Remember that gore warning from the first chapter? I barely do so I'll put another warning here:

Some less than pleasant descriptions in this chapter. Make sure you are not munching on snacks when reading that certain part if you are queasy about those kinds of thing.

A bit of the usual casts. More of the Noahs. More plot building… (hopefully)

-Chapter start-

Impressed as he is by the other's skill, he cannot help but see something inhumane in it.

Red stained White bird

Chapter 7: When he battled alongside me

When Lavi came down to the kitchen that morning, he was met with a very disgruntled expression of a certain person that was not Kanda. Funny- he always thought Kanda would be the only sour face he will have to face during breakfast… and the rest of the day… or year. With the innate curiosity gnawing at him, the red-head could not help but ask what was bothering his housemate.

"Walker did not come home last night," This sentence jogged a series of events that transpired last night in Lavi's head- the attack on Black Order, the decimated Noah members and Lenalee's newly acquired status as a family head. Unaware of the flashback he had initiated, Link continued on, "I can't even reach his phone,"

"You think he got into trouble Link?" a feminine voice called out from the stove area. Lenalee was cooking something that looked like fried rice.

"The beansprout deserves any kind of trouble that befalls him," Kanda gave his opinion as he calmly drank his tea, he was as usual dressed in his training sleeveless outfit, Mugen positioned carefully next to the table leg closest to him.

The junior Bookman can't help but think that he was the one who is always last to wake up or freshen up in the morning.

"He tends to disappear off a night every seven days or so," Link clarified but that did not explain to Lavi why the blonde male did not look too happy about it, "I keep telling him to inform me before he goes out on his all night escapade, he doesn't seem to understand that I need to watch over him and at least know his location just in case anything might befall him." Ah that made sense. The red-head understood the situation a bit more now. Though he was a bit surprise that Link lost track of Allen, maybe the blonde teen was not as much of a stalker as Lavi first pegged him to be. "Might you have seen him yesterday? Outside town, in campus, anything?"

After receiving a negative answer from all present in the room, the eldest one in the room was seemingly unable to suppress the urge to find the trouble making housemate, Link excused himself from the kitchen and hastily left the house.

"Allen is not here… You think he was involved in yesterday's attack?" Lenalee voiced out, tone concerned. She really did not want anyone else she knows to be part of that event's casualty.

"If we are basing this own our belief that Allen is the Musician then it might be possible," Here, the Chinese girl visibly tensed, "However, I found out some neat things about our little beansprout that suggests otherwise," The red-head proceeded to give a brief summary of his findings regarding Allen's team and circumstances. "Besides, even if Allen was the Musician, we do not specifically know which Noahs were involved other than Pleasure," Lavi made a mental reminder to ask the Portuguese man about that the next time he sees him, it kind of irked him to not know the vital knowledge of the Noahs who had perished or were being held.

"The beansprout is not our damn concern," Kanda interjected, "Our safety is of risk here and I don't mind giving the bastards who dared attack us some taste of vengeance,"

As always, the Japanese male was hungry for some fight and blood. Typical. Lavi hung his head in mock disappointment and this irked the other off.

"You better not forget the risk the beansprout may expose us to if he is not the fucking musician," the Lotus heir family hissed.

That also needed to be taken into consideration, Lavi had to admit his friend had a point.

"I think we should leave the academy, it might be harder to find a place to hide out there but being here makes us sitting ducks," the red-head voiced out his opinion, "With the academy tracking our missions and school activities as a student safety requirement, the enemy will easily be able to intercept our moves once they discover we enrolled here and I am almost certain they will know we are here judging by how easily they found out about the new Black Order HQ," Here the junior bookman noted that Lenalee had straighten her back a bit and her eyes became hard as she steeled herself against her own feelings that arose from the reminder of what had happened. "We will talk it over with Pleasure when he comes by,"

"What does the Noah have anything to do with it?"

