Exile: I don't own. And thank you for all the reviews!

And please give a round of applause for Fou and her awesomeness.

Song of Maria

10:20 PM, November 16th, 2012
Allen Walker's home, Santa Monica, CA

The loud noise of a rickety house blasting an old opera song filled the noise of a small neighborhood in Santa Monica. The stray dog that habitually slept near said house perked up its ears in alarm at the loud gunshot that followed, and then wisely scrambled to its feet and fled as the smell of smoke reached its nose. A shadowy figure escaped from the back door of the house, and the person ran past the dog and faded into the darkness.

Allen had finished dinner and had finally driven home to face the inevitable mountain of debts that came with the cost of Cross as his guardian. The moment he stepped into the door the investigator noticed that Cross's favorite opera song was playing on the record player, "Carte Garde" by Maria, which was odd because the "red-haired bastard" remembered bad memories whenever it played. Wary and cautious, Allen strode over to the record player and shut it off, ducking from the wine bottle that was usually thrown at his head whenever the music was shut off. To his surprise, no wine or beer bottle went flying at his head and no former sniper stood at the kitchen door with a pile of bills awaiting Allen. Getting more nervous at the oddity, Allen slowly opened the kitchen door and his eyes widened at what was lying on a chair and the raging fire three inches from said door.

A minute later a frantic call was recorded by an operator. "My name is Allen Walker, and my house is on fire and there's a corpse in there! I live in Santa Monica…" Allen spieled off his address to the person, then hung up and dialed the Black Order.

"I need Kanda Yuu, Lenalee Lee, and Lavi Bookman. It's Allen Walker, code Edge End. I need the arson team right now," he said to the synthesized voice recorder. It recognized the used words and identical messages were fired off to the named people.

Allen Walker, Edge End status. Arson team needed. Lavi read off his screen. Switching windows, he dialed the number of the second arson investigator and ran off to his car. Lenalee read the same message, and she dropped the pen she had been writing with to answer to the alert. When Kanda saw the words "Edge End", he lunged across his desk and dropped the sheaf of files he had been holding. An errant file floated down from the desk, and there were a set of related names listed.

Miranda Lotto…Hitoshirezu Mizu…Cross Marian…Kanda Yuu…Froi Tiedoll… were the words that his secretary registered as she picked it up and re-filed the page.

It took the fire deputies five minutes to get to the old house and charge in to extinguish the flames that had been contained in the living room and kitchen. Lenalee, Kanda, and Lavi had arrived not three minutes later, and when they got to the scene, Allen was being questioned by the LAPD. "So, sir, what were you doing at the time of the fire?" a policeman asked him with a notepad in hand. Allen sighed and slumped to sit at the curb.

"Sir, I told the operator that it was only necessary for to fire department. When my colleagues get here, the body will be taken care of." Allen replied, making the trio flinch at the oddly polite yet devoid of emotion tone that Allen was using, the one that meant that something was horribly wrong.

The policeman's eyes narrowed, "I'm sorry sir, but as you were first to discover the body, that puts you as the person of interest for this case. So I'm assuming you were going to get your colleagues to help you dispose of the body?" he asked sarcastically. "What do you and your associates do?" the man suddenly jumped at the hand on his shoulder, and he was spun around to face one irate Kanda and an equally pissed off Lenalee and Lavi.

"Allen Walker is an investigator for the Los Angeles branch of the Black Order Morgue. I'm his superior and the two behind me are also involved with this case. The LAPD is not needed here, and because since he is an employee of the Order this is our case." Kanda all but hissed. "If you had actually let the stupid beansprout speak, he would have told you that. Here's our identification." Kanda rummaged around his pocket and flipped out his ID that identified him as the Branch Head of Los Angeles, complete with the overt Rose Cross that was the insignia of the Order. The policeman stepped back and ground his teeth, not knowing what he was supposed to do when confronted with one of the Order on a crime scene. The Order had a record in the police force as being the elite of elites: lab scientists with photographic memory, pathologists with astonishing perception, investigators that could look at a crime scene and find the trace of the criminal that would lead to arrest, and eccentric Branch Heads that could easily beat you in a battle of wits or take down multiple armed men in a matter of minutes. It was a mute general rule in the police to not butt heads with the Order or the Order's employees, as whoever did would end up absolutely depressed, feeling idiotic, or defeated by the encounter, depending on who they met. "So are you going to call off your men? Our arson investigator and techs are coming right now."

