Tsamo finished healing Silverton's hand and walked over to the corner of the room and picked up a photograph in a frame. He handed it to the exorcists. "This photograph was taken three years ago, long before I ever met Silverton."
They all observed the photo. In it, there was a family of five: A mother and father, a beautiful girl around age 19, a little toddler boy, and a 13 year old Silverton. She was the only one who wasn't smiling.
"The person who was flirting with you in the bar was most definitely not my apprentice. It was Nova, this girl here." Tsamo stated, pointing to the beautiful 19 year old girl in the photo. "That is Nova Silverton."
"I still don't understand," Allen said, "How could that be..?"
Tsamo glanced at Silverton, who then stood up and walked out of the room, leaving behind a silver and black golem that had flown out of her pocket. It landed on the twig tied into Tsamo's grayish white hair. "My apprentice's sister had a connection to the innocence that is now housed within Silverton's body."
"What kind of connection might you be referring to?" Bookman asked.
Tsamo hesitated for a moment. "From what this golem has shown me, Nova was at one point its accommodator. She was born with it within her body as a parasitic user. However, when she was around five or six, my apprentice was born. At that time, the innocence switched it's accommodator to Silverton, but remained housed within Nova's body despite that."
"How do you know the innocence preferred Silverton as apposed to her sister?" Bookman questioned. He took this like more of a reason to record history than anything.
Tsamo now spoke to the golem that was on his head. "Acrolith, please show them your memory of November 2, when Silverton was 9 years of age."
The silver and black golem opened it's mouth and began projecting a memory. At first it was unclear, but then they could see a younger version of Silverton and Nova, sitting by themselves in a house.
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"Are you going to sit and stare out the window all day?" 14 year old Nova said in the memory.
Little Silverton was sitting on a windowsill staring outside at the colorful leaves that lay scattered underneath a tree. It was nighttime and Nova had been left in charge of her little sister while their parents were out on a date.
"If you don't answer me, you're not getting any of the cookies Daddy bought from Nana's shop. I'm gonna eat 'em all!" Nova taunted as she started towards the kitchen.
Silverton turned her attention from the window and headed after her. "No, Nova! Stop it! Daddy bought 'em for me! Don't!"
Nova laughed and held a cookie above her little sister's head, barely out of reach. "Sorry, you gotta be at least this tall to eat sweets like this." She then bit the cookie, chewed it up, and spit it in Silverton's face, making her eyes glaze over.
Nova laughed at her sister's tears. "You're so pathetic! I can't wait for Momma to get here so she can see how stupid you loo-" Her speech was cut off by a loud banging on their front door. She headed to go answer it without thinking.
Silverton wiped the chewed cookie off her face and called to her, "Don't! Daddy says we can't answer the door when we're alone…He's gonna be real mad…"
"I don't give a hoot what he says. He can't tell me what to do!" Nova turned the knob and before she could open it herself, the door was kicked open by two adult men.
The men smirked and forced their ways in the door. "Awh, look at you. Aren't you just the cutest little thing?" One of them said.
"Are your parents home, little girl?" said the other, with a grin.
Nova backed away from them, terrified. "Y-you can't be in here…"
"Actually, I'm pretty sure we can do what ever we want!" One of them said, pulling out a knife from his pocket. "Come 'ere why don'tcha." He then lunged at Nova and picked her up over his shoulder. Nova screamed, flailed, and kicked as tears poured from her eyes. "Awh, don't cry, cutie. You're gonna have lots of fun at our place." He said, squeezing her rear with a smirk.
"Hey, there's another one in here!" His partner called to him after discovering Silverton hiding in a cupboard, crying. "She's a little one! Kids don't bring in as much cash as the teenagers, but she'll do, won't she?"
The one holding Nova took a look at Silverton. "Nah, the boss don't want no kids. This little thing ain't gonna get us paid shit. Ya may as well just kill her."
The other man nodded his head and reached out to Silverton with a knife. "You're gonna go to sleep for a long long time, okay?" He said, grinning devilishly.
She watched as the other man walked away with Nova, who was clawing at his back to get free. Not knowing what else to do, Silverton screamed at the top of her lungs, "NOVA! HELP ME!"
Suddenly, right before the man could stab Silverton, a large silver blade shot out from Nova's body and sliced the man's arm clean off. Nova's eyes were pure white and her hair was now like silver threads. Before the man that was holding her could react, silver blades shot out all over her body like a porcupine and skewered him in several places. Then all the blades retracted and the man fell to the ground, dead. Nova then lunged at the man who's hand was cut off and did the same thing. After both of them were dead and gone and Silverton was safe, Nova collapsed and her hair went back to it's normal color.
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"Enough, Acrolith. You can stop there." Tsamo said to the golem. The memory then faded away.
"Now I see why you would think that the innocence changed it's accommodator to Silverton." Bookman stated.
Lavi nodded. "It reacted to her being in danger, but not Nova."
"I guess that makes sense…but I still don't get how any of this explains how Nova could've been the one we met at the bar." Allen said.
Jethese explained, "Since Nova used to be the accommodator of the innocence, her soul still has a connection to it."
"And she can use this connection to control my apprentice's body whenever Silverton's innocence acts on it's own."
Kanda tried putting the pieces together in his mind. "If she was asleep, and an akuma were nearby, would that cause her innocence to maybe destroy the akuma on it's own, since she would be unconscious?"
"Precisely." The Sage answered him. "My guess is that yesterday when the akuma showed up, my apprentice was in the middle of sleeping and the innocence could sense the akuma and chose to destroy it without her control. If that were to happen, then it's likely that Nova used that brief moment in time to attach her soul to my apprentice's body through her connection with the innocence."
"If that's the case, then that explains why the window was wide open the next morning. Once Nova had control over her, she knew you of all people would be able to tell it wasn't your apprentice and so she must've climbed out the window to get out of the house." Jethese added. "Then she went somewhere that she knew she'd be able to make her sister's body look bad…"
Tsamo shook his head in disgust. "It's thanks to Nova that my apprentice has been mistaken for a hooker many times."
"Why would Nova want Silverton to look bad? She's her sister…" Allen questioned.
Kanda grunted. "Obviously her sister didn't like Silverton. Didn't you see Nova spit in her face in the memory? Stupid beansprout…"
Bookman rolled his eyes. "This all explains how they came to meet Nova, but how is it that your apprentice was able to gain control over her body again?"
"That can only happen if the innocence takes control to protect her body from harm."
Jethese nodded in approval. "That happened when Nova saved Lavi from the akuma's bullet after we all left the bar. The virus would've killed her if the innocence hadn't purified her body. That's when Nova got forced out."
"How exactly do you know all about this?" Lavi asked the blond boy.
"Heh, I'm the only guy she's ever dated who didn't dump her and call her a freak when I saw her destroy an akuma, so I was taught this stuff," He said with a cocky smirk. "But just 'cause I didn't say it doesn't mