Hello there everyone! I've been writing so much that I have a big surprise for you! :D but it'll have to wait till the end of this chapter :3

For now I'll give the thanks:

-LightandDarkHeart: Haha the Caterpillar x3 true, he does seem like him. Maybe he'll get a habit of smoking if he makes another reappearance. Who knows c:

-Tris PhantomEvans: Oh thanks! It makes me happy that you're so excited for the next chapter. And really? :o Errors? Don't leave me with the doubt -w- Please, if you remember tell me, that way I'll fix it for prosperity.

-Rena Talmay: Thanks so so much for the story following! I'm so glad that you want to know more about this story enough to follow it :D

And now for the chapter ;)


Chapter Ten

Hymn of the Dead


My legs were getting heavy and my muscles ached so much from running for so long. Chronos had guided me with a frantic speed across the city towards where he said he sensed the Chain. The cold, night air had quickly swept into my lungs and frozen them solid. My face felt frozen and my nose was beyond solid cold.

"Are you sure—it's this way?" I inquired a bit winded just as I turned the umpteenth corner towards the Northeastern bridge that led North.

"Positive. I could never mistake this smell. So foul and vile."

"Then—we're close?"

"We are but I can't know for sure the exact location."

Really?! I stopped for a much needed breather putting my hands on my knees and taking short, spastic inhales. "You're—leading me—nowhere!"

"I know but he's here, Claire! I can't be wrong!"

Just then a boyish voice that I couldn't forget if I wanted to rose in the air alerting me of its presence not far from me. "Wait, Echo-chan!"

What did surprise me a bit was the frail yet frigid voice that answered Oz's tired request, "Just Echo!" This time their voices and breath was much closer than before and I noticed now that they were beneath me, on the lower part of the bridge.

Glancing down, Oz and a girl in a blue and white dress that seemed strangely familiar were catching up to where I was. Taking a cold, deep breath I yelled out to get Oz's attention. He turned but instead of stopping he called out, "Oh, Claire! Sorry! Can't talk!" Before they could leave me behind, I trailed after them already tired as hell. I had no idea why he was chasing her but he was a persistent little bugger. It wasn't until the girl jumped off from the higher bridges we reached that he stopped shocked. At looking down, we saw that she was straddling a little kid of maybe eleven on the floor, the kid obviously terrified.

God, we finally stopped then and when we did, I felt my side burning. It was my wounds. I'm beginning to think that I should have listened to Break and Sharon and rested before leaving the safety of my room.

"Mr. Benefactor," she spoke with that same frigid voice from before. "I think you are gravely mistaken. This child is not the Contractor." My eyes widened at hearing that word. So these two were searching for an Illegal Contractor? A great ruckus startled both of us for it came from the other side of the street. I turned around trying to think what I could do. Leaving Oz was out of the question, he was in peril out here after all if an Illegal Contractor was out free. "You mean—" Oz's little muttering made me come back to listening to the girl.

"In other words," she clarified while tilting her head slightly. "It is not this child that holds the contract. It's...his father."

Both Oz and I ran down the stairs coming to both the girl, Echo I suppose, and to the little boy.

"Are you okay, Phillipe?" Oz asked when he picked up the kid while I held onto Echo who wanted to leave since she had 'no more use for the boy'.

"Yeah," he answered with a nod as well.

Oz then turned to me with a perplexed expression on his face. "I thought you were going back to Gil's to meet us."

"I was but I was alerted of an Illegal Contractor that was amok near here," I explained while holding Echo's sleeve while she murmured 'Please, let go' a couple of times.

"You too? Echo-chan said the same thing," Oz added getting a little bit more confused by the second. "But..." he grimaced at slightly catching the boy on his peripheral.

"This kid's father, you know where he is?" Oz's eyes landed on me as if confused that I didn't ask anything else about the two familiars. I had no reason to though. The more attached I became, the less capable I would be of doing my job correctly. One of the many lessons that Break beat into me, literally.

"He is not far," Echo called snapping her hand free from my grip. But before she could run away again, Oz caught a hold of her sleeve stopping her in her tracks. "Please, let go." She was being so polite but her tone was a bit repressed at best, acerbic at worse.