Lavi blinked. Right. Both of them were not yet aware that Lenalee's newfound status makes her an important person in the play to come; the government will especially try to eliminate her first seeing if she was gone, the Black Order family will be in quite a chaos seeing there was no immediate leader. Speaking of which, the younger Lee sibling needs to take a hold on the family problems that surely have arisen because of the attack. They would need her decisions and leadership in order to recover from the attack and to prevent the family members from panicking and making the matters at hands even worse.

Looking at his female friend right now though, the red-head really did not want to bring all this up right now. Besides, if he said all that considering the emotional turmoil Lenalee may be in right now, it would insensitive of him right?

"Never mind that, the Noah can tell you himself," in the end, Lavi decided to just leave it at that.

"I am not weak Bookman the forty-ninth," Lenalee's cold response made the red-head flinch as he stared at the lady. "Do not try to protect me. I thought we are going through this together so tell me what the Noah had in store."

Apparently, Lavi misjudged the girl's emotional capability… Then again, as he continued to observe the Black Order's leader expression, he can detect the huge amount of resolve and force the girl was holding. She was pushing herself too hard. Lavi believed that so he stood strong by his decision.

"It would be easier for the Noah to explain," he dismissively said as he left the kitchen before the other could formulate a response or even try to physically abuse him for saying that.

As quick as a hare, the junior Bookman left the house to start his day. At least he was going to when he realized, he did not manage to eat breakfast with all the tension that happened in the kitchen. He brought up a mental map of the area which he memorized before he came here and decided to go to the local pub that was open 24/7 located at the edge of the academy area and closest to the outskirts of the nearby town. He knew he was going to skip most of the academy classes and activities today, so he was not worried about the long distance, a long walk also gave him time to sort things out. He likes to have an organized information network in his head.

By the time he arrived at the pub, he was mostly done thinking things through and hunger was now on the top of his head. Entering the place, he found it filled with a few drunken people; some he noted looked like academy students, who had possibly been there all night and amongst them, he found a group of three men that were naked and sleeping. The red-head averted his eyes away, why was the owner allowing such public indecency? Well, at least their private parts were covered with newspapers. Barely. He walked to the counter and sat on the stool, he was greeted by a middle aged lady with auburn hair.

"Don't mind those three idiots over there," she apparently noticed Lavi's put-out look at the public display, "They got too drunk and went all rowdy, got a bit too arrogant and loud too. Easy targets to be swindled then. Already warned them not to continue after they lost half of their clothing but they refused." She gave a tired smile, "Men and their drunken pride. Anyways, what can I get you this early morning? Too early to start drinking I reckon."

"Just some light breakfast, you can cook me up anything you feel like, I don't mind the price," he answered flippantly, "Some merciless guy that must have been, to strip those bastards until nothing. I would have stopped and left them in their boxers," Lavi decided to make conversation as the lady turned around and started heating up a pan at the stove near the wall.

"Merciless? What you see there is not even the worse the kid can do," she explained, "He came in once, think it was two months ago, looking the most pissed I've ever seen him." From the sound of it, the guy was a regular in this place, "I let him be though. He never did any damage to the place, so I trusted that he was just here to calm down using his usual activities, Poker. It was indeed a game, at first it was the normal money betting poker turned into a strip poker. I thought it would end there, but the group continued playing and the patrons and I were wondering what the group could have left that they can bet. We were surprised when one of them lost and since he had nothing else to give, the winner took out a knife and slashed at his bare chest. Not deep enough to be fatal but enough to bleed instantly," Lavi widened his eye at this. Some game that turned out to be. "Of course, the other patrons stepped in and helped the injured man while the others told the person who dominated the game that it was time to stop. The game was over. The boy did not push the matter, merely got his winnings and left."

"You still allow him to come here though?" the red-head inquired, his face curious on why that was the case.

"He never did something like that again, if he starts to do so, I think I can pick up the hint and I'll ask him to leave," was her simple answer, "Besides, he is one customer that brings in a lot of profit for this place. He eats like his stomach is the size of a whale." The auburn-haired female finished cooking and placed the breakfast in front of Lavi.

"What's his name?"

