Blood. There was blood everywhere.
Not even human blood, Tyki thought, distaste curling his lip.
Blackened demon blood stained the floors, the ceilings, crept up the fibers of the curtains, spattered the chandeliers. The House of the Earl was positively festooned in slowly disintegrating blood and entrails.
Tyki cleared his throat. "Something the matter, Hakushaku?"
Lulubell, standing regally beside him, cut him a frigid glare, no doubt warning him not to disturb the Earl in his...state. But at this point in the game, Tyki just wasn't inclined to care.
The Earl was, at that very moment, talking to a demon servant. Or rather, he was waving one of his gloves in the servant's face, asking the same question over and over, as he had been for the past two hours: "Where are my white gloves? Why is it that you cannot find me a pair of unstained gloves? Hmm?"
"Hakushaku-sama, I will—"
Crack!
A spurt of black blood, and then a gurgle. The demon servant — bereft of its head — collapsed, and the Earl's gloves became darker still.
"Impertinent creature!" The Earl shrilled at the oozing corpse. "You would dare to betray me? You would soil the very hands which crafted you?" The Earl laughed. Or sobbed. Tyki honestly wasn't sure anymore.
"Where are my white gloves?" The Earl addressed a new demon servant that had come to replace its fallen brethren.
The servant bowed dumbly. "Right away, Hakushaku-sama, I will—"
Crack!
Tyki grimaced. He felt nothing for the demon servants. They were practically animals anyway: no emotions, no reasoning, no essential value. But it was still a terrible waste to kill so many.
"Um," Tyki hazarded again. "Hakushaku, maybe you could take a break from...this...and discuss what exactly we're going to do now that we've lost contact with Road—ow!" Tyki hissed in pain as Lulubell ground the stiletto heel of her boot into his toes. "Jesus, Lulu, I'm just trying to figure out what our plan of action is—"
"Shut up."
This time it was Tyki who glared at Lulubell as the blonde readjusted her sunglasses and resumed observing the Earl with a stoic disposition.
The pool of black demon blood had spread, and it lapped at the tips of his boots. Tyki grimaced and attempted to scuff the blood away, but Lulubell merely stood vigilant as the black fluid caked her heels. The pile of slowly disintegrating corpses now reached shoulder-level. The Earl's gloves were irreparably black.
The same inane question: Where are my white gloves?
The same absurdly docile response: Of course. Right away. Yes, Hakushaku-sama. I will—
Crack. Splat. Done.
Tyki had honestly never seen him do something like this. Sure, he'd seen the Earl do unspeakably cruel, grotesque, and vile things. Horrifying things. Dastardly things.
But this...this was just insane. It achieved nothing, amounted to nothing, revealed nothing. The Earl had been this way since two hours ago, when that first demon servant had come to him bearing news none of them ever expected to hear. Two hours ago, the Earl had rested a chin on his pristine white gloves, no doubt readying himself for some update on Road's position, or perhaps news that the exorcists had been wiped out by his demon forces, or even that they had found the Heart and their side had won without a hitch.
But instead, the demon reported: "Hakushaku-sama, I am here to relay information from Lero-sama."
Lero? What, Tyki had wondered, could that idiotic umbrella have to tell the Earl that Road couldn't tell him herself?
The demon continued its message: "Lero-sama has requested to be returned to this dimension, on account of being discarded by Road-sama."
"Discarded?" The Earl had asked. There had been a funny note in his voice that Tyki had never heard before. Beside him, Lulubell shifted from cat-form to her human-form, wearing an expression Tyki could only interpret as 'grim.'
"Yes," the demon said. "Lero-sama asks that he be returned to you, Hakushaku-sama, so that he may report Road-sama's deviation from your orders."
Deviation? Every word out of the demon servant's mouth had been a new blasphemy. Withholding information, shirking responsibility, deviating from orders—it sounded like bloody Jasdebi. Well, at least before that poor scoundrel got killed and Debitto became the Clan's first retiree, he thought. Tyki scowled, about to inquire into what the hell exactly was going on, when Lulubell shushed him for what would be the first of many times that day.
Something upsettingly close to anxiety began to build in Tyki's stomach. Anxiety and confusion.
Road was capricious, not rebellious. She would often go about a mission in her own way, eschewing predictable or efficient courses of action in favor of those which afforded her the most entertainment, but she always got the mission done. She never abandoned a task without first discussing it with the Earl. And for as long as Tyki had been a Noah Clansman, he had never seen Road disobey the Earl.
While Tyki struggled with unfamiliar emotions, a kind of shimmer had begun to emanate from the Millennium Earl. Tyki wasn't quite sure if he was seeing it, or merely sensing it, but the shimmery feeling made his scalp tingle uncomfortably, and then his cigarette abruptly fizzled out. Lulubell murmured softly beside him, "Tyki don't ask anything about—" just as he opened his mouth to say, "Hakushaku, there's a strange aura around you."
