Purity
Disclaimer: Because I'm really doing to be sued if I don't have this...
AN. There's an important message at the end of the chapter. Please make sure to read! Oh, and I re-did my other story call "Out with a bang." Twice as long now, check it out.
Eleventh Book: Settled In
A loud crash startled Kagome causing her to jump and clutch a hand to her breast. Spinning around fast she just caught the hand of Miranda as it fell behind her new cedar desk. Standing up on tip-toes Kagome was not able to quite see over the desk so settled back down on her heels and picked her way through the mass of boxes that littered her office floor.
"Are you all right?" she called.
Coming around the end of the desk Kagome spotted Miranda among the fallen papers, pens and other office supplies that Miranda had been carrying. The young lady did not appear to be hurt but the presence of tears made Kagome rush to her side.
"I'm SO sorry!" Miranda yelled, tears streaming down her red and blotchy face. She spun around and grabbed onto Kagome's out stretched hand that had been trying to remove the papers lying on top of Miranda's head.
"I'm such a klutz! I'll ... I'll clean in up!" She jumped up and grabbed one of the boxes off the floor. However, in her haste she threw off her already precarious balance and ended up tripping again. Sending the box and all its contents raining down upon the two girls. Kagome managed to dodge most of the hail of erasers and highlighters but poor Miranda ended up with the box over her head. Which was a good thing as it blocked the amused smile Kagome was unable to keep off her face.
Kagome slowly lifted the box from Miranda's head, keeping her actions smooth and voice low as if not to spook a frightened animal, or in this case a nervous Miranda. "It's ok, just calm down. I'm in no rush to have my office fixed up" She smiled and stood up, offering her hand to help the women up.
Miranda stared up at Kagome with what looked to be gratefulness and a bit of awe in her eyes. She quickly wiped her eyes and nose across her sleeve and accepted the helping hand up.
When both girls were standing, Kagome surveyed the state of her room. The fallen papers and boxes piled around her desk and the chaotic mess of furniture waiting just out the door, waiting for some strong young men to carry them to their proper places. Kagome started to laugh at the sight.
Miranda was confused. "Why are you laughing?" She asked timidly.
Kagome just looked over at her and smiled. "I just realized how much my office looks like Komui's."
Miranda turned to take a look and she too began to laugh. It wasn't really all that funny, but that wasn't the point of Kagome's laughter. She had been trying to ease the tension and nervousness that surrounded Miranda. It worked too, as they calmed down and got back to work Mirada was comfortable in her presence. With no more incidents Mirada's confidents grew large enough to try and start a conversation with the Order's newest recruit.
"Kagome?" She asked, turning to watch the mentioned girl. "Why do you have your own office? Not even the generals have one."
Kagome stopped placing her books on the shelves and turned around. "It's because I'm not like the other exorcists. My powers are neither defensive nor offensive. Besides a field medic, I'm pretty much worthless in a fight against an akuma as I can't destroy them. I'm more of a nurse, so this is kind of like my own little hospital ward." Kagome turned back around and placed the last book into its place. "That and I think Komui wanted to make up for Rouvelier's attitude, not to mention bribe me into staying in the Order." She mumbled under her breath so that Miranda couldn't hear.
"Oh that makes sense!" Mirada nodded and closed the desk drawer.
The two women looked around the room trying to find anything else that needed to be done, but besides a couple of heavy chairs and a long couch in the hall that Reever and Noise promised to move for her later today, Kagome couldn't find anything else to do. "Looks like we're done" Kagome said, walking to the middle of the room, dusting off her hands.
She turned to Miranda. "Thank-you so much for helping me, it went by a lot faster with two people."
"Nnn...nno problem" Miranda held up her hand in front of her, her face turned red with embarrassment. "I was just helping out, it was only the polite thing to do." She looked down and away from Kagome. Kagome smiled.
"Even so, thank-you" Kagome looked over to the clock above her shelves and notice it was around lunch time. "Do you want to join me for lunch?"
"Ah..." Mirada's face grew even redder then before. She stared down at the hard wood floor trying to hide her face behind her bangs. "I, err..." She turned around and started to stare at anything that wasn't named Kagome.
"Miranda?" Kagome called to the crimson women, "Are you okay?"
"Yee- yes" She stuttered, "It's just..." Mirada took a deep breath and rushed out the rest of her sentence. "I kind of promised Noise I would meet him in the gardens for a picnic lunch." Her voice rose in pitch at the end of the sentence making it sound more of a question then a statement.
"Oh, well then," Kagome struggled not to let the huge smile show on her face and tried not to make a big deal out of it. "I hope you have fun, maybe I'll see you at dinner?"