"That interested in him, huh?" she drawled out with a sly smile, "If you want an introduction, he is sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs. The group over there bet their one night rent of the room too. The glutton actually used the room when he was too exhausted to go back just before dawn,"

Ignoring the jibe, the red-head merely rolled his eyes. He was not that curious, he only asked to put a name to the man he was told about.

"Maybe another time, I need to get going after this," Yeah, the junior bookman had enough on his mind right now, he planned to go to the library again. Checking out the locations they can possible go to in order to avoid the government and maybe search up a bit more on the Innocence unit. He was also worried about the panda, he planned to call the senior Bookman to check up on him and maybe ask for any additional information that the old panda was willing to share. The senior bookman is a bit stingy about information, he tends to tell Lavi to find out on his own because from his perspective, if he can find it out, so can his successor.

The lady shrugged at his dismissal of her suggestion, not really bothered by it. It was only a morning talk with a customer, a topic readily available in order to fill up the silence for her. Lavi finished up his breakfast and paid the appropriate amount before leaving.

"Come again soon!" the voice of the owner called out as the doors closed behind him.

. - .- . - . - . . - . - . - . –

That same morning, at a different location.

"Tyki-pon," a voice greeted the man who had just entered the room.

An irritated sigh then, "Earl, I told you not to call-" before he can finish his sentence, a white blur jumped towards him and proceeded to hug him tightly.

"Tykiii!" the white blur who was actually a person exclaimed, his voice full of relief and happiness. He tightened his grip around the older man, enough to start hurting the other.

"My ribs-ugh, let me go boy,"

Thankfully, the white-haired teen did so and he looked up at Tyki with worry filled eyes.

"I am so glad you made it out. When I heard about the others that… died…" here, tears threatened to fall out of his eyes, "The others that died…" he repeated again, "they died…" the white haired boy was visibly trembling now.

Tyki, also known as Pleasure, could only observe. He knew what was coming next and from the Earl's unchanging expression, he did too. If only Road was here, she could calm the Musician down, those two had this weird understanding of each other that made it possible.

"They died…" the soft tone took a feral edge as the white-haired boy shouted his next words, "Those fucking bastards are going to pay for that. I will cut their bodies up from their small toes up to their hair piece by piece slowly... By just using a small knife!" A shake of head and his voice lowered back to normal as he rambled on, "A knife would not do, it is too commonly used, too boring, a pair of scissors perhaps, the ones with dull edge… I'll make a hole in their stomach big enough to pull out their intestines and cut the organ up in front of their very eyes!" he chuckled at the very thought of it, his eyes no longer filled with tears but a thirst for pain. "If they are a lot of them, I'll tie their intestines up with one another, let those fucking bastards be connected together until their last breath maybe they will die because one was too scared and ran off only to pull out his partner's innards along the way!"

The other two present in the room merely shook their heads in dismay.

"There he goes again,"

"Isn't my adorable Musician so creative?" the Earl said with pride but his demeanour turned somber after saying the next sentence, "If only the other members were here to see this…"

Tears started leaking out of the Earl's eyes. The Noah of Pleasure looked away uncomfortably; he was partly to blame for not being able to save his foster siblings after all. Only the sounds of murderous bloody description of torture by the white-haired kid in the room were heard as the other two Noah Family members gave a moment of silence to their fallen family members.

"Skinn and Road were captured, are we going to free them?" Tyki spoke up after a while, the words 'if they are still alive that is' were not spoken but was well understood by the others in the room.

"We need to gather intel on where they are first," the Earl answered, "Wisely and Sheril will be assigned to that mission and if they deem necessary that a back-up is required to rescue them, I will notify you,"

Apparently still in touch with reality and listening on to the conversation, the Musician whipped his head around quickly at the mention of Dreams, "Road is still alive?" he yelled in the same relief tone he used when he confirmed that Tyki made it back alive, "Wrath too!"

The youngest Noah knew eight of his kin was sent out and he heard most died from the surviving Black Order family that managed to seek refuge at the Noah Family HQ. Which Noahs that died were not yet confirmed as Tyki was the only survivor he knew of right now that can tell them about the current situation.

