Chapter Fourteen- A Change In Missions

Lenalee was staying in a café in another town, not too far from where General Yeegar's traveling carriage was situated, and where a heinous crime was just committed a few minutes ago.

She was just enjoying a cup of coffee with a finder who had come with her on her mission, when suddenly she dropped her cup and it fell on the floor where it shattered into little pieces. And being an Asian herself, she knew that this was a bad omen. She was going to pick it up when suddenly a voice from her golem told her that her brother wanted to speak to her, and that it was urgent. Sighing, she forgot about the shards of her cup as she grabbed her golem and walked to the nearest phone. She wired her golem to the device and connected to her brother's office's phone, where he answered with a solemn tone which was very uncharacteristic of him.

"Lenalee, do you still have your finder with you?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then I need you to bring him with you when you come to where General Yeegar is staying. Don't worry, it's not far. You have to go there as fast as you can."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"It's the General. He was attacked by a horde of akumas and the white haired boy with two Noahs…"

Lenalee arrived on the scene a few minutes later than she expected. She would've arrived there earlier if she had used her Dark Boots, but that meant that she would have to leave her finder and it was Komui's strict orders for her not to leave him behind.

But instead of seeing the horde of akumas, the white haired boy, and the two Noahs, what Lenalee saw made her blood run cold.

The General was suspended in the air, his body only held by his own chains to a tree. His body was filled with wounds, but she couldn't observe his state any longer to see what other kind of monstrosity was done to him, and Lenalee thought that he was dead.

She fell on her knees, mourning deeply for the kind General. Once again, another part of her world was taken away from her. She swore that she wouldn't let the people who had done this to get away with it. She swore that she would avenge him.

Lenalee looked to her right when she saw a flash of black, and found herself staring at Elin Faust's exorcist uniform.

The girl was just standing there, without a tear in her eye, or any sign that she had been crying. She was probably absorbing what was in front of her, but her face remained emotionless and gave no sign that she was taking it worse than Lenalee was.

"General Yeegar was assigned to train me back when it was my first year."

It took Lenalee awhile to realize that it was Elin who had spoken after not hearing her voice for more than a month. Realizing that the younger girl was probably suffering more than she was, she told herself that she had to be strong for Elin, and she stopped crying to stand up and to hold her in her arms, where the girl remained still.

Lenalee wanted to shake her, and ask her "Why aren't you crying for him?" but she didn't and proceeded to hold Elin tightly. But she made no move.

Lenalee and Elin froze when a chilling song erupted from the lips of the allegedly dead General.

"The Thousand Year Duke is looking...

He's looking for the Great Heart...

I didn't have it...

Who will be next?"

General Yeegar was rushed to the European branch, where he was examined by the doctors and the nurses. They reported to Komui and the other worried exorcists that the General was alive, but his time was soon going to end and that there would be no hope for him.

Lenalee had used up all of her tears, and none trickled down her cheek when she wished that it would. She wanted to thrash around, scream, kill more akumas, seek revenge, but her feet held her in Komui's office, and she was enslaved by her own body. She couldn't contain her sadness any longer.

Her eyes drifted to Elin, who was in the room as well.

Lenalee started to get worried, noticing that the girl still refused to grieve. She wanted Elin to release all of her grief, cry, cling to somebody, as long as she didn't pent it all up inside her. For some reason, Elin was holding out, and she remained unopen to her new family.

"Also," The Head Nurse spoke and all eyes turned to her. "The General is still singing about the Earl and some 'Heart'. Other than that, he refuses to answer to our questions and to speak. What does it mean, Supervisor Komui?"

Komui, in turn, sighed and turned away from all those present.

"The Heart that he is talking about is the Heart of all Innocence. The Heart is the strongest piece of Innocence fragment, and it can either strengthen or break all the other fragments. And once the Heart is discovered by the Noahs and destroyed, the other fragments will be destroyed as well. It is so strong that during the first war, it was able to defeat the Earl. So we and the Noahs are racing to find it first, because it has the ability to control the outcome of this war. And if it falls in the hands of the Noah…we can all assume that they will obliterate it without hesitation, and we would be helpless against them. And because of the General's song, I concluded that the Earl is starting his search for the Heart, and is targeting the Generals first because they are very synchronized with their innocence fragments and are in possession of many innocence fragments as well."

"The Generals." Lavi said, deep in thought. "So this means General Yeegar is the first but definitely not the last victim. Where are the other generals?"

"Speaking of which," Komui turned to face them all again. "The Generals are in separate places all over the world, and they are only accompanied by a couple of finders. General Yeegar was often accompanied by a lot of finders, but it didn't seem to be enough. So I'm sending you exorcists out on missions to find the Generals, and bring them here so that we may give them protection. All of the exorcists in our branch will be divided in groups for each general. I will alert the other branches so that they may take action as well."

"So…the four of us are supposed to look for General Cross Marian and bring him back here." Lavi addressed Lenalee, Elin, Krory, and Bookman who were left in Komui's office after everyone had left to resume their activities.

"You stupid pupil," Bookman whacked Lavi's head. "After all those years that I wasted educating you, you still can't count properly? We're five, idiot."

