Fun fact, as far as I can ascertain Ciel's gun is actually a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (it was in the anime at least). But given as its 1889 right now…we'll just say it's a pocket hammerless. Eh, Crockett Rocket, it's not like my username is a stroke of literary genius. I just like cats. Also, according to the author comic at the end of the 17th manga volume, the whole over-the-edge "chuck it at the face or offside" thing Ciel did was not illegal AT THE TIME; however, after an Australia-England match in 1932, where similar tactics were used by the English team, rules were changed to adjust for such things, so it is illegal NOW. I'm not sure if the whole matching-swings-to-music would be penalized though, if only because it seems improbable to actually pull off successfully. Thank you for your approval, James Birdsong. Also, for Arya playing with her accent…I'm from Minnesota, which is two states over and two states up, which means my accent is Upper Midwestern. Since I never really specify WHERE in Virginia she's from, Arya probably has something between Appalachian and Southern for her accent. So for those of you who were concerned/amused (Azapin and others) about her mimicking a campy Texas accent, she'd probably be able to pull it off fairly well, before as mentioned dying of shame on the inside. drmsqnc (that's like…an acronym, right? What led you to this sequence of letters) thank you for your belated appreciation! A lot of people seem to binge my stories without realizing until they get to the end…I'm beginning to see a pattern. Perhaps I'm TOO good at drawing in readers! I'm also starting to get to the finish line of this fic, inasmuch as I can actually see it now. One and a bit more arc to go. With any luck I can finally finish this fic…five years later. Let's all just not look at when this was published. Hide my shame. I started this series six years ago JESUS CHRIST.

Observant readers may also note my publish times are creeping back and I am now ostensibly writing this around 1 in the morning. Rest any concerns you might have: I've always been a bit of a night owl and the whole "no morning obligations" part of quarantine has meant my internal clock has shrugged and spun a roulette wheel, then shot itself in the face. When is it time to sleep? When should I feel tired? Certainly not until after I finish this goddamn chapter. And then read a whole bunch of other stuff to wind down. Gotta have that book before bed.

March 31st, 2020

Arya's POV:

Since I was planning for a fight (and, thankfully, since Ciel had ordered me to plan for one, since it'd be a wee bit suspicious to show up armed to the teeth otherwise), I went all-in on my weaponry. Colt tucked in its engraved holster on my hip, extra box of ammunition in my pocket (perhaps not the best storage method, but it wasn't like I had one of those neat bandoliers you always saw in action movies), and knife strapped on my wrist under my sleeve, since that was how I'd gotten used to carrying it around. Some real shoes, not the patent leather dressy ones they gave to Weston students: shoes you could run in and fight in and, in a pinch, kick down doors and aggressive assailants without breaking or bruising your heel. Dark pants, dark suit jacket, and I cheated a little and pulled a dark dress shirt from the depths of my apocalypse bag, since there would potentially be a lot of standing around and lurking in the darkness. I briefly considered smudging my pale face with ash, then decided I'd probably do a crap job of it (having never done so before) and, if it truly would be that important, Sebastian would probably do something.

Suited and booted and with every weapon I comfortably knew how to wield, magic excluded (since that wasn't really something you could arm or disarm), I squeaked open the window and began to climb down the long-suffering ivy plant that wound its increasingly precarious way along the brickwork of the Green House dorms. A tiny part of me actually missed the warm and dewy feeling of the grass against my bare feet, but just as I absolutely refused to knowingly run into a fight in my pajamas, I refused to do so barefoot.

Reckless I may be, idiot I was not.

Especially when you considered the presence of Undertaker and the likely presence of the Bizarre Dolls on campus. The absence of his motives nagged me: sure, it seemed an awful lot like casual mad science, but…that in itself bugged me. Black Butler didn't do casual villains, or at least, not pedestrian ones. Everything linked up to everything else: Madam Red brought us Grell, the Curry Arc brought us Soma and Agni, the Circus Arc linked back to Ciel's backstory and hinted at the ominous motives and backgrounds of the ones who had tortured him, the Murder Arc was a punishment from the Queen for Ciel so recklessly acting out in the Circus Arc, and the whole thing with the Campania sinking and whatnot was Undertaker in all his mad glory. Plus, two story arcs centered on him and his efforts to resurrect the dead? The whole thing with the lockets, which remained unexplained even after tonight?

I distrusted the fact that, in this universe or out of it, all that seemed to be his motivation was fiddling around with the mysteries of life and death. That was too simple, especially when you considered his dramatic reveal as a Grim Reaper.

I knew my genres and my tropes. When you had a character who was the focal point of more than one arc, who had a sudden and shocking reveal of relevance after some time as an apparently harmless side character, and whose motives remained shrouded in ominous mystery –they were important. And they were going to be important for a while.

Thankfully, that wouldn't really come into play tonight…or so I hoped. After all, butterfly effect and all that, and for all I knew, the mere presence of a magician would immediately set Undertaker off on a long expository rant or something. After all, I'd been mostly in the background for the rare times I'd actually been in the same room as him, and we were both distracted, so he may have never noticed me before. It was entirely possible that magicians were all tied up in his super-secret weird motivational backstory, though I didn't think it likely.

The butterfly effect was also pleasingly nonexistent, which on one hand was slightly worrying, and on the other was slightly pleasing. It was nice to know that I didn't really affect the plot as such –but that was equally worrying, because what if I wanted to at some point? Would the universe just, just reset around it? I'd read a fic like that once, where someone managed to save a character from their imminent death, only for that selfsame character to be metaphorically bodychecked shortly afterwards by a completely non-canonical coma, thus effectively removing them from the ongoing plot in the same fashion because, apparently, the universe wasn't having that shit. So, say, if for some incomprehensible reason I knocked Ciel out and tried to take his place at the tea party tonight, I might trip over a rock and knock myself out while Ciel managed to wiggle his way free and head to the tea party anyways. It'd be a big circular loop of futility and pointless exercise.

On the other hand, that meant that, if this was how things were going, there was literally no way I'd lose my ability to predict certain parts of certain scenarios until we ran out of the manga material I'd actually read, no matter how badly I stirred the metaphorical pot of canon. This, for me, was a good thing, as it sharply boosted my chances of survival.

Of course, there was also the much less pleasant alternative of the fact that nothing I'd done or been present for thus far would have much effect on the grand scheme of canon anyways, and the moment I took the wrong step the butterfly effect would come swarming in like the metaphorical tornado it was. After all, I'd basically just tagged along on the Campania and done a few helpful but ultimately meaningless things both there everywhere else. For all I knew, the second I did anything actually relevant and independent of Ciel and Sebastian, the whole canon I relied on would fall apart like a Jenga tower.

Like with the necromancer: sure, that was killing someone, which was a big honking butterfly effect thing, but that was a someone that, to my knowledge, never would've come into even satellite contact with Ciel or Sebastian or anyone in their circle of acquaintance, nor would any of his clients. This world, much as the dying fan in me loathed to admit, did not revolve around Ciel and Sebastian and all the other characters in Black Butler. If you looked at this whole thing as a spiderweb, there were plenty of strands that didn't lead to them, and I could pluck away at those to my heart's content without anything happening. It was only when I tried to affect canon, or inadvertently did something that would, that my situation got potentially precarious, made all the more so that aside from the literary butterfly effect (which may or may not be the full summation of the term), I knew absolutely nothing about various…temporal/dimensional/plotline nonsense.

Note to self, look that shit up when I get back home.

And, pleasantly enough, I was getting close to being able to get back home. The acquisition spell I'd been studying and, very tentatively, copying out these past few weeks seemed legit, so after we got out of Weston and I could practice magic without fear of Undertaker looming over my head, I'd be able to blitz my way through the remaining signifier magic sigils for this world in a matter of days, perhaps weeks. And, once I'd actually gotten them, it was but the matter of a few hours to properly configure them for my purposes and arrange them inside the larger spell matrix: I'd certainly gotten enough practice at doing so.