The Noah of Pleasure nodded in confirmation, "I was not the only one who made it out, Lulubelle got away too. We got separated at the end after the HQ destruction but I am quite sure she survived." Here his face contorted into a mildly uncertain expression, "Though, I am assuming she got severely injured and stopped somewhere to heal up if she is not here yet… seeing she should have made it here first as I made a side stop before coming here."

"Oh?" it was a simple prompt by the Earl asking his fellow subordinate to clarify the last statement.

At the same moment, the Musician let out relief sigh, "Lust is okay too. Well maybe not okay but still alive." He had considerably calmed down after getting good news.

"I went to see the Black Order successor. At least she was the successor." Tyki answered the Earl's question.

Understanding dawned on the Earl's feature.

"Are you going to pick her up Tyki-pon?"

A nod of confirmation came from the Portuguese man.

"Tyki is leaving again…?" the white-haired Noah pouted, "I can easily do this mission too Earl! Stop always picking on Tyki!"

The Earl shook his head sternly, "Musician, you need to continue laying low. Without you to manage the Ark project from the background, there would be no shelter for all the alliance later." The boy continued to protest but the Earl deftly ignored him, "Before you go Tyki-pon, please change your attire. It is most unbefitting of a Noah member to pick up a leader looking ragged like so,"

He just came back from a battle and the only problem the Earl had with him is his current clothing? Pleasure let out an amused sigh. Perhaps that bit of normalcy is what they need to cope with the loss of their members.

"Later then," he gave a curt bow to the Earl before waving a good-bye towards the Musician who was sulking at the side when he realized he was ignored by the Earl.

"Now Musician, you get to go on a mission another time, okay?" the Earl tried to pacify teen who muttered a 'that's what you always say,' in response. This did not deter the Earl as he continued, "Go play with Devitto, I am sure a spar will help let out the stress for you two,"

Musician did not say anything in response; he just left the room quietly. The Earl had a feeling that the white-haired Noah was not going to do as he was suggested to. He did not have time to ponder over it however, as his phone rang, bearing bad news.

"Lord Earl, someone hacked into our database. We have reason to believe that whoever it was has found out about the successors at the academy amongst other things," the Noah codenamed Wisdom immediately reported, "The thing is we were unable to detect the hack until this morning. The information has already been stolen two nights ago. This could be why the Black Order HQ location was leaked." The assumption was easy enough to make as the hack was done the night before the attack. The Earl was confused on how his family's information network was jeopardized without immediate discovery and the confusion must have also occurred to the caller too for he explained, "The hacker ensured he entered the data stream through a series of battle reports which was only recently checked and read through this morning, the battle reports were unrelated to our family's soldiers battle movements and some of it was a poor attempt at a report even. They were deemed fake and when analysed, the data residue from the hacker was found. The hacker did not erase nor alter any information we had, merely copied them."

The Earl heaved out a sigh; he thanked Wisdom for his hard work before telling him to gather intel on the captured Noahs. In addition to that, the Earl ordered a destruction of all data intelligence they have gathered. Make all the information they have a hardcopy and personally ask Wisdom to send the hard copies to the Earl as soon as possible.

"Things are not going well… I hope Tyki-pon can make it in time before those three at the academy are found by the enemy,"

. - .- . - . - . . - . - . –

In a different room inside the Noah HQ, a male teen with dark blue hair was lying on the bed. No one who entered the room would mistook the boy for sleeping for he was writhing about, his expression contorted in a painful grimace as he tried to supress the phantom pain that was attacking his nerves. It started with a mild headache early yesterday afternoon so the fellow teen decided to take a rest and sleep it off only for the headache to intensify as night approached. Then throughout the night, his limbs had tensed and locked and his muscles seemed to tingle with a pain that had no wounds.

"What the fuck…" he could only resort to cursing to let out his pent up frustration at not knowing how to deal with the pain.