The policeman pulled one of his coworkers aside and they conducted a hurried conversation on the proper procedure for these instances. Lenalee and Lavi took advantage of this to rush Allen's side. "What happened? Where's Cross? Who was the body?" Lenalee asked rapidly. Allen looked up with empty, despondent eyes.

"Cross…Cross was killed," he said hoarsely, "I saw…a bullet through the head, stomach, and chest, and there were empty wine bottles lined up in a row right in front of the door. Cross was sitting on a chair, and he was tied to it. H-He's dead, guys…he's dead. He can't die; it's impossible!" Allen ranted, obviously in a bad state of shock. "And the thing that I find the worst bit is that the accelerant was his wines and champagnes. So he did die of alcohol!" at the last phrase, Allen laughed in a deranged manner. Meanwhile, the police had reached a decision to leave people there until the Order's forces showed up, much to Kanda's amusement. In less than a minute, the second arson investigator, as well as Lavi's "underlings" as Lavi liked to refer to them, had arrived on the scene.

"Kanda, what's going on?" Timothy Hearst asked with an edge of curiosity the moment he stepped out of the car. "It takes a lot to make Allen go off like that. I think the last time was four years ago when Neah was killed." Timothy Hearst was probably the youngest investigator to be accepted into the Order, only being 28 at the moment. He was a genius like Lavi, but sadly a mastermind with the humor of a 5-year-old and the playful mentality of Lavi on a sugar high.

"Oi, beansprout, since it's your house all we need is your permission to go in and investigate instead of the standard warrant." Kanda said to Allen, ignoring Timothy. "So what is it?"

"Just get me a glass of water and I'll give you guys the grand tour." Allen retorted with his usual sharpness that only happened when dealing with Kanda. A water bottle was thrown at his face, and Allen caught it and quickly downed the contents. "Cross… Cross was killed by 3 bullets to the brain, heart, and stomach respectively. Wait; get me a piece of paper." Lenalee ripped out a piece of notepad and gave it to Allen, and he began quickly sketching what he remembered about the body. "Body…was sitting on a chair. Wine bottles were…uncorked and lining the room. A record player was playing in the entryway, but I turned it off the moment I went in. He was tied to the chair as well…and there were bloodstains on the tile floor in front of the chair." When Allen had finished his rough sketch of the death scene, he passed it up to Lavi to hold on to. "I feel better now. Let's g-go in." he stood up, but staggered and landed on the grass.

"Your body is still experiencing the shock, Allen. Wait a bit more until your nerves are steady. Since you gave permission, we four will go in to check on the house." Lenalee said softly, and Allen nodded in agreement. "Okay, then we'll see you." With that she, Kanda, Lavi, and Timothy ran up the steps and into the entry hall.

Lavi was holding onto the sketch and poking around the hall. "Well, here's the record player beansprout mentioned. Geez, this record is old- at least 50 years. It was probably been playing for only a few minutes before Allen went in, judging by the heat and the position of the scratcher." Lenalee nodded, stealing a peek at the drawing.

"Why do you think that the wine bottles are lining the kitchen?" she asked.

"Alcohol. Accelerant. Trap." Kanda explained shortly. "Let's open the door right now." With that he strode over to what was presumed to be the kitchen door. Kanda stared at the doorframe for a few seconds. "This door opens inwards." Opening it, he stepped back with a snarl at the sight of the stiff corpse of Cross Marian. When he opened the door further, the trio heard the clatter of glass falling on tile, and from the corner of the room, a pool of wine raced towards the space underneath the chair of the cadaver, where the tile was burnt and there were several ashes and charred objects, the most obvious being a burnt match. "The perp decided to leave a nice trap for whoever discovered Cross if they found him before the house became a fireball. I'm guessing that there was a fire under him and another in the living room. As we saw, when I opened the door, the wine bottles fell, spilling out the alcohol. They're all directed to the center of the room, where the fire was. When the wine reached the flames, it would send the flames in the direction of the person, and the wider they opened the door, the more likely they would turn into roast human. I'm guessing that it was a habit for beansprout to open the door slowly, because of Cross's character the guy probably would throw stuff at the beansprout, and so that's why he's still alive."