It was just a matter of time…

The reminder made my heart beat just a little faster, though maybe that was just the implicit danger I was heading towards as I quietly crept across the school lawns, sliding from one patch of darkness to another as I kept my ears pricked for any sound, any sign of movement not my own. The lights were off in all the buildings: keeping flame burning unattended was a recipe for disaster, after all, and almost every student was exhausted from the long and exciting day and the party on the Thames afterwards. Weston was quiet and dark, except for one place –and this place, of course, was where I was going.

The church.

With smooth, elegant spires piercing the sky and one large belltower with two bells within it of equal size, one stacked atop the other, the outer wall circled around behind the imposing building, the stone boundary line softened by a covering of rose vines and bushy lichen. A few lights flickered inside the church through the glossy dark windows, like sparks from a firework, swimming into view and vanishing just as quickly. I thought I heard a faint strain of music, like from some enormous pipe organ, but even as I looked around and slunk closer it started to fade.

The area around the church seemed clear. The nice thing about Weston's ridiculously manicured lawns was that they were smooth and broad, and it would take a lot of doing for someone to be within visual range of me without being in equal plain view. There wasn't a scrap of cover from here to the nearest building, not unless you were snuggled up right against the church itself.

This, I guessed, was what Sebastian was doing, and after a few more glances back and forth, making sure no one truly was around and that Ciel and the others were probably already inside, I darted across the lawn to take shelter against one of the jutting square pillars that scaled up the side of the building.

No outcry, no sounds of movement, even. I hadn't been seen by anyone.

Now…to find Sebastian.

This was easier said than done: I knew full well he'd be able to find me way before I could find him, and thus settled for cautiously peeking into the dark windows –seeing a few lit candles in lanterns, but no people– and slunk around the sides of the church, looking for the demon. I inched my way all the way over to the lower stone wall that apparently closed in a small inner garden between the church and the boundary wall –I heard the sounds of cutlery and soft conversation from the other side– but no Sebastian.

Puzzled and a little concerned, I backtracked, making sure to duck under and around the windows, since I didn't know if anyone was going between the church and the tea garden, going around to the other side, where, thankfully, I saw Sebastian standing patiently, near where the church's wall turned to the low wall of the garden.

I didn't whisper to him, since we were quite well able to hear the students on the other side, but I scraped my foot a little pointedly against the ground, which made him open one eye to glance at me. I waved silently, causing his lips to curl up in a slight smirk.

Miss Thompson.

I did the blinking version of a double-take.

You can do telepathy? I thought cautiously, trying to project said sentence in his direction. I, after all, had never done any such thing and I really didn't know how, as it wasn't an ability my teacher saw much use in teaching me. What would have been the point?

I am one hell of a butler. If I couldn't manage silent communication, what kind of servant to the Phantomhive family would I be?

I rolled my eyes and took my place next to him, leaning against the wall.

So…what now?

We wait until the young master summons us.

For how long?

Until we are needed.

That sounds boring as hell.

Eavesdrop. You certainly have had some practice in it.

I winced at the brutal callback to the time I had peeped in on Ciel's talking with Lau and Sebastian had caught me at it, which of course preceded our first real talk and the reveal that I was in fact a magician.

Wait…

How come you can wear a rosary and stand on holy ground when you're a demon?

It is ineffective against me.

I gathered as such. Explicate.

Sebastian huffed softly from beside me. If he'd been the type, he would have probably rolled his eyes too.

The antithesis of demons such as I, who have no capability for loyalty or love, is faith, the same kind of faith Agni may summon in regards to his Lord and master, Prince Soma. Without faith, the many props of religion are just that: props. They are tools to summon faith, and in the hands of the truly faithful, they do indeed act as an effective deterrent against my ilk. However…

His eyes, slitted and red, slid back to look at the building we were leaning against.

This is a hollow stone building. The ground may have been sanctified, but there is no priest or congregation within to give that faith power. The rosary of a Housemaster is in the hands of a demon, and as I said: we cannot have faith. So, it does not harm me.

Hmm. Interesting statement.

So, strictly as a theoretical experiment, if I was to spike your cooking stuff with holy water and I believed really, really hard that it'd burn you…?

Strictly speaking, immature pranks by the servants can be punished by the head butler of a house. Would you care to expand on that statement?

I swallowed hard.

Shutting up.

There was a pause of a few moments as a warm summer breeze oozed across the lawn. A thought struck me, and I tentatively projected my consciousness at Sebastian.

Uh, how are we gonna get in the garden? I get you can pop in and out in a second, but it might be a bit tricky for me to climb over the wall.

I shall take you with me when the young master summons us both.

Oh great.

I heard Sebastian's soft, nearly inaudible chuckle beside me in the darkness. It seemed sarcasm could be carried over by telepathy as well as spoken speech. Good to know.

3rd Person POV:

So that's him. Ciel thought as he stepped inside the bower of thorns and roses that was the Midnight Tea Party and its admittedly lovely garden. The absolute ruler of Weston College. The Headmaster.

Chin resting on his clasped hands, elbows on the table, the Headmaster's face was hidden by the deep shadows cast by his lowered top hat, as if his head was bowed in deep contemplation. He was silent as the Vice Headmaster spoke beside him.

"Welcome, everyone. Please, sit."

Ciel and the others took their places, with the young earl at the end of the table opposite the Headmaster, prefects arranged down the side on his left, their fags on his right. The usual pleasantries were dispensed with, tea and sugar and cream passed or denied, as Redmond curled a finger around his own ornate saucer.

"It's a little dull, but let's toast with a cup of tea." he said, raising it and his saucer and looking to Bluer on his right. "Lawrence, propose a toast."

"Very well then." Bluer said as he raised his cup and saucer. "We have kept with tradition and seen the fourth of June through without incident." He lifted his teacup as all the others mimicked him. "A toast, to Weston Col-"

"One moment, if you please."

He was going to lead into this gently, Ciel decided. You caught more flies with honey than with vinegar, and he was going to lay each separate piece of information out slowly and perfectly, backing the prefects and the Headmaster into a corner without them ever even realizing it –or at least, so he planned.

"As it stands, I can't sincerely drink to this toast."

Bluer stared at him. No underlying alarm, only blank shock that he would interrupt the ritual of toasting. So, Ciel was not yet suspected of deeper intrigue…good.

"Why is that?" the prefect asked.

"Something weighs on my mind." Ciel began. "Derrick Arden and his friends."

Ah, and there was no mistaking that alarm as all the prefects' eyes snapped towards him, wide, pupils narrowed to mere pinpricks. They were hiding something, and it was serious. Ciel set his teacup down with an air of finality, holding back his smirk under a mask of tranquil concern.

"I can't raise my teacup until I see them."

Edward, who knew full well what Ciel's usual presence entailed, though apparently unaware of what his superiors hid, furrowed his eyebrows. "Ciel…?"

"Headmaster, sir." Ciel called across the table. The man was still silent, unmoving: he may as well have been a tailor's dummy, posed and rigid. His silence puzzled and slightly alarmed Ciel –was he merely a cover by the prefects, and as unaware of their crime (whatever it had been) as their fags? But if so, how, and why, had he been able to evade Sebastian? The innocent may sometimes run, but those who were truly innocent of any wrongdoing were never able to do so successfully with a devil on their tail. "Will you listen to what I have to say?"

"Phantomhive, you're being rude." Bluer said. Attempting to divert, perhaps? It wouldn't work.

"I'm well aware of that." Ciel said blandly. "But in Article 15 of the school regulations, it is written thus: Be considerate of your schoolfellows and assist them with love and affection…at all times."

Bluer flinched.

"Derrick Arden. Richard Gleason. Hans Hardy. Robert Isaac. Wayne Thewlis. I've heard it said that since about a year ago they've not once returned home and have shut themselves up in their House." Time to massage the truth a little. "You see, when I enrolled at this school, their parents begged me to persuade them to return home just once."