"Dinner... Yes! I'll be there!" Miranda almost shouted out of nerves. "I... um better get going if I don't want to be late." Mirada walked to the door and after a brief hesitation in the door way walked out and down the hall.
Kagome waited until Miranda had turned the corner farther down the hall before stepping into the hallway herself. As she waited she could not keep the girlish grin off her face. They made a good couple. Miranda needed someone calm and collected to keep her from panicking. Not to mention anyone dating her would need a lot of patience to be able to deal with her antics. Noise had all those easily, with some to spare. He would have to, to put up with Kanda all the time. Kagome snorted in mirth.
Thinking it was long enough and after calming down Kagome started on her way to the cafeteria for lunch. From the corner of her eye she spotted the long couch outside her door and a smile crept back up her face. She had found it in one of the unused rooms and had to have it in her office. It looked just like what one would find in a therapists office in her world.
Kagome shook her head at her morbid humor and continued down the hall. Hopefully there would be someone there she could eat lunch with.
~*~
"Sorry" Kagome said in reflex as she tried not to spill her tray of food. When everything was safe from taking a fall to the floor she lifted her head to look at the person who had carelessly bumped into her, without so much as an apology.
The man was big, huge actually. Sumo wrestler build with slicked back styled hair, what was odd was the fact that he had some sort of tattoo around his eyes, two distinctive dots on the forehead and pointed ears. In fact, Kagome took another look just to be sure, his companions had the same markings. Both the small girl and slim man have the same pointed ears, dots and tattoos. Their dress was different too. Instead of the black of the exorcists or the light brown of the finders these three were wearing a crimson uniform.
It wasn't just their appearance that made them stand out either. It was the way people reacted to them. Everyone got out of their way, and went out of theirs to avoid them. Just who were they?
"Koushi" The slim man turned and looked over his shoulder at Kagome but didn't stop walking. "That was impolite" The big one who had banged into her and who's name appeared to be Koushi just grunted and didn't even turn around.
'Well that was rude' Kagome thought. She looked around for a place to sit and spotted the back of Lavi's head. She paused for a moment not sure if she should join him. Kagome had no problem with Lavi. In fact she really enjoyed his company. He was hilarious to hang around with and always good for a long conversation, it was just when the two of them were alone and all his attention was directed at her that she felt a bit edgy. It was when they were alone that his other side, his Bookman side came out and the interrogation started. He certainly lived up to his clans expectations in all the subtle questions and conversation traps he added when talking to her. He was very good and if Kagome wasn't almost 400 years old he may have caught her in a lie about her fake back story.
No it wasn't that Kagome didn't want to join Lavi, it was just she was tired having to watch everything she said to the suspicious bookman-in-training.
She took too long in deciding. A large commotion from the front of the room attracted the hall's attention and Lavi turned around. She knew right when he spotted her too, his face broke into a grin and he lifted his hand up and yelled out.
"Kagome, Allen over here!"
Wait, Allen? Kagome spun around slowly to look behind her and sure enough, walking away from a venomous Kanda was Allen carrying enough food to stuff at least seven people. 'So that was what the commotion was' Kagome thought as she sat down in front of Lavi. 'Those two can never be in the same room without getting into a fight.'
"Hello Kagome, Lavi" Allen greeted them and sat down to Kagome's left. Link having already claimed the spot beside Lavi, much to Kagome's relief. Lavi never questioned her in front of Link.
Kagome's eyes jumped back up to Link. He was wearing a red uniform too. Not the same kind as the others but it was the same shade and he also had those strange dots on the forehead, those of a Crow, Kagome just realized. Kagome was not able to hold in her curiosity so asked the resident bookmen-in-training.
"Lavi" She started and waited until he was finished slurping up his noodles. He quickly wiped the tomato sauce from his nose. "Yes?" Kagome kept her head down and pointed with her chin. "Who are those people, the ones in the red?"
Lavi and Allen, who was listening in, turned and looked to see where she was pointing to. The three had settled down at the other side of the hall in the corner farthest away from where everyone else was sitting.
The boys turned back to face Kagome "Those are the third exorcists" Lavi said.
"Third exorcists?" Kagome asked looking back over at the three.
"Ya," Lavi said, he swallowed the rest of the food in his mouth. "There are three types of exorcists, first, second and third. The first type is your regular exorcists, like you and me, which are compatible with an innocence and use it to battle against the Earl and the akuma. There are also three sub types of the first level exorcists: weapon, parasite, which is what you have, and crystal, which only Lenalee has. The crystal is the evolved form of the weapon."
Kagome nodded though out the explanation. She had to hide a smile when Lavi said there were only three sub types. With the evolution of Allen's parasite there were now four types, the fourth Kagome had taken to call Guardian after Cross's comment the other day.
"Yes, I was told all that" Kagome said.