"The bullet to the stomach happened first, judging by bloodstains, in order to deliver excruciating pain to Cross. And then instead of actually shooting the heart the right side of the chest was shot, puncturing the lungs and making blood flow into the lungs, slowly drowning him in his own body fluids. And afterwards, the killing shot was delivered to the brain, and Marian died immediately," Lenalee observed, picking her way over the wine bottles and the ashes to the center of the kitchen.

"Yeah, this is definitely the work of the same guy," Lavi said, popping back from where he had disappeared into the living room to search for evidence. "The same glass shards in the living room are similar to the ones from other crime scenes. But what's got me confuzzled is the connection between Cross, Miranda, and Mizu."

"Confuzzled? Really, Lavi?" Timothy asked, eyes lighting up. "That's an awesome word!" Lenalee sighed in exasperation, hitting both their backs.

"No going off on random tangents, guys." she scolded, Kanda grunting in agreement. "But the connection has been bugging me as well. I mean, the connection is floating somewhere around in the back of my head, but…"

Kanda was now recalling what he had been reading less than an hour ago: the old DGM case files. "Cross…Mizu…Miranda…" his head jerked up from his thinking stance as he strode out the house and to where Allen was muttering to himself on the curbside. "Beansprout! Where was Cross on December 14th four years ago?" he barked. Allen lifted up his head in surprise and shock.

"He said that he was going out to do some work." Allen replied cautiously.

"What was his job?" Kanda asked insistently.

"I-I don't know!" Allen cried. "All I know that he was a sniper for something. That's it!"

"Get in here!" Kanda hissed, easily dragging Allen up into the house. "Lavi, Lenalee, Cross was involved in my first case. So were Miranda and Mizu; that's the connection. There can't be any other!"

"The DGM case?" Lavi yelped. "Are you serious? Wait…Cross is a sniper, Earl was killed by a snipe shot to the heart- it makes sense! But what about Mizu and Miranda?"

"They're connected some way, I'm sure of it. I remember seeing their names in the files before. We'll need to go back to the Order. You guys stay here and take care of the body and comb the house for evidence. We're going to do some paperwork sorting." Kanda ordered, keeping a vice grip on Allen and getting in his car. "Get in, beansprout. In this state there's no way I'm letting you drive by yourself." Allen silently complied after fetching some items from his car.

11:32 PM November 16th, 2012
Black Order Morgue, Los Angeles Branch

"What are Kanda and Allen doing here so late?" Fou growled to Sachiko, Kanda's secretary. "I made sure to get the night and early morning shift so I wouldn't have to deal with that ice block."

"I have no idea." Sachiko replied worriedly. "Kanda just called me here to help locate some old closed files. And yes, Fou, I'm going to get paid overtime." The red-haired woman went back to searching for files related to the D. Gray-Man case like Kanda had instructed her, stacking each one near the door, and Allen's hand would snake out every few seconds and hasty sounds of pages turning would follow.

"What does he want with the DGM case files?" Fou asked confusedly, picking up one of the folders that Kanda had tossed out of his office. Sachiko shrugged.

"All he said when I came in was that he needed the task files for it. Something about a connection with some serial murders." she replied.

"Fantastic. Well, at least Lenalee's taking this case." Fou muttered, walking off with a fresh batch of paperwork on her next autopsy. A triumphant yell suddenly came from inside Kanda's office, and Allen poked his head out.

"Chomesuke, we're good now." Allen said hurriedly to Sachiko, referring to her by her nickname. The door to the office slammed shut again. Inside, she could hear a rapid discussion between the two. Sighing, Sachiko wisely decided to just go home and get her beauty sleep.

