"Um, Mag, you know we can slow down," Lavi said somewhere behind me.

I tuned him out as I continued to abuse the local flora with a machete. We'd been cutting through the forests for nearly two hours since Kanda had sent his little message. At that point, we'd packed up what supplies we had and grabbed what dinner was left. I'd been going nonstop since then. It was going to take a mountain, several wild animals, a horde of Akuma, and a storm to stop me from getting to my sister.

Unfortunately, so far we'd already had to contend with the animals and the storm and the mountain, so my courage was already beginning to wear gossamer thin before we'd even gotten to the fight.

"Magnolia. Maggie."

I stopped, spinning around and nearly slipping on a fern leaf.

Exasperated, I finally asked, "What?"

I panted as he looked at me with a strange look on his face. I wiped sweat off my forehead, and suddenly a downpour started. My frazzled, poofy hair matted to my face as I was showered with a deluge of water. I sighed heavily as brown strands hung over my eyes. Lavi moved the strands out of my face, his red hair already plastered to his skin.

"You need to slow down a little, yeah? You're going to end up burning yourself out. You've been hiking like a wild woman for the past two hours, and we've still got another three miles before we're even in range enough to ask for a reference point," Lavi stated.

I bit my lip, chewing on it. Finally I sat down on a rotting log, and I put my head in my hands.

"I can't stop. Ava could be in danger or dying or hurt or... or-"

I threw up my hands, running out of words. Lavi hummed sympathetically, and he helped me to my feet. Now that I'd finally sat down, my legs were like jelly. He held me steady as I got my land legs back.

"Worrying's not going to change that, and burning yourself out isn't either. Once the weather clears, I can use Little Hammer to fly over the island and see if we can't find a place to get a good signal. Right now, all we can do is wait for it to clear, because at this rate, you're going to make yourself sick," Lavi stated.

Taking a shuddering breath, I nodded. I bound back my hair with an elastic tie, one of which I'd... 'borrowed' from Kanda and hoped he wouldn't mind missing. Lavi glanced at it with a raised eyebrow, and I shrugged with a sheepish grimace.

"I really needed the hair tie," I muttered as we began to walk again.

Lavi said, "I hope you're prepared for a fire storm when he decides he wants it back. He practically protects those hair ties with his life. I'm surprised you managed to even get it off of him."

I winced. It was just sitting there in the open near his hut. I'd thought nothing of it.

And, of course, speak of the devil, we heard loud noises from our golem, which was fluttering right next to Lavi's head.

It crackled before a low voice ground out, "Which one of you took my hair tie?"

I winced.

"Hi, Kanda."

"I'm going to make you run until you puke, you moron."

"Nice to hear from you too."

Lavi rolled his one good eye. Taking the golem in his long fingers, he asked, "Hey, you got a lock on either Allen or Ava?"

It was quiet for a minute, and the golem crackled. Maybe all the water was messing with the circuitry, though Komui had told me when I'd gotten mine that it was nigh indestructible and waterproof to boot.

Finally, Kanda's tinny voice filtered through, "I've found the town, but I don't see either. I know I saw Allen's Innocence fire off Cross Grave, but other than that all I'm seeing is a lot of running and screaming. How far away are you two?"

"I don't know. We're kind of stuck in the middle of the rainforest right now. I might be able to triangulate with your golem, and when the weather clears we'll hitch a ride over on Little Hammer," Lavi answered.

Meanwhile, I surveyed the rain forest, rain falling in massive sheets through the canopy. The storm blocked out the moon, and without the flashlight on Lavi's golem, we'd probably be stuck in pitch darkness. From what I could see of my surroundings, it was green, wet, and decaying. I didn't like to think about what might be squishing under my feet. Beyond my immediate vicinity, however, I couldn't see too much. I could definitely hear well enough, though, because I swore that every time I turned around, there was a growl, a hiss, or a rattle. Rain forest wild life obviously didn't have public noise edicts.

