Lyserg was going over his emails that morning when he received an instant message from one of his friends.
It was another case, something about a missing heiress. He sighed, this wasn't the kind of case he hopes to encounter. In the first place, he didn't like accepting cases that involve women- they were plain bothersome anyway.
He downloaded the attached picture and read the details.
Jeanne raked her fingers on her wild tresses before tying them into a ponytail. She placed her bonnet over her head once more before placing her moustache back under her nose.
She yearned for her personal maid who brushes her long hair for her, but decided that she couldn't do anything about it. She was far away from France already, far from the scandal she left. Far from Marco, even.
Lyserg rolled his eyes. The detailed case could have jumped right out of a soap opera. An heiress who was orphaned and is now being forced to marry her guardian, but chose to run away instead.
He sipped his drink. The guardian, who called himself Marco, wanted to talk to him personally because he was the lone detective in their agency that was currently in Japan, where he suspects the heiress went.
Jeanne splashed some water on her face. "I want to be a nun. I want to lead the X-Laws. Why can't Marco understand that?"
Part of her wanted to blame the convent where she hid. For after all those months of keeping her from the outside world, the mother superior finally relented and told her guardian where she was staying.
Fortunately for her, a friend, also a novice nun like her, told her that. She had barely managed to escape to a ship heading outside France.
"I don't want to be a wife of someone old enough to be my father. I want to be a nun, and I want to help the X-Laws with their job of protecting the ordinary people from abusive and wicked shamans," she told the mirror.
She believed in shamans, for she too, was a shaman herself. But once again, Marco refuses to see things her way. She knew that he was just indulging her when he announced that he too, would join the X-Laws.
"He was a fine guardian and an adviser to my father. But no, he can't be my husband. Never. I'm going to be a nun," she told her reflection.
Now if only Marco could understand that the way her reflection was doing now.
After making sure that her appearance as John was back, she went out of the room.
Lyserg was about to email his comrade, saying that he refuses the assignment because he was on vacation, when he saw that the picture had finished its downloading.
He opened the picture and found himself staring at the loveliest scarlet-eyed wonder in the world.
He suddenly heard a door shut a bit too loudly. He turned around and saw John looking at the picture on the screen of his laptop too.
He blinked twice. Those scarlet eyes…
Wait a minute…
Jeanne was shocked- her picture was online, and Lyserg was looking at it. Could it be possible that Marco was in cahoots with him?
But Lyserg quietly turned his back on her and began to type something on the screen. It was an email, stating that he couldn't possibly take the assignment. He was on vacation and could not be bothered.
"I'm a detective," said Lyserg out of the blue. "They were asking me to look for a girl."
She stiffened. He knew! And he was a detective! She could have crumpled to the floor, but she knew she couldn't afford to do that right now. She must act sensibly and try to bargain with him to let her stay here.
She had a sizable inheritance, and she was more than willing to give it all up just to be away from Marco and the idea of marrying him.
But the boy has spoken once more. "It's funny, actually," he said smoothly. "Apparently, the heiress is only eight or nine, and the man looking for her, Marco, was in his late twenties already." He turned to her, smiling. "If I do find Jeanne, I will never give her back to that man. She's too innocently beautiful for him."
Oh! She felt her heart jump. Lyserg thinks that way about her?
He stood up and turned his computer off. "Ah, very well. Ohayou, John! What do you want for breakfast?"
She shrugged smilingly.
"Silly me! You're mute!" he chuckled. "I hope doughnuts are fine."
She nodded enthusiastically, all the while thanking God for this miracle called Lyserg Diethyl.
"Aw damn it, my head! Damn, it hurts!" muttered Ren as he tried to rub his splitting head muscles.
"Hey, don't say profanities in the house!" said a high-pitched female voice, nearly sending Ren gritting his teeth.
A girl with long blue hair was staring at him with disapproval. Her cerulean eyes scanned his whole figure, then back at his face.
He didn't like the measuring gaze, so he snapped at her. "What the hell are you looking at?"
Her eyes crinkled into a smile. "Nothing."
"Hell! Do I look like a 'nothing'?" he yelled.
"You said it, not me," she laughed. "But don't worry, you're a bit tall to be called nothing." Her eyes gave one last glance at his diminutive stature.
"Who the hell are you?" he barked.
"I'm Pirika, and you shouldn't speak to me that way, Mr. Anti-Christ!"
"Anti-Christ?!" He looked at her in disbelief. "Why the hell did I become an Anti-Christ?!"
"Because everytime you speak, you say 'hell'." Pirika sighed. "You have a big problem with your id, eh?"
"Huh?! Id? What the hell-" Ren paused. "-in heaven's name is that?" There. Just so he wouldn't be noticed unpleasantly again by this girl who dares to practically call him a Satanist.