"I knew it." Kanda pointed out, jabbing at the names on the task list. "Cross was the sniper that day. Mizu was the officer that led the chase for the Earl, and Miranda was an important informant for the bodies. They're all connected. And now we know who the next victims could be." Allen suddenly paled.

"Yeah, but there are several people involved with the case…and you were the name that popped up the most when attributing the case solution." Kanda glared at Allen after hearing the statement.

"I doubt it. If the perpetrator killed me, the connection would be noticed right away. What I'm worried about is that we know a lot of the next prospective victims." the Japanese man explained. "And Tiedoll is on the list. And Rei. And a whole bunch of people." Allen furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Rei? Why her?"

"She ran some stuff to some people. And I gave her some of the coded messages left at crime scenes to play with," Kanda responded vaguely, "but which idiot would put a basic courier on the task list?"

"Woah. One second, you tricked Rei into delivering information?" Allen asked in astonishment. "What type of brother are you?"

"Shut up, beansprout. I needed someone that could defend themselves, not be too conspicuous or easily memorable, and someone that I trusted. Ryuukei just filled the criteria for me." Kanda snapped. Suddenly, Lavi rudely kicked the door open, a grim frown replacing his usual cheery grin.

"We're here. Allen, do you want to see Cross before Lenalee does the autopsy?" he asked grimly. Allen bit his lip to prevent tears from flowing. Sure, Cross had been horrible as his guardian, but Allen could name several occasions which Cross actually had pulled through for him. Kanda's eye twitched and he shoved his employee out the office.

"Go say your condolences. I'm going to contact that idiot sister of mine and warn her." With that the door was closed once again as Allen walked off with Lavi to the body while Kanda turned around and furiously punched in Rei's number to his cell. After a few dial tones, Rei picked up, obviously having been asleep.

"What, Brother?" she asked groggily. "Make it fast; I need to sleep. I've got to go to Tiedoll's in a day for Thanksgiving Break."

"Quiet," Kanda grumbled. "Anyway, I need you to watch out for any suspicious people. You're a likely target."

"Woah, wait, why me?" Rei yelled into the phone, shooting up in her bed. "What did I do? I'm going to kill you if it's because of you!"

"Idiot. The connection is the people who helped out in the DGM case. The ones that weren't publicly announced. And you're one of them." he admitted regretfully. "Remember those codes I asked you to crack when you were hyper? And the stuff I had you deliver?" there was a silence on the other side of the line.

"Goddamnit. You used me as a courier and a decoder?" she cursed, and Kanda could hear the deadly intent in her voice. "And now I'm a prospective target?"

"Well…yeah," he winced.

"I hate you. I may as well go set up some traps now." Rei muttered, hanging up the line and stalking off to her arsenal of various items. "Kat! Get up; we need to set some traps up! Stupid BaKanda's fault."

"Well now, that went well." Lavi remarked as Kanda walked out. "I heard the whole thing. I get the vibe that she's not an early morning person. Anyway, what about Tiedoll? Aren't you going to warn him?"

"San Diego is at least 4 hours away, idiot rabbit. I doubt that he'll be targeted." Kanda snapped. "I'm going to go home now. Update me in the morning."

"I'm going to catch that guy, I swear." Allen vowed darkly as he sat in the employee lounge. It was past midnight, but Lenalee had decided to do Cross's autopsy immediately when she and Lavi had arrived at the morgue. The pathologist was now in the middle of the autopsy, and Allen had been unable to sleep. Lavi was allowing Allen to stay at his place, and was going to drive Allen to his home, seeing as Allen's house was now a crime scene. Unexpectedly, Timothy walked into the lounge and tapped Allen on the shoulder. "What, Tim?"

"I need you to answer some questions about the lighting system of your house." Timothy replied uneasily, "Every single light bulb in gone, except the one in your entry hallway. I think that I have an inkling of how the fire started. It all depends on what you say."

"…Fine. It was a really old house, but we used mostly the new energy-efficient light bulbs. I know that we had some old incandescent ones in some rooms." he answered.

