(2,316 words) I would have finished this in three days, not five like I actually did, but I've been obsessing over Vocaloid. So blame Len. He's so god damn frikken Kawaii.

I hated writing this chapter, it's not fun unless someone's dying. And yeah, again it starts with a flashback. Gives a reason for Se-chans Leukophobia.

Disclaimer: I no own this.

Deceiving Love

Chapter 10: Useless

"Naww, it's not your fault, your daddy's just been a stupid little asshole. Kay kiddie?" A black haired girl giggled sadistically, grinning at the face of the petrified child in front of her.

The memory played so clearly behind her eyes, at that point in time it had been her worst memory, now it had been replaced by many. Nether the less it had left an irreversible scar.

A man whose name she could not remember had pissed off Crescent in some way or another, she hadn't been bothered to remember what he'd actually done; it was a story all too common. Mel had been ordered to deal with him, and that was how this situation had started. The raven haired girl had dragged her along to watch, she hadn't particularly wanted to, but she had been given no choice.

Mel had killed the man, and without a second thought murdered his whole family to go along with it. His wife had gone first, for she had tried to protect him; then his son, then his daughter, and now his youngest. She was tiny, no more than five. She wore a white sundress, had darling big blue eyes so full of fear and silver hair brushing her shoulders tied to the side with a ribbon. The girl's appearance in the last seconds of her life was an image burned into the back of her head.

"Please, don't hurt me!" she begged in her childish voice, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Too late girly, far too late for that." Mel smirked; she placed a hand on the kid's shoulder to keep her down, even though she was already tied with ropes to the chair.

Mel picked up a white bottle, its contents impossible to tell, but it was soon revealed not a second later as she tipped it into the child's mouth. The white liquid poured down into the gaping mouth forced open. The kid's eyes had turned into a waterfall, as she shook and gurgled on the contents. For one second only did she seem fine, until Mel brought the bottle away with a dark expression present. Almost immediately after the girl's body begun convulsing violently and blood was painfully coughed up, spilling from her pink lips. It was unsettling, watching it all occur in front of her, without doing a thing to stop it, or even wanting to.

She knew the girl didn't deserve it, given a choice she would have made her live, but watching the death transpire in front of her, was exciting. And she knew that despite Mel knowing the five year old had done nothing wrong and that a girl no less than ten stood behind her watching in silence; she couldn't care less.

The sound of a bang snapped Serah from her daydream. She shook her head to get the remainder of the memory out, it came back constantly in her dreams, but it had been a long time since she'd been stuck thinking about it whilst awake.

She had no teaching to do, so she was hanging near Snow and his group for the day. They were helping fix up a house that had been attacked last night. The security around the settlement was being tightened so this would stop happening, but for now it remained a common occurrence. She didn't have a clue what she could do to help as she'd never helped before with this kind of work, but she was attempting to make herself useful as best she could; unfortunately that usefulness amounted to nothing but passing things up to those who were in a position too high up for them to even go near the ground.

She was standing a clear distance away from the wall that had fallen down, as she'd been commanded to earlier. Snow and Gadot were currently passing up planks of wood to a woman standing on the roof, so she could fix the part of the roof that had fallen down as the wall was smashed. She was lean and graceful on her feet, deadly sure of each movement she made. Much more useful to have than her at the moment, Serah frowned as the darker side of her mind had a sudden yet massive urge to destroy something. It didn't matter if she couldn't help here; she could do other things much better than some people she knew. Even though for most those things most of the people that knew her had no idea about it anyway.

The watched as Gadot helped lift another person to stand beside the woman; he was short so his lack of weight made there no chances of him making a hole in the roof. They were nailing down new planks; the area had been damaged in such a way that fixing the roof before the wall was actually easier. So far today all that had been done besides the current happenings was that the area had been cleared of gravel, chipped stone and shattered objects.

So to be honest besides the two on the roof, no one had been very useful today either. Ari found that highly amusing because the people deemed as useful were being about as useful as the one deemed useless. But Serah knew to keep that thought quiet, it seemed so uncharacteristic of her to think something so harsh.

"Oi, Pinky!" The burgundy haired woman cupped her hands around her mouth and called out.

Serah jumped being so unexpectant of it, she was beginning to think people had forgotten she was there.

"Y…yeah!?" She asked hiding the slight shock she was feeling.

"Can you pass me that there?" She pointed to an object besides the pink haired girl, who looked to see it was a box full of nails. They must have run out.

"The nails?" She called to confirm.

"Yeah, need some more kay?" Was the reply.

She nodded and picked it up, not overly surprised that it was much heavier than it appeared. She huffed and brought up the hefty object off the ground. It took a painful minute to reach the building but she got it there. Snow took it off her and lifted it up to the waiting woman standing on the edge above him.

"Thanks pinky." The woman grinned happily before getting back to work. She had been calling Serah by that nickname all day.

Serah rubbed her left arm; one of the nails had been poking out and had made it extremely uncomfortable to carry over. Snow noticed her expression and couldn't help but ask.

"Hey are you alright? It wasn't that heavy was it?"

