"The death is unavoidable," says Bookman. And opens the umbrella. "We should get going, Deak."
He's never been particularly good at the whole upstander thing. Hell, he's never even had to make many decisions for himself by himself. Maybe it is a good thing Bookman isn't here to see how incredibly pathetic he can really be.
This never even happens.
And.
The card in his hand is printed with slanting, finite lines in sharp, geometric precision. There is ink as black as death, and it spills—coils around the spine of the spade in fanning curves, consummate. The effect is hungry, and desperate, and it looks like it will overflow any second now.
He really, really should know better than this.
But.
He slides the ace of spades onto the parquet, hesitates, and lifts the next card from the deck.
It is a brilliant shade of red. The queen of hearts. The color drips and slashes across the medium in fine, porcelain cuts. The shapes are of regular polygons – non-unique and wholly insignificant – familiar like the gunmetal finish of industry. Like cities and pollution, and the world moves faster than he knows.
He reaches for the next few cards in quick succession.
A two, a jack, a seven, another ace.
They are all luckless and meaningless draws. He casts the cards aside and draws the next card from the pile. There's only one type of card in a deck that's important, he discovers quickly enough. Hell, he has all the time in the world to realize this. There's only one card that's capable of holding all the strings, one card that can mean so many things, one card that doesn't even matter. All of the above.
This is something he has to learn all on his own. He can already anticipate Bookman's disapproving reaction, and quickly pushes the thought aside.
This is where it gets tricky. There are two of these printed court jesters in any given standard deck. There's one in black and one in red. The red card always triumphs over the black. Lavi can buy this. In his life experience, red really always does win anyway.
Once, he comes across a book on tarot and standard card decks. According to the excerpt, there is a tarot card acknowledged as the Fool. Its standard equivalent is the black Joker. An excuse that can be played at any time but can never win.
The criticism goes on to discuss the utility of a joker card, or lack thereof. It can get pretty confusing. It is omitted from commonalities, it is used informally, it is to be avoided. It can either be extremely helpful or extremely harmful. And so forth. It is everything and nothing on the same cut edge of cardboard.
It makes for the most terrific identity crisis ever. He studies the black joker card in his hand and imagines both sides to be wiped blank, and wakes up to the sensation of a hand curled cold around his aorta. And a reminder from no one in particular.
Don't fuck up.
His next name is to be Lavi.
Bookman is careful with his words. Bookman is a careful person by nature, but this is something else entirely. Bookman actually says this twice. He says this first when they first arrive at the Order and are waiting for the director to greet them. He says this again now, after Lavi finds him and hands in the assignment Bookman had asked for. It hasn't even been two full weeks yet.
"Lavi," Bookman says just as bleakly as he had the first time, and the new name rolls a little too easily off his tongue, "Watch yourself. Be careful."
Lavi blinks. "What? With what?"
Bookman is exacting. "Don't forget where you come from," he warns primly. "It is too soon for you to start slipping up."
There is a hint of silence before Lavi grins and waves it off breezily. "Hey, don't be like that. I gotcha the first time, you know," he fakes a yawn. "No big, honest. I'm still a Bookman before anything else, yeah? I've never forgotten anything in my life, either. I can do this," he reassures. "I mean, if I'm not friendly enough, then that'll be suspicious too, right?"
Bookman just watches him for a while. They both know what a fantastic liar Lavi can be. He's only ever learned from the best.
"You talk too much," Bookman concedes before closing his eyes and heading back to the Order's library. When he walks past Lavi, he pauses slightly. "I'll leave it to you, then."
"I know," he says before Bookman is completely out of earshot. His words are buried faster than he will ever choose to acknowledge. "I know."
There is so much that he already knows. There is so much he wishes he doesn't have to know, and there is still so much more he has yet to know. There's only so much one person can take before it just fucks him over.
Lavi closes his eyes. This will be difficult for you, Bookman had said, and Bookman's usually good at being right.