Lavi nodded and continued explaining. "The second type isn't much different from the first, at least to my knowledge. They also use innocence like the first but their healing rate is accelerated. Yuu Kanda is a second exorcists, I've seen him heal from wounds in hours that would take a normal person days."
Again she had been told all that and more from Cross. Cross also didn't know all the details but he knew more than people thought and definitely more then what she was just told. Needless to say both of them were happy when the Order stopped with the experiment. It gave her shivers just thinking about it.
Kagome looked over to where Kanda was eating his Soba noodles. 'To think, the Order had wanted to kill him,' Kagome internally shook her head, 'and people wonder why Cross hates it here so much and why I've never wanted to join.'
She turned back to Lavi, who had been watching her actions with a careful eye. "What about the third exorcists?" Kagome asked 'Cross never mentioned anything about the third type. I wonder if he knows.'
Lavi dropped his voice a bit lower. "They don't use innocence,"
Kagome started, "How can they destroy akuma if they don't have innocence? I was told that it was the only thing that could."
"No there are two things," Lavi looked uncomfortable and kept shooting looks at Allen. Allen kept his head down and mouth full, showing no signs of wanting to participate in the conversation. "Innocence and other akuma"
"Other akuma?" Kagome asked, hoping this wasn't heading where she thought it was.
"Third exorcists are half human, half akuma. They use the dark powers of the Earl to destroy akuma. Those three," Lavi tilted his head over to them, "along with two others are the first of their kind. They were once Crows."
'So much for hoping' Kagome thought, 'and just when I had thought the Order had learnt its lesson after the massacre that happened nine years ago. Damn, it sounds worse this time too. What the hell are the heads thinking. This is going to blow up in their faces. What's going to happen when the Earl gets his egg up and running, he's going to have more control over these half akumas then we are. Do they really think that leaving them half human will change anything? Cross and I have already tried this when we convert akuma to our side but we still have to plant bombs in them because they can never be controlled for long.'
Kagome clutched her hand into a fist beneath the table and tried to continue the conversion and not show her anger. Kagome opened her mouth to ask what a Crow was but was interrupted by Link.
"I thought that Komui was supposed to tell you everything about the happenings of the Order." Link patted his mouth with a napkin and placed it on his finished plate.
Kagome took a deep breath and let all her anger wash from her, she turned to him and nodded "He did, he just couldn't go into much detail at the time. He had gotten an urgent call from a finder, something to do with administration, I believe."
"So, what is it that you do not know" Link asked, "Do you know about the heart, the Noahs," Link glanced at Allen from the corner of his eye. "The 14th "?
Allen and Lavi froze in their meal, both of them holding their breaths to what her answer might be.
"Yes, I was told all about the 14th " Kagome said.
From the corner of Kagome's eye she saw Allen stiffen. His fork stopped half way to his mouth dripping the contents onto the table. Allen's eyes were wide open, staring unseeingly at the far wall. Eyes normally so fun with humour and innocence clouded over with fear and heart stopping pain before they slowly closed. Allen swallowed once, opened his eyes and started eating again. This time, however, his eyes held a firm, anguished resolution.
He shifted slightly in his seat, a seemingly trivial movement but with those with as keen of perception as Kagome it was as if he had jumped up and raced to the other side of the hall. No physical distance was created in the shift, but mentally, emotionally... It was larger than the Grand Canyon.
He was trying to distance himself from her, trying not to be hurt from how he assumed she was going hate and fear him.
No
He was distancing himself so not to hurt HER. So his very presence wouldn't upset her.
Her heart ached.
Lavi also noticed the increase in tension and tactfully didn't comment. He went back to his meal, keeping his one eye on Kagome trying to see if she had noticed Allen's reaction and what she would do if she did.
Kagome also went back to her lunch choosing not to comment but lifted her hand and placed it softly yet firmly on Allen's knee. His eyes widened again and he stared at her hand as if it was about to attack him. After nothing happened he turned wide, unbelieving eyes to stare at Kagome. She just looked over at him and gave him a small smile and a wink before turning back to her food with one squeeze of his knee.
Allen too, went back to his enormous meal. One could see that a huge wait had been lifted from his shoulders just by how he proceeded to attack the mounds of food in front of him. Through the rest of the meal, Kagome never removed her hand.
As she was getting up to out her finished plate away, Kagome bent over and used the motions of helping Allen clean up his mess to whisper into Allen's ear.
"If you ever just need to get away your welcome to just come to my office and crash there. I may even be able to help you. I don't know what I can do but my powers may be able to help."
Kagome lifted her hand from his knee and grabbed his hand.