"Hoh." Vice Headmaster Agares hummed.

"But when trying to come into contact with them, I was met with odd situations at every turn. And I've been unable to catch even a glimpse of them." Ciel continued, noting the strange exhale from the man but saying nothing as he wondered to its cause. What had he said to cause such a note? "Their sudden transfers from Red House to Purple House, for one. More puzzling still is what occurred during the fire the other day. Every student of Purple House ought to have evacuated, but the missing students were nowhere to be found. Yet Violet said everyone was safe."

The Purple House prefect jerked guiltily to stare at Ciel as he was addressed, before his eyes slid aside, half covered by his ever-present hood.

"Violet…?" pressed his fag, but the prefect did not speak.

"Violet must've simply lost his head, like everyone else." Redmond said coolly.

Ciel did not repress the incredulous expression on his face as he tossed out a hand. "Could a prefect, one who is granted autonomy here at illustrious Weston, truly have made such a grave error?"

"Well…" Johann Agares said, more suspicious than ever, as the Headmaster still sat silent and immobile beside him, perhaps the faintest hint of a frown on his shadowed face. Ciel wanted to grind his teeth at the tone the Vice Headmaster was putting forth, though: it was the prim, effortlessly, casually condescending tone of one who knew their wrongdoings could not be actually proven, and was enjoying the opportunity to turn aside an ineffective interrogator. "…who can say."

Ciel wasn't having it, and slammed both hands down on the table, rising to his feet. "In any case! The fact remains that they weren't in Purple House! Five students have disappeared from a public school where every single day is strictly managed. Something is clearly amiss here!"

His eye flicked over the table, to the alarmed-looking fags, who stared, stunned, at his outburst.

Based on our investigation thus far, Derrick and the others are no longer at this school. At best, they've fled. At worst, they're dead.

His gaze darted up towards the head of the table.

The Headmaster, who moved them between Houses…the P4, who have free reign over the school –its obvious that they're concealing something.

Violet still wouldn't even look at his face: Bluer and Greenhill were staring at him in shock, but theirs was mixed with alarm, and Redmond was glaring at him with narrowed eyes.

They brushed me off before by saying "It was the Headmaster's decision," but that excuse won't work here, with both parties present. I'll uncover what you're hiding!

He leaned further over the table, pleading and demanding simultaneously in posture as he raised his voice again. "It seems increasingly likely that they're in a situation of great peril! Headmaster! Why not ask for the Yard's assistance in getting to the bottom of this?!"

They had to respond to this, there was simply no way that anyone, no matter what they were hiding or how they were doing it, could hold back in the face of such an attack. Ciel had given them no reason to think he was investigating on behalf of another, had no pulled aside his façade of a concerned student even once –if they somehow managed to brush him off, he still had avenues of interrogation. If they confessed, all the better.

But they could not, absolutely could not, remain silent. To do as such would be to blatantly admit both their guilt and their involvement in one, and there were witnesses here, in the form of the four nonplussed and increasingly agitated fags. The guilty party had to do something, and Ciel was more than ready for it.

"There is no need to do that." Vice Headmaster Agares said, making Ciel widen his eye as everyone gasped and looked towards him.

"What?"

"For…they are right here in the school." the Vice Headmaster continued ominously, pointing over Ciel's shoulder at the chapel. "Look."

The young earl spun with a gasp, staring at the curved handle of the garden door as it rattled a few times, then caught and turned, the quaint wooden door slowly creaking open as a figure stepped out.

"Hullo…I detect the wonderful aroma of tea."

Ciel may never have met him, but he knew that face as its owner stepped out of the shadows. He'd seen the photo enclosed in the Queen's message.

Derrick Arden?!

What in blazes? How had this happened? Ciel had been hoping for the former result of the two options, of course, but, well, it was overwhelmingly likely that it had been the latter, and Derrick and all his associates were dead!

He's alive?! Then why did he drop out of sight until now!?

A quick glance showed that the prefects, strangely enough, seemed equally shocked, or at least almost as much, as Derrick Arden strode down the length of the table towards the headmaster.

"Well, rats!" Cheslock scoffed, much less perturbed than his prefect, who huddled and leaned away over the table as Derrick passed him. "There he is, all fine and dandy."

"Arden…?" Greenhill asked as the other student slowed at his chair, coming to a stop. "Are you really f-"

"Hullo." Derrick said as his mouth broadened in a toothy grin. "I detect the wonderful aroma of tea."

Greenhill shuddered as Ciel felt a chill run down his spine, watching the prefect lean back, hand on the back of his chair as he pulled away from Derrick, who bent at the waist, looming over him, as the scene slowly but inevitably inched towards disaster, the strain in the air teetering, uncertain, like something set on the edge of a table and about to fall.

"A…Ard-"

Swift as a panther, Derrick grabbed the prefect's outstretched arm and pulled as he lunged forward, mouth agape, chomping down on the muscle of Greenhill's arm between shoulder and elbow. Awful crunching and ripping sounds echoed from that mouth as blood spurted over Greenhill's sleeve.

The prefect screamed as he was forced back against the table with a crash of plates and crockery as the other prefects shot to their feet. Edward, however, was first to act, leaping onto the table in a rage.

"You cur!" he cried, leg shooting up and out in an explosive kick as he ripped the gnawing Derrick's head away from his prefect with a nasty crack of bone and tissue. "What d'you think you're doing!?"

Derrick's head dangled back for a moment, unsupported, then dipped forward heavily as he continued to move.

The chill running down Ciel's spine became a parade of icy ants crawling all over his skin. He recognized that limp, persistent movement, and from the expression on his face, so did Edward.

"Wha-"

Derrick lunged forward with a snarl and a mouth full of blood and flesh and some of Greenhill's sleeve, his bangs fluttering up to reveal a raw, clumsily-stitched line across his forehead, like something from a lobotomy.

"Ah! That wound is-"

It looks just like the ones on the creatures aboard the Campania-!

It was definitely time to call in Sebastian and his magician. Ineffective as she had proven to be in the theories and workings of these creatures, she still had a gun and knew how to use it, and may be useful in case- in case-

Well.

"Tch!" Ciel ripped off his eyepatch, revealing the contract. "Come! Sebastian!"

He heard the distinctive rush of wind and fabric that was his butler landing behind him, and a newer, uncharacteristic rapid breathing and a quiet squeak, which meant that Miss Thompson had been brought along as well. Good.

"Mister Michaelis?!" Bluer gasped as he ran towards Greenhill, to help Violet, Redmond, and Edward, who were one and all trying and failing to pull away the voracious Derrick as he gnawed persistently on the prefect's arm.

"Sebastian, I command you! Apprehend Derrick!"

Sebastian stepped away, towards the table, and seized the pristine white cloth. "Yes, my lord."

Within the space of a heartbeat, he had whisked that sheer fabric away out from under all the plates, pots, and cutlery, leaving the fags gasping and staring as their prefects continued to struggle with Derrick. Sebastian then leapt up into the air, pulling the tablecloth with him.

"It is unbecoming of an English gentleman to disregard etiquette…at a tea party!" he drawled, preforming another of his superhuman feats of speed that left Derrick tied up in a cocoon of the tablecloth, a visual that reminded Ciel uncomfortably of a corpse shroud tied tight to prevent its inmate from escaping.

Come to think, that was exactly what it was.

"M-my arm…!" Greenhill cried weakly, clutching the gaping bloody wound that had resulted from Derrick's mouth as his fag lunged to support him.

"Greenhill!"

Thompson stepped up beside him, and as Ciel cut a glance sideways, he saw that her eyes were fixed on the Green House prefect as Harcourt darted around the table to aid in his wound dressing, an uncomfortable look on her face. That was the issue with using pawns without proper training and experience: they got close to their targets.