The Order had been everything he'd ever expected it to be, and that's the problem. Lavi presses at his temples. Bookman's half-right. He's not mentally ready for something like this—not yet. Maybe not ever.
"Lavi?"
Lavi perks up on instinct at the mention of his name. It's Lenalee.
The first time he had seen her, she had been wrapped in ribbons. The idea sounds pretty at face value, but these ribbons were the type that had been stained with all the fresh battle scars and liquid salt that a girl shouldn't even be allowed to have.
She's that kind of girl, he thinks, who gets overly sentimental about all sorts of things. Someone with emotional attachments. These kinds of people make him feel uncomfortable. It's a bit like watching a gorgeous glass sculpture shatter into pieces and doing absolutely nothing about it.
And this is the kind of girl you want to carry bridal-style so that the train of her dress won't sweep the floor, the kind you don't look at in the eye 'cause you don't want her to know how terrific of a liar you can be.
But Lavi is already too disillusioned about the world outside for pretenses like these, so he mock-salutes and grins. "Whatcha need, Lenalee?"
Lenalee smiles, friendly as ever. "Oh, nothing! I was just wondering why you were standing there. You're not lost, are you?"
Don't forget where you come from. It is far too soon to forget Bookman's words, so Lavi thumbs at his head wrap. "Nope, just admiring the architecture," he invents on the spot.
Lenalee blinks. "The architecture?"
"Yeah." Lavi gestures about the room. "'The mother art is architecture. Without architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization'," He quotes. "Frank Lloyd Wright—he's an American architect. But I guess what I mean to say is that this place is gonna be my home for a while, right?" It's all bullshit derived from the cornerstones of his memory, and he is already far too good at this liar game. "So I'm just taking it all in, you know?"
Lenalee's smile is thoroughly heartbreaking, and it takes Lavi aback. His supposition is right—she really does make him feel uncomfortable. Lenalee takes his cold hand in hers. "Welcome to the family," she beams. "I'm really, really glad you're here."
This is how Seral dies.
It is in all honesty a fantastic ending, he has to admit. Maybe not the most suitable ending for someone who never really even lived, but still—fantastic.
After the bread girl leaves, he makes haste to break the promise he had never even intended to keep. Don't die, alright? The words are imprinted in his memory for all of eternity, but he is determined, and he is ready to make the most he can out of Seral's existence, whatever that even means.
So he makes for the loudest part of town. This town is small and quaint at surface value, but Lavi knows better. Everything is always pretty at face value, and there's always something ugly just begging to be discovered.
He knows exactly what he's looking for, what he wants, and what he needs. The trick is just getting it.
So he pushes away Bookman's rule, even though the words curl warningly around his lungs. "Don't get involved with people," Bookman had taught him early on, "Don't confuse work with anything else. Avoid complications."
This time, his rebirth ritual demands playing with lives. Sometimes, when all you do is observe, you feel like you have no control in this puppeteer kind of world. It's unsettling to realize how insignificant you can be, so he enters the pub and scopes out the room for something – anything – that will satisfy his condition.
Do something you've never done before.
So he holds his breath, and.
Sweat.
Blood.
The smell of citrus fruit and the taste of pennies.
His pulse surging.
Seral's dying hours are fantastic, and cruel, and all he can do is smile the bitter smile of a man who knows too much and can confess to none. "I'm sorry," he says to no one in particular.
Bookman is right. Lavi is a difficult character to play.
After much deliberation, the tentative Bookman successor decides that this persona should be obnoxious. So Lavi is friendly to the point of being openly irritating. The nosy, know-it-all pheromone he intentionally emits seems to complement his Bookman successor sort of occupation stereotype quite well, too. After the first few days, he decides to tack on shallow and blatantly flirtatious to his persona, just in case the others start to take him seriously. Lavi is goofy. Lavi is annoying. Lavi is overbearing. Lavi becomes someone who you don't necessarily try to involve unless you really, really have to. Lavi becomes someone you don't want to learn too much about.