The shimmery 'aura,' which had now turned his cigarette to dust and made Lulubell's hair begin to frizz, was — Tyki now knew — the distilled and visceral manifestation of the Millennium Earl's fury. Haplessly, the demon had continued its message: "Lero-sama also wishes to communicate Road-sama's decision to rescind all contact with the Noah Clansmen and Hakushaku-sama until further—"
Crack!
Still with that smile on his face, still with that unsatisfied gleam across his spectacles, the Earl had wrapped two gloved hands around the demon servant's neck and twisted until its little star-emblazoned head had popped off.
That had been the first demon.
Now, hours later, the Earl had only grown more hysterical, his motives indiscernible to Lulubell and Tyki, who watched, spellbound, as their master seemingly grappled with insanity.
Road had to have had a reason for doing this, Tyki reasoned. Cutting off all communication with the Noah could have been to somehow protect herself from the exorcists, or to protect the Clansmen and Earl themselves. Perhaps Road had been overcome somehow — a surprise legion of exorcists, some kind of new Innocence technology, the appearance of a General exorcist — something unforeseen which had caused Road to abandon her orders.
And perhaps Road hadn't abandoned her mission at all; Lero was an overtaxed, dysfunctional idiot umbrella who could have easily misinterpreted a simple change of plans as Road going rogue.
But something about the Earl's systematic beheading of every demon servant within the House of the Earl, and the grim set of Lulubell's mouth, made Tyki think that somehow Road's actions bore an uncanny and unsettling resemblance to betrayal.
"She did what?"
The villagers who had crowded around the medic hut abruptly went silent and fled, leaving the two exorcists on duty at Rebecca's location (Lavi and Krory) to face the platoon leader's wrath.
Krory looked ready to dissolve into a puddle of tears and sweat and unadulterated fear at Kanda's expression.
"K-K-K-Kanda-sama, I'm s-s-so sorry-"
"SORRY?" The ground beneath Kanda's boots suddenly crumpled, his Innocence blazing to life at his hip. His pitch dropped to a low, shuddering growl. "You're sorry that you let the unbelievably reluctant Heart Innocence-carrier drug you and then escape into the Blind Lands where currently there are thousands of demons waiting to destroy her, and us, and every shred of hope this godforsaken world has left to offer?"
"Yuu—" Lavi began.
"Or are you sorry because your baffling and astounding incompetence is rivaled only by the sheer magnitude of how fucking dead and screwed beyond repair you've left us all!"
"Kanda! That's enough." Lavi clapped a restraining hand on the exorcist's shoulder. "It's my fault too. I was patrolling the village when Krory told me—I should have seen her escaping."
"You're goddamn right it's your fault too. How hard is it to keep track of one little girl in the smallest village in the middle of nowhere?" Kanda wrenched out of Lavi's grip.
As soon as the communicator in his ear had crackled to life half an hour ago, Kanda had known it was bad news. Ever since he'd given the communicator earring to Allen, in fact, he'd felt sick to his gut, an intractable sense of doom hanging over his head. Was it the right choice, trusting Moyashi like that?
He had been patrolling the five-mile radius of the village with Marie, and when the communicator sounded in his ear, Kanda was sure it was because someone on his platoon had spotted Allen, never mind that Kanda had made sure that he was always on duty closest to the beansprout's patrol area, ten miles out.
But when Krory's timid voice came whining through the speakers, Kanda's already leaden guts sank further. It was much worse than Allen being discovered. Krory was assigned patrol duty in the medic hut, tasked with staying by Rebecca's side at all times. For him to be using the emergency frequency on their communicators...
"Goddammit." Kanda swore, tearing Mugen from its hilt. "Goddammit all to fucking hell!"
Kanda raced back to the village, shouting into the communicator the entire time. He was responding on the emergency frequency Krory had put out, so all of the members of the platoon should have heard him - including Allen. Kanda just hoped the little traitor used his common sense and wouldn't use that moment to announce his presence to the rest of the platoon over the frequency.
Once he finished verbally dismantling Krory in person, Kanda raked his fingers through his hair. He had to figure out what to do. Lavi had abandoned his patrol of the village to meet with Kanda and Krory in the medic hut. Bookman had also left his post at the front gate to assist Marie in the field after Kanda left. That left Lucas on lookout at the front gate, Marie still patrolling the five-mile area surrounding the village, and Allen ten-miles out hopefully doing the same.
According to Krory, Rebecca had given no sign that she had been intending to escape all morning. She'd even escaped the notice of Lavi's observant eyes when he had been assigned to her earlier in the morning. All Rebecca had done was organize the herbs in her cabinets (not removing or preparing anything), check up on her Innocence in its locked container (again, not removing it), and chat amicably with Lavi before his shift was over. As soon as Krory had taken up his watch, Rebecca kindly offered him some sweet-smelling tea and insisted that he not overtax himself, since all of the exorcists still seemed a little haggard. Then, Krory had recounted, he found himself in the throes of a deep sleep and hadn't woken for another two hours later.
