10/69

69 Ways # 10 - By Making A Mess

._.

Green paint covered the floors of the men's showers at the Black Order. One stall in particular was covered in the substance, from the handles to the walls and to even the ceiling. A group of four stared in horror at this one particular stall; there wasn't a single spot in that area that hadn't been left untouched.

"And so?" Kanda took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Why must we clean up the mess that old drunk made? Shouldn't he be the one doing this?"

The mop in his hands nearly snapped in half.

Komui smiled reassuringly but backed away several steps.

"No, not we," he corrected Kanda. "You three. As in Kanda, Socalo, and Allen are required to clear the disasters in the shower area for various reasons. Cross is busy with a separate assignment because otherwise you guys would kill him," he continued while slowly moving around the corner. "Have fun and remember to clean everything!"

They could hear the sound of a door being shut and then footsteps running down the hallway in the opposite direction.

"I guess we should get started," Allen said as he put on a pair of gloves and picked up a bucket of clean water. "This first stall isn't going to clean itself."

Kanda's mop snapped in half. Socalo didn't say anything as he got to work.

"I can't believe we have to do this," Kanda snarled. "Why should we clean up that guy's mess?"

By that guy, he was referring to Cross Marian.

"You got stuck with community service after you got caught lying about not trying to kill Cross," Allen reminded him. "I believe you got stuck with having to do a hundred good deeds."

"How was I supposed to know there would be cameras there," Kanda frowned and muttered to himself. "Hundred good deeds my ass."

He didn't mention anything about the agreement about revenge-taking, but Socalo sent him a disapproving look for being more concerned about getting caught than he was about actually attempting to murder someone. Since Cross's student was present, they didn't discuss this matter (it was better if he didn't get involved at all) and instead glared at each other silently.

"I'll take care of the floor and ceiling," Allen changed the subject. He wasn't aware of the growing tension at all. "Can you two clean the walls?"

Socalo and Kanda grumbled to themselves. They quickly turned around so they wouldn't have to face each other, while Allen brought in a stable ladder so he could reach the ceiling. It became crowded with the three of them in the cubicle, but they managed with what space they were given.

As he got to work on removing the paint from the ceiling, Allen decided to continue conversation without knowing how awkward it already was.

"So, Socalo, why are you here?" he asked. "I'm here to make money so I can pay off Cross's debts."

That reason was far worse than either of theirs.

"Still?" Socalo was surprised. "Well, I got sent here because I put tossed buckets of red paint into one of the stalls here."

Allen just happened to look down into the neighboring stall, which had been the victim of Socalo's random act.

"…"

Only…

Chaozii Han was lying face-down on the floor in the red paint.

He wasn't moving.

"I-Is that so?" Allen nearly dropped his cleaning supplies in shock. He quickly looked away from the crime scene. "You should… go ahead and clean up that stall first, right?"

Allen was wondering how long Chaozii had been lying there. Or why Socalo hadn't been thrown into prison and why he was being punished with clean up instead.

There were a lot of things wrong with this scene.

"No, clean up would be faster if we worked on these spots together," Socalo shook his head. "We can split up after we clear the worst areas."

"If that's the case, we should be working on that stall first-" Allen started to say, but cut himself short when he caught sight of what was in the other neighboring shower.

Howard Link was lying face-down on the floor in a mess of yellow paint.

He wasn't moving, either, and he was covered in bruises.

"ACTUALLY," Allen's voice raised with his panic, "I think we should be taking care of another suspicious stall around here!"

No longer concerned about the green ceiling, Allen rushed down from the ladder with his cleaning supplies. He set them aside as he broke down the door to the stall, but was soon distracted by the arrival of one more person.

"Hey guys," Lavi greeted. He was carrying a mop of his own in his hands. "I got sent here to help clean up because I splashed some paint into one of the stalls here. Why are the rest of you on clean-up duty?"

Allen looked at Link, who was covered in yellow paint, and then he stared at Lavi while under the impression that he had been the culprit.

"By any chance, was the paint yellow?" He didn't want to believe that Lavi had begun to follow in the footsteps of General Socalo, but he understood why the bookman junior might want to beat up the inspector.

"No, it was blue," Lavi answered. "I didn't like the color of the walls so I tried to change it like everyone else was doing."

He passed by them without even giving the unmoving bodies a single glance so he could start to clean up.

"Then who did this?" Allen was saying, when one more person walked through the door.

"Oh, so I wasn't the only one assigned to clean up duty," Lenalee said with surprise. Carrying both a water-filled bucket and a mop, she walked in the temporarily closed-off shower room and joined their group. "I was sent here because I beat the sh*t out of Link. What are you guys here for?"

Allen nearly screamed.

"You're not even trying to hide it!" he cried out. "And what about the yellow paint? Don't tell me that was you, too!"

Suddenly, Link raised his head.

"The yellow paint was me," he managed to say. "When I saw everyone else doing it… I thought it was required to take a shower here…" *

Then his head dropped, indicating that he had become unconscious once more. The inspector immediately lost any respect that he had from Allen, because the white haired exorcist closed the door on him so he wouldn't have to see his face.

Allen went to go clean up the blue stall since that one didn't contain a "dead body." He didn't check to see if Chaozii was alive (which he probably was) and he didn't question anyone else in fear of uncovering other murders.