Suddenly, two eyes glowed at me from somewhere in the dark, and I screamed as I flung out my whip, the razor-sharp metal practically cleaving all the unfortunate plants in front of me in a swath as I scared off whatever had been staring at me. A tree suddenly fell somewhere ahead of me, and I winced as it crashed to the ground, sending animals scattering. Lavi stared out with an almost impressed look.

"I forget how sharp this thing is," I muttered, reeling in my whip.

"What was that?" Kanda asked in a rather deadpan voice.

Lavi answered, "Mag's getting the hang of deforestation. Nothing big. I'll catch up with you here in a minute. I think the storm's clear enough that I can risk using a Seal."

There was a grunt on the other end, and the sour-sounding Exorcist hung up. I was going to take a guess and say he meant 'affirmative.'

"Use a Seal...?" I asked, emphasizing the capitalization.

Lavi winked, and I rolled my eyes. He removed his Innocence from his leg holster (which I desperately wanted, seeing as carrying this whip around my waist is like having razor-floss cut into my hips) and stated, "You may want to stand back. It can get pretty loud."

I didn't need to be told twice. I moved as far back as the golem's light would let me, and Little Hammer suddenly became very not little. I swallowed at the sheer immensity of the thing as Lavi invoked his second level of seals, smashing the face of the hammer into one with a Japanese kanji on it that I couldn't read. A massive bolt suddenly hit the sky, and I looked away as I was momentarily blinded. After blinking away the little spots in front of my eyes, it abruptly stopped raining.

I stared.

"Why didn't you do this two hours ago!" I drawled out, and Lavi rubbed the back of his head with all the sheepishness of an apologetic.

"I, uh, didn't think of doing it, actually. I just remembered now that I could," he explained, and I rubbed my temples.

I'd just tramped through miles of rain forest for no good reason other than to go knee deep in decay, have the crap almost literally scared out of me, and to waste time getting to my sister. Never the less, I calmed down enough to notice that he was prepping his hammer for take off. It suddenly occurred to me we were going to be flying.

Flying entailed being high above the ground. Flying entailed not being strapped into anything. Flying entailed going very, very fast with nothing to catch me if I fell off.

I didn't like the idea of flying.

"Um... Lavi... I, uh... I'm not a very big fan of -"

Before I could fully protest, he took my hand and grasped it firmly with his hammer's handle in my palm. I stared for a minute, not comprehending that in just a minute I was about to acquire a phobia of heights. Without warning, we suddenly shot into the sky, and I screamed as I was whacked by several branches on our way out.

After two minutes of gut-wrenching terror and acceleration, I finally realized that we'd leveled out. It was as if I were a witch sitting on a broomstick, except instead of a broomstick, I had a handle about the size of a dowel rod separating me from thousands of feet of air. I was speechless with fear as I clung to the itty-bitty handle with arms and legs, my stomach violently trying to evict all occupants. Below me I could see a panorama of the rain forest, an entire swath of green directly beneath me.

My body shook as I began to come to terms with just how high I was, and Lavi shouted over the wind, "Isn't this fun?!"

We barely missed the side of a forest-covered limestone mountain, and I screamed. He laughed over the roar of the storm. This guy was beginning to get on my nerves. How could he be so calm when we were flying higher than the birds?

Suddenly, a bird passed us by with a very, very confused look on its face. I stand corrected. Flying higher than most birds.

"You get used to it!" Lavi shouted. "Scared me the first time I figure it out! Kinda hard to put the brakes on it, too!"

I blinked at this realization, and for the first time since being up in the air, I sat up and squeaked, "What? You're telling me you don't know how to land?"

I turned back to look at him, but a bump of air sent me back to clinging to the handle.

Lavi cheerily reported back, "No, I'm saying that it's just a little hard to stop! Hey! There's the village, I think!"

He pointed over my shoulder, the hammer slowing down ever so slightly. The village actually jutted out into the water quite a ways. Most of it was on stilts, and quite a bit of it was on fire.

Flaming destruction? Check. Screams of agony and fear? Check. Gatling guns? Check. Sinking feeling in my stomach and immediate dread of the demonic? Check and check. I'm going to buy a vowel and say that this was the right spot.