It is the most brilliant and convenient lie he could have ever crafted, and Lavi has this all figured out down to the gritty details, like which distinct dialect would be most appropriate for Lavi to use, or what colors – orange and turquoise, he decides – would best suit Lavi's more flamboyant nature. Or at least, he thinks he's doing a fairly good job at being Lavi until he meets Kanda.
Kanda is difficult to handle—he doesn't buy any bit of his act. He doesn't even have the courtesy to pretend to either.
Lavi is all grins the second time he meets Kanda. "Hey," he says cheerfully when the latter comes to pass by him in the halls. "You just got back from a mission, right? How'd that go?" When Kanda doesn't even acknowledge him, he tries a different tactic. "Your name's Yu, right? It's a good name, man."
The first time, Kanda had just given him a detached glance-over and a curt greeting, if the acknowledgement could even be called that. This time though, Kanda stops and stares at him with a look that far surpasses irritation. Lavi blinks. He hadn't anticipated this total coldness from someone who is supposed to be a comrade.
This time, Kanda actually looks at him, and speaks to him too, and the feeling is kind of like being seen through completely. It is discomforting. "It's Kanda," he says shortly before moving again.
"Ah—gotcha."
When Kanda passes Lavi, he stops briefly again. "You," Kanda says and pauses, but only for a little while before he starts walking again. His footsteps resound. "I don't trust you."
It is an entirely valid judgment—hell, it's one that Lavi readily reserves for every stranger around him. But this isn't one that is meant to be passed on him. Lavi shrugs it off breezily and spends the rest of the evening holed up in his room, carefully retracing the nuances in his conversations, trying to figure out where he had slipped up. Bookman's guidebook doesn't have a lesson on gaining trust, but it feels important to do all the same.
The third time he meets Kanda again, it is at Komui's request.
Kanda is adamant. "No."
The European branch director clears his throat loudly. "Ah, well, Kanda, this isn't really for you to decide, you know."
Kanda doesn't budge, and Lavi just watches, divided somewhere between fascinated, curious, and amused. He wonders if he is supposed to be offended about this or not.
"I don't want to," Kanda says curtly. "I'd rather take this solo."
Komui laughs. "'I don't want to'? You're not a kid anymore, Kanda." He shuts up quickly upon catching the look on Kanda's face. "But, er, anyway. It's Lavi's first mission, and you guys are around the same age, so wouldn't it make sense for you guys to go together for this one? Show him the ropes and all."
Kanda has his arms crossed. "Whatever," he says. He turns slightly to Lavi. "I'll meet you at the exit at 6 tonight."
Komui clears his throat again after Kanda leaves. "Ah, sorry about that. He's a bit grumpy sometimes, but he's serious about his work. And he can really be, uh, caring. Honest."
Lavi smiles the predictable smile that's expected of him. "Yeah, don't worry about it," he breezes. "So what's this all about anyway?"
Komui hands him a neat, black booklet embossed with the gaudy Rose Cross insignia of the Black Order. "All the details are in there. Glance over it now, pack all the necessary belongings you think you'll need, and you can read about it in more depth during when you travel. You know how to get down to the lowest level here, right?"
Lavi takes the booklet and mock-salutes. "Yeah, I gotcha," he grins again. "Good luck to me, huh?"
"Well," And this time, the corners of Komui's mouth are stiff. "You'll need it."
There is a long stretch of silence before Lavi speaks again. He blinks. "Ah—I'll keep that in mind. So..."
He leaves the room and stands outside the door for a while before he remembers himself and where he is and heads back to his room. This will be another one of those things he cannot forget.
And.
Don't fuck up.
At ten before six, Lavi is ready to go and already underground. The thing about traveling and leaving all the time is that you eventually learn how to pack quickly and efficiently. Because you never really know how long anything will ever last. Always move fast.