Lenalee and Lavi went to clean up the yellow and red stalls while Kanda and Socalo finished up the green one. They worked in silence for a good thirty minutes and removed the majority of the paint from the room.

It was just as he was finishing his self-assigned area that a red liquid from another shower began to reach into his. Allen looked out to see if there were any new arrivals at the door.

No one showed up to confess to murder or stupidity.

"Did someone spill a red colored paint?" Allen called out.

Lenalee passed by while dragging Link's body (covered with a towel for decency) out of the stall. "No, but maybe Lavi got some of the red paint from Chaozii nearby your area?"

Allen tried to ignore the body that left a yellow trail behind it.

He didn't check the floor for a path of red, either.

Just as he exited his stall to investigate the source of the invading paint, he heard the sound of running water in a cubicle nearby. Still refusing to look for a trail of red, he went over to the stall and knocked.

"Um, excuse me," Allen said to the person inside. "The showers here are closed right now. You have to go somewhere else."

There was no response. It can't be Chaozii inside, he thought. There's no way Lavi would let a dead body sit under running water.

He wouldn't do that, would he?

"Excuse me," Allen called out again. "You have to leave."

Once more he was treated with silence. He looked to the others to see if he should go ahead and open the door.

"Do it," Kanda said. "The water is going to interfere with our clean up."

Everyone else agreed, and Allen got ready to open the door…

But he didn't.

"What if it's a naked person?" he asked hesitantly.

Kanda rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll do it," he said. "I'm sure that someone just forgot to turn off the water…"

He forced the door open.

"…"

As the door had opened too violently, it came off of its hinge and could not be used any longer.

Meaning that they could not close the door after seeing what- or who- was inside.

"Kanda, is this another dead person?" Allen questioned.

"No, it's just an idiot."

Tyki Mikk (thankfully wearing clothes) was inside the stall with his clothes splattered in white paint. Oblivious to the two behind him, he was using the shower water to fill up a bucket while he phased through the water so he wouldn't get wet. Beside his feet was a closed bucket of white paint and a brush.

"But he's transparent," Allen argued. "I think his ghost came back to haunt us for all the horrible things that we've done to him."

For example, convincing him to shave his head bald.

"I'm sure that he's just being stupid," Kanda responded. "We can kill him if no one has any objections. He's the enemy; murder would be an acceptable solution for this type of situation."

Tyki was muttering to himself as he waited for the bucket to fill. He tapped his foot against the ground, checking a watch on his wrist impatiently as time passed.

"It would take only a second," Kanda insisted. "And he is on enemy grounds."

Allen stepped in front of Kanda to prevent him from murdering the Noah before them. He shooed his fellow exorcist away, but only managed to get him to stand three feet back. It was far enough.

"Tyki," Allen said over the noise of the shower. "What are you doing here?"

Tyki seemed to hear him at last. He took his eyes off of the bucket momentarily and nodded a greeting when he saw who was speaking to him.

"I'm cleaning out the stall next door so I can finish the rainbow someone started earlier," he answered. "Whoever it was messed up and painted it red instead of white, where the clouds we supposed to be."

Of course Tyki would think they were making a rainbow.

Of course someone had to go there.

But-

Did he say that there was another mess?

Allen slowly turned his head to the floor. Red water was moving across the floor and it was moving over to where he had been cleaning.

"… Excuse me for a moment," he said to Tyki.

Knowing he wasn't going to like what he saw, Allen braced himself as he opened the neighboring door.

He wasn't ready for what he saw.

"Oi, Allen, is everything okay?" Lavi asked after a few moments of silence.

Allen didn't respond. He closed the door, shook his head and walked away until he was out of the room. He didn't come back.

"Someone stuffed a bunch of debt collectors in there," Tyki said when he had gone. "That same person also knocked them out with a watermelon. There's bits and chunks of fruit all over the floor. I wonder who would try to paint the stall red with a fruit? That's just a waste of food..."

"I think we all know who that was," Socalo commented.

The signs all pointed to one man.

"Let's not clean up that stall," Lavi said. "It would be in our best interests to just stay out of that one…"

"Can we leave?" Lenalee yawned. She was tiring quickly of clean-up. "I'm sure we can convince my brother to make Cross clean up the rest."

"Clean up?" Tyki echoed. He looked outside of his stall and saw that the "rainbow" had been washed away. "Well, now I have no reason to be here. I guess I should take my leave."

"Yeah, leave," Kanda glared dangerously at the Noah. "And don't come back."

With no reason to continue painting, Tyki turned off the shower, knocked over the water-filled bucket and phased out of through the floor with his ability.

"…" Lenalee stared at the floor Tyki had gone through. "Um, aren't the women's showers just beneath here?"

As she said this, there were several high-pitched screams from the floor below them.

"If he wasn't on enemy grounds before, he is now," Kanda said. "Leave him be."

They all left the showers while ignoring the pile of bodies in the stall and the shouts from the women's room.

It wasn't their problem, they decided. Someone else could clean that up.

._.

*The naked person in this chapter is indeed Link.

We'll get to the Lenalee vs Link thing later. She did have a motive, but it wasn't a very good one.