Against the backdrop of the burning village, which was barely the size of a postage stamp at our vantage point, I could see something fluttering in the air on wings. Anticipation ran through me as I got my hopes up. If Ava was flying, that meant she was fine.

Unfortunately, as we came in ever closer to the village, I saw that the flying thing was much too small to be Ava. Instead, I saw Parley frantically flying towards us, flapping his singed wings as fast as he could.

We were probably half a mile away when the parrot landed on my shoulder, exhausted, and began to squawk, "Craaaawk, danger, danger. Craaawk, fire, lots of fire. Craaaawk, clipped wings, clipped wings, craaawk!"

I winced at the noise in my ear, but I paid careful attention to what was being said. Parley actually had a lot to say, and I'd long since realized that he didn't just spit out random words. Somehow, Lily had managed to teach him to count from ten back to zero. I didn't even think parrots could understand the concept of zero...

"What's with the bird?" Lavi asked as we descended.

I slowly sat up, feeling slightly more secure now that we were within twenty feet of the tin roofs below us.

I explained, "He's trying to tell us about what's going on down there. I think he's saying that Ava broke a wing. He keeps telling me 'clipped wing, clipped wing'. She's done it more than once."

She liked to perch in trees, and she'd fallen quite a few times. Luckily, most of her 'broken wings' tended to be dislocations, which were about the equivalent of a Nurse's Elbow and didn't take long to fix. However, to someone inexperienced with children (and dislocations for that matter), a dislocated wing looked awfully gruesome.

Suddenly, I noticed that our speed wasn't decelerating. If anything, it felt like we were going faster rather than slower, and I glanced back at Lavi in question. He grimaced at me, and I glared.

"You are so dead when we land," I growled as Parley cashed in his chips and flew off for safer ground.

Lavi winced as the back end of the hammer skidded over tin roofs. I think I screamed as we headed towards a rather large, empty area of wooden floorboards that I take was their version of a town square. Two arms wrapped around my waist and tightened, creating a brace, as we finally hit the ground. The both of us rolled several times, eventually splitting apart when we hit a wall. I gasped and moaned in pain, feeling my new assortment of bruises and cuts. Wood was not kind to skin at thirty miles per hour.

"Are you alright?" Lavi asked as I sat up slowly.

Nothing felt broken, though that could change at a moment's notice. Breathing in and out, I figured that I wasn't injured anywhere on my torso. My head hurt, mainly because Lavi's forehead hit the back of mine. I looked over to him and took in his small showcase of blue splotches. He had a corresponding contusion to my goose egg, but other than that he looked fine.

I nodded and stated, "Yeah, I, uh, I'm good, though I think you shaved off about fifty years off my life expectancy. You practically gave me a heart attack or two."

Lavi laughed, getting to his feet with a bounce.

"Hey, you only live once, right? Might as well make the most of it."

After the both of us had checked to see if we had all our supplies and Parley mustered the guts to come back after bailing on me, we started off through the small town on stilts. It was odd, seeing as I'd never been to one before, though I'd definitely heard of them.

"Strange to think some of the people who'd lived here have never stepped foot on land, huh?" Lavi asked quietly.

We watched a band of burqa'd women and their threadbare children run from the fighting going on nearly fifteen blocks south.

The golem, which had somehow miraculously managed to keep up with us, indignantly beeped with an incoming call, and Lavi tapped the face of it with a rather impatient rap of the finger.

It crackled, and a familiar British tenor asked, "Hello? Hello, is there anyone here? Hello?"

My eyes widened, and I snatched the golem out of the air. It fluttered in my hand with a panic, but I ignored its futile attempts to escape. It could live with being manhandled for a few minutes.

"Allen? Is that you?"

A sigh went over the airways, whether of relief or disappointment, I'm not sure. I was betting on the latter rather than the former.

"Miss Magnolia, it's good to hear from you. Are you in the town?" he asked, trying to keep up a rather cheery voice despite the sounds of screams in the background.

I began walking at a brisk pace, following the glowing dot on the golem's face that was giving me Allen's position.