Kanda just glances over at him. "Got everything?"
"Yeah."
"Let's go." He nods at the other man accompanying them. "This is our Finder for this mission. Finders scope out where possible fragments of Innocence might be," Kanda says shortly.
Lavi grins and holds out his hand. "I'm Lavi, and I'm new to the Order. Nice to meet you."
The Finder nods back at him, takes his hand. He might have been smiling back at Lavi, but it is difficult to tell through the high collar of his parka uniform. "I'm Maroke."
Kanda, Lavi is beginning to catch on, really doesn't know how to wait. He cares even less so for people skills. "Let's get going."
Once on the canoe, Lavi finds himself fidgeting. If there's one thing he really can't stand, it's silence. They make him feel uneasy. There are a number of sayings that laud silence as music. Lavi knows better though, of course. Silence is never golden—it just screams.
Lavi imagines another countdown.
The queasiness settles in his stomach. According to the booklet, they are bound for a town called Corleone on the edges of Italy. Lavi's never been here before, so as per Bookman habit, he scavenges through the streets, mentally recording the details about this place.
Kanda is impatient. "We're on a schedule, hurry up."
"Ah—wait—sorry." Lavi catches up and scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, got a little carried away there, huh?"
Kanda doesn't say anything and continues navigating through the streets instead. He stops suddenly.
Lavi blinks. "What's up?"
"You've seen an akuma before, right?"
Lavi blinks again. "What?"
"Akuma," he's impatient. "You have Innocence, don't you?"
"Oh, yeah. That's why I'm he—"
"Then watch closely. Watch the people and how they interact. Akuma like crowds of people. Be ready to interfere once something's amiss."
This is the most Kanda's ever spoken to him, and the edge to his voice is dangerous. People are different when living's at stake.
"Gotcha."
A boy comes up to them and beams, rosy cheeks and the whole works. "Would you like to buy some bread, sir?"
Kanda doesn't even look at him for more than a second. "No thanks."
The boy tugs at Kanda's coat uniform. "Are you sure? Please? See, the thing is, if I don't sell enough, then my parents are going to be really, really disappointed with me. And, well, you know."
Kanda doesn't budge. "Sorry."
Mechanics click.
Kanda is quick to move. "Mugen," The words fall from his mouth, automatic and familiar, "Activate."
And before Lavi can even react, Kanda neatly slices through the demon machine.
The whole thing is nothing short of awesome. Kanda's Innocence takes the form of a traditional Japanese katana, and there is Innocence like lightning edged blue along the sharp end of his blade. And the way Kanda moves—it's nothing Lavi's seen before. It practically transcends humanity and mortality.
Kanda doesn't even hesitate before he kills.
Kanda turns back to Lavi. "What the hell are you doing?" He snarls. "Take care of the akuma!"
"Oh—right!" Lavi fumbles around for his hammer and activates the fragment of Innocence in his hand.
Fire explodes.
It explodes in a column straight up to the sky, curling and ripping in violent orange.
Lavi.
Lavi.
Watch.
There is screaming. There is the sight of stolen skin burned raw and gunmetal finish. There is hysteria, there is laughter, there is screaming again, there are akuma. Lavi swings his hammer again, and there is the sound of burning fire. There is the death of machines; there is a line of all his former selves and all the wise Bookmen before him.
There is reality.
After, later, when the fire dies out, Kanda considers Lavi for a while before saying anything. "Good work," he finally concedes.
Lavi just nods. "Thanks," he says dumbly.
Kanda sheathes his Innocence and turns to head back to base. "I'm going ahead first. It seems like the akuma here had been looking for Innocence too. There might be more around, so stay alert."
Lavi waits until Kanda is on the verge of disappearing into the horizon before speaking again. And when Kanda is reduced to a dark, insignificant smear at the bottom of the sky, he puts a hand to his temples.
Closes his eyes.
The war will be different this time, Lavi.
"Goddamn."