Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-man.
Chapter 8
All of the exorcists had been called to Komui's office to discuss a new discovery about innocence. Obviously it was related to Lenalee's innocence, which had evolved during the attack by the Level Four akuma.
"As I'm sure you all have heard, Lenalee's innocence changed during the attack. We've been doing some research and studying it, and we've discovered that it isn't, as we previously thought, parasitic type. But this raises the question of what it is, because it isn't equipment type either," Komui began.
Reever continued, "This form of innocence isn't parasitic type because it doesn't alter the cellular structure of Lenalee's body to become a weapon, and from the research we've done it doesn't seem to put the same, life draining strain on her body as parasitic type innocence would. The blood that the innocence used has become a stone like structure, and the blood didn't return to its original form like it would have if it were parasitic. As we've seen with Allen's arm and Krory's teeth, their innocence returns to a functioning part of their body once the innocence deactivates, but that clearly hasn't happened here."
Socalo interrupted, "So you're saying they're monsters, right?"
"You really aren't one to talk, Winters," Klaud pointed out.
Miranda, thinking she might have seen a slight flinch from Allen at the comment about him being a monster, quietly said to Allen, "Don't listen to them, Allen. You're not a monster."
Allen simply smiled back reassuringly, as if to show her that he was alright with the term monster.
The conversation was lost to Miranda for awhile. She couldn't help but think about how hard life must have been for Allen before he joined the Order, or for any of the parasitic type accommodators for that manner. It made her feel sorry for the younger exorcist. This was constantly an emotion Miranda felt for the younger exorcists, like Lenalee, Kanda, Allen, and Lavi, and she always felt the motherly instinct to protect them. She hadn't been able to help it, especially after hearing about how Lenalee joined the Order.
When Miranda focused back in on the explanation it had come to:
"This is an evolution of equipment type. Innocence uses the accommodators blood to create a weapon."
"This gets rid of the need to manipulate the innocence into a weapon. It also concentrates the power, and according to our calculations the users blood is used to replenish the weapon whenever it is damaged," Reever explained.
Miranda and everyone else in the room aside from Reever, Komui, and Lenalee, couldn't help but shudder at the thought of their own blood becoming an anti-akuma weapon.
Komui seemed exasperated by the reactions, but continued his explanation anyways, "We're calling this crystallization type innocence."
"But couldn't it be something unique to Lenalee?" Reever questioned.
"No, we can't consider that for now," Komui denied.
Miranda noticed that Marie seemed troubled as this conversation went on, and the next time someone stopped speaking he spoke up, "I suppose I should say this, the raid... If it had happened right when we had returned from Edo, before the Generals could return, we wouldn't have stood a chance. I don't mean to sound afraid in saying this, but I think the Earl was trying to show us he can eliminate us whenever he wants."
After this the conversation died down quickly and everyone was dismissed.
"M-Marie, do you really think that the Noah could destroy us whenever they want?" Miranda asked timidly as they were walking down one of the many halls of the Order.
"Yes. They clearly had all of the resources to attack, and with how soon it was after they had to delete the White Ark, I think that they had already had everything they needed to stage an attack long before any of this. They could have easily attacked while the Generals were traveling here from Central had they wanted," Marie answered.
The reality of the severity of the situation Miranda had recently been thrown into seemed to hit her full force in that moment. The next day, or even later that day, or maybe in a week, maybe as far as a year, the Noah could and doubtlessly would attack again. She would have to watch her comrades die, and be nearly helpless to help them. She could die. Marie could die. She didn't realize she had stopped walking, and she hardly realized that for a moment she had begun to hold her breath.
"Miranda, are you okay?" Marie questioned when he heard her footsteps stopped.
"Yes, I'm fine," Miranda assured. It had taken her a moment to remember how to breathe, "I was just thinking about random, senseless things. Don't worry at all."
"If you're sure," Marie didn't sound convinced but he wasn't going to push the topic.