"Yeah, I am. Is Ava alright?" I asked, trying to keep hysteria out of my voice.

That proved difficult, though, as I was imagining my little sister being dismembered in a variety of ways. Lavi sped up to follow me, Parley taking perch on his shoulder. The addition of a parrot made the redhead look like a bona fide pirate with his eye patch and saucy bandanna (which had wondrously managed to stay firm around his head - I'm beginning to think all of his belongings were enchanted to keep up with him).

"Ava is perfectly fine. She had her hair singed a bit, and she's got a cut on one of her wings, but other than that she seems right as rain. I apologize for not bringing her back on curfew. We were quite caught up here, if you couldn't tell," Allen said, a sudden explosion going off in the background.

A corresponding burst appeared somewhere along the horizon of the town. Lavi gently pried the golem from my fingers, letting it freely flutter in the air. I could've sworn that it glared at me.

"Allen, we're headed towards you. Keep a weather-eye out for anything out of the ordinary or danger. Have you gotten word from Kanda yet?" Lavi asked, and Allen's answer was prompt.

"No, I haven't. That idiot's been tramping through the forest, I bet, instead of taking the main road like I told him to," Allen sighed rather belligerently, and despite the grim environment I chuckled at his peeved tone.

For some reason, I found annoyed British people oddly amusing. Perhaps it's that stuffy aspect, I guess, though Allen was anything but stuffy.

Lavi smiled at my sudden break from dark countenance, and he said to Allen, "Well, keep us posted on changes. Give me a report on how many we've got."

"A hundred or so Level Ones. About twenty-five to thirty Level Twos. There are two Level Threes around, but I already sent one off. I didn't get a clear shot as to whether it's still alive or not, though, so you'll have to keep an eye out for it."

Lavi contemplated this, and he adjusted his headband.

"Got it. Over and out," Lavi said.

Allen echoed the same before clicking out of the transmission. We were almost at a jog now, turning down alleys as the golem took the lead.

"Feel better now?" Lavi asked suddenly.

I panted tersely, "Yeah. Lots."

Geez, I hadn't had to run this much since... well, since Kanda had me go on that ten kilometer 'jaunt'. My heart was already beating fast enough to put hummingbirds to shame, and the added exercise was going to put it out of commission if this went on any longer. I was seriously out of shape.

We continued at a heightened jog for nearly twenty minutes, weaving through side streets, jumping over gaps in the boards that served as the 'streets' themselves, and taking shortcuts through people's homes. We had yet to encounter Akuma, and I was kind of hoping it would stay that way.

And, of course, as luck would have it, the minute the thought entered my head, two Level Twos and about fifty Level Ones careened around a corner to stare at us like a deer in the middle of a road. Training took over, and I barreled for cover. The Level Twos took turns picking us off, but they were about as dumb as two sacks of hammers. The Level Ones were basically mindless eggs with gun attachments, and it didn't take me long to get rid of them either, though I ended up with a bad case of road rash and a few close calls. I wasn't in uniform, so unfortunately I wasn't immune to flying debris. Sad to say, at one point I ended up screaming because I was hit with a piece of wood, and I thought I'd been shot. Lavi laughed so hard, I thought he was going to get shot.

"Pay attention!" I squeaked, my voice cracking.

That only made him laugh harder. I deflated in response to his show of mirth at my ineptitude, and I grumbled under my breath.

Suddenly, I felt a lancing pain in my side. Before I knew it, I'd crashed through an entire house, lucky to land on some newly installed boards, seeing as quite a few had proven themselves rotten and had nearly been the end of us. I lay there for several minutes, coughing and flailing, before I realized I had an Akuma lording over me. It grinned with oversized teeth and a metal-plated skull made of bronze, obviously shaped to be a dog. My eyes widened as it pointed two massive, stovepipe sized cannons at my face, point blank. They began to whir, and I could feel the blood promptly drain from my face.

