The thin mist settled over the morning dew as the exorcists bundled up for their trek to the harbour. The sun was settled just above the horizon, setting everything in an orangey glow. Without a word, the girls trudged sleepily to their destination.
Though it was early, the harbour was crowded with people exchanging fish and other creatures for the sea. A proud Chinese man was showing off a four foot catch he had snagged that morning.
As they waded through the market, its fishy stench nearly overwhelming, they caught sight of an even larger crowd near the bay. Vasilisa nearly toppled over when a few of the village children brushed past her on their way to investigate the crowd.
"What do you thinks' over there?" Alexandreina asked rubbing her eyes.
"Our ride." Mizuki addressed.
The girls pushed their way through the crowd, earning grunts and slips of unintelligible profanity. When they finally broke through the crowd, they got their first eye full of what had the crowd memorized.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Seraphina growled.
"Didn't Lenalee destroy all of them?" Sarra asked, astonished.
"What's that?" Eas asked.
"Komurin." The girls answered in unison, their voices all of distaste.
"Komurin five, to be exact!" A voice chimed from the large robot.
The crowd erupted into an exited babble, all shocked by the strange visitor.
"Oh wow! You've made some improvements!" Alexandreina pointed out, the astonishment in her voice slightly mulled by unwavering distrust for the over sized hunk of metal.
"Yeah well, Reever wont let me leave the order but I needed to instruct you on how to use him, so I created this speaker, see? It's just like komurin is really speaking!" Komui sang joyously.
"Yeah, sure, anyways, how is this thing going to get us to Japan?" Seraphina asked, speculative and to the point.
"Ohh! Well, Komurin five has been developed with a whole jumble of new gadgets designed for this trek! We don't have the time to learn the whole make up of him right now, so I'll just tell you how to get him started and control him."
"You mean, were going to RIDE him?" Mizuki asked, astonished.
"But of course! How else do you suppose you would get there?" Komui chimed. "Anyways, at the bottom of his leg he has a small control panel. If you hit the yellow button, he should transform into something of a motorized boat."
"I have got to see this." Mizuki was the one to approach the robot. Once she was at the robots ankle, the water sloshing at her knees, she found the open panel. "Should I stand back?" She asked, uncertainty clouding her excitement.
"Just click the button, and then run back to shore as quickly as possible. You should be fine." He answered his voice hardly reassuring.
"Great." Mizuki sighed. Her finger rested a centimetre away from the button, shaking with anticipation. Finally, after Seraphina felt the need to scream at her to get on with it, the tip of her finger shoved the large yellow button.
The robot lit up, a large rumbling sound emanating from its core. Mizuki freaked, launching herself for the beach, but finding herself face down half way up the shore line. She scrambled to the others as the robot shifted itself in awkward and confusing poses, contorting itself until it was no longer two stories high, but on the water line, its large shape moulded into one of a very complicated metal boat.
Komui's voice interrupted the brief silence with a sound of victory. "Isn't it wonderful? My best work!" His gleeful voice encouraged the others enthusiasm.
"Wow, this might actually work." Vasilisa thought in awe.
"Can it travel across an ocean though?" Seraphina pointed out, no confidence in Komui's creation. She had had a few bad runs with Komui's creations, and she felt the need to criticize his every work.
"It will get you there, no problem! And with it's advanced technological improvements that shouldn't be around for centuries more, it will get you there in almost half the time it would regularly take you!" his voice burst with love for his creation.
"Works for me." Mizuki shrugged, walking over to the steel boarding plank that was settled beside Komourin's large head, or the nose of the boat. The others fallowed after a few more speculations. They figured they could always use the wooden escape boat if it went wacky like the others had.
"Let's ban coffee from the ship." Sarra suggested, thinking of the other times Komurin had ingested coffee. The others agreed.
When they where set to leave, Komui returned to the intercom. "Alrighty then! Komurin five is already set in its course, so all you have to do is get it started. Mizuki, since you pushed the button, can you also pull the black lever next to the wheel? Now the wheel is only meant for emergencies in case something is in the way of the path, or something happens to Komourin's controls."