The current Noah known as Devitto was furiously thinking on why he was even in this much pain. He did not do anything straining lately. He was not even sent to any missions for the past week. The thought of missions made him think of the latest one that had been given and was by far the worse that had occurred in their mafia family. Six of their members were gone. He frowned at that, he was not sent along because his fighting abilities were limited.

Unlike most of the Noahs, he did not suffer from any advantageous side effects. Nothing at all, so far, he survived the experimentation of the genes with the promise of a long un-aging life- natural death won't affect him now that he was a Noah but they can still be ended by destruction of their body or for some, their vital body parts. Without any particular special side-effects, he was hailed as a near-perfect experimentation for the side-effects were not exactly positive most of the time. Take the Earl for once. But the boy felt different without the side effects, a bit alienated if you will- he even kept his sanity intact! No visible mental afflictions even after numerous psychological tests. Being the most normal in the family, he had to train his body normally to ensure he can keep up as a Noah member but sometimes he wished that the experimentation had gone differently. Though he was not alone in not having to train his body normally, some of the Noahs did not have a physical side effect but they still had a mental one. For one, the blonde Noah that was the same age as him, Jasdero. The thought of the Noah somehow made the pain in his body spiked for a moment, the teen grounded out another curse in response.

He decided to continue his train of thought, he really needed the distraction. Jasdero, he could have been a perfect experimentation too if only his intelligence was not effected as much. One had to say that the blonde might have fried his brain cells when the genes were forced to activate because afterwards, his mannerism and speech patterns were quite off for his age. There like a five year old child who just wanted to play all day long. It was infuriating but he did understand the missions given to him but he was never sent missions alone because he gets side tracked easily. Not to mention he was an idiot so he tends to forget who the target was, where the location is and he even forgets to eat at times! He tends to be paired up with Devitto most of the time because of their similar age and they did get along well together due to their mischievous natures. However, the major mission that occurred yesterday had taken Jasdero's life according to the reports. Devitto did not particular feel any strong attachment to the other blonde Noah, so he was not depressed other than the natural temporary sadness that comes with the feeling of recent loss but as he thought more about it, he felt something amiss. He had been dwelling on the thought of Jasdero for a while now and the pain kept spiking with every thought of the blonde boy.

A moment of contemplation passed by and for a horrible minute, the teen male made a very disturbed thought.

"I can't be love sick… right?" he blanched, as that sentence opened up a gate of unwanted thoughts. What if that was his side effect… a preference to the same sex. Devitto is a healthy male and he can assure you that he had his fair share of experimentation and fun with sexual activities and as far as he was concern, he preferred the opposite sex. At least before he became a Noah. The side-effect is known to be quite variable and he just happen to get the least obvious one… he groaned. No, there has to be another explanation. He refused to believe it. If that was true, why would he harbour feelings for Jasdero of all people? It can't be the fact that he spent most of his missions with him, can it? It better not be just because of the blonde's ridiculous long feminine hair, stupid hormones for being superficial. Besides, even if he did fell for the other Noah, it was too late anyway, the kid's dead.

"Not dead yet… hii…"

The dark haired Noah blinked. Okay. He just heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jasdero's but that can't be possible… right? Oh no. Was he getting deluded by the side-effect? No please no. He knew he wished for a side-effect but if it was being love sick with a guy- a dead guy at that -

"Jasdero is not dead yet! Hiee!"

"Gahhh! Get out of my head!"

"Jasdero don't know how, hie,"

Oh god. An actual reply. Devitto dreaded for his sanity if this kept up even if that made him normal in Noah standard. Hearing voices of dead-

"Devitto is an idiot! Jasdero already said Jasdero is still alive!"

Alright. Let's pretend Jasdero is still alive. If-

"Not pretend-hie! Jasdero is!"

'Stop interrupting my thoughts! Let me think for a while,'

And now he was arguing with it. He really hoped this was not just a delusion. An idea occurred- maybe he was a telepath! Not exactly like Dream's since hers was a bit more indirect as far as he knew, still a possible though. Besides, he preferred this idea more than the former one. Definitely.