"Wait. I want to come with you to where that Chain is," Oz exclaimed with a clear voice and every intent of going.

I, however, had no intent on letting him. "There's no way that I'm letting that happen. You are unarmed. Without Gilbert or Alice, you can't fight a Chain."

"Even so—" his sentence was cut short when we were all taken aback by the sudden sobbing that we began hearing behind us. At turning, we saw Phillipe crying out.

"Phillipe?" Oz muttered softly, clearly concerned about the boy.

"Mister," the tears glistened down his cheeks while he talked through his heavy sobs. "Do you think something happened to my dad? Dad, he...hasn't been home since three days ago. But that's normal, though. It happens a lot. Hey—Dad's coming home, right?" The crying became a little more desperate as he spoke the last words, "I...don't want to be alone."

Poor thing. But regardless of how I felt, there wasn't much we could do. As an Illegal Contractor, his father would someday—

"It's okay." I barely caught the glimpse of Oz passing me to reach the boy and hold him by his shoulders. "I will...definitely bring your father back!" Without another word to the boy, he turned to me and nodded. I sighed before calling to Chronos for directions.

"Up front," I repeated as he told me where to go. "On the Northern bridge." He nodded and the three of us—Oz, Echo, and myself— headed towards the bridge. At reaching it, I could feel the power that was coming from the wild Chain. It wasn't a Trump, that was for sure. Not with this significant amount of power.

"No, this is that no-life maggot." Just as Chronos told me that, we came up to the edge of the bridge to see Gilbert and Alice facing a giant worm. It was putrid and disgusting. That I already hated bugs wasn't helping much to the situation. "It's Grim." Without warning us, Echo went ahead and charged the thing from our place prompting Oz to call out to her with worry.

Gilbert cried out for Echo to stop and I agreed. That thing seemed to be a bit much for someone who seemed to rely on body strength alone. Instead of listening, though, she got smashed through an alley way. As repercussion, the other side of the maggot turned and hit our bridge making it crumble and collapse.

"Shit!" I hissed under my breath. Oz was way too far from my grip!

"Hold on!" Without my word or say, Seiren appeared and encircled me completely burying me in the countless rubble that fell atop. Engulfed by complete darkness, my breathing was starting to become heavy as I tried and failed to remain calm. "You have to get out of there!"

"I know!" I yelled trying not to panic much more. I couldn't deactivate Seiren or I would be crushed. The rubble needed to get moved away from me so I could crawl out at least. Instead, I kept Seiren and summoned another under my breath, "Legion!" The spear appeared in my hand but become stuck on the floor from the lack of space. But all I needed was for it to touch the floor. With that I summoned the others and destroyed the rocks completely but, unfortunately, Seiren alongside them. It wouldn't disappear but it would be awhile before I could summon a broken Hour again and it also consumed great energy of my own to let it fix.

Finally having some space to breath, I crawled out and onto my knees on the street. In the few minutes that had passed, Alice was on the floor, pinned down near Phillipe's father. Gilbert was out cold, from helping Oz I presumed. And Oz was nearing the man while holding his injured arm.

"What in the hell?"

"That brat. He was able to single-handedly nullify B-Rabbit's powers into submission."

As Oz came closer, the man finally snapped and took out a gun from behind him and shot at Oz. But from shaking so much, he missed by a thin margin, thankfully.

"Oz, run!" I yelled alongside Alice. The man shot more rounds and most missed except for the last one that merely scratched Oz.

"Damn!" Raising and ignoring the pain that my body was in, I began running towards him to get him away from the gun's range.

"Do it, Claire!" Alice yelled at me as I passed her.

"That is as far as you will go."

A sudden weight took over me and pulled my whole body to the ground making me hit my face on the dampened streets. As much as I tried to get back up and stop them, the forceful weight would increase sticking me to the ground. Even my breathing was becoming labored yet I got a strain through greeted teeth, "You're..."

"Leave him be, edera." That last word that he had said held some accent to it. It wasn't our language and even when I didn't understand it, it made the blood rush to my cheeks in embarrassment. "You will understand once he says what he needs to."