Mizuki nodded, sliding her hand over the wheel briefly, and then moving onto the lever. "I just push it down?" She asked, hesitant again.
"Yes, then its feet will act as propellers and bring Komurin five into motion!"
Mizuki's hand tightened its grip on the lever and with one last breath, she slammed it down. A loud rumbling escaped from the back of the boat as the propellers started. With a sudden jerk that sent everyone flying, Komurin five was off, at incredibly high speeds towards Japan.
"Why is this thing so damn fast?" Seraphina moaned her stomach flipping.
"Why is it so loud?" Vasilisa cried, her head perched against Komourin's rattling frame, a book settled across her forehead.
"Do you guys want to catch up with the others?" Mizuki questioned.
"Yeah." They groaned.
"Then deal with it!" Alexandreina smiled. The two shut up, though Seraphina ran to Komourin's side a few times to add to the ocean.
Out of Komourin's make up, the deck and haul of it looked like a rather normal boat with an odd colour and material. Below the deck, and the nose of the ship, however reminded everyone they were, indeed riding a giant robot. Komourin's head and shoulders cut through the waves, it's feet propelling it foreword from it rear. The inside consisted of a small kitchen, an infirmary, and six bed rooms with two cots in each, a dining hall and a ballroom. The staff consisted solely of the exorcists, and Komui's voice.
"What are we going to do for three days?" Alexandreina asked; her need to always do something was over riding her controls.
"I have no idea, living together for three days is going to be hard enough, trying to find something to do on a robot ship is ridiculous." Seraphina replied, a sarcastic smile pasted on her face.
"Oh come on, it's not like we haven't spent the last month lazing around the order! We can last three days on a boat!" Mizuki exclaimed, disapproving negative thoughts so early in the day.
"If my stomach doesn't settle, I won't be able to last three more minutes." Seraphina sighed, leaning back on her chair.
"Yeah, Vasilisa and I just got back from a mission; too, we're not good at lazing around." Alexandreina added.
"Nope! I'm fine with lazing! Lazing is good with me!" Vasilisa corrected her.
"Regardless, we can find stuff to do. It's a little hard to fish, but we can play some board games or cards, we can bake, or read, or chat, see, there's lots of things we can do!" Mizuki proposed, determined.
Alexandreina stopped fidgeting and looked up at Mizuki. "You know what? Your right! I'm sure there are lots of things we can do! In fact, let's play some games right now! We're going to make the best out of our free time!"
Mizuki nodded in agreement; glad she could lift some of the negativity from the ship.
"Let's round everyone up right now and have a games day! I've picked up a million things we can do!" Alexandreina continued.
"Sure, I'll grab Sarra and Eas; you get the others to the dining hall, that's our meeting place." Mizuki called back, already half way down the hall.
"Sounds good!" Alexandreina answered back. Once she was out of sight, Alexandreina turned to the others, an evil smile plastered across her face. "Now you two are going to cooperate, and you're going to cooperate good, ya hear?" Seraphina and Vasilisa both nodded, with fear of what would come if they objected.
The dining room seemed empty and haunted with only the six of them present, since they were used to the always bustling cafeteria of the Black order. A stack of miscellaneous board and card games stood at an uncomfortable angle beside Sarra. Alexandreina was setting up a deck of cards, assorting them into two different piles and separating the four kings from the rest.
Let's play a game! She sang, her voice bursting with enthusiasm.
"What kind of game?" Vasilisa asked with suspicion. The kind of games Alexandreina liked to play where usually not normal, or possibly legal.
"Oh, it's just this fun fortune game! It's my own twist of Tarot cards!" Alexandreina continued.
"What kind of fortune does it tell?" Sarra pressed, interested.
"They're perfect match fortunes!"
The girls looked at her with stern eyes.
"Oh come on! It's just a game! We'll have fun, don't worry!" she pleaded, hoping not to lose their interest.
"Fine." They agreed.
"Great! So who's first?" Alexandreina smiled, shuffling the extra cards in her hand.
"I'll take it! Sounds fun!" Mizuki smiled, always up for a challenge.