"I will see to your injury presently." Sebastian said as he landed on both feet and Derrick Arden landed on his face, thumping to the ground limply like a true corpse instead of whatever he had become. Sebastian knelt over the gasping prefect and slid down his tie, jerking it tight in a knot around Greenhill's arm above the wound, making the prefect cry out.

"He bit away quite a bit…" Sebastian looked up at Edward. "Raise his arm."

"Y-yes, all right."

"What is Mister Michaelis doing here?!" Harcourt cried, raising his hands to his chest.

"What on earth is going on?!" Clayton demanded.

Vice Headmaster Agares mumbled something to himself, catching Sebastian's gaze as the demon half-turned while standing, before slowly making his way over to Ciel and the magician. Now that eyes would be upon him again, Ciel hastily redonned his eyepatch, taking a breath to center himself.

"Mister Michaelis…no, I should say, Sebastian, is my butler. Miss-ter, Thompson here is a business partner."

He frowned a little in annoyance at his own near misstep: the girl's disguise was good, he had to admit, but as she'd mumbled to him at some point before he'd left for the school, the illusions she could master were visual only. The lines of her face were mostly unchanged, her hair and eyes the same color, so someone who was less of a perfectionist than he was might admit it was natural to fall back on habit while he referred to her.

"Our tutor is a butler?!" Harcourt gasped.

"HUNH!?" Cheslock cried.

"I've been promoted from mere branch manager, I see." Thompson mumbled under her breath in that disconcertingly deeper voice, a smirk curling in her tone. Ciel would have to have a much-belated discussion with her later about the tone of a situation and how she was not to interrupt when he was making a play.

"And I came to this school to look into the fate of Derrick and his friends. However…even a devil of a butler like Sebastian would never have been able to ascertain their whereabouts." Ciel continued as a wind blew across the garden, stirring a few loose petals from the flowers and table and sending them tumbling through the air. "Because Derrick was already long dead."

All eyes were drawn to the corpse in his cocoon as he groaned and began to twitch a little.

"Already dead? What are you saying?" Harcourt quavered. "He's still moving, don't you s-"

"Hul…lo…" Derrick rattled as he brought his head around a little, chewing mindlessly on the cloth and flesh in his mouth as his voice slurred and ebbed. "I detect…the wonderful aroma…of teea…"

"Eep!" Harcourt gasped, stepping away.

"Now." Ciel pulled his M1903 Hammerless from his pocket, aiming it with a chak down the table. "I'd like to hear an explanation from you, Headmaster!"

Thompson moved to copy him, which was good to note for later reference. Ciel's suspicions had hardened into near certainty when now, even now, the Headmaster remained still, silent, and motionless. It wasn't shock or lack of knowledge.

It was indifference.

"Phantomhive, what's gotten into y-"

"Clayton!" Edward cut off his fellow fag. "Don't challenge Ciel…no. Don't defy Earl Phantomhive!"

"Wha-"

"Dash it!" Cheslock ground out. "Will someone tell me what's goin' on?!"

"I've seen transformed humans like Derrick before." Ciel ground out before Thompson could chip in with one of her obnoxious statements, moving to hold his pistol with both hands. "Tell me! What have you done to him!"

There was silence for a long moment, broken only by the soft whoosh of wind and the slow, ominous click of Thompson releasing the safety on her own gun.

"We…" Greenhill mumbled, perhaps prompted by the sound, perhaps too heavy with guilt to remain silent. "…only wanted to protect…"

"To protect?" Sebastian asked from Ciel's other side.

"Saint George, the symbol of our college, is said to have slain a dragon that jeopardized the peace in order to protect his country." Bluer said, and pushed his glasses up his nose with a single finger. "In short, one cannot avert disaster without striking down the source of it. We simply abided by that teaching. And so…we dealt with Derrick –and killed him."

He looked sideways, towards his fellow prefects.

"Greenhill would have been accused with murder if the rest of us had not done anything. Redmond's uncle had contact with some sort of hospital…the head arrived with his research partner."

Ciel did not have to hear Thompson's soft, swift inhale of breath to know that something was deeply, terribly wrong. He felt it prickle along his skin, raising the hair on his arms –something was wrong here, and it was something they knew.

"No…" he swallowed. "It can't be-"

"And so we made a pact." Redmond continued implacably. "With him."

"I see." Sebastian purred out the words. "Now all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place. The student who disappeared, along with his soul –Derrick Arden. The man who eluded a devil's pursuit –the Headmaster. The secret organization that experiments with the revival of human bodies –the Aurora Society. Each of them, minor incidents of little consequence. The one who made a labyrinth of them…" He drew up his arm to point at the silent figure sitting at the head of the able. "-is you."

The students and prefects all gasped.

"This has nothing to do with the Headmaster!" Redmond cried. "We prefects took it upon ourselves to-"

"I never said the Headmaster was involved." Sebastian said implacably, red beginning to flicker beneath his hooded eyelids. "Well? What do you say we both drop our school acts?"

The Headmaster was silent for a moment –then grinned, baring teeth that were a bit…too…pointed. "Alaaas!"

The students began to murmur as Ciel's heart began to pound.

"I did quite enjoy this profession, I'll have you know. I watched your most delightful struggles from the grand tier." the "headmaster" added, pointing a single finger at him as Sebastian stepped closer and held out an arm, protective. "Once again you bestowed upon me the choicest of laughter, seeeee?"

Ciel's heart was thumping faster and harder with every moment as the "headmaster" let out a cracked giggle that was far too familiar, taking the brim of his top hat in hand and lifting it up as a cascade of silver-white hair spilled out, some strands braided and the others falling loose about his shoulders.

"Its you…Undertaker!"

Thompson whistled softly under her breath, but remained firm of stance as she shifted her feet a little, drawing closer to Ciel as well.

Undertaker, for his part, seemed unperturbed that two guns were pointed at him, slouched casually in his chair as he spun the concealing top hat around his hand. "Whyyy, hello there, milord~! I see you're as undersized as ever." he drawled cheerfully. "I'm pleased to see you looking so well. Have you enjoyed your first taste of the communal life? Hee-hee!"

Recognizing that shooting the man would be absolutely useless, Ciel lowered his gun. Thompson did not –but then again, she had access to magic Ciel did not, and may be able to ensure her bullets caused damage. Or, perhaps, she was just comforted by the fact she had a gun out: all three of them, Ciel, Sebastian, and herself, knew that the demon would not hasten his steps one jot to aid her unless Ciel explicitly commanded it, and thus her protection against the mad Grim Reaper in this situation was much less secure.

"I was wondering where you had run off to after closing up shop." Sebastian commented, nearly as calm as the Reaper. "I never imagined you would have secured work at a school of all places."

Undertaker cackled softly to himself as he plopped the top hat back onto his head. "Well, I am but a temporary tutor~!"

"My word." Sebastian scoffed quietly. "Our investigation into a handful of runaways has taken a most outrageous turn." He glanced towards the prefects, who had remained frozen, stunned, all throughout this exchange. "You four prefects murdered Mister Derrick, and then you commissioned the Aurora Society to bring him back to life. What did you wish to protect so badly that would force you to resort to such measures?"

Lawrence Bluer sighed. "He- Derrick Arden was an individual who should never have been at this school." he said tersely.

Ciel narrowed his eyes, sensing that they were finally making progress. "In what sense?"

"Well, you see…" Bluer began, glancing aside as he mustered his thoughts. Some time after we had become prefects, we heard rumors of bullying. All students must be equal under the Headmaster, and Derrick Arden, who was Redmond's fag at the time, volunteered to look into it. The lineage of a marquise, a cheerful personality, an overabundance of talents –Derrick Arden shone bright indeed. And so we failed to notice it…the darkest of shadows that spawned from that light."