"If it's alright with you, I think I'm going to go back to my room for now. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm rather tired," Miranda said. She honestly just needed awhile to let herself calm down after that world altering realization.
"Of course. Try to get some rest, then. Sleep well," Marie smiled.
"Thank you," Miranda waved, even though she knew Marie couldn't see it.
Miranda had decided at the beginning of the preparations to move to the Head Quarters that she would simply stay to the side and out of the way unless she was needed. She knew that some of the things the Science Department had created weren't safe, and she decided she didn't want to cause any incidents. She was unneeded, in fact, until Allen had spilled one of the many potions that Komui had created on himself. His hair, now nearly down to his hips, was getting in his face.
"Allen, do you want me to braid your hair?" Miranda offered. She had a spare hair tie with her, in case the ribbon holding her own hair in place caught on something or fell out, and was willing let Allen borrow it.
"Yes, thank you, Miranda," Allen nodded. He seemed rather sulky about being yet another of the exorcists to fall victim to one of Komui's potions. He had even fallen to it from his own carelessness.
"Of course," Miranda smiled as she sat on the ground behind the box he was sitting on. She began braiding his hair; she was secretly jealous of how soft his hair was.
"Really, Allen? You're the fifth one today," Reever sighed.
This caused Allen to sulk even more as he wondered how he could have been careless enough to fall asleep in the Science Department's storage room.
Miranda couldn't help but giggle a bit as she listened to the others talking. She glanced up at Kanda and Lavi, their childish forms far too small for the outfits they had previously been wearing, when she heard Lenalee's question:
"What are we going to do about their clothes?"
"They could borrow Bookman's clothes," Marie offered in response.
This response only caused Miranda's smile to brighten. She had felt rather optimistic most of that day, and she was fairly certain it was her mind's own way of trying to forget about her sudden thought from the day before.
"Come on, get back to work packing guys," Reever said.
Miranda, unable to finish braiding Allen's hair quickly enough, was forced to unbraid it and simply tie it back in a ponytail for him.
"Miranda, could you come help us move these boxes?" Marie asked. Chaoiji was helping him unstack a rather tall stack of boxes to be moved individually.
"Oh, yes! I-If you don't think I'll get in the way," Miranda answered. She had sounded enthusiastic with the first part of her response but as she rethought her own clumsiness her tone became a little timid.
Marie couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle a bit, "You won't get in the way. Just move this box over there, alright?"
"O-Okay," Miranda nodded and took the box. It was a rather light box, and Miranda miraculously moved it over to the pile of boxes beside where they planned to open an Ark door to the new Head Quarters.
"Here, can you take this?" Chaoiji asked as he handed her a box.
"Yes," Miranda nodded and took the box. As she was walking she suddenly felt the toe of her shoe catch on the ground. She tumbled forward, and before she could catch herself the box was out of her hands. It took Miranda a moment to recover from the sudden fall, but when she did she realized her mistake was far worse than simply dropping a box. One of Komui's odd potions had spilled onto both Bookman and Lenalee.
"I'm so sorry!" Miranda apologized.
"Meow?" Lenalee responded.
Miranda paled, "Oh, I'm such a klutz! How could I have been this careless? As retribution for what I have done, I shall become a cat too!" Miranda's voice was frantic.
"Miranda, I don't think that's necessary. You don't have to do that!" Marie's voice rose in volume at the end of his sentence as he could hear Miranda picking up the bottle.
Before Miranda could overturn the bottle of cat-voice potion over her head Allen plucked it from her hand, "I'll just go throw this away with the rest of the broken bottles."
"Hey, at least Lenalee's kinda cute that way, right?" Lavi tried to reassure. This did little to help Miranda's frantic apologies.
As the conversations of the others shifted away from Miranda Marie said, "Alright, calm down."
"B-But I shouldn't have trusted myself to carry that box, and-" Miranda was cut off when Marie said:
"Miranda, just breathe, calm down. It's not that bad, Komui will probably make an antidote in no time since it's affecting Lenalee. Can you just try to calm down for me?"
