------------------------Chapter Start-----------------------

If he hadn't been chosen, would we have been together in a normal life?

Would we have been together at all?

Red Stained White bird

Chapter 2: When He Said He Could Fly

--------------------------In A Not So Distant Future-------------------------

He was always an idiot. An idiotic idiot.

I ignored her when she screamed for me to go back. The huge storm outside is the reason I'm leaving the shelters. The gunfire and other forms of attacks had ceased and come to a halt approximately half an hour ago. I have a sickening feeling in the stomach that he was the one who made it so.

That idiot sprout would do anything to protect his family. Moreover, when said family were badly injured. Jumping into the boat that rocked dangerously, I began to row away from the safe land with one intention in mind.

Find that idiotic idiot sprout. I can hear someone calling my name with urgency, but I keep rowing, but stopped for a second when an extra weight settled in the boat I was in.

"Yuu, you're not the only one worried for him. I'm going, too." From the moment I heard the mention of my first name, I knew who it was, but I didn't have the time to punish him for calling me by that name. Not now, I'll save it for later.

The waves began to rock the boat even more and the strong current made it hard to move, but with my strength nothing can stop me.

I didn't look at the Heir of the Bookman Family in front of me. Not even a glance since he entered. I knew his one single emerald eye would show his full hurt. That's what I made myself believe. However, deep inside, really, really, really deep inside the core of my body, I knew there was a different reason.

If I were to look at him, the redhead would also be able to see the same painful emotion mirroring his own.

If not surpassing his own painful gaze.

------------------------------The Present----------------------------

"NO, YOU DID NOT!!!" Lavi yelled at the obvious answer as the masked boy in front of him looked at his condition. "YOU FELL and CRASHED ON MY BOAT!!! You are lucky that I was even there or you would have plunged into the deep, dark sea!!"

The white-haired kid did not seem to falter or even bothered a bit as he asked the next question, "Has the meeting started already?"

Reality hit back at Bookman the Forty-Ninth at the mention of the gathering. He was so dead. Gramps would roast him alive or even remove his remaining eye. His face paled at the thought of it.

At the expression of the older one, the masked teen forwarded until he was standing two steps away from the other.

"Did my fly scare you?" he innocently asked, completely misunderstanding the situation at hand.

"Like I said, you didn't fly! You fell!!" Lavi corrected as panic sweats started to form. "Dammit, I've got to get back out there," he muttered under his breath for the second part.

"But are you not the next heir for the Bookman Family? It'd be unwise for you to come in late," the boy interrupted before the redhead could steal some other family's boat to go and find his pendent.

"How do you know who I am?" Lavi questioned suspiciously. His identity was not well known and the only ones that have seen his face are his own family and the Third Lotus Yakuza Family he had stayed with in Japan.

Before the redhead got his answer, the silver-haired teen was already halfway up the stairs, advancing towards the gathering hall. Lavi would have left him be and continued to steal the boat to find his heirloom out in the sea, but the next sentence stopped him yet again.

"You're wasting your time in finding that heirloom of yours, have you ever thought that maybe the Forty-Eighth Bookman was the one that hid it away?" the young voice echoed from above the stairs.

It actually could be possible since his gramps had done that several times before, but to do it at such a crucial time like this? Without wasting any more time, the redhead quickly chased after the boy.

Though, the scene that met his eye after arriving in front of the double doors of the gathering hall made him pause to organize the shock and confusion that attacked his body.

The guards were no longer conscious and their bodies were littered in front of the doors. That was definitely not normal. After taking just a few steps forward, the double doors somehow opened by themselves. How that was possible didn't have time to cross Lavi's mind when his brain instinctively registered the situation at hand when all the head of the families invited inside curiously turned towards the door that was left wide open.

". . ." The old panda stared blankly at the guards scattered around his grandson.

". . ." The silence continued.

Lavi could see the girl that escorted them earlier stifle a gasp while a dark violet-haired bespectacled man near her just stared ahead of the forty-ninth successor of the Bookman Clan.

". . ." The silence was now deafening.

Then there was also a familiar raven-haired samurai that Lavi knew, oh, too well, known as the Third Heir to the Yakuza Mafia Family during his stay at Japan. Kanda merely stared uninterestedly, but his gaze was so penetrating that Lavi could feel his knees about to give away. He was not yet well trained at the combat side; he was only shown the information gathering intelligence so far.

". . ." Finally someone dared to break the silence that lasted so long.

Emerging from the small group of the few successors of different Mafia families, was a rather fat-looking man swinging an umbrella with an impossibly large grin that terrified Lavi to an extent. He needn't have to meet the man first to know who he was. That ever present grin was all anyone needed to recognize the most currently powerful Head of the Noah Family.

The Millennium Earl.

The man that controls most of the underground activities and the one who directs the alliance.

This was not good, Lavi's consciousness decided. Not boding well at all. Cringing in nervousness when the fat guy was near, the redhead was about to speak defensively, but the man in front of him beat him to it.

"Ohohoho~ I was wondering where you were~"

"Eh?" the redhead blinked. What the heck was he saying??

"I actually flew, Earl," a deadpanned voice from behind Lavi answered.