"Derrick found nothing, and would have us believe that the reports of bullying were errant nonsense." Redmond said, picking up the thread of the story. "But some time after he had begun and ended his search in failure, the prefects received a poem. 'Thor, the god of thunder, lay down beside a clear lake./His torch nearby, he listened to the song of a lyre made of irregularly-shaped pearls plucked by a gracious apostle…/…when a mischievous elf appeared, tossing the torch into the water./The flames of the torch were then no more, and the lake brimmed with stars./The beautiful lake became a legend with the power to heal…/…but the god whose light was stolen away continues to wander blindly in the night.' Derrick could not interpret the poem, but I noticed something."

Redmond sighed, chafed his arm as though he was cold. "There was a message cleverly interwoven into that poem, a date and time that must have been a summons to us prefects. Thor, god of thunder, is the origin of the word Thursday. Gracious apostle could only mean John the Apostle, whose Hebrew name means "The Lord is Gracious." The lyre of irregularly-shaped pearls must have meant Baroque music, and the John of Baroque music is Johann Sebastian Bach, of whom there is a bust in our music room. The extinguished torch was a reference to lights out."

"Impressive that you figured all that out, then." Thompson said blandly, and a smile flickered on and off of Redmond's face, as though she had reminded him of something.

"All the important words were written in indigo ink, though they appeared black at first glance. In any case, someone had gone to extreme effort to secretly contact the prefects and summon us to the music room after lights out on Thursday, and we thought it prudent to attend. The one thing I couldn't make out was the last line…the light that was stolen away." His lips drew tight. "We found out soon enough. Derrick Arden and his associates were there…and they were tormenting their fellow students."

"The meaning of "whose light was stolen away" was this." Violet continued when Redmond found himself unable to speak, voice harsh. "All of Derrick Arden's splendid achievements were false. Cricket. Embroidery. Term papers. Songwriting. Everything. He had stolen the talents of other students by way of despicable methods to make himself shine…and he had been doing this for four years –ever since the day he enrolled."

"He showed no remorse." Greenhill wheezed out, teeth gritted from something other than pain as Edward stared at him, clutching the prefect's arm as he kept it raised at Greenhill's shoulder level. "He told us –he was blowing off steam. That he loathed being placed in Weston, and that -that as his father made significant contributions to the school, he hoped we would "allow" him to continue doing as he'd done. Not only no remorse, but no…no care for his fellow students. He acted as though he thought himself untouchable, and we soon found out why."

There was a pause as he gathered his strength for another spate of words, blood seeping out around the bandages on his arm.

"Even the Vice Headmaster was hand in glove with Derrick." he continued, hands clenched. "What could we do? How could we stop them? It wasn't right. The tradition of this school would continue to be undermined as long as they were here."

"We couldn't allow that." Violet mumbled. "Because…"

"Tradition is absolute." Bluer finished firmly. "You know the rest –as you said, we killed Derrick and his accomplices and commissioned Rian Stoker and this fellow here to reanimate them. We have done their loved ones wrong, to be sure…be we had no other alternative in order to protect tradition and order." Bluer pushed his glasses up his nose again as they flashed over white in the soft glow of the candles and lanterns. "We did not wish to bring disgrace to this school by ruffling feathers. Surely you understand, Phantomhive?"

"How can you say that…when you've taken their lives?" Ciel asked, agog. Certainly he understood the motive for murder: plain, simple, and clean, the desire to remove a source of harmful contagion from their society. That was as maybe. But to be so rigidly devoted to this college…to say it was for the purpose of preserving a tradition of a place of schoolchildren…that, that was appalling. It was like if Thompson actually was a branch manager of his and she worshipped some lollipop confectionary of Funtom's, and killed in its name. It bridged the gap between absurdity and horror and left disgust in its wake.

For most, at least.

"Pfft! Gyaaah-ha-ha-ha! This is moooost amusing!" Undertaker cackled, rocking back in his chair as two of its legs tipped off the ground. "I have been gifted with more laughter than I deserve! Bfft! Hee-hee-hee-hee!" The Grim Reaper rattled the chair back and forth, side to side, as he wiggled and writhed in sheer amusement, laughing into the appalled silence, before finally gasping out his last shout of laughter and hunching forward again as the chair legs tapped back onto the ground. "Human beings…are supremely tragic…supremely absurd…and supremely delightful!"

Sebastian huffed out a short laugh of his own. "Oh? How curious. For once, I must say I agree with you there."

The students were all, undoubtably, baffled by this apparently-inscrutable conversation between faux-Headmaster and butler, but Lawrence Blue picked up his courage after a moment and tried to explain himself once more.

"This school is a respected institution that has produced elites who form the mainstay of Great Britain. Our generation cannot afford to defile the tradition that has been protected for hundreds of years since the founding of this school. For this history of Weston College…is the history of England!" he cried.

A razor-thin line separates education and brainwashing. They act as if they're slaves to tradition. Ciel sighed. It's a waste of time to argue them into silence since they've been this way for six years.

"Fine." he scoffed, to the apparent surprise of Sebastian. "I was investigating this incident…under the orders of a certain distinguished personage. I can't keep silent now that I've uncovered the truth. However…"

Blast it, how had that wretched Doll boy done it? A bright, shiny smile…

Ciel did his best to emulate the same. "I shall request measures that take your circumstances into account."

Sebastian huffed quietly through his nose as Thompson, always much less subtle, snorted.

Ciel was also going to have to add that to his lecture: do not act in manners contradictory to my façade no matter how amusing you find it.

"Now. That just leaves you. What are you after?!" he demanded of Undertaker.

"Hee-hee! You have just bestowed upon me plenty of laughter, so I will explain for old times' sake."

Ciel narrowed his eyes. "It was only for a moment, but Derrick was conscious beyond a doubt. He was clearly different from the previous reanimated corpses…no. He has evolved!"

Undertaker finished munching on a parfait. "It pleases me to hear that!" he said with one final gulp. "Quite so. The dead can also advance...by way of episodes."

"Episodes?" Sebastian probed. "Do you mean the counterfeit memories you have created? Connecting them to the Cinematic Records of the dead was how the corpses began moving."

"Guess again." Undertaker huffed with a pout, crossing both hands in front of his chin in an X. "You're close, though. Those memories were gibberish. The current corpses are being moved by their longing for the future. Humans recall their pasts in their final moments. That is their Cinematic Record. At the same time, they crave the futures they were to have had…although those futures are incomplete." He lowered his hands with a grin. "The fragments of those futures comprise their episodes. What if those episodes could be extracted? What if several tens of thousands of cuts can be had? What if the total length of the linked episodes was longer than their Cinematic Records? Its akin to a future forecast. They are memories of the future, nothing like my counterfeit memories. If I connect such a thing to a Cinematic Record –do you not agree that what will be perfected is a reanimated corpse infinitely approaching a living human?"

Ciel shivered.

"Well," Undertaker continued with a blithe shrug. "-the probability of success is still very very low, as it is dependent on the quantity and quality of the episodes."

"Ah." Thompson said from beside him in a tone of quiet understanding. Undertaker's bright green eyes flashed in her direction.

"The young magician should be able to comprehend this even if it isn't her specialtyyyy~" he teased, and Thompson frowned and shifted on her feet again, seemingly uncomfortable.

"It does explain why Derrick walked past all the others and only –broke," she faltered. "-when he got to Greenhill. What, was he the one to kill him or something? That'd- that'd make the part where you spliced things together get all weird, 'cause his last memory would've been…dying. You know." She gulped. "And then he'd see the ones that killed him."

Undertaker cackled as Ciel felt a small twist in his stomach. That was…macabre, to say the least.

And true, apparently, as the Grim Reaper grinned his answer.

"Not bad, for an apprentice!" he cheered, making a bead of disgruntled sweat slide down Thompson's altered jaw. "Not bad, not bad at aaaaall…"

"But why do this in the first place!?" Ciel demanded, taking back the conversation as he jabbed his gun at the Reaper with both hands. "Where is the sense in bringing back the dead?!"