"Claire! Why did you stop!?"

"Claire!" Alice exclaimed trying to get me up just like Chronos tried to.

But no matter how much I tried to get myself back up, his words and, more to the point, that immense power was pushing me back down. Using what strength I could, I yelled out to them both, "I can't move! He won't let me..."

Had it not been for my arms holding my upper body up, I wouldn't be able to witness what happened next. Oz was just...beyond livid. From the way that he spoke to Phillipe's father, the raw emotion that came just from his voice was so extreme that it sent chills through me. The boy that had smiled when we met, the one that seemed so cheerful and full of life was now just—different. He wasn't the Oz I met. Or maybe...I hadn't really met the real Oz at all. Perhaps this boy right in front of me— that was so angry at the man that left his son, that was so emotional at knowing that the man had left the boy all alone—this was the real Oz. He wasn't all smiles and cryptic answers like Break had seen. No, he seemed much more...or perhaps less than that.

Human.

From behind Alice and I, I heard Gilbert's voice grumbling awake. "Gil!" I yelled his way but my voice was drowned by his own baritone voice calling out Oz's name. But instead of moving out of the way, Oz stood before the man getting in the gun's trajectory.

"Don't shoot!"

...

Silence. No, not silence. A ringing in my ears persisted without me noticing. It left me deaf for a few seconds before I began to fully process the whole scene that had occurred in mere seconds.

Phillipe's father had fallen on the cobblestone street, dead. He had been shot. Oz had turned about with a perplexed and shocked expression on his face. Out of the blue, a wave of energy went through me and left me feeling lighter than ever. Getting up and glancing down, I noticed the pressure from before had left both Alice and I. When someone had begun screaming, all I saw was Gilbert running to Oz and trying to return the seal on B-Rabbit's power.

But the little runt was ruthless, he didn't want to be touched by him, that much was evident.

"Why? Why did you shoot him?!" Oz yelled out to him. "That person was—"

"I didn't shoot!" Gilbert finally snapped at him grabbing him forcefully by the shoulders and making him calm down. At last, he repeated the same thing to clarify to him what he had said, "I didn't shoot him."

"I did."

That voice... Stumbling back on my feet, I held my abdomen while turning to where the voice had come from. The rain was making it somewhat blurry to see but I wouldn't be able to mistake that man no matter what.

Those heterochromatic eyes that I would never get used to stared back at me as empty as could be but a fake smile was plastered on his face. I grimaced and heard what he said about 'saving' Oz from the illegal contractor.

"It was inevitable, right?" he spoke nonchalantly with a cocked grin and the gun still held in his hand.

I came up to Alice as I helped her but her glare was on Echo who only gave us a blank stare. "Are you all right?" I whispered to her trying to see if she had any injuries.

Slapping my hand away, she never faltered with her glare. "I'm fine."

"Vince, is your carriage nearby?" Gilbert began inquire from Vincent. When he answered that it was and that he would let us use it, we didn't take long to arrive at the Rainsworth's Mansion.

All of us, no exceptions, were soaked to the bone and cold. Sharon gave me one of her night gowns to wear while I remained with them and a towel to dry my hair with. I had to stay seeing as Gilbert didn't want to relate much of what happened to her. So instead Vincent and I were left with the task to tell her what had occurred while we had gone out to search for Grim.

Once done, Sharon admitted to have understood the basics of what had happened at least. Vincent apologized for being intrusive at such time but Sharon said she didn't mind. Since Gilbert didn't want to go back to the Nightray Household, we had to come back here since it was the closer than his house. But either way, neither him nor I wanted to be seen back in that house so I understood and thanked him wholeheartedly.

"So this is where you have been hiding all this time, Miss Claire?" His voice was very nonchalant as he spoke my name. Frankly speaking, hearing him say it just creeps me out.

"There were matters that I had to attend to, Master Vincent," I answered just as frigidly back but didn't dare make eye contact with the guy.

"Is that so?" he replied with a chuckle as he towel dried Echo's hair. "You know, Elliot and Vanessa have been quite concerned about your well being. Despite what happened, they do miss you, you know? I never thought you so cold as to leave them behind without a word."