"Alright! So I need you to pick four guys, of those guys, there must be one you love, or like the most, anyways, and one you hate. This is a matching game, so relatives and such are not really promoted."
Mizuki nodded. "Ok, well, in no complete order, the four I guess I would chose Lavi, Allen, Kanda, and Komui."
Sarra smiled. "Wow, defiantly not in any particular order." Mizuki scowled at her.
"Ok! So the king of spades will be Kanda, clubs will be Komui, diamonds will be Allen, and hearts will be Lavi. Now, I need some questions from the rest of you. Good ones please."
"How about, if that person was on a date with Mizuki, which one would be most likely to bring flowers?" Sarra asked, starting with a lover question right off the bat.
Alexandreina smiled and pulled out a card. "Haha, looks like Allen's the gentlemanly type." She laughed, placing the card under the diamond king. Sarra blushed while Mizuki chuckled under her breath.
"Didn't we already know he was?" She asked.
"True, anyways, onto the next question." Alexandreina prompted.
"Who's a bad cook?" Vasilisa asked, curious.
Alexandreina pulled out the next card in her deck and smiled. "This isn't exactly surprising, I can see this." She set the card under the Spade and pressed for another question.
"Who likes Mizuki the most?" Eas asked, oblivious.
Alexandreina held back the laughter building up in her chest as she peered at the card she had pulled out. "Wow. I wonder by how much." Was all she was able to say as she set the card beside the king of clubs, Komui's' card.
The girls with the exception of Mizuki and Eas; who new nothing of Mizuki's interests burst into a round of laughter.
"Ok, ok, that's enough; can we get it over with?" Mizuki asked, her temper rising slightly.
"Sure, ok, so now that we have that done, we can find out the important stuff. First, who are you going to buy a dog with?" She pulled out a card from the pile she had set away, placing it beside Komui's card. "Wow, looks like he's pretty popular." She teased, and then moved on after she assessed Mizuki's patience. "Ok, now who are you going to live with?" She pulled out the second card, and laid it beside Kanda. "Well, until the earl is defeated, the order will be your home, and Kanda is one of the most permanent residences…" Alexandreina trailed off before she could inflict any more damage to Mizuki's ego.
"Great! I'm going to buy a dog with Komui, who loves me the very most, and I'm going to live with Kanda, the grouch." Mizuki groaned, hitting her head on the table, and leaving it there.
"But that's not all! We still have marriage! Umm, and you're going to marry…" She pulled out a card, hoping for one specific person. When she noticed the little red symbol, she set it down with great relief. "And what counts the most! You are going to marry….Lavi!"
Mizuki looked etched out of stone as her head lay on the table. Sarra and Alexandreina smiled at her knowingly, understanding the reason why she didn't lift her head.
"Ok, there's more to the game, but we have so many more people that I want to get to, so I'm going to skip the last part. Instead, I believe its Vasilisa's turn, if were going across the table. Plus, I really want to read your future."
Vasilisa groaned and set down the book she was reading. "Fine. I chose Johnny from the science department, Reever from the science department, and I guess that Krowley guy's pretty entertaining too."
"You only have three, and you haven't chosen anyone you like yet!" Alexandreina scolded her.
"Yeah, but I don't really have anyone I care about." Vasilisa sighed.
"What about that Debitto guy or whatever?"
"From that truth or dare thing? I only chose him because I thought he was kind of hot. He's a Noah though, so the whole marriage thing could never work out." Vasilisa reminded her.
"Awww, whatever, I'll figure something out for the marriage one." Alexandreina shrugged.
"Ok fine." Vasilisa opened her book again and continued from where she had left off.
"Alright then, Johnny is clubs, Reever is diamonds, Krowley will be hearts, and Debitto will be Spades! Now, like last time, we need questions." Alexandreina smiled.
"Who's the most passionate?" Mizuki asked.
Alexandreina laid a card next too the king of hearts. "Krowley!" She laughed.
"Who would die for Vasilisa?" Sarra sighed, her thoughts on a beautiful romance.