What was the point, he screamed inside. Dead was dead: Sebastian had taught him that, in that terrible series of moments in which he was orphaned from his last shred of family and the demon had yet to own a true name in the human world. He knew what it was like to have a creature without a soul: one stood on his right hand, and despite how aggravatingly boisterous and crass she could be, despite her position as a wielder of magic, he did not mean Thompson. One could reduce a human to components –a soul, a body, a Cinematic Record– but the fact remained that they were creatures of all those parts for a reason. One day, his soul would be collected by the demon as part of the contract and cease to exist, and on that day, Ciel vowed to give a final order that his husk be burnt to ash afterwards.

He would not leave a puppet behind for Undertaker to operate, no ghostly echo of himself that would wander in the world.

Ciel saw enough of that in the mirror, with or without his eyepatch.

"I…" Undertaker hummed, tilting the brim of his hat up with one finger. "-simply want to look beyond the fated end."

"Beyond…the end?"

The Reaper stretched luxuriously. "Has it never occurred to you that something exceedingly amusing may unfold beyond the roll of credits?"

"I disagree with you on that point." Sebastian said with the detached air of a connoisseur. "Death is a hopeless and absolute 'end.' That is why I find it…most beautiful."

Undertaker smirked. "This is all I can tell you with the compensation I have received." he then said languidly, rising in a single movement. "Well, then."

He doffed his top hat as he turned in a mockery of courtesy. "It would be a nuisance if certain bothersome individuals were to discover my whereabouts. So I shall be going now."

"I won't let you escape again!" Ciel shouted. "Capture him, Sebastian!"

"As you wish!"


Sebastian lunged forward, but it seemed as though the Undertaker would not let him have his way: the Vice Headmaster lunged to intercept, hands curling over Sebastian's own to hold him in place.

"So, you were a corpse as well, Vice Headmaster Agares! That must be why I felt a sense of discomfort then…"

How infinitely annoying. If he were allowed to access his true form, instead of this humanoid…container, he could easily keep the corpse pinned in place while allocating some of his mass to swallow and engulf the Grim Reaper. Goodness, he could individually pick up and carry each of the meddlesome humans over the roof of the church and let them drop –or not– as his master commanded, to safety or otherwise.

But alas, the young master had not commanded, and had also given the order to appear as human as possible at all times. Certainly, Sebastian had enjoyed bending this command on multiple petty occasions, such as when he had disturbed the magician earlier this day, but his aesthetics would not allow for such a blatant defiance of an order given as stated in the contract.

He did have some standards.

"That one is replete with episodes and is my crowning masterpiece." Undertaker said as he landed atop the outer wall. "For now."

With a snap of his fingers, the ground erupted as multiple other corpses surged up out of the looser earth –a detail Sebastian had noticed earlier, but not seen fit to mention. Corpses were hard not to notice: the smell of decay and the complex bouquet of odors tied to it, the scent of a human body, the lingering sense of a place where sustenance had been (likely the same as a human smelling the fumes from prepared food), and, as he was quickly starting to learn, the faint prickling sense of a soul that was not a soul, the psychic echo of the manipulations of Cinematic Records.

So yes, he'd known the picturesque tea party was surrounded by a ring of buried corpses, still not quite into decay. He hadn't said a word, of course, because –well, the young master had not commanded it, had he? How was Sebastian to know that, perhaps, the quartet of prefects hadn't made a habit of murder, and buried their victims here? Humans did have so many grisly penchants. And it had been so long since he'd properly been among them. Perhaps the violent little beasts had made a casual habit of such things and there was a collection in every schoolyard. How was he to know otherwise?

And though he loathed to even acknowledge the magician's existence in thought, she did have a point in that his young master should learn, sooner rather than later, that he was not infallible, even with a devil such as himself at the child earl's side. Having a swarm of rotting un-dead creatures rise up from nothing in an attempt to tear him apart would be an excellent motivator for the young master to learn to rely on his demonic servant's senses more.

The wide eyes of the magician, who had apparently not sensed the bodies in any way whatsoever, as she frantically stepped closer to his master, face pale, was just a pleasant bonus.

Barely had the corpses broke out of the ground, however, before the Vice Headmaster whipped his arms around Sebastian's back, making him glance down in annoyance. Fragile though the corpses may be, this one was irritatingly strong. A human may find such inhuman strength horrifying: as it was, Sebastian was dreadfully inconvenienced.

"These are Derrick's accomplices!" the young master gasped as the corpses lurched forward. Sebastian resisted the urge to sigh: his master did vary between the strangest extremes. From a sobbing infant to an icily controlled mastermind…that summoning had been quite eventful. True, the boy had just watched his own flesh and blood, his very identical twin, be murdered in front of him, but since he'd also –deliberately or otherwise– offered that selfsame twin's soul as a sacrifice to summon a demon, Sebastian figured the boy did not get to complain of his grief. One did not spit on the Almighty and offer one's one blood as a sacrifice to the infernal forces on accident.

One could only hope that further cultivation erased such soft tendencies from the boy's makeup. He was young. He had decades to grow. Sebastian could wring out the more unpalatable parts of his personality long before it came time for the boy to be devoured, he was sure of it.

"Chrrrristmas…break…"

"Let's play…crrrrrricket…"

"Run!" the Lord Midford cried, hoisting his half-unconscious prefect up and staggering towards the open garden door. Oh, he had best scream to his fellow humans: he had been on the Campania, he knew these corpses all too well. "Leave this garden now! Hurry!"

With wails and cries of fear –extraordinarily foolish, predators were attracted to sound and movement– the group of humans all fled for the doors, all except the magician and his master, who retreated more slowly, and without words, as she put her gun to work and began covering the young master. Very commendable.

Sebastian noticed she did not shoot at the Vice Headmaster, though whether that was out of dislike for himself –not unlikely– or she feared an errant shot might take his head, that was unclear. It wasn't like she didn't know he could survive it…but ah, she may be afraid of future retaliation.

How droll.

It seemed, also, that one human had not decided to flee with the rest, and was pathetically attempting to crawl backwards as a Bizarre Doll loomed about him, shoulders and back already pressing against the table. He was due to die in a few moments: squeaky words escaped him as he vocalized his own paralysis, flinching back as the Doll mumbling about cricket pulled back slightly in preparation for a lunge. Sebastian recognized him as one of the students that had assisted the young master in his investigations by providing testimony of being tricked by that other boy, and took further, disapproving note that his master was lunging forward to grab the boy's wrist and pull him up and away, banging his hip harshly against the side of the table and jostling a teacup set at its edge as the Doll lunged and missed. Honestly, even with Thompson beside him to shoot the offending creature, what a pointlessly risky move.

"Come with me!"

"Hee-hee!" Undertaker seemed to share his amusement and his observations, a quality Sebastian disliked. "He may have inherited the Phantomhive blood, but he's quite unlike his predecessors…what a riot this is!"

"My, you are quite carefree about all this." the demon commented, ignoring the corpse attached to him as the Doll did its best to strangle him, for some strange reason, the crushing grip around his torso growing tighter and tighter in a way that would've broken bones and slowly pulped flesh. Since the human witnesses were practically gone, Sebastian wasn't really bothering to manifest and copy his human body that closely: the general shape and as much of the face and neck as showed above his collar was enough. "Do you believe you can stop me with something like this? How dare you underestimate me like that."

The Grim Reaper bared his usual carefree grin: Sebastian was not fooled by it. In humans, a grin was a sign of merriment, of positivity, usually. Sometimes it was used in sarcasm, or as a threat, but as part and parcel of the expression of a smile, humans, in their woeful ignorance, took a grin as a sign of pleasure.

In all other animals, bared teeth meant a challenge of aggression, an invitation or a declaration of battle.

"I've never underestimated you. All that sets us apart…" Undertaker said as the teacup on the edge of the table, wobbled, then tipped, tea sloshing out as it was sent falling, falling. The Grim Reaper cut his eyes sideways. "-are our goals."