"With all due respect, Master Vincent, it does not concern you." And without another word, I left the room having done my job there.

I had fully intended to go back to my room and rest for what was left of the night but I was caught off guard when I saw the dim light that escaped from underneath the door to one of the rooms. Coming closer to it, I began hearing the murmured voices of Alice and Oz. Although I couldn't decipher what they were talking about, I could tell that it was them. This must have been the room where Gilbert had placed them at. I leaned a hand upon the door intending to open it and go inside to the little guy. He must be devastated about what happened to Phillipe's father. After all, he couldn't keep his promise.

And even though I knew this was bound to happen, his words somehow gave me...hope.

"Is something the matter?"

I jumped out of surprise at hearing Break's voice behind me. He stood there with his Pandora uniform on and a lit candelabra on his head. Gulping down the nervous wreck he found me as, I composed my expression and lowered my voice.

"I think it horrible what he just went through. And admit that even someone as weird as him can be shaken about something like this." I glanced over my shoulder and pursed my lips, "I suppose I am a bit too."

"What has been one of the first few lessons I taught you?" he asked me with a finger on my nose. "Never get involved emotionally or otherwise—"

"It mentally fucks you over, right?" Glancing at him, I see him grimace a bit at my use of profanity. Yeah, he never liked that about me. "Or something along those lines." Heaving a sigh, I put my hand on his shoulder before telling him, "I know. I can't help it...I am human. Feeling empathy is normal."

"It's a weakness," Break added brushing my hand away from him. "But give it time, you'll learn by yourself soon enough."

"Really? You're just gonna leave it up to chance for me to be taught?" I asked a bit skeptical and playful at his choice of words.

"Nothing's ever left to chance," he replied poking my forehead as he began to leave.

"Then what the hell's it left to?" I murmured under my breath but ultimately ignored his cryptic comment. Instead, I headed on towards my room. Once there, I tried calming myself down so I could rest but that was easier said than done.

My head was hurting from all the commotion from this evening. Not only that but the events kept replaying in my head. The most recurrent was of Phillipe crying and wanting to have his father back. Reaching to my chest, I clenched at it wanting to relieve the aching that had come to it. As much as I'd like to deny it, I understood him. When you're alone...your whole world just shatters.

...hehe...

My head snapped about at hearing a faint laughter. I went over to the balcony door but noticed that there was no one there or anywhere near my room. Just as I was coming back to my bed, though, I heard it again.

...hehehe...

"Who's there...?" I whispered trying to see beyond the faint candlelight that was lit on the bedside table. I held my head that had began to hurt like hell. Without noticing, I walked over to my dresser and glanced at the oval mirror that stood hanged on the wall. In the faint light, I could see my reflection and just how tired I really was. Surely, I must be imaging stuff being so tired.

"No, you're not~"

My eyes widened at hearing that voice much clearer now and noticed that a dark, shadowy hand had crept out of the mirror. Looking up, I didn't see my reflection anymore but instead saw a hazy black figure that seemed to be my own. However, it's eyes were shinning red beads while a creepy wide grin spread on its face. The darkened hand had suddenly grasped my left wrist in an iron grip. As frantic as I was, I couldn't shake it off. And dread was quickly creeping on me.

"Hey, would you come play with me...?

I was left speechless until the black hand and everything else turned as vibrant a red as its eyes and splashed about yet still holding me. Drowned in panic, I grabbed the first thing that I had in my reach and yelled.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"


At hearing the bone-chilling scream followed by the sound of shattering glass, Oz, Gilbert, and Alice turned their heads towards the general direction.

"That sounds like—" and before he finished, he had already run for the door with Alice and Gil behind him. Gilbert, however, had outrun him and gotten to the room first. At seeing what happened there, he turned about and stopped Oz and Alice from coming any closer to the room. "Wait! Gil, what happened?"

"That voice," Alice called out trying to reach out an take a peek. "Seaweed head, that was that Chronos girl, right? What happened to her?"

But before Gil had time to explain and calm them down, Break and Sharon had appeared running after hearing the screams.