The first thing Kanda had done when he reached the medic hut was check the locked container with the (supposed) Heart inside. An old brass lock stood no chance against an enraged Kanda and his Innocence, and as he, Lavi, and Krory peered inside none of them were quite shocked to see that the container was empty.
Rebecca, and the Heart Innocence, had disappeared.
"There's no way she was kidnapped or lured out," Lavi reasoned. His hair hung wildly over his eyes due to his bandana being lost en route to the village. "All our defenses and security have been focused on keeping enemies out of the village, not allies in the village. Even if someone had infiltrated the gates, we always had two exorcists inside, one physically watching the girl at all times. The key here was the sleeping drug Rebecca willingly gave Krory."
Kanda grit his teeth together. He had thought that if his platoon focused on protecting her precious village, then Rebecca would give them her complete cooperation. He'd even explained to her that staying in the village put it at greater risk for demon attack—the only reason they remained was due to the surrounding demons. Rebecca had been reluctant to come with the platoon back to the Order, sure, but he hadn't thought that she would run away when they had decided it was too dangerous to travel with all of Europe's demons amassing on their doorstep. It was still two more days before the exorcists could hope for a breakdown in the demon ranks — whereupon the thousands would hopefully become merely the tens when they devoured each other and became Giant Demons — and thus fathomable to take on.
Kanda cursed and tangled his fingers further in his mess of a ponytail.
That stupid little girl was going to get them all killed.
"It is possible," Lavi continued. "that Rebecca was taken by the Noah from inside the hut. One of their Clansman can open up doors in different dimensions and spin illusions…"
"The Noah shouldn't be a problem," Kanda muttered under his breath, thinking about Allen's promise. Lavi's gaze snapped to his, expression darkening for a moment.
"Well," the redhead continued. "It's highly unlikely that that's the case. If the Noah knew where Rebecca was, there would be no need for a ruse. We'd probably just be already dead."
The three exorcists contemplated that in a moment of silence.
"We have to find her," Kanda seethed. There was no other option.
Kanda flung his gaze around the hut, searching for clues or anything that would point to where Rebecca had gone. The least she could do was leave a goddamn note or something. An arrow made of twigs. Something.
He grabbed at his ear, pressing down on the transmission button of his earring and all but shattering the device. "Marie! You and Bookman get back to the village. Regroup with the others and then you two will lead a search for the girl. Lucas, keep lookout at the gate, but don't under any circumstances leave the village. If you see demons approaching, fall back into the gates and use your emergency frequency immediately. Lavi—" He addressed the red-haired exorcist even though he was standing right in front of him. "When Bookman and Marie reach the village, communicate everything that we have just discussed, and decide who, between Krory and yourself, will accompany the search team and who will remain behind with Lucas in the village. Given the circumstances," Kanda scowled. "I can't say I recommend Krory to go on the search. But it's your goddamn life, and technically you're under Bookman's jurisdiction."
"Where are you going, then?" Lavi asked, noticing that Kanda had left himself out of the orders.
Kanda grimaced and tightened his grip on Mugen. "I'm heading out now, to the ten mile reach."
"What—Why would you go out alone? There are a billion demons out there!"
"To search for the goddamned Heart of course. And," he sighed. "For backup."
"Backup?" Going by Lavi's expression, the Bookman-in-training clearly thought he'd lost it. "There is no backup. We're miles away from getting any signal to the Order, and sending out an envoy with this many demons would be suicide."
"I'm going for backup," Kanda repeated, voice steely, in a tone that brooked no argument. He couldn't explain everything...not now...Not on a hunch. "And by the very last dregs of my hope, I'll find some."
Outside of the village gates, Kanda switched his communicator to a private transmission. If he fucked this up, there was no hiding it from the platoon. Everyone would be alerted to the fact that Kanda had given a Noah and an official Kill-On-Sight traitor to the Dark order a communication device. Kanda thumbed the earring to what had goddamn better be the correct transmission and growled into the speaker.
"Moyashi, where are you?"
...
A/N: Yikes. Another two years. I really have no excuse other than 'life' and floundering motivation, but hopefully this chapter redeems me a little. It's a pretty short chapter, but it gives a little background knowledge about what's going on while Allen is out in the field. I know I've kept saying that there are only a few more chapters left, and here we are with another chapter that ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, but seriously...I've written out pretty much the end of the story, and all that's left is filling in a few blanks and editing it all.
I can't thank you readers and reviewers enough for sticking with me, and with each review it really does motivate me to continue. I'm a little out of practice writing for this genre, so let me know how I did!
Obviously I'm in no position to promise anything, given my track record, but I'll try my best not to make it another two years before I update! Thanks, and hope you enjoy!