His fiancé tilted her head up to look him in the face after staring at her dirty palms, she hadn't realised that box had been such a mess until this second.

"I'm fine, there was a nail sticking out, which kinda hurt. Frankly I think there's more reason to be bothered by this," She showed her palms, covered in dirt, giggling just a little.

"I guess so," He looked back up to the workers on the roof. "You can go back if you want you know, you don't have to keep waiting about here. We're fine."

Her expression changed to hurt but by the time he looked back she had hidden the pain back inside; she hated being made to feel like she was useless. So to hide her true thoughts she put on a sickenly fake smile.

"Kay, I think Lubreau already went back so that's someone to talk to." She beamed and twisted on her heel to leave. The faster she left the better, she felt like she was suffocating under her lies in that moment. She'd break if she continued.

"Bye," She waved without looking back, so no one would notice the tear rolling down her cheek. Snow said bye as well, and must have waved too knowing him. He had probably realised she had been hurt, that was why she didn't take one look back. She'd have to say, out of everyone she knew, he was number 2 out of who knew her best. Sure there was a whole side of her he had no idea about, but he knew enough to know how she felt when she couldn't help, how she felt when she realised she was useless.

Heh, she didn't even like being near Mel any more when it was just them. Because then she could slip into her real personality without worrying. And frankly, after everything that had happened, she preferred the fake one.

Lightning was at the GC HQ, her patrol had just ended. She reported back and with nothing more to do she was walking out with the intention of returning home. Unfortunately she rounded a corner too shapely and too fast and ended up bumping into a person heading in the opposite direction.

"Ouch." The man complained as he knelt down to pick up the items he'd dropped.

Lightning bit her lip, annoyed at herself for doing something as stupid as that, and when she did something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. It was much smaller and different to the forms and other sheets the man had been carrying. A spark of curiosity led to her kneeling down and picking it up, it was an old photo of a little girl, with raven hair and big green eyes with her hair tied up with a humongous red ribbon. Frankly she looked scared.

The other only noticed after he'd gathered everything up, that she was holding it.

"Oh Farron?" He said from surprise, Lightning looked up from the picture she was holding. She'd seen him before. She'd first thought it had been a stranger she'd run into.

It was the same man that had asked for the information about the serial killer a whiles back; she was having trouble remembering his name clearly, but it was something along the lines of David.

"Um, sorry sir you dropped this." She held out the photo, slightly embarrassed over it being someone she knew. But her being her she wasn't going to show it.

"Uh, thanks, I forgot that had even been in my pocket. Thanks." He took it from her hand and put it in his chest pocket.

Lightning nodded, not giving a verbal response, she would leave but simple curiosity stopped her from doing that and she couldn't help but question,

"Sir, who was it in that photo."

"The girl?" He inquired, not quite expecting the question, "She's my sister."

"Your sister?" The next sentence had slipped out, she hadn't had it in mind to say it; it was only that the picture didn't appear that old of a picture, and the man before her was clearly in his forties at least.

He picked up her thoughts from her quizzical expression, "Well my much younger half-sister actually. I'm pretty sure she'd be about your age by now. I haven't seen her in years since…" He froze with his last sentence.

Despite trying to hide her emotions and keep her plain soldier face, she was having trouble not letting out her curiosity of what he was talking about. Something must have happened to this girl, because from what he was saying she could guess he hadn't seen her in a very long time.

"Sorry for stopping like that, it's not a thing I talk about often." He dug out the picture from his pocket. "Her name was Melissa by the way; I wouldn't even be able to tell you if she was still alive though, I haven't seen her since she was three. My mother was angry about her divorce and how quickly my father remarried and as insane as it might sound; she killed my father and his young wife before kidnapping Melissa. Nothing was ever found from either of them."

W..what? Taking into account the man's seemingly unaffected expression, such a thing would be the last option one would dare think of. The word shocked was nought more than a severe understatement right now.

David blinked in surprise like he'd suddenly remembered something he'd forgotten. He put a hand to his chin deep in thought, "Did I perhaps say too much?" He seemed confused if anything. From the looks, he was a little on the dense side.

"Maybe." He concluded, still not overly sure of himself despite the expression he'd made the other show.

He blinked again like he'd remembered another thing, "Well thanks again for picking up the picture, I really do have somewhere to get to so I'll be going now." He gave a slight wave of his hand before striding past her like nothing had happened, so Lightning decided to do the same.

But just before she was out of earshot he called out to her, "Oh, Farron, one thing I remembered just now. I know you've nothing to do with the investigation, but considering earlier events I'd think you'd be at least curious. I was informed earlier that the killer struck again, bringing the total up to 11 victims. And this time the attack was far more violent than her previous attacks." He finished and without waiting another second for a reaction, walked off.

But she didn't turn around anyway, so he wouldn't have been able to see her reaction even if he'd stayed. Lightning felt sick in the pit of her stomach, so she couldn't help her next sentence.

"Little sicko."

Lightning's hard for me to write, it sucks. I think it ended up worse than usual because all I'm thinking of is Kagamine Len.

Review and I'll give you a cookie, jya ne!

~Serah Villiers Valentine