"Hehehehe, easy picki -"

A sword suddenly sprouted from its face, the tip hardly two inches from my nose. I could only lay there and hope that I didn't wet myself. Blood dripped on my cheek, stinging, and the massive hulk of the Akuma was dragged away, chucked somewhere into the alley. I could hear it fall through the floor boards as it crashed into the water underneath. Breathing in slowly, trying to keep my heart from vacating its intended space, I stared at Kanda with something close to wonder and closer to fear.

The samurai looked massive from my angle on the ground, wiping off his sword on his pants. I winced as I realized that the blood was eating my skin, and I wiped it off. Kanda began to leave, and I felt indignant anger well up within the very recesses of my core. I'd just been shoved over, thrown through a building, tramped through a rain forest, and nearly shot in the face, and he wasn't going to even help me stand up?

"Hey! Downed woman over here! Could use some attention!" I griped from my personal bed of debris, and Kanda glanced back with a sour look. He gave a short 'tch', and for a minute I thought he might actually walk away. At the last second, he seemed to think about it for a minute.

And then he really did walk away. I snorted as I stiffly stood up.

"Butt head," I muttered under my breath, and a voice asked, "Butt head? Is that really the best you can come up with?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin as Lavi poked his head out of the hole I'd created when I'd flown through the house. I was lucky these boards were already wet and loose as they were - had it been concrete, I'd probably be lying in a pool of my own blood when I'd been thrown up against the wall. I rolled my eyes.

"Years of being a good influence has cleansed my tongue -"

"MAG, WATCH OUT!"

I was suddenly thrown for the second time in five minutes, and as I flew through the air I idly thought, y'know, I'm really beginning to get sick of this.

I hit yet another wall, not falling through this one, and a massive force tore through the center of the street where I'd been standing not two minutes before. I stared in awe as the waters below broiled, coming to the conclusion that maybe being thrown wasn't such a bad thing after all. Lavi leaned up against the opposite wall of the alley, wincing as a piece of tin roof hit him on the head. I gulped as I looked up, wondering just what had sneaked up on us and put a massive rift in the alley. It had been completely silent, not even making a single sound as it attacked.

It was safe to say it was probably a Level Three, but I could be wrong. After all, how many other things have the ability to make the street disappear in two seconds? I'm sure there are two or three, at the least.

Lavi risked peeking out from under the eaves, and the look on his face was all I needed to see. He bit his lip as he leaned against the wall of the house, taking a deep breath. He looked at me, and he pointed down the main street that was at right angles with the alley, or what used to be the alley. I stared at him in disbelief. He wanted me to go out there? I was an Exorcist, not a suicide case. I flicked my whip back and forth rather hesitantly, thinking about our options. We were separated at the moment, and that street didn't start until it reached the house I was at. The gulf was too wide to jump across without becoming a sitting duck in midair.

In all senses of the words, I was plain out of luck. This was a lose-lose situation. Without Lavi, I was going to die. If I left, I was going to die. If I stayed, it was very likely I'd still die. If Lavi tried to get to me, he'd die and then I'd die without his help.

Suddenly, I heard the ching of a sword somewhere out in the distance, and a faint kernel of hope flared. I hated my dependence, but I was a desk girl, an eighteen year old desk girl at that, not a fighter. War was not my thing. If I wanted to survive, I had to stay with someone whose thing was war, and Kanda was the posterchild for 'fighter with a penchant for blood and destruction.' If I had to settle for Mr. Grouchface, I'd settle for Mr. Grouchface, as long as it kept me alive.

If anything, I was a survivor. If nothing, I was a wimp. There are benefits to both. It meant I'd sacrifice dignity and glory for living. I'm not sure if that made me a coward or just intelligent.

I groaned to myself, walked into the house by scrabbling through the window, and looked out the door into the main street. The coast was clear, but Kanda was nowhere in sight, which made me a little bit nervous. I looked back to Lavi, and I waved to him with a quick salute. The redhead had an apologetically sad smile on his face as he returned the favor, and he headed off. I sighed as I shook out my hands, trying to prep myself for the run down the street. I sincerely hoped that I could manage to just cross the street in one piece, much less alive.

