yes," Lulu repeated, "Negotiate." She waved to the little man, and the trim human bustled towards the table with his giant case. He hauled it up with a massive THUNK before opening it with a flick of the catches.

"Now, you do realize there are different types of negotiation, I'm sure, and that is why I'm offering you a choice." The trim little man with the curled mustache and bowler hat removed a rather large knife from the case.

"It's quite simple, really." Another knife, this one a serrated, shiny instrument of death, was laid next to the first with loving care.

"You can help us. Tell us whatever we want to know that's relevant." This time, a small mace that looked like a meat tenderizer was placed next to the knife. In fact it was a meat tenderizer that the man had loaned from the cook. Bits of meat were still stuck to it.

"Of course, you're going to do that anyways." The man removed a large pair of bolt cutters. Lulu waved her hand in a 'no' signal, and the man put it back.

"You just get to choose just what way you want to give up that information." The man pulled out a pointed chisel and a hammer. He held them up for Lulu to see with a look of inquiry. She nodded, and he placed the both next to the meat tenderizer.

"You can either tell us willingly with little trouble, or..." The little man clinically rummaged through his case before pulling out an entire belt of very, very small, no doubt razor-sharp, knives. He placed them across the table, the ends hanging off where Lavi could see the glint of a knife smile at him.

"You can go the hard route, and Mr. Naso will convince you on harsher terms." Three men entered the tent with a rack between them, and Mr. Naso directed them behind Lavi. Mr. Naso pulled out one last instrument, a piece of piano wire. Lavi forced down terror and the overwhelming desire to open his mouth and spew forth whatever information she wanted. He would not plead. He would not beg. At least... he didn't think he would do either. He swallowed, and he said, "Well, I only have a few words for you, then." Esperanza's eyebrow lifted in bemusement, and the familiar action sent a pang through Lavi that was hollow and unfamiliar. To see such an expression that had spoken volumes on one woman's face transferred to another's with so little thought as to its use...

"So, what'll it be?"

Lavi thought hard for a moment.

"Go screw yourself."

A/N: Aaaah, now we're finally getting to the plot. I have found it yet again! I'm sorry for the overload of angst and fluff - I know that can choke out a story. But please bear with me! Assure this is going somewhere.

Thanks again to Ella Unlimited, who submitted a fantastic review!... Wait, was that last chapter? ... Oh dear, I don't remember...

I hope you all enjoyed this story, and I should be posting again soon.

-Dr. Yok