Unrequited Love

Kapitel 11: Sleepless Night

A/N:Holidays are almost over. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Disclaimer: If I stop my habit of procrastinating, do you think Yuki Amemiya would give me all the rights to 07–Ghost?

Kapitel 11: Sleepless Night

I woke up with a bad headache. I sat up and winced at the effort.

'What happened?' I wondered.

I lifted the blanket off my body and my eyes widened at the sight awaiting me. I gasped. There were scars covering my entire body, though they were starting to heal.

'How in the world did I get these?'

I didn't go out last night and I wasn't careless enough to get hurt randomly. I don't pick fights that I know I won't win, so how did I get them? Eventually I reached the conclusion that the other being residing in me must've taken possession of my body whilst I was unconscious.

My legs wobbled as I sat on the edge of my bed. My walk unsteady, so I did a round of the room around the room after I got dressed so that I could regain my balance. It wouldn't do if I were to be seen hobbling around. After I was confident and satisfied with the way I walked, I retrieved Mikage, who was still sleeping, from the bed and left the room to go to breakfast.

After breakfast, I was taking a walk with Teito in the garden. When we got tired of that, we sat down. I looked at Teito and noticed a collar around his neck which I didn't notice before. My brows furrowed in suspicion as I noticed that they were also used in the military. This didn't go unnoticed by Teito.

"Yumiko, is something wrong?" he asked me. I slowly nodded.

"When did you get a collar around your neck?" I asked. He was slightly taken aback by my question. He laughed nervously.

"I didn't expect you to notice it," I looked at him with doubt.

"Liar." He was surprised with my response. He sighed and showed me the collar more clearly. My eyes widened from surprise.

"But Teito, isn't that a-" I was cut off by Teito.

"Yes, it is a promise collar, Yumiko," he confirmed. I just continued to stare at it.

"But how did one end up around your neck?" I asked him curiously. He winced. It was definitely from remembering a bad memory.

"When Mikage came, he was being controlled by Ayanami…" He said quietly, hesitating at the end, wondering if he should continue or not. When he said 'Ayanami', I swear I could hear some malice in his voice. There was silence for a few seconds. The silence continued for a while longer before I broke it.

"It's fine, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to," I told him. I noticed how he still seemed reluctant to mention anything to do with Mikage's death, so I diverted his attention to something else about the collar even though I wanted to know the details.

"So, who's you master?" I asked curiously. Teito's face screwed up.

"Frau."

I burst out laughing.

When night came, it was full of shock…and horror.

A scream was heard throughout the church, waking up all the residents. I ran to the door of my room in my nightgown, hair hanging loosely around my body and slammed the door open in time to see Teito and Hakuren approaching, panic visible in their eyes.

"What happened?" I asked, confused at the sudden eruption of panic.

"A prisoner was found dead," Hakuren informed me. My eyes widened.

'A murder? On church grounds? Who would do such a thing? Aren't all the prisoners here seeking refuge and have already repented? Why would somebody kill one of them?' Many questions were whirling around in my mind as we approached the entrance to the church. There, we found the nun who had screamed. She was the first to find the corpse and her hands covered her mouth as she tried to prevent herself from throwing up at the grotesque sight before her. There were murmurs circulating all around us. I stared at the figure bathed in his own blood lying on the floor. It brought back unpleasant memories for me, memories I'd rather forget, and I clenched my hands into fists and quivered. I glanced at Teito and saw him looking at the church roof. I looked up at the roof but there was nothing there.

"Is there anything wrong?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. I looked at him unconvinced. His expression disagreed with his answer.

The area was starting to get crowded so we left.

"What did you see?" I asked him.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you saw something, Teito. It's written all over your face," I said. Just as I was going to continue interrogating him in hopes of getting an answer, Hakuren interrupted and started dragging Teito back to their room. I watched as they disappeared from view before I turned around and began walking.

'Talk about bad timing, Hakuren,' I scowled. Mind going back to the prisoner's corpse, I decided to go pay the bishops a visit in hopes of discovering more about the incident. If I didn't, I was probably not going to sleep easily tonight knowing that there was a murderer on the loose.

I crept silently down the corridor, but the echo of my footsteps gave me away. I soon found myself outside the door leading to Frau's room, the only room of the three bishops that I knew since Teito had dragged me here to confront Frau about finding porn amongst the books he had given Teito. I knocked and waited for a reply which came shortly after.

"Come in."

I opened the door and peeked inside. To my surprise, Castor and Labrador were in there as well. I gave a quick glance around the room and my eyes soon landed on the coffin with a bunny girl alarm clock. I froze on the spot. I then began to slowly close the door.

"Where do you think you're going, miss?" Frau said as he placed his foot between the door and the doorframe. Suddenly I was heaved off the ground and thrown onto his shoulder. I began to panic and told him to put me down.