Several people blinked in puzzlement at the statement.

That was when the redhead realized that whole room was not staring at him, but at the masked boy behind him. Quickly realizing his mistake, the lanky teen was about to scurry off when someone called his title.

"Bookman the Forty-Ninth, you dropped this."

Expertly turning around, Lavi managed to catch the object thrown at him in time. He opened his palm and was surprised to be staring at his pendant, the heirloom pendant. After blankly staring at the item at hand for a few seconds, he looked back up at the one who found his pendant.

It was the teen from before. He gave Lavi a somewhat reassuring smile. Lavi wasn't sure what was actually running through the mysterious boy's head since the only sure way was to see his eyes, which were obscured by the mask.

"How did you-" Before Lavi could even finish his sentence, the senior bookman kicked him in the head, instantly making Lavi crouch in an awkward bowing-like position.

"Gram-" the junior bookman shut his mouth up when the old man bowed respectfully beside him. Lavi turned towards the direction where the other bowed to and was surprised that it was the Millennium Earl and the boy.

"Forgive this immature brat's act. He is still too ignorant."

"But I didn't-" the glare from the older one shut him up, yet again. Lavi wasn't the one who knocked the guards out!!! Lavi took offence at that, but he remained quiet knowing the chances of him being punished. Whoever the boy was, he must be almost as important as the Earl himself.

"Hohoho. This is yours to handle Fourteenth," the Earl merely said with a gesture towards the boy.

'. . . Fourteenth?' Lavi thought. Then his mind froze, 'If the Earl calls him the Fourteenth then . . .' Oh no, he was in deep shit. He even yelled inappropriately towards him! Suppressing his body from shaking, Lavi tried to calm himself down.

"Let me play with him, if you can't decide~" a childish voice from behind squealed.

The redhead really wanted to know who it was, but he knew better than to comment.

"It's okay, First. He's just scared because he saw me flying!" the fourteenth head of the Noah Family replied dismissively, "You can stand up now. We have more important things to worry about!"

Lavi tried to suppress a sigh of relief, but failed to do so. He stood up, along with the Old Panda. The successors for each of the families had arrived, and that wasn't much family. Only four were called since the other families had been perished and disbanded. The reason for that was the reason why the remaining surviving ones were gathered.

"You should be grateful that you were not punished. Be careful to whom you talk to and meet next time," came the expected warning from the senior bookman.

Lavi nodded as he looked at the boy from earlier, who was now walking towards his family. The Noah Family. This particular family is unlike all others due to one particular difference: their immortality. The one who discovered the Noah family, namely the Earl, had managed to find some kind of dormant gene in the human body that if activated using mechanical means brings long age along with other side effects. The side effect was random, but the one the Earl had gotten was a drastic change in his appearance. However, not all humans were able to withstand this change. Only the chosen ones survived, and from the beginning till now, fourteen people, excluding the Earl, made it alive. These people were instantly made as the heads of the Noah Family, all fifteen of them working side by side in the Mafia world.

The most recent one was an abandoned boy, and Lavi reckoned that it was the masked one. With his trained left eye, the redhead observed him. It was unbelievable. According to the records, all of the Noah successors were experts in torturing people until they believed that death was a bliss wonder that they'd never experience. It was a frightening thought that a boy as innocent-looking as him was one of those capable people.

The Forty-Ninth Bookman's train of thought was interrupted when the meeting started as the Earl laughed madly to gain their attention.

"Okay, people. Let us go straight to the main problem at hand." The Earl clapped his hands together. "The government and police forces are onto us like mad due to a traitor that managed not only to spill information on all the Mafia Families, but also managed to escape doing so."

All the heads in the room nodded in agreement at the statement. Some were already planning various painful ways to make the traitor pay for what he had done. Breaking the Mafia World's code of silence was not a small matter.

"Well, the information he got was not full, though. This particular traitor only knows about the heads of the families but not the successors, since he thought that annihilating the head could end the family as a whole." The Earl narrowed his eyes at that but continued, "Therefore, using that to our advantage, we need to device a counteract plan involving all the successors, while the heads should keep a low profile for the moment. Is this agreeable?"

No one was able to go against that since it was the only way, so everyone seemed to agree, or so most of the occupants in the room thought. So when someone burst out, it was quite a shock.

"NOOO!!! I disagree!!!" a high pitched voice wailed. Immediately, all eyes turned to one certain man, with a look of: "who-is-the-stupid-one-that-dared-to-go-against-the-Earl?" Including Lavi himself. Whoever it was who spoke up must have a death wish against the Noah Family.

--------------------------End of Chapter Two-------------------------

----Edited by Beta Reader Mai Nayme----

-------Alice Speaks------

Sabarila : Yeah, I guess it is a long story if all goes according to plan. ^_^ About the couple thing… uh, how should I say this? I am not entirely sure, but since I am a bit of a Laven fan I think that'll be the main one but it is just going to be light, really light. Since I am inexperienced at romance and that related stuffs. Though other pairings might show up like at the beginning up there, I think you can guess what pairing that is. So uh, it depends, but yeah, other pairings will show up too. Thanks!

Okay, now for some fun! Try and guess who's the one at the end that disagreed… :D