Camellia sighed to herself, laying across her bed as she often was, staring up at the notebook she often wrote in, held straight above her head by her short arms. "I'm bored…" she said to herself, lowering her arms to place the notebook over her face and splaying her arms out across the bed. "I need to get started or else I'll go insane from the waiting…"
However, she knew that she would just ignore that thought. She had been planning to 'get started' for months now, since her last attack, but she knew that there were too many variables to dive in recklessly. She had none of Mr. Pointy-Teeth's spies or intelligence network, she was all on her own, so she had no idea what was going on in Hiro's group.
"Tsubaki's Game…" she said, rolling the name on her tongue. "Idiot…" She rolled over on her side, the notebook slipping off her face and opening to a random page.
She blinked as she stared at the page, before smiling softly. "Why am I so obsessed with you?" she asked herself, looking at the surprisingly detailed full-page drawing of Nakamura that couldn't have possibly been made by a 6-year-old's hand. "Why do I even care what Mr. Pointy-Teeth does? It didn't affect me until I went after you...so why do I still continue to plot against you? Why do I want your head with such a burning passion?"
She didn't understand. She'd killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people before, of all different races and planets. She had lost track of how many lives she'd ended, though she was sure Deviluke had a complete, detailed list of all her victims.
She'd never spent more than a few days on a victim. She was a psychopath and well aware of it, but her serial killer tendencies would usually vanish if she failed to kill a victim within a week - which had only happened once or twice in her long career.
Her attempt to kill Hiro had been eight years ago. So why was she still stuck on him? Why was every thought in her head and every page on her notebook so fixated on killing him?
And why did she care? She'd never thought twice about one of her victims before, so why, now that she'd failed so dramatically, was she able to wonder why she did what she did?
Maybe it was this body. She'd never taken on a host so young before, and never a female either. She couldn't remember why she'd taken this one on in the first place, but maybe it was affecting her thought processes.
Camellia. Born Camellia Carter Vermillion in 2010, in the Sainan City Hospital, to parents both born in the United States of America. Neither of her parents understood Japanese, and despite attempting to teach her what they did know, Tsubaki, who had suppressed the child since birth, had been unable to learn more than a few words, despite quickly grasping the English language, as it was quite similar to her own Ragnarian. Japanese seemed to be a derivative of Devilukean, so maybe that was why she had such trouble grasping it. She'd never understood the Devilukean language, and didn't really want to.
So why was Camellia changing her thoughts? Was it because she'd taken her on at birth rather than in adult life? Was the fact that Camellia and Tsubaki were both female making her start to overlap with what she presumed would have been the human's thought processes?
Or was she just thinking too much into it, and it was all her doing that made her change so much? There was no way Camellia could be affecting her, she'd forced the girl's mind into a tiny corner of what she would have used. The child was probably brain dead without Tsubaki's influence, though she didn't really care how Camellia's mental state currently was.
She picked up the notebook and sat up, turning the pages, idly looking at what she'd previously written. "So what is it?" she asked herself. "What is it about you that makes me willing to stick around for this long to kill you? It can't be hate, I'm too far gone to hate anyone anymore, but it's certainly not normal for me to be so attached to one target…"
She blinked. Come to think of it, she had tried to kill him because she assumed he was Mr. Pointy-Teeth's prime candidate, exhibiting all the necessary qualities even at such a young age as 7 years old. Maybe that was why she was still attached to him, because she had assumed wrong back then, and now wished to know why. Plus, she knew that he was now the prime candidate, as Yuuki had failed to complete even a single part of the project.
However, while she knew that she shouldn't care about Hiro, while she knew that she should just ignore him and move on to another victim, she also knew that she wouldn't. She would stick to him until the end, whatever that may be.
She still wanted to kill him, of course. She wanted nothing more than to screw over the project's plans, because she knew that while she'd made a mistake in judgement before, now, she knew for a fact that Hiro was the last candidate of the project. If he died...the project was a bust.
She smiled at the thought. She'd love to see the look on Mr. Pointy-Teeth's face when he realized that the project he'd worked on for who knows how long was a failure.
Oh how she'd laugh when she killed this host and hijacked another ship off this planet, to move on to another victim! That was who she was. There was no room for these doubts and questions. All she truly cared about was the killing.
BREAKBREAKBREAK
"Sir." the messenger said, bowing to the man nicknamed Mr. Pointy-Teeth.
He nodded. "So it's just a normal report, then?" he asked. "Abbadon has reported directly to me multiple times since you last came."
The messenger nodded. "Hai. Those I felt were emergency status reports, urgent enough to message electronically instead of transmitting via the network." he explained. "This is simply a status report, of little consequence in comparison to the last few." He bowed out of respect for the man in front of him, though his height meant that even bowing, he was still taller than Mr. Pointy-Teeth in his chair.
He made a toothy grin at the messenger, waving a hand for him to continue. "I understand. Continue." he said, and the messenger nodded.
"Yukihime Murano has officially joined Tsubaki's Game, under tentative conditions set by Hiro." he stated.
The man nodded. "As predicted. And Tsubaki?" he asked, sitting up. Yukihime interested him, but Tsubaki was their top priority at this stage in the plan.
The messenger was silent for several seconds as he gathered his thoughts. "Nothing of importance, sir. She has not been active at all recently. She just goes to school and comes back home like a normal human child. We did set up a bug in her room like you ordered, but so far, there has been no suspicious activity."
The man nodded. "No news is good news." he said. "Keep observing her, I have a feeling that she will make a move soon."
The messenger bowed. "And what of Abbadon, sir?" he asked.
"What of her?"
"She has maintained a comfortable distance from Hiro, but I am beginning to suspect that her relationship with him isn't quite...professional."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?" he asked.
"I'm beginning to suspect that she has begun to develop certain...feelings...for the project candidate."
The messenger wasn't sure what he expected by way of a reaction from the leader of the project, but he was knocked to the floor in surprise at the volume of the tiny man's laughter.
Mr. Pointy-Teeth practically shook in his seat as he laughed, loud and booming as his voice despite his anatomy. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Absolutely brilliant! As expected of the kid who's earned my respect!"
"...Sir?" the messenger asked, coughing into a fist to regain his composure.
The man grinned, his laughter still punctuating his speech. "I had wondered when she would begin noticing him in that way." he said. "She is a healthy, growing young girl after all, and that coupled with her heritage, is all perfectly natural. But for it to be this soon after she began observing him...this is truly the work of Hiro's power! The perfect candidate indeed, perhaps he should be given the title of harem king, as that idiot Yuuki Rito was given by Momo!"
The messenger stared in confusion. "You...expected this development?" he asked.
The man nodded, his smile not fading in the slightest as he continued. "Of course. After all, she still does technically fall under the scope of the project's goals...this only provides more data for us to observe. Allow her to go about her orders as normal, and do not do anything to suggest that you suspect her. If this development is indeed true...Well, knowing that girl's history, she's sure to become all the more determined to see this through to the end."
The messenger stared, before nodding. "Assurance that she will not betray the project?" he asked, and the man laughed again.
"No, no, no, nothing like that. Even if she did decide to follow Hiro instead of me, she is still loyal to Deviluke. She would not betray me under any circumstances. Allow her to go on as normal, and do not impose any restrictions on her actions. In fact...order her to more actively follow Hiro...though she is not to get too close to him and may not reveal her identity."
"So...She may do anything she wishes as long as it does not jeopardize her mission?" the messenger asked.
The man nodded. "Exactly. You know, like one of those Earth spy movies...what was the series called again?"
"Er...James Bond, sir?" the messenger asked, and the man nodded.