"Reever!" Alexandreina cried with hilarity.
"Who would be the most likely to make Vasilisa happy?" Eas questioned.
"Johnny!" Alexandreina couldn't even put the card down because her laughter had forced her into a cramped ball on the bench.
"Ok, ok, can we continue now?" Vasilisa asked with annoyance.
"One more." Sarra pleaded. "Who's the bluntest? You need someone who will speak their mind."
Alexandreina recovered herself enough to pull the next card, but toppled over once more when she read the person. Vasilisa peered over to the card and groaned. "Debitto." She announced.
Alexandreina straitened herself promptly after to finish the set. She took the cards she had set to the side after she had shuffled. "Ok, different questions, umm, whose going to buy you a new outfit?" Again she took a card from the other pile. "Oh, I guess this actually makes a lot of sense. Johnny will buy you, or most likely make you, a new outfit. Next, who are you going to be stuck on a ship with?"
"What gave you that idea?" Seraphina asked, sarcastically.
"Whatever, you got Krowley. You're going to have to sail on a ship with another exorcist. How anti climactic. Alright, last one, since you may not be able to marry him, how about who will you have a mad love affair with?" She laughed at Vasilisa's annoyed expression as she pulled out the card. "Alright! Our little Vasilisa's going to go Gaga over Debitto!"
Vasilisa shoved her head inside her book, trying to ignore Alexandreina as best she could.
"OK! Next is Sarra! Four guys please!" Alexandreina asked, reshuffling the deck.
"Alright, well, umm, there's Kanda, and Komui, and Lavi, and umm, Allen." She announced.
"Great! Allen can be diamonds for him again, cuz I like it like that, and Kanda for spades, Lavi might as well stay as hearts and Komui as clubs. Let's get the questions rolling!"
"Whose favourite date is a walk by the beach?!" Mizuki screamed in excitement.
"Komui!" Alexandreina coughed with surprise.
"Who loves a short girl?" Seraphina suggested, earning a glare from Sarra.
"Wow, Lavi does!" Alexandreina noted, surprised.
"Figures, he'll chase anything feminine." Mizuki laughed.
"What about, who would cheer her up when she's sad?" Eas asked.
"Oh, that's Allen." Alexandreina called, placing the card bellow he king of diamonds.
"And, umm, who would be most likely to play a more feminine role in a marriage?" Seraphina thought.
"Yeah, no big shocker, I think I've seen him in the kitchen with Jerry a couple of times before." Alexandreina placed the card next to Komui's king.
"Ok, so now, resorting back to regular order, who will you buy a dog with?" She picked up the alternate deck and shuffled it around for extra effect before picking a card. "Looks like Johnny's going to help you out there! And you're going to live with…Komui, how unoriginal. And last but not least, the best in show, lets continue that winning streak ladies! The one you will marry will be… And we have a winner! Johnny will be your lucky man!"
Sarra gasped, her eyes bulging. "What?"
Alexandreina soaked in her surprise and defeat for a few more seconds before letting a giggle escape from her lips. "Kidding! You get Walker, of course!"
Sarra let out her breath in relief, giving Alexandreina a quick glare for tricking her and flushing red from overreacting.
As she shuffled Alexandreina eyed Seraphina.
Seraphina noted her bug eye and sighed. "Fine, Kanda, General Cross, don't ask, anyways, umm, Reever, and someone I absolutely cannot stand, Komui, again."
Alexandreina nodded with a wide grin. "And we begin. Kanda can stay as the spade, cross is now the diamond, Reever is the club and Komui can be the heart, since we all can see how much you love him!"
Seraphina rolled her eyes and cuffed her jaw, waiting for the absurd questions to begin.
"Ok, first off, who is Seraphina's best match?" Vasilisa asked, taking an interest in these pairings.
"Wow, right off the bat, Kanda!" Alexandreina cheered, setting the card down on the spade king.
"Ok, now, who is the most straight foreword? You need a man that speaks his mind too!" Sarra suggested.
Alexandreina pulled another card off the deck and smiled. "Looks like Kanda's a right popular guy!" She laughed.