"It's the concealed, inaccessible part of the psyche, seated in the unconscious, independent of a sense of reality, logic, and morality, but actuated by fundamental impulses towards fulfilling instinctual needs," explained Pirika, as if she was talking to a three-year-old autistic. "It is also the reservoir of psychic energy or libido."
And Ren Tao said, "What?"
Pirika smiled sweetly. "It's where you keep urges." She gave him a kinky wink.
"Shit," was all Ren could say.
Pirika decided not to say anything more. If this stranger wishes to mutter profane things, who was she to repress these craving? She didn't want to be responsible for his psychoneurosis.
"Why are you mentioning those libido things?" he asked when he finally quenched his thirst of vulgar language.
Her eyes danced. "Amazing. Out of all the words I said, the first thing your memory was able to retrieve was the word 'libido'. Do you know that it speaks volumes about your personality?"
His face flamed, partly because he couldn't believe that the girl was making him feel this stupid with such ease, and partly, because he was allowing her to do it. "Are you saying that I'm a sex maniac?" he demanded.
"You said it, not me," she said again.
"Shit!"
"I psychoanalyze people. My hobby," said the girl, shrugging. "You know what, awhile ago, I was starting to regret saving your life. But right now, I'm grateful that I fed my psyche's primitive urge to help a waif like you."
"Gee thanks," he said dryly. He knew what a waif was, and it was enough for him to know that what she said awhile ago was not…flattering.
"You'll make a great specimen for my psychological experiments!" she said cheerfully.
"Shit!"
"You better not let my onii-chan hear that," she said. "I can tolerate it, but not everyone is as open-minded as me. Not everyone's a psychologist like me."
"Thank God for that," he spat out. "The problem with you is you're too open-minded, that's why your brains slid out."
She laughed merrily. "Perhaps. I will look into that theory later on."
"Shit!" He had to get out of this place. He was going to be a guinea pig for a shrink wannabe, which was more dangerous than your average shrink.
"And I like you too," she replied, eyes dancing.
He had to pause. The shrink wannabe's eyes were very lovely, he had to admit.
He shook his head. He must get out of here- for all he knew, he was using those exquisite azure orbs to hypnotize him and put him under a trance. Then the next thing he knew, she was operating on him and his libido.
"Shit!" Not that word again! He was never that aware of that damn word until today. All no thanks to this girl…this crazy lunatic with hypnotizing blue eyes who said that she saved his life…and that he was a sex maniac…and that he was inches larger than nothing.
Horo Horo arrived in his tribe finally, both he and his stomach happy. He had been eating for hours that he didn't notice the time, so Tamao asked him to stay in the house and sleep there. He was only too happy to oblige. The Asakura refrigerator was magical- it never runs out of food stock. His midnight dinner and breakfast had, in fact, only an hour interval.
He made a mental note to bring Tamao some flowers tomorrow. Not that he was courting her. No, of course not. He just liked seeing the way her eyes light up when she sees her favorite flowers.
It's the least I can do for all her hard work in cooking those delicious food…"Horo Horo, your sister was looking for you," said the leader of the tribe, smiling wickedly. He was seated by the now dead campfire. "You're in for it. She wasn't able to watch Doraemon because of you. She's been looking for you since yesterday."
He winced. He could play his sister's wrath by the ear usually. But her missing her favorite anime was no usual thing…
"Fortunately, she found someone to distract her. A kid she picked up unconscious," continued the man.
Horo smirked. His sister, aside from being a brutal sister and an even more brutal Doraemon fanatic, was a brutal psycho. He was betting his snowboard that right now, she was victimizing the poor kid with her shrink questions.
"How old is the kid?" he asked, joining the leader of the tribe.
"Gee, I can't tell. He looks like a nine year old brat. Can't tell…based on his size though, I'll say he's eight or nine."
Horo grinned. "Perfect." His sister would be too distracted to even think of noticing his presence. He looked at the man. "By the way, did you catch the werewolf?"
The man groaned, then went on to narrate that they found a suspect, but the girl was saved by a laidback-looking thirteen-year-old named Asakura Yoh…
Horo choked. "Yoh?! Yoh saved a girl?!" He started to laugh insanely. "But Yoh is scared of women! He thinks they're…they're…all like his grandma!"
"You know him?" asked the man, amused. "It's a good thing then that we didn't decide to burn him down a stake."
"Actually, he's going to fetch his brother's fiancée. The girl must be the one his grandma told him to fetch."
The man looked embarrassed. "If you see your friend, please extend to him the inconvenience we caused him. And to his brother's fiancée too."
"Will do!" Horo stretched. "Better check on my sister and the poor kid. She might start asking the poor guy some killer questions-"
"Your shirt looks new," commented the man.
He grinned. "Yup, Tamao just mended it."
"Looks great on you."
"Any shirt looks great on me."
The man winked. "You know what I mean."
"I don't, actually. I'm clueless." Horo groaned.
"You'll figure it out on your own…all in good time."
"What-e-ver," sighed Horo, then went back to his shack.
tsuzuku