"What in the world is happening?" Sharon exclaimed, worried sick.

Break, however, instead of asking, walked past the rest of them and into the room. He could hear the ruckus the other three were making but he tried his best to ignore it as he took everything that was in the room in.

What caught his attention foremost was the scene that he witnessed before him once inside. The floor stained with a trail of fresh, crimson blood that connected the shattered mirror and something that stood at the opposite corner of the room.

But at giving it a closer look, it was actually from the mirror that the blood had come from and was even dripping from some parts of the broken mirror. Ignoring the mirror for the time being, he went over to the small bundle that cradled itself against the corner. He found Claire there, curled up in fear with her eyes shut tight, hyperventilating, and her right hand holding tightly to her left which was gravely cut around the palm and fingers.

Reaching towards her slowly, he called out her name but with no response. The only reply given was when he barely touched her and she flinched, sinking deeper into her made-up haven. She was petrified. Not caring what she would say or think, he quickly gathered her up in his arms and took her away despite her constant flailing and the others' yells for explanation. Without another word, he took her to Sharon's room with her just behind him. Before Oz and Alice could go and follow them, Gil stopped them in their tracks.

"What happened with her?!" Oz exclaimed more than sick with worry.

"That's...blood? She's bleeding?!" Alice called out sniffing the air and noticing the drops that followed behind Break's wake. Slipping out of Gilbert's hold, she scurried inside the room and her eyes widened at seeing the wreckage it had become. "What happened here?"

Oz came in followed by Gil and went over to something that caught his attention. Bending down, he picked up a hairbrush that was covered in glass shards and drenched in blood. Glancing up, he caught what little, distorted reflection the mirror gave. "She...did it on purpose? But...why?"

Meanwhile, Break had left Claire inside Sharon's bathtub to tend to what had happened while the younger girl tended to her with no help. Sharon had opted so rather than asking for any of the maids' help seeing how terrified the poor girl was. Once that heavy ordeal was dealt with, and her left hand injuries were properly bandaged, Sharon helped her dress with one of her nightgowns and walked with her out into her bedchamber. There, she brought her up to her bed and laid her down. Placing her head on Sharon's lap, the younger girl gently brushed her hair with her fingers, soothingly.

She didn't want to say anything but Sharon could feel how fervently Claire was still shaking from her fear and how her grip had seceded from her shawl. It took a good half an hour but she had gotten Claire to fall asleep.

"Has she fallen asleep?" Break's quiet whisper was barely heard by Sharon who lifted her head from Claire's sleeping form. Helping her lay her on the bed properly, Sharon nods as the girl softly snores and tosses in her sleep.

"At least, it seems so," Sharon answered while getting up to sit down on her chair next to her dresser. She turned up and frowned at Break. "What happened in there? She seemed—no, acted so terrified."

"There's no signs of a break in or of a second party intrusion," Break explained while taking out a candy and playing around with it. "Although the mirror of her dresser was broken, all evidence points that it was her that broke it. It would also explain the injuries to her left hand."

Sharon nodded slowly as she went to glance at the sleeping girl. "But a mirror?"

"I know it sounds odd but it is what I could conclude from what happened," Break replied to her questioning voice. "If anything did scare her, I'd like to know what. Because..." his eyes darted a bit towards the sleeping girl as well. "Whatever did was so petrifying that what I saw in her eyes was...simply nothing I could describe."

Le'veiru garvelio no zuro

Ichi kaedio

I l'una kuru so

Rei voz lea catio

Heehee...

Ready or not...here I come.


Well how was that? I'm planning to do a triple upload probably since I have so much pre-written but not proofread. But that won't take long.

Now as reference, I'll have some translations to the language used. It's made up, just because I needed something that sounded not like any other. I do use sounds of other languages I know or semi-know, like French, Spanish, Japanese, and sometimes Greek.

Ref.:

- edera: lovely

- Le'veiru garvelio no zuro / Ichi kaedio / I l'una kuru so / Rei voz lea catio :
Beyond the gray fields / Each sunset past / When the moon yields /Passage to our path

I'll try and remember to do this every time I use those words. So for now until shortly x3