"Bingo." Timothy breathed, eyes dilating. "Want to run some tests with me? Well, more like experiments?" Allen nodded, and then Tim took off to the parking lot, Allen in tow. In the middle was a lamp plugged into an extension cord. The arson investigator produced a match, and turned on the lamp. "Here we have a lamp with an old-style low-efficacy light bulb." He turned it off, and then pulled out a roll of tissue paper and some tape, using it to bind the match right next to the light bulb. "These old bulbs heat up fast, and in about ten minutes the match will go up in flames."

True to what he said, within ten minutes the match suddenly ignited, making Allen jump. It burned through the tissue paper and fell to the asphalt, burning brightly and rapidly. When it died down due to no other fuel, Allen raised an eyebrow. "So? Care to explain?"

"Yeah! You see, the…" Tim opened his mouth to explain the phenomenon before a gunshot was heard.

Lavi jerked his head to look out the window at the ominous sound of a gunshot. As if in slow-motion, he watched Timothy Hearst stagger, blood appearing around his mouth, and collapse in front of Allen. "Beansprout!" Allen jerked to life and made a mad dash towards the entrance of the building. Lavi rushed to the doors and flung them open, slamming them shut the moment Allen had reached the threshold as he saw the sparks of another bullet hit the asphalt. "Fou! Help!" the irritable orange-haired pathologist appeared out of from one of the rooms and ran out of the doors towards the collapsed Timothy, spinning and dodging in midair to avoid more shots.

Scooping up the young man, Fou ran back in, abruptly dumping Tim on a couch whilst Lavi frantically called for the ambulance. Grabbing a pistol from Chomesuke's counter, she dashed back out and returned fire in the direction of the silhouette that bore a shotgun, attempting to make headway to get a good look at the criminal. Gunshots rang and Fou felt a bullet graze her leg, making her stagger backwards. Before she lost her footing, Fou released another round before diving behind some cars. The shady figure smiled evilly, aiming for a car to set off a chain explosion before he felt a rush of air from several bullets fly right past his left ear. Lavi had found a rifle equipped with a scope in the weaponry, had run to the 2nd floor balcony, and was aiming to kill. The person cursed before running off to beat a hasty retreat, still holding onto their pistol.

"Fou! Are you okay?" Lavi yelled worriedly, searching the parking lot for where Fou was hiding. The 36 year old jumped on the roof of her car and shot Lavi thumbs up.

"I'm fine! I just need to bandage my leg!" she hollered back. "Unlock the doors, will you?" Lavi complied, and the moment Fou had wrapped her leg with bandages, the ambulance screamed into the parking lot, and Timothy was escorted out on a stretcher. "How is Tim?"

"He's alive." Allen replied wearily. "The bullet only barely missed his stomach, but he'll be in the ICU for a while." Lavi ground his teeth.

"Darnit! If only Kanda didn't leave yet, we would've caught the guy!" he cursed. "So close!"

"What the hell just happened?" Lenalee asked, running into the room with her scalpel in hand and work gloves on. "I heard the gunshots, but I was in the middle of examining the bullet paths in Cross's body!"

"Timothy was shot, and I barely got in safely. Fou went out to help Tim, and she's in the parking lot right now to pick up the bullets from her gunfight." Allen explained, pointing outside to Fou's silhouette. "We finally have a lead."

"One second! If the bullets that we found in your house match the ones from just now, then we might be closer to nabbing the guy!" Lenalee exclaimed, making Allen and Lavi nod.

"Yeah…" Allen agreed, and suddenly the full rush of the day's stress collided on him. He staggered against the wall and slumped down in weariness. Lenalee's hawk eyes didn't miss a single motion.

"But other than that, you two should go to sleep. You look like the walking dead. And I don't want to do autopsies on either of you." Allen and Lavi shuddered, and the redhead ran to down several cups of coffee so he could stay awake at the wheel while driving him and Allen to his home.

"I'd sooner have another gunfight with a murderer again than talk to Lenalee when she has a scalpel." Fou muttered as they passed her. "Goodnight, you two."

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