If he was a telepath though… does that mean Jasdero was really still alive? Maybe he can call out to the other Noahs too? He paused and tried to call out to Musician but no response came.

"Devitto. Jasdero does not like the cold-hie. Can Devitto help?"

'Tch, if you are really still alive and not part of my imagination, sure I can help,' The Noah mentally replied. 'Where are you?'

"Jasdero does not know. Jasdero only remember being crushed by lots of rocks on Jasdero's last mission-hie. It hurted. Still hurts too-hie."

Devitto blinked. Could the other still be at the Black Order HQ site?

"Jasdero is feeling tired-hie... Devitto pro…mise to help Jas…de..ro …o…kay?" the blonde's voice faded at the end with a notable exhausted tone.

The dark-haired Noah waited for a few moments just in case the voice came back but silence ensued. During that silent moment, the Noah realized a particular fact. He was not hurting anymore. Instead, his body felt numb, cold, and heavy but there was no pain.

"What…?" muttered the boy as he was confused at the sudden change, "This…"

He did not know what happened or why he could hear Jasdero's voice. He did feel compelled to go to where Jasdero was and find him. He had an inkling feeling that the answer for all this is there. With a heavy sigh, he left his bed and prepared for the journey, not bothering to inform the Earl because of his haste. The pain could return any time after all.

. - .- . - . - . . - . - . –

"I won't let Pleasure get all the fun," a white figure mumbled as he sneaked out of the gate of his HQ. He looked up at the night sky and frowned, "Not a good time to try my flying technique… Last I time I tried at night, I smacked on a crow and fell to the sea…"

He looked around for any form of transportation and saw a car that just left a good distance from the HQ. Making his decision, he waited until the car was close enough to him before jumping in the way. Naturally, jumping in front of a moving car was not a safe thing to do especially if you jumped out of nowhere in the dark streets. The Musician was hit by the full impact of the car and the car swerved towards the side because of the change of force and partly cause the driver was shocked too. The shock wore off quickly enough and the driver went out to check on whatever stupid enough was there to walk in front of a car.

"Was that a ghost…? It looks white enough," the driver mumbled as he walked towards the white figure lying down on the road.

As the driver got close to the figure, he sighed in contempt as he recognized the white outfit.

"…Musician. What the fuck were you doing!?" the annoyed driver yelled as he kicked the white body without a hint of worry or remorse.

The Noah stirred from his position on the rough road. He quickly stood up and appeared to be uninjured if you ignored the trail of blood seemed to leak from inside his mouth.

"Devitto!" The Musician exclaimed in joy before he coughed and a splatter of blood made its way out of his mouth.

Ignoring the blood that the younger Noah just choked out, Devitto gave a lazy glare at the other.

"Again, what the fuck Musician?" he demanded, "I have somewhere to be damn it. Why are you not at that safe place the Earl told you to stay at anyway?"

"I want you to take me to the academy!" Musician chirped in reply.

"I have no time for that, I told you I need to go somewhere-" before Devitto even finish his sentence, the other had already made himself comfortable on the passenger seat in his car. "Ugh Damn it."

The older Noah knew how stubborn the Musician was and he was also in a hurry too so as annoying as it was, he let the kid ride along.

"I ain't going to the academy first, we can go there after I am done with my business," he immediately stated his condition as he revved up the car engine to continue the interrupted journey.

No affirmative sounds came from the backseat and when Devitto stole a glance from the rear mirror, he was greeted with the sight of a sleeping Musician. Typical. Better for him this way though, he really was not in the mood to play along with the other's weird chatters.

-End of chapter seven-

-Alice speaks-

Alright. I decided something. I think I am going to rearrange the previous chapters - before I update next I think. The overall plot and whatever happened should be the same, I am just going to flip the way I wrote about the events around a bit, maybe a lot but the contents does not change… if that makes sense…? Only the writing style will be altered cause I feel like altering it. hahaha. So expect a chapter compression from 7 chapters to maybe 4 chapters next time… if things go well.

Again, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed. Until next time o/

Reviews are very much appreciated! :3