"Alright, who's the most likely to make Seraphina happy? That's what's most important!" Mizuki laughed. "Or who ever will wade on her on hands and knees."
"I'm not that demonic! I think I get along rather well with mostly everyone." Seraphina corrected her sharply. Mizuki took her statement as a false interpretation of herself, laughing until her sides hurt.
"Ok, ok," Mizuki interjected swiftly thereafter. "Let's finish this. One more question."
"Oh! How about who is the most powerful?" Vasilisa asked, liking the idea of a powerful or rich man.
"Oh, well that breaks Kanda's streak!" Mizuki joked, sliding swiftly away from Seraphina to avoid her death glare.
"Wow, actually, your right, General Cross earns this card!" Alexandreina placed the card on Cross's and reached for the other deck. " Ok, so getting on with this, you're going to buy a dog with, Reever, you're going to live with, Komui, and You're going to marry, Cross," Seraphina sputtered and looked at her with a puzzled and disgusted face. "I'm just kidding, Seraphina, you get Kanda, don't worry." She quickly slid the first card she had picked up under the second, placing the now Spade card over Kanda. Who says I don't think of others. She thought, collecting the cards with a slight chuckle.
"Ok! Eas, your turn!" Alexandreina scanned the table, searching for the youngest of the group. When she finally noticed the empty space where Eas should have been, she asked; "Where's Eas?"
Mizuki shrugged, looking around the room. "I didn't even know she left."
Sarra shook her head. "She said she was hungry so she went to the kitchen."
"Well we can't continue the game without her! It's her turn!" Alexandreina huffed.
"Honestly, I don't think she was that interested." Mizuki replied casually. "I think she's still a little young to be thinking about stuff like love."
"Nonsense!" Alexandreina protested. "You're never too young to feel the pounding your heart makes when you fall in love!"
Vasilisa rolled her eyes, though she never looked up, flipping to the next page of her already almost finished book.
"Mmm, I'm kind off hungry too." Mizuki thought, rubbing her exposed stomach, her vest only reaching half way down her front, leaving a good stretch of bare skin before her small skirt.
"I wouldn't mind a bite to eat." Sarra continued, forgetting the game completely.
"Actually, same here." Alexandreina spoke, surprised by it.
"It must be past noon." Vasilisa commented, setting down her finished book.
The girls headed into the kitchen from which they heard a loud, unsettling grounding noise. The girls peered in hesitantly, confused and curious about the sound. As their vision adjusted to the bright light filtering through the open windows, they were able to make out the shape of a person mixing something. When they were finally able to focus, Eas finally came into view. Her long sleeves were rolled up, the little lace cuff that matched her previous cloths making a ring around her elbow. Her short caramel blonde hair was up in small pigtails, out of her face, and her collar was down from the heat of the blazing oven. The mysterious contents of the bowl in her arms smelled of raw dough.
Eas very rarely sang, since her cough usually acted up, and she wasn't a very good singer in the first place, but since she had been given the medicine she needed, she no longer needed to wear her mask, also allowing her to do things like sing again. She found herself humming to a tune her mother used to sing her, caught up in the rhythm created by the whisk churning the dough.
Her rhythm fell short as her eyes met with the peeping girls. They flashed panic momentarily then turned back to the calm it had before. Her lips curled up into a grin as she lifted her whisk from the batter, licking the top of it. "Would anyone like to help me make some gingerbread cookies?" She asked, inviting the girls into the sweltering kitchen. The girls shrugged and went to her side. "The batter's just about ready, so now we can shape them into what ever we like. The traditional look of the gingerbread cookie is usually in the shape of a man, but its fun creating different shapes, too." She added, scooping out a glob of dough and slapping it down on a metal baking tray. She took hold of the dough, packing it down onto the sheet. When it was only a half centimetre thick Eas took out a knife, carving into the soft dough. When she was done, she collected a multitude of snacks from the cupboard. She applied chocolate to the curly hair, and blueberry's for the glasses. For the cigarette she applied icing.