Is he-

The teacup would shatter in a blink, and Sebastian could flip his impediment over and crush its skull in another blink as the Undertaker's coat swished out to reveal those inscribed sticks, and he could go to attack, but the Grim Reaper was agile and could avoid his blows just as well as Sebastian could avoid his –and it was only a short hop and a bound towards his young master, protected only by an utterly useless magician who was not even fully trained and had a repertoire of less than five spells she could reliably cast.

This is not good! At this distance he is closer to the young master than I! Then…

It took less than a blink for this thought process to complete, and then the cup shattered, and Sebastian flipped the Vice Headmaster over his head, smashing his skull into the pavement and crushing it in another blink –and ran for the young master.

…my first priority is to protect my contractor!

The Undertaker grinned as he bounded past in midair –in the opposite direction.

"Just what I'd expect from you, Master Butler." he said with a chuckle. Sebastian threw him a glare of utter distaste, and the Undertaker responded by turning his grin into a leer.

How bothersome, to be manipulated in such a fashion. Still, that didn't mean his decision had no merit: Sebastian had no illusions of what the Reaper would have done had he chosen to attack instead.

"Sebastian?!" the young master gasped as he skidded to a halt beside him and the other two humans, glaring up at the Grim Reaper as he landed on the wall, standing beneath the rising crescent moon.

"I do hope you'll continue to protect milord so loyally." Undertaker's mouth split in his initial empty leer, back when his characteristic eyes had been covered by shaggy bangs and he had been nothing but an eccentric information dealer, raising both arms as if to cradle the moon above his head. "Hee-hee! Fare! Thee! Well!"

A spark of light, and he was gone, and Sebastian relaxed infinestably.

"Hey, Sebas-"

He cut the earl off with a raised arm and a sharp command. "Stay behind me!"

A more rotund Doll lunged for him, and he palmed its forehead and shoved backwards.

"Sebastian! Why did you come to me! I ordered you to seize-"

Another moment of idiocy. Sebastian could only pray he'd wrangle that out of the earl's personality soon.

"By the terms of our covenant, your life is my first priority." he said, temper somewhat getting the best of him as the bone of the Doll's head began to crack and fracture under the pressure of his fingers. "I have gone to great pains to cultivate you." Impatiently, he crushed the skull under his hand in its entirety, flashing his eyes at the young master to impress upon him his seriousness. "I cannot afford to have you steal him away."

This method was slightly messy, and blood streaked across the earl's face as the boy behind him fainted and the magician, oddly enough, made a face and rubbed her mouth with the back of her wrist. Ah, right. There had been some spitting and gasping beneath his feet whilst he dealt with the Bizarre Dolls on that lifeboat: she had probably gotten some residue in her mouth.

Pity he hadn't been able to directly see it.

She then swarmed to catch the slighter boy as his young master stared. "Ah! Hey!"

"Kid! You okay?!"

"You should let him sleep." Sebastian commented as he let the body drop with a messy splat. "There is still much cleaning to be done…in the wake of this tea party."

Arya's POV:

It took Herculean effort not to say "ew" as I gingerly stepped among the various now-dead undead Bizarre Dolls, some time after the prefects and the others had evacuated. They, and their blood, was everywhere: one was even draped over the table near where the Headmaster/Undertaker had sat.

It was a bit weird though, all the blood. The Dolls before had, from my memory, didn't have a lot of blood as such: maybe enough for a bit of a spray, more of a sprinkle, when their heads were crushed or their limbs torn off, and it had all seemed very thin and…chemically. This stuff was thinner than normal blood, sure, but it was still surprisingly viscous, profuse, and as I may have mentioned, everywhere. It was enough to put me right off the tea that still steamed in some cups on the table, and all the yummy parfaits and other delicacies that were otherwise disarranged or covered in an unappetizing layer of gore and yuck.

Sebastian was even stripping his gloves and putting on new ones, which you knew was significant because the last time he'd had to do that, the Bizarre Dolls had been a real zombie horde, and here there were barely a dozen, if that. It'd been hard to count amongst the jolts of the fear and the ill lighting: after the others had gotten out, I'd just shot at anything that wasn't me or Ciel and tried to avoid catching Sebastian as he zipped everywhere in a rapid black blur.

"Dear me." Ciel sighed as he wiped his arm across his face, removing the spatter of blood on his cheek. "How am I going to explain all this to Her Majesty?"

"Why not give her all the facts as they are?" Sebastian asked, tugging his second glove on straight. "Tell her that 'a perverse, erstwhile Grim Reaper is reanimating the dead'."

"She'll never believe-" Ciel began as he holstered his own gun, to be interrupted by running footsteps.

"Ciel!" Edward cried as he slammed the door open again, sword in his other hand. "Everyone's escaped safely…"

He stopped, stumbled, and nearly fell as his foot whacked against the skull of one of the downed Dolls, who had been stumbling in the vague direction of the door before one of us had taken care of it.

"We're done here too. Watch your step." Ciel noticed sardonically, and Edward made a face, lifting his foot out of the puddle of blood.

"…I will."

He was silent for a moment, stepping carefully over the corpse and taking in the scene with white, compressed lips. For a moment he didn't speak, but then he sighed as though the very act of exhaling pained him.

"Ciel. It frightens me to no end…that I might have ended up…like those prefects too." Edward's sword hand shook, his whole body shook as he raised it up to grab the sheathe in both hands. "That I might've become a man who deludes himself into thinking that…the sin of murder is equal to justice."

Ciel smirked. "Don't worry. Consider yourself normal if it scares you so." he said as he turned away. "Unlike me."


In the aftermath, Ciel told the Queen everything. The punishment meted out to the four prefects was expulsion, not imprisonment.

It was not a show of mercy. Rather, the expulsion was to suppress a scandal involving a blood relative of the Queen, who lost his life due to his own troubles. Their comeuppance may indeed have been crueler than death to the prefects, since they chose the traditions of the school over human lives.

According to Ciel, the disappearances of Derrick Arden and those other bastards that were his accomplices were explained away as accidental deaths from a boating mishap, and their corpses were buried in secret. All parties involved, aka all the fags, were sworn to secrecy, and Ciel and I dropped out of Weston.

However, there was one small thing that nagged me, and I made sure to complete it before we left for the Phantomhive estate.


I sighed and plucked at the loose, lacy short sleeves of my dress. After some months wearing pants, it was both annoying and reassuring to go back to skirts. Sure, it made one feel wonderfully fancy, but trousers were so much cooler, and it was tending towards hotter weather nowadays, being June and whatnot. At least my hair was still short, and as something of an oblique…hint, I guessed, to avoid any more explaining than I had to, I was wearing one of those off-the-shoulder frothy dresses Miss Nina had sewn for me, something that made it clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that I had both bosom and cleavage. Or was that the same thing? Bosom seemed to convey the entire area of the bust…

Anyways, female. No more illusion, no more magic fiddling with my vocal cords, just me, a girl with disconcertingly short hair and an incongruous wide summer hat on my head, and a supply kit of that satchel Ciel had lent me dangling stylishly off one bare shoulder.

I'd already rung the doorbell, and I fidgeted awkwardly on the steps, reaching to play with the edges of my cotton finger-bandages before I remembered I finally had cast them off and my pink, freshly-healed nails were exposed to the world, finally resorting to fiddling with my sleeve some more as I rubbed my bare hand against my upper arm.

Granted, this was a house under siege at the moment, probably, by newspapers and relatives and lord knew what else, but still. To leave a lady on the doorstep like this…oh god their mindset was rubbing off on me.

My distressed squeak was, unfortunately, something that happened at the same moment the door warily cracked open. Was that a sign? Was the universe fucking with me?

In either case, I prepared a bright smile and waited for awkward as Lawrence Bluer's glasses glinted at me behind the crack in the door.

"Ryan Thomp…son…?"