"Okay, Mag, you've got this. It's just a street. Kanda's somewhere down there, kicking butt, and you're going to go down there and kick butt with him, and you're going to get Ava and go home, take a nice warm bath, go to sleep, and wake up tomorrow ready for the day. You're gonna be fine, absolutely fine. You're an Exorcist, and Exorcists aren't af-"

An explosion rocked the entire town on its stilts, and I ducked and screamed. Boards rained down from the ceiling, and I heard a loud scream that was tellingly masculine. My eyes widened as I realized that whatever had tried to kill me before was probably distracted now. I felt a pang of guilt as I realized that I was thinking of Lavi as bait, and I quashed the feeling as I emptied my brain and flung myself down the street.

I managed to run down three different alleyways before I encountered Akuma, but it wasn't hard to be rid of them. Keeping from being shot is a totally different story, but I don't think I'll go on about that. To my vast relief, I saw Ava in the street, relatively unharmed, and I made a mad dash.

I managed to pick up Ava, who was cowering behind a barrel, and I soon realized why the tyke was scared out of her mind when I saw the wall of flame that had sprung up down the street. I frowned heavily. I couldn't keep running. Kanda's position was becoming less and less clear, and I was running out of energy.

Suddenly, I couldn't hear the sounds of fighting any more.

"You alright, Ava?" I asked, panting.

I was pretty sure there were only Level Twos and Ones about right now. Kanda probably took care of one of the Level Threes, and I had confidence that Lavi took care of the other one while I'd, well... hightailed it. Ava clung close to me and didn't answer.

I brushed hair out of my face as the wind picked up. Suddenly, I felt a constricting feeling around my throat and arm as I was rudely yanked backwards by the neck, my forearm trapped by the garrote that had closed around it. It was only luck that saved me from having my head torn off—my wrist was the only thing keeping the rope from completely choking me. I made a gagging noise as I dropped Ava, my eyes bugging out of my head as she spread her wings to try and control her short descent.

Cold arms suddenly wrapped around my neck and torso, and I felt myself lifted off my feet and into the air. Below my feet, I could just barely make out rooftops as I fought and squirmed to try and get out of the choking grip that was slowly suffocating me.

"Why hello, Exorcist. I believe you were trying to get away from me?" something whispered squalidly in my ear with wet diction.

I winced as I continued to wriggle and fight, but I was choked tighter and tighter. A rib cracked, and I let out a pained scream, air suddenly became less of a commodity and more of a luxury.

"Oh, so sad. I can tell you were going to be so promising. I saw you kill some of my brethren. Were you hoping to save that little one?" it asked, about as sweet as an overripe melon and just as sickeningly soft. Looking down, I noticed that Ava (good girl!) had disappeared. The Level Three seemed momentarily confused by this, and I took that small window of time to wrap my whip around its waist and yank hard.

"What's thi - AH!"

It suddenly let go of me, and the whip tightened as I fell. I gritted my teeth as I was yanked to a stop. The whip, sharp as a razor and twice as thin, began to work a rut in its waspish waist. From this angle, I could finally see my attacker, a silver-plated humanoid with a horned helmet and lots of teeth. My stomach dropped upon sight of it, and I was suddenly very sorry to have caught a glimpse.

I didn't have to worry about that for long. It raced over the rooftops, attempting to shake me off. Good for me, I had the tenacity of a bulldog once I got down to it, and I wasn't letting go for anything short of having my arms hacked off.

The Akuma must've come to the same conclusion. It started through knives back at me along with trying to smash me into the roofs. I managed to dodge, mostly by sheer luck, but I noticed with a quick glimpse back behind me that Ava was following us, Parley somehow not far behind. I stared in utter horror as Ava came closer, and I waved with one hand for her to go back. She fluttered, confused, until I finally managed to yank with a yell on the whip wrapped around the Level Three's waist.

It screeched, metal on metal, as I accidentally unraveled the deadly belt of wire. I had all of two seconds to say, "Uh-oh".

Momentum brought the both of us forwards, crashing us through an open air restaurant. Lucky for me, I landed in the trash.

Unluckily for me, I landed in the trash.