"Oh. Really? Oh, yeah, you're with us. I didn't think that pandas were included–"

Lavi's statement led to another Panda-punch by Bookman.

"Anyway," Lenalee said to stop the two from further fighting. "Did anyone bother to ask my brother where we should start to look for General Cross?"

A few slaps were heard as some of the exorcists face-palmed themselves after realizing that they had forgotten a very essential thing.

"Nobody worry too much," Lavi said, laughing nervously. "Komui's not going anywhere unless Lenalee does. We can always ask him anytime. He's just there, sleeping among his paperwork, dreaming of a worse Komulin than the one he made the day before, or thinking up ways to ruin Lenalee's day."

"I can't see brother anywhere in the Order." Lenalee sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

The five of them were now sitting together in a table in the cafeteria, eating their lunch and trying to plan on what they were going to do, and waiting for somebody to say that they'd asked where Cross was.

But none of them had talked to the Chief, much less see the man. And that was rare. Usually, Lenalee's older brother was cooped up in his office, doing nothing or preparing to cause trouble. He only got out of there if ruin-Lenalee's-day-plan was in the process of being done, or the Order was facing crises and Komui knew enough to perform his role as Supervisor for once.

It was more likely to be the latter, since Lenalee was sitting rather peacefully among some of her friends. Sure, she was still grieving about the General who had died a few minutes ago due to the severity of his wounds, but she forced herself not to look as upbeat to seem like she was taking it head on for Elin, but the girl was still as mute as a…well, mute.

Lenalee also noticed that the girl looked in the distance, oblivious to what was happening around her. Specifically, the food fight that was ensuing between Lavi and Bookman after another episode of "The Stupid Pupil and His Old Teacher Called Panda."

The green haired exorcist was starting to get tired of their fights, really, but no matter what she did she never managed to even put a commercial break or a pause button.

The Panda and the Rabbit were two very cute animals, but Lavi and Bookman started to make Lenalee doubt it.

She never did get it why Lavi called Panda a bookman, –er, Bookman a panda– and why Bookman called Lavi a rabbit.

With Bookman's case, it might've been because of the dark circles around his eyes, and with Lavi's case it might've been with his naturally energetic demeanor.

But Lenalee didn't really know these two too much, so their nicknames must've originated from something that happened in their past.

Anyway, Lenalee thought. Why am I beating myself up with thinking about their nicknames for each other? I'm supposed to be thinking about brother!

Right at that moment, Komui appeared in the cafeteria, and everyone in the vicinity turned to look at their Chief.

The man was gasping for breath, his chest rising and falling heavily. He dashed to Lenalee's table and dropped his hands on the table, leaning on it for support as he regained his composure.

"There…has been changes…regarding…(cough cough) your mission due to an emergency, my sweet Lenalee." Komui said between deep breaths. "If you would just kindly do a favor for your beloved and precious brother, I'd like you to ask all of the exorcists to come to my office at once."

Komui gave Lenalee a killer hug before rushing back out of the cafeteria.

The others blinked twice at his retreating figure.

"I'm sure you would have done what he said even without his egocentric words." Kanda said, appearing beside Lenalee and scaring her out of her wits.

"Oh, good you're here Kanda." She bowed down to him as a sign of respect. And to avoid from him getting irritated. "So I don't have to repeat brother's request?"

"Tch, I'm not deaf."

"Of course you're not."

Kanda tch'ed again before turning to leave and proceeding to Komui's office.

Lenalee turned to her other companions, and raised an eyebrow for them to get the message.

"Yeah, yeah," Lavi said, getting up from his seat and beckoning to the others to follow him. "We're going."

After they left, Lenalee headed to where the other exorcists might be, and told them her brother's order. And when she was sure that everyone had gone, she dragged herself to her brother's lair, wondering what Komui had been talking about.

"So far," Komui said as he stared at a clipboard with a rabbit design on the back. "Only General Froi Tiedoll has responded among the generals, therefore we only know his location. There has been no reply from General Winters Sokkalo and General Klaud Nine."

Then Komui added in a glum tone: "Of course, we don't expect to hear from General Marian Cross," and all those in the room sweat dropped.

"Well, what does that have to do with our missions?" Lavi scratched his head, but he keeled over when Bookman kicked him on his stomach.

"Useless thing! I should have known that your knowledge is wasted! Of course our lack of information means that we have no idea where to go to find the generals!"

"Oh."

"Anyway," Komui cleared his throat to get their attention again. "The finders are reporting that a huge number of akumas were spotted heading to Barcelona, Spain, and in a few days General Tiedoll will arrive there with only two finders and no one else. They will be left to fight alone against hundreds of akumas without any type of real help. Therefore I need all of the exorcists present to head to Barcelona and protect the General at all costs, since we do not want what happened to General Yeegar to repeat. After this, you will all return to your designated missions. But for now, we must do all we can…"

"…because General Tiedoll is next."

I was checking the spelling on this chapter, when my computer deemed Kanda's name was spelled wrong, and it insisted that it should've been "Panda". (Fell off my chair when this happened to me...)

Patrick the almighty observer, Thanks again!

~PLEASE REVIEW~ :D