"This is my friend Tyki!" She laughed at the makeshift head of her friend. "You see? You can make just about anything you want from this! Wanna try?" She held out the batter to the girls, who received it with enthusiasm.
While Eas grabbed another tray, the girls contemplated what to make.
"I'm making Vasilisa!" Alexandreina called.
"I'd better not look bad!" Vasilisa groaned.
"Then why don't you make me, and then with our exceptional talent, we will be even!" Alexandreina suggested.
"Fine, but don't expect it to be a masterpiece." Vasilisa sighed.
"Oh! I'm going to make bookman and give him giant panda ears!" Mizuki laughed.
"Then you'll have to make Lavi with ears as the follow up, he is bookman's successor after all." Sarra suggested.
"Excellent!" Mizuki smiled, scraping out some dough with her hands and kneading it onto the pan.
"I'll make Komui just so I can tear him limb from limb." Seraphina plotted.
"You really are against that guy, aren't you." Mizuki laughed.
"He once died my hair green with one of his wonky experiments. I have never been able to forgive him since." She replied hotly.
"What about you, Sarra? Who are you going to make?" Mizuki asked.
"Umm, well I was thinking about a bunny, or a dog, or maybe Allen…" She mumbled the last words.
"What'd you say? Bunny's, dogs and what?" Mizuki prompted.
"Allen." Sarra mumbled, slightly clearer, her face going red.
"I'm sorry, I still can't hear you!" Mizuki laughed, holding her ear close to Sarra.
"I said Allen! Allen! You know, the white haired gentleman that I am supposedly in love with? Him! I'm going to make him!" Sarra screamed; her face a turnip.
"Great!" Mizuki laughed, loving when Sarra lost her temper.
The girls spent hours making the faces of everyone they knew, constantly making more batter and pulling trays out of the oven. By the time they could no longer think of any more people, they had made 128 cookies.
The kitchen was boiling, even with the windows fully opened. Seraphina, along with Alexandreina, Eas, and Sarra all had taken their coats off, leaving only their assortment of tee-shirts and undergarments. Mizuki's outfit was cool enough that she felt comfortable in the heat, and Vasilisa welcomed the warmth drowsily. When it was hot, Vasilisa always wanted to sleep, but then again, she wanted to sleep mostly all the time anyways.
"Wow, I think we got a little carried away." Eas said, pulling out the last batch of unfamiliar faces.
"I kinda wanna eat one now." Mizuki said, eying the mountains of cookies.
"Go ahead, find your favorite and dig in, we probably wont ever be able to eat all of these anyways." Eas pointed out.
The girls all grabbed their favorite cookies. The styles of the cookies were hilarious to the girls as they noticed the others' choices. Vasilisa had picked the cookie she had made of Alexandreina. Her face was smiling, but on the side was a large red anger mark. The top of her head had both horns and a rainbow over it. Alexandreina frowned at this and pulled out her cookie of Vasilisa. The cookie's eyes were closed and the mouth was just a dot. Where the nose was supposed to be, there was a French mustache. On her forehead the phrase "dead to the word" was scrawled. Beside the face a yellow chick sat with an evil expression on it and a marker in its hand. Vasilisa frowned at the graffiti on her cookie face but easily shrugged it off.
Sarra had a perfect representation of Allen's head, with a small pink heart beside it. Mizuki was biting into one of the round furry looking black ears on the Lavi cookies' head. Seraphina had already broken apart her Komui cookie as promised, throwing half the crumbled body out the window and half in the ovens base. Eas admired her own creation with lonely eyes. She slid it carefully into a paper bag and hid it in the back pouch of her outfit.
"I think this is just what we needed before all the craziness that's sure come." Sarra thought, cleaning up the access batter with a cloth.
"Yeah, it's going to get crazy." Seraphina agreed.
"I can't wait!" Alexandreina squealed her enthusiasm surely misguided.
Vasilisa groaned quietly at the thought of the long days.
"At least we should be able to see everyone soon." Seraphina noted. "That's all that's keeping me going along on this death trip." The girls nodded.
"Two more days." Vasilisa sighed.
"Until all hell breaks loose." Mizuki smirked.