"Be quiet. We don't want to wake up everyone, do we?" he said in a gruff voice. I squeaked at how compromising it sounded, but ultimately went quiet. He kicked the door shut and dumped me on the bed. A girlish squeal escaped through my lips. I glared at Frau.

"That's not very gentlemanly," I told him he shrugged. I sighed and sat up straight. As soon as I was in a comfortable position, I looked up and met the eyes of the three bishops. I stared at them and they stared back.

"So, what do you want with me? You seem like you expected me to come," I said, crossing my arms in front of me.

"Well, Labrador had a premonition that you were coming tonight," I arched my eyebrows and looked at Labrador.

"You can tell the future?" I asked him curiously. He nodded.

'He is Profe and of the Krat bloodline. Surely you've heard of how those with the Frat blood can foretell the future?'

I started at the voice who returned to my head. The bishops gave me confused looks which I ignored.

'Why are you awake?' I asked it.

'Since you are currently alone with three of the Seven Ghosts'

"Wait. You're telling me that these three are three of the Seven Ghosts?" I mumbled aloud. The voice didn't reply. Then I realised my mistake, I had said the last question out loud. The bishops gave me looks of astonishment.

"How did you know that?" Frau asked harshly. I began to panic and was going to explain when all of a sudden I blacked out.

"Wait. So you're telling me that these three are three of the Seven Ghosts?" asked Yumiko in confusion to someone not visible in the room. Labrador tensed. 'How did she know that?'

Yumiko then snapped back into reality.

"How did you know that?" Frau probed Yumiko. She started to panic. The next time she blinked, her eyes bled into molten gold.

"Who are you?" Castor asked cautiously. Yumiko smiled happily.

"It's been a long time hasn't it? Profe, Zehel, Fest." greeted the possessed girl cheerfully. Seeing the wary faces of her fellow entities, she sighed. "You seriously have no idea who I am, do you? It's me, Muriel."

Frau swore under his breath.

"No wonder Yumiko knew all that information about heaven," Labrador said.

"Exactly, my Mistress knows the stuff I know. It comes with the package of being born with me," confirmed Muriel with a nod. "She still has no idea who I am though. I quite like her, though she does have her negative traits."

"Well, what are you doing on earth, Muriel?" Castor asked. Muriel looked at him for a moment before answering.

"Well Fest, as you know, I was Eve's best friend. I came here against the Chief of Heaven's wishes. Since I came here of my own accord, It takes a while for me for me to awaken. I usually awaken with the first time my host encounters danger after puberty, it's been that way with all my previous vessels," Muriel rambled before realising they were getting off track. "Anyway, the reason I descended from heaven was to search for her soul and to bring it back to heaven, as well as to protect it from…Verloren."

"Why would you need to protect it from him? Didn't he love her? Or at least that's what Yumiko claimed," Frau said. Muriel sighed.

"That's the problem," Muriel said woefully, "When he realised he inadvertently killed Eve; Verloren's sanity spiralled out of control leaving him insane. Surely you've heard of how he's searching for her soul? He wants to reunite with her, but doing so will taint it and prevent her from ever returning to heaven."

"So you're trying to find Eve's soul and retrieve it before him so he won't taint it," summarised Labrador. Muriel nodded with a sad expression

"She really loved him – used to tell me about him all the time. I also met him a couple of times at her insistence. They were good for each other, though she indirectly caused his…defect," Muriel told them.

"Defect?"

"Yes, his defect, it's highly contagious and causes those who come in contact Verloren to turn black like mud, both body and soul," Muriel informed. "It infected himself too. I'm sure you know that Verloren was meant to be a perfect being, completely immaculate; however, he had a flaw which caused his defect."

Muriel stood up and walked to the window and watched the scene outside.

"He was created without emotion as feeling them would interfere with his job, but Eve not knowing this went and encouraged him to feel – and successfully might I say," as Muriel went on, their eyes began lowering drowsily as they began to grow unconscious. "As much as I'd like to stay and chat, I've run out of energy. It's quite hard to take over your host's body when you've just awaken and your host is conscious and you so without their consent. Talk to you another time…"

As Muriel finished speaking, their eyes fluttered close and Yumiko's body slumped against the wall.

"Well, we weren't quite a lot, didn't we?" said Castor as he stared at the roseate-haired girl's body.

"Gah, I still can't get over whether Muriel is a guy or girl!" Frau said as he ruffled his hair.

"Muriel is androgynous, you idiot," Castor told his friend.

"I think it's safe to refer to Muriel by 'she' though, since her vessel is female," offered Labrador with a smile.

"Anyway, Frau, take her back to her room," Castor ordered.

"Fine, doll-freak," Frau grumbled as he heaved Yumiko over his shoulder again.

A/N: For people who've read this before, you'll realise that Muriel's personality is way different from before J (and just saying, Muriel was not the one who caused the scarring that was mentioned at the beginning of the chapter…)