"I-I'll try. B-But I really should do something to apologize," Miranda said. She was stuttering from the embarrassment of the entire incident, and from her misdirected anger at herself. She often got ridiculously angry with herself when she did something like that, but she never really seemed to show it and people often mistook the emotion for nervousness or embarrassment.
"Don't worry, just apologize to them later, once we've finished moving everything. I'm sure neither of them are mad at you in the slightest," Marie assured with a smile.
Miranda took a deep breath, "You're right. And I promise I'll try to be more careful from now on."
Suddenly all of the lights in the room went out with a loud click.
"What's going on?" "Is this a black out?" "Probably another one of Komui's weird inventions going haywire." All of these were the immediate responses.
"Miranda, did the lights go out?" Marie asked curiously.
"Yes, they did. Do you have any idea what could have happened?" Miranda asked.
Before Marie could respond a childish giggle echoed through the room.
This immediately caused everyone in the room to tense, and despite the fact that it was too dark to see everyone began looking around the room.
"Do you think it's a g-ghost?" Miranda asked with wide eyes.
"Of course not, it's just Komui trying to scare us," Reever denied.
"This is odd, I can't seem to find the source of the voice," Marie mused aloud as he listened to the echoing giggle.
"It's definitely Komui!" "Come on, Chief, we need to get to work!" "Turn the lights back on, Komui." "This isn't funny." The immediate response was a fearful one at the unexplained event.
Marie, trying to focus on one sound that had caught his attention, loudly shushed everyone. Once they had fallen silent he focused on the sound. He couldn't place it, but he could tell that it was coming closer to the door. The door that was currently partially open.
"Oh, it's just the nurse!" Allen assured a moment later, relieving some of the stress in the room.
"You could see her? I'm surprised you can see so well in the dark," Johnny sounded more than a little impressed.
"It's because of my training with Cross," Allen's smile was far from enthusiastic. Allen was caught by surprise when his arm was bitten, "What?"
"Is the Head Nurse mad?" Lavi questioned.
"She probably wouldn't bite someone if she was," Reever pointed out.
"Did you not get released from the infirmary, moyashi?" Kanda asked.
Allen, still rather shocked from this entire ordeal, said, "I did, I don't think that's the problem."
"Yeah, but Allen, she usually doesn't do this," someone said.
"What did you do?" Reever accused.
"Not you too," Allen's voice was pathetic.
Miranda, being the ever bright person that she was, approached the nurse, "You sound awful, do you have a cold?" She hadn't expected to be bitten herself, and it startled her horribly. Luckily as Miranda stumbled back from the sudden fright Marie managed to grab her shoulders before she could keep moving back and trip over something.
This whole situation caused a great deal of commotion, and all of the sounds were definitely disorienting for Marie. He wished that everyone would be quiet so he could have a few moments to try to figure out what was going on; he knew his chances of this were fairly slim. So he settled for asking Miranda, "Are you alright?"
"Y-Yes, just a bit startled..." Miranda's response was breathless from fright.
As Miranda trailed off Marie noticed that her pulse had changed significantly. The sudden change was worrying, as it wasn't natural for a person's heart to slow down that quickly.
"Miranda, your pulse is a bit stran-" Marie was cut off by both shock and extreme embarrassment as Miranda bit his neck. The action was unexpected, he didn't know what had gotten into Miranda and his thoughts began to trail to places they shouldn't. The overdrive of thoughts caused his headphones to short circuit, and after another second or two all of his thoughts completely blanked out.
A/N: Just go ahead and ignore this entire thing, uh, I'll just be in the corner of shame now bye bye. Also, I really, really do need encouragement on this story. While I do love it, the characters can be difficult, so writing it with little to no recognition from my readers is making it really hard to write. So please, please, please just take the time to say SOMETHING I couldn't care less if you just left a smiley face.
