HELLSING was contacted immediately after Crystal called the Phantomhives and surveillance was set up immediately until they could formulate a plan of attack. It was quick, seeing as though it was a simple extermination mission. Within two days, the Phantomhives were in Manchester with a small team. In a flash, the house was swarmed and surveillance pulled back to make way for soldiers.

"Let's go! Move it!" August egged on as people leaped out of an armoured car and moved into position. "This ends today!"

"Gun or sword?" the bluenette asked his spouse as the two of them got ready to move in, themselves. Alois put one of his pistols in a holster so he could rub his chin while he thought.

"Well, personally, I would go with guns, but there might be a use for close-combat weapons..." answered the lion, prompting the other demon to nod.

"Gun it is, then. I'll just keep the sword on standby..."

"We're ready to move in any time, sir." August interrupted, addressing Ciel with a salute while the man's spouse furrowed his brow at her.

Alois still wasn't too pleased with her or the fact that she was here with them given the last time the two of them encountered her, but was professional enough to conceal this fact to an adequate degree. It helped that the woman maintained a professional air, herself, speaking to the Watchdog with utmost respect. That said, it more than "miffed" Alois that she was only talking to Ciel.

"Very good." the blue Phantomhive finally acknowledged. "We'll move in after Agent Jim Phantomhive and I are in position."

"Yes, sir." spoke the lesser demon before dutifully turning around and attending to her own duties.

Once she was out of earshot, the bluenette sort of side-eyed his husband while the other man watched her leave. It both entertained and concerned him to see the menace so subtlety displeased. He found it flattering that the blonde was jealous over him, but didn't want it clouding his thoughts or concerning him. Casually, he leaned over and whispered to him.

"She's very dutiful." he said. "She'll do whatever task she is given. She won't stray from it."

"Good." Alois replied. "Less nonsense."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

"You were making a face."

"...Was it obvious?"

"No, I just know your face and look for changes." Opening his arms, Ciel motioned for the other to step closer and hug him. "C'mon," he said, inviting him in. After pecking Alois' lips, he continued. "Let's get this over with. What do you think about looking around for a bit afterwards? Not everyday we leave London."

"That sounds nice." Alois replied, his face betraying him by morphing into a smile. "Let's hurry, then."

Sneaking in one last kiss, the couple went to work, waltzing straight up to the front door to act as a decoy for the others. Without any sort of tact, they knocked casually as if they were some kind of salesmen. As soon as someone walked up to that door, they were going to shoot through it, taking them out, and then bust through.

Somehow, however, that did not happen. They waited for a while, ringing the doorbell, but no one came. Concentrating, Alois tried to see if he could sense any life in the building, only to come up with nothing. Blackwood and whatever motley crew he had scrounged up had fled. After passing that information on to the other Phantomhive, he instructed Ciel to inform the troops while Alois himself made an executive decision to bust the door down anyway.

The house was dark with only the light that was able to be seen from the other side of drawn curtains lighting the way. Alois could hear every step he took, so he knew that anyone there certainly could. Yet, the man couldn't sense one single soul on the entire premises. Everyone was outside, clustered around where the soldiers should be, so no one could be hiding. This being the case, Alois still gripped the handle of one of his pistols, ready to draw at a moment's notice.

Silently, he crept through the house, keeping track of his husband approaching the building from the outside while followed by several others, including August. They came barging in, ruining any attempt toward caution that the blonde made.

"Jim? Did you find anything?" Ciel called from somewhere in the house behind Alois.

"Not yet!" the blonde shouted back while pressing onward.

As he ventured deeper into the house, he finally picked something up. It wasn't life, but rather, a sense of dread coming from one of the rooms. Once he registered it, his mind started formulating possibilities of what could lie up ahead. The feeling was mild, so he didn't think that he was going to die from whatever it was, but being careful would never hurt him, either. There was a very real possibility of there being traps up ahead.

The door that he was led to was large and sturdy, needing a little bit of muscle to be able to open it from the odd angle Alois was standing at. Fortunately, the demon had just that and stood to the side of the doorframe before opening the door one handed and shoving it open. To his surprise, nothing happened. He had anticipated a trap to be sprung as soon as he opened the door, but it wasn't to be. His mind was put at ease for a moment and he decided to step out and look inside, but that moment of calm soon vanished as he saw the lifeless body of a woman in the center of an empty room with nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on her back.

She laid in a heap, haphazardly tossed into the middle of the room. Her eyes were still open, glazed and lifeless with a gaping hole in her chest, staining her previously white shirt an ugly, reddish brown with dried blood. There was no respectability in the way her body was treated and she was not granted dignity. As carefully placed as the suitcase was placed on top of her, she, herself, was treated like trash being thrown in a dumpster. Even Alois found it abhorrent, reaching down to at least close her eyes so that she was no longer staring vacantly. He would have moved her into a more dignified position, but rigor mortis had set in long ago, preventing him from doing so without damaging her.