I got up out of the pile of disgusting food bits and who knew what with a gag, picking bits of noodle out of my hair. The Akuma hadn't been so lucky. It was half-sheared at the waist, and it had crashed into several pillars and was buried under a piece of tin roof. I flicked my whip, becoming all business as I realized the fight wasn't over. I approached the pile of tin and wood cautiously, knowing at any moment that Akuma could burst out like a bat from -

Tin crumpled somewhere behind me, and I realized that the Akuma must've moved without disturbing the pile. This realization came too late as I cursed under my breath, and I ran into the kitchens as fast as I could manage. Knives flashed past me, one of them coming close enough to actually cut a chunk of my hair off, and I dove into the kitchen, ignoring the fire burning in my ribs. It must've broken more than one, because breathing was agony. On top of that, I had scrapes from the rooftops, and a sprained wrist from the fall.

Something crashed through a hole in the roof, and I nearly lashed at it until I realized it was Ava. I didn't have the necessary time to chew her out, so I picked her up as best I could and bundled her into a closet.

"Stay," I breathed with a worrying rasp, and I hobbled back to the kitchen.

There was a wok about big enough to fry a baby filled with oil, and I looked around nervously as I tried to get my Innocence to cooperate. It came alive with a great fwoop, and, not expecting it, I yelped, quickly covering my mouth to stifle the noise. I stood completely still, sweat pouring down my ribs and back. Fear distilled in my mind, creating an infection that was spreading to every part of my psyche. Every shadow was a gun, every glint of moonlight was a knife, and every squeak of the boards was a footstep. I boiled the oil using my whip, keeping a watch out for the Level Three.

A telltale flash of metal tipped me off, and I flung the now-bubbling oil into the Akuma's face as it came at me, claws outstretched. It screamed as it came in contact with the boiling oil, and I used the whip to set it on fire. The Akuma screamed as it began to go up in flames, and I slowly smiled.

Yeah, take tha-

I was suddenly socked in the face with a flaming fist. I flew straight into another wall, and the landing literally took my breath away. I wheezed as I rolled over onto my side, looking up at the Akuma advancing towards me from about fifty feet away.

Heh, I had to remember that, if I got out of this alive. Fifty feet had to be my new record.

"Clever, clever little Exorcist, trying to live by her wits. Too bad it seems your wits have run out," it drawled, and a jet of blue flame suddenly bathed it. It screamed in rage as I tried to sit up, wondering blearily who had gotten a hold of a flamethrower, and why they hadn't come to help sooner. I stared, uncomprehending, before reaching the realization that Ava was blasting the thing.

"Ava... AVA!" I croaked, fighting to get to my feet.

Fear lanced straight into my bones, cutting a line straight into my heart. This was no joke. I couldn't even wrap my mind around what this creature was going to do to my toddler sister.

The Akuma turned around to stare straight at Ava, and it threw a knife at the little girl, pinning a single wing to the floor. For the first time in nearly four years, I heard Ava's voice.

She screamed.


A/N: Sheesh, it's been a while since I've even bothered updating. I guess writer's block will do that to you.

Also, there is such a town in Thailand where it is built on stilts above water. I've actually been there, believe it or not. Also, parrots can also understand the concept of 'zero', though in general it's only African Greys that can understand zero so I stretched the truth there a little, seeing as Parley's actually a macaw...

I'm sorry for the inactivity. I should be back every now and again to update. I'm finally getting my steam built back up for this story.

Big thanks to all the reviews I've gotten so far! Though I dunno if I should count 'Banana-nana' counts seeing as she's my cousin -sticks out tongue-. Muchas gracias to quillop and Vicare. Honest, rereading your reviews actually got me to try this story over again.

I have a surprising amount of alerts, too. I was shocked to find eight! This is probably the most 'OC-ish' story I've written, and definitely the one that's the most 'fangirlish', I guess.

And of course, the favorites. Two so far, but I wasn't expecting many people to go for a story with so many OCs in it. I'm just glad I have this many.

Well, toodle-loo. I should be spitting out more chapters again in a bit.

God bless, and happy reading!