"Allen, you're my friend first, above all other things. Whether you're an exorcists or a Noah never forget that you have people who love and care for you." Kagome gave the hand one last squeeze and turned to collect her plate. With one last wink to a teary eyed Allen, Kagome walked out of the cafeteria and towards her room.
Once in the hall, Kagome shook her head. She knew she shouldn`t get close to them but, 'Allen reminds me so much of Shippo, it just brings out the mother it me.'
Kagome slowed down her walk and rubbed her eyes, she was dreading the phone call to Cross she was about to make. They would have to find some way to stop the Earl from completing that egg so that more people wouldn't die from the Order's stupid mistakes.
~*~
It should have been a happy occasion. They should have been celebrating the re-birth of the newest Noah into the family but a twisted, heavy apprehension was still felt within the family. For some reason the Earl was not happy, not it the least. In fact he had been gnawing at that cloth for days now and not even the extension of the family was enough to cheer him up.
He even stopped paying attention to Road and that just made her down right mad and when Road got mad, well as you can see there was a lot of stress within the Noah family right now.
Tiki leaned over to his older brother and whispered in his ear, trying not to draw any attention from where the Earl and the rest of the family were trying to have a polite family dinner. "Do you know why the Earl has been in such a bad mood?"
Sherrill winced and shot a quick look at the Earl. "We've been having... financial problems as of late"
Tiki stared hard at his brother and was forced to try and keep his voice down. "Financial problems? What do you mean financial problem. You're the minister of a country and the Earl has loads of financial partners."
Sherrill winced again and motioned for Tiki to keep it down as his voice had started to rise at the end of his rant. "I know but I'm in the middle of a war which takes a lot of money, so it's been hard diverting it for our uses."
Okay, that makes sense but... "What about the Earl? His clients bring in most of the money"
Sherrill looked over at the Earl and chewed on his lower lip. "Recently we've been getting a lot of letters from our backers saying that they want to..." He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood "well, back out."
Tiki fell back hard against his chair attracting a look of repulse from Lulu Bell. He stayed still until the hag looked away. When she finally turned her attention back to her glass of milk, Tiki turned back to Sherrill. "Do you think anyone has found out that the Earl's been lying about what he's been using the money for?"
Sherrill shook his head. "No, I don't believe so. The letters were all very polite, no threats. They just decided to pull out." He brought his hands to his temples and started to rub them, hoping it would strive off a headache. "It's not the Orders doing, we have no clue what is happening or who is doing this."
He reached out a grabbed onto Tiki's collar bring him even closer so that no one could overhear. "It's gotten so bad we had to stop production on the egg."
Tiki's eyes grew in disbelief. "You had to what!" He hissed. He gaped at Sherrill, turned and gaped at the Earl, turn once more back to his brother. He swallowed "No wonder the Earls been it a bad mood."
"Not to mention we still haven't destroyed the heart, or killed any exorcists lately. I've even heard that the Order has found a new exorcist with the ability to heal a couple weeks ago" Sherrill said releasing Tiki and going back to his meal. Tiki gulped and settled himself down, trying not to remember the disaster he and Road made during the ark. He brought his hand up to his chest, the wounds Allen gave him still stung.
~*~
AN.
Sorry for the long wait. This was a hard chapter to write, mostly because it is kind of a filler chapter. Nothing really exciting happens just setting up some things for the next chapter and noting the passing of time so I was having trouble getting the motivation to write. The lack of reviews didn't help either...
About Kagome's rant about the third exorcists, okay a bit OOC but she`s flipping pissed so I don`t think it's all that unbelievable.
IMPORTANT: I've decided to re-vamp the plot. Because of apparent lack of interest of my part, I've decided to cut out about 2/5 of the story. It won't truly change much. It mostly dealt with a huge pet-peeve of mine in the manga/anime (I'm making Cross deal with it now). I had to change Kagome's power slightly. (The very last clue is now wrong, but I think the others still fit) but it will be revelled a lot sooner, as in the next chapter! (Sorry but it's going to be a bit anti-climatic) There is a large clue in the last chapter as to what it is if you can't wait.
The one major change would be that the mysterious forth person with an evolved innocence no longer exists (and no this was not going to be an OC.) Sorry, it's just the three of them now. If you do want to know what I was planning and who the fourth person was send me a message and I'll be happy to tell you.
I am also wondering what I can do to improve my work. This is my first major writing piece, so I challenge you to write me one or more things you wish I would do better. It could be anything to wanting more of a character to wanting more scenery descriptions to wanting fewer questions and more answers. Not looking for flames, just some helpful advice from fellow readers and writers.
Next chapter will hopefully be up a lot sooner this time. Look forward to a lot more of Cross including more information about Cross's and Kagome's past. The problems with the Noah family will be explained and finally the revel of Kagome's innocence powers!
Next time on Purity:
Twelfth Book: ????