"Damn..." he shook, examining the damage. Alois didn't know her. Not really. She knew who she was. Yet, he couldn't help but feel sad for her. There was a sense of responsibility that filled him as well.

The fact that he was talking to the girl merely a day ago got under his skin. From the looks of her, she had been dead for a while and the fact that he last heard from her while she was standing in front of this house made it worse. She could have been killed within moments after that call was made- a hypothesis that was correct, in fact.

Following the blonde's signature into the room, Ciel appeared behind the menace and stopped in his tracks at the sight. "Jim, have you found anyth- Oh..." When the bluenette trailed off, Alois took that as his cue to stand up.

"Yeah… It's Crystal." Alois said before pointing at the suitcase. "And look what's in her hands."

"Did you look inside of it?"

"No, not yet. I just got here."

"I have a feeling we might already know what's inside..." speculated the Watchdog while crouching down to grab the case. "How long do you think she's been dead?"

"Well, the last time we heard from her, she was right in front of this house, so she might have been killed right after." Rubbing his forehead, the blonde sighed while watching his husband fiddle with the case. "Fuck… If… If she would have just ran..."

"She might have, we don't know yet." Ciel replied, unfastening the latches and opening the suitcase up. Once it's contents were made bare, he shook his head. "Puzzle book. Figures."

"You think Sudoku is working with Blackwood?"

"I don't know yet. Could be Blackwood trying to bait us after reading about his escape." At this point, Ciel was convinced that they weren't going to find anything else, but he absent-mindedly thumbed through the book, just the same. He was glad he did, or else he would have missed the clue.

"Wait!" he exclaimed, capturing the other's complete attention. Jabbing his finger at the book, he urgently pointed out the message written inside. "He left a note. It says: 'You're too slow. You need to hurry before it's too late. He moved us to a shack near the railroad tracks. Signed, the Sudoku Killer.'"

"The fuck does that mean?" Alois questioned while his spouse stood up.

"I'm not entirely sure, but we should get there as soon as possible."

"I'll start seeing if anybody can find it." the menace nodded while Ciel stood and rallied the soldiers to report that their target is on the move.

To the surprise of them both, a soldier came to them, instead. "Sir!" August called out. "There's two bodies in the front room!"

"That makes three, counting the mess in there." corrected the bluenette while gesturing to the other room. "Who are they?"

"We're still trying to get clarification on that, sit." the demoness dutifully reported.

"Leave a small team to that. Our target isn't here. He's moved somewhere else."

"Where? Why?"

"I don't know, yet. Jim is calling Intel to see if they can give us a guess."

"What do you want us to do until then?" August inquired, not having the slightest idea as to where to proceed.

This fact sort of surprised the Watchdog, as the solution was very much obvious to him. It should have been to her as well, given that she was very much a trained operative. Then again, she was a lesser demon. They took orders from the demon that oversees them without question and find it somewhat difficult to form a plan of action without being given an objective.

"Secure the perimeter, of course." he said, concealing his astonishment to a degree that was convincing. "Search for anything out of the ordinary and report back. Have someone identify those bodies. Do this while waiting for the target's whereabouts to arrive."

"Yes, sir." August answered, saluting the man before turning to do as she was told. Indeed, she was very strange. While Ciel had no idea how she acted normally, it seemed that her mind fell to pieces when she was around him. He wondered and doubted just how effective she might be, like this.

In minutes, the soldiers found a gruesome scene in the basement, concealed behind a moving bookshelf. There were bodies. Multiple ones. Many had the heads either split open or drilled into somehow. Goodness knows what they were trying to achieve with this, but they also found a substance that they had a hunch would shed light into the matter. Most importantly of all, Alois hung up the phone.

"Got it." he said. "I know where they might be."

"Let's go, then." Ciel said before barking orders to the many teams he had broken the group into. He instructed some to contact other departments in order to investigate what they found, some to guard the scene, and some to do whatever else was nessecary to make the job get done as smoothly as possible. This, however, left him with a small team with only a handful of people. Surely, it would be plenty.

"This ends today..."


A/N: There was more I wanted to do, here... What was it? I wrote it down, somewhere... Not sure which set of notes that was...

It's almost 5 in the morning, but I want to write more. Maybe I'll write a paragraph or two, at least...

I'll get it, soon.

VERY soon.

Hopefully...

I've gotten over the hump, so to speak. A lot of people say that starting is the hardest part, but for me, it's the part that's leading up to the part that I REALLY want to write. It's like it's being dangled right in front of my face. It's the final stretch up to it, so it's difficult. I'm the sort of person who just jumps into it. Thus, the build up is the tricky bit. Even now, I really rushed it. I should have taken more time, really.

Ah, well. Nothing we can't fix.

In other news: I wrote this while listening to The Prince of Egypt soundtrack. Have I ever seen that movie? No. No I have not. Looks pretty, tho.

Until the next chapter, my duckies~!