It was, of course, automatic: he saw the face he knew, and reacted, and then his eyes moved, caught on the odd and novel details: the frilliness of my feminine hat, the odd bright colors of my clothes, and then the slow pan downwards and the widening of eyes as he saw, in order, bare neck, boobs, a dress, and then in rapid reverse order as his eyes shot back up to my face and his own face turned red.

"What- why are- you- in a dress?!" he yelped, and I quickly stuck my foot in the door before he could slam it shut.

"Yes, technically I am, or was, Ryan Thompson, and not his identical twin sister." I rattled off quickly. I knew Shakespeare, I wasn't about to let Bluer go off on that tangent. "Can I come in?"

"I, er, you do realize-"

"Perfect."

Relying on Victorian manners was a bit of a dirty tactic, but when I shoved against the door, crowding him, his options for refusing to open fell to one of two things: rudely denying a lady entry and leaving her on his doorstep, or having a lady in a saucily frilly dress be right up close in his personal space.

Caving like a stack of cards, Bluer swiftly stepped back, opening the door.

"Sorry to barge in like this." I said breezily, stepping into the townhouse the prefects had been allegedly sheltering in these past few days as they pieced their lives back together. "But it's a bit urgent."

"You- you're a…female?"

I raised an eyebrow as I bustled down the hall, catching a glimpse of more bodies in an adjoining room, probably a living room or sitting room or something similar. Bluer caught my gaze and tentatively moved to block me, obviously not wanting any more scrutiny or shame to come to him or his friends. They'd endured enough of that these past few days, I was sure.

"Yup. The name's Arya, actually. I'm here to see Greenhill." I said brusquely, pushing past him. My former prefect was sitting gloomily in a plushy chair, staring into the flames of a cozy fire, his arm wrapped in a sling. He looked up at me, noted the dress and the bosom, and a confused and slightly horrified expression crossed his face.

"RYAN?!"

"Arya, apparently." Violet noted clinically from behind me from where he lounged on a settee against the wall, doodling moodily and with aggressive movements on a sketch pad. I gave the P4 – P3, actually, since Redmond was absent– an awkward smile.

"Uh, yeah. I, um…I'm here to see Greenhill about his arm." I said, and the bulkier blond flinched, looking down at his perfectly shined shoes hopelessly.

"I…appreciate the gesture, but the doctors said I'd never play cricket again. I'll be lucky to retain the use of it for ordinary tasks." he muttered gloomily, and I smirked.

Time to show what several months of frantic studying gets you.

"I'm not a doctor." I said confidently, chucking my supply kit on the floor. "But I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that doctors don't."

Greenhill looked at me uncertainly for a few seconds, before he gave me a terse nod. "Do your best." he said wearily, not even bothering to question my change of attire –not to mention gender.

Bluer looked at me skeptically, and I raised an eyebrow as I saw the faint pink in his cheeks. "Just...why on earth are you wearing a dress?" he asked awkwardly as I knelt beside Greenhill and began undoing his sling.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a female." I said dryly as I pulled the wrappings away, and winced at the sight of my former prefect's arm. It was painfully obvious that a large hunk of flesh had been ripped away and hastily given first aid, and the stitches there were thick and ugly.

"He said as much, but –you were helping Phantomhive all along, weren't you?" Violet asked bluntly, and I grunted an affirmative.

"I'm a manager for a branch of his company –I also know a few tricks that he finds useful in his investigations." I said, pulling out the wrapping I had prepared earlier and laying it on my knee. "As Weston College is an all-boys school, I had to disguise myself, and the earl thought it'd be better not to place all his eggs in one basket, which was the reason I played up the sports side of my personality."

"That's breaking tradition." Bluer said stiffly, and I snorted quietly.

"Not to burst your bubble, but you got thrown out of the school because you valued tradition over someone's life." I said acidly, and they all flinched. As the awkward silence lingered, I took out my pocketknife and began cutting the stitches on Greenhill's arm, pulling them out as he winced just barely. "Not to say that the bastards didn't exactly deserve it, but still. You could've handled that better." I said, unintentionally falling into a "lecture" tone of voice despite the fact these boys were as old or older than I was. "You what, were gonna report it to the Headmaster? Could've just done that. Or reported it to Arden's father: he probably wouldn't've taken it well. Talked to your parents, the newspapers, even. Informed the whole damn world and let society do the rest."

"That looks like some kind of arcane sigil." Greenhill interrupted nervously, staring at the pentacle inked out on the scarf-like fabric laid across my knee.

"That's exactly what it is, as a matter of fact." I said without expression, pulling the last few stitches from his arm.

"Magic is an impossibility." Bluer said stuffily from his spot by the doorway, but before I could retort –and to my surprise– Violet answered for me.

"You believe in reanimating the dead, but not magic?" he sneered, still somehow deadpan, and Bluer flushed as I wrapped the fabric around Greenhill's arm, closing my eyes and gripping his arm over the wound as I began to murmur in Greek.

"Listen, Ry- Arya." Greenhill began skeptically, his face slightly flushed as he corrected himself. "I appreciate the gesture, but there's no way a drawing and some prayers will...help..."

Violet and Bluer shifted worriedly as the former head of Green House slowly trailed off, his eyes growing huge. "Greenhill?" Bluer prompted in concern, and my former prefect blinked once.

"My arm's gone numb." he whispered incredulously, and the corners of my mouth crept slightly upward as I kept whispering the incantation, but continuing to chant was vital to this actually working, so I didn't respond. I could feel the familiar thrill and electric tingle of energy in my hands and fingertips as the magic flowed through me, and I tightened my grip as Greenhill suddenly shifted, both of us noticing the same thing at once.

The missing flesh under my fingers was beginning to fill out.

"That's impossible." Greenhill whispered to himself, his face ashen, and I waited until his wound seemed more or less level with the rest of his arm before stopping my incantation and letting go.

"Welcome to the world of the impossible, then." I said dryly. "I didn't heal it all the way –you'll have scars– and to be fair that's probably a good thing. Scars can be helpful reminders." I added, pulling the fabric away from his arm. "And if I'm bein' honest, I probably couldn't heal it all the way even if I wanted to."

Greenhill, Bluer, and Violet all stared wordlessly at the pinkish, slightly raised scar on the former prefect's arm that was the only evidence of a formerly gaping, nearly crippling wound. "I know how important a good batting arm is to you, Greenhill." I said, my voiced toned with no small amount of professional pride at my magical accomplishment. "If you stop moping around and start moving forward, you could probably turn it to some good use as a professional cricket player or something. Lord knows you've got the talent for it."

He looked up at me, and for a moment, I swear I saw tears glimmering in his eyes.

"I don't-" he began thickly, in a tone that implied know how to thank/repay you would be coming hard on its heels, and I winced.

"Look," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "Greenhill, I'm not gonna lie and say all my, uh, trying to hang around and bond with you stuff wasn't me trying to worm information out of you, but…I had fun. You're a decent guy- er, person."

A smile flickered wanly around his mouth as he recognized one of our first slang exchanges.

"And, you know, I, erm, I don't want you to think I didn't think of you and some of the others as, well, friendly acquaintances and whatnot. I did. We had fun, playing cricket and whatnot."

I tried to offer him a bright smile, but it wavered on the edge of awkward. "So I guess…what I'm trying to say, is no hard feelings, yeah? I'm sorry you had to do what you felt you had to do, but I didn't ever come at you with like, with malice aforethought, okay?"

Greenhill sucked in a slow breath –I had been in a fuzzy sort-of-friend zone, and I had lied to him for months. There was some emotion tied up in this, confusion, betrayal, lingering hopefully-strictly-platonic-affection.

"I suppose." he mumbled, looking down at his miraculously healed arm and flexing it a little. The barest hint of a smile curled at the corner of his mouth. "At least now I know why you were so reluctant to spot in the cricket team."

"Oi!"

And after a bit more slightly-awkward visiting before a hasty escape, that was that chapter of my life tied up in a nice little bow.

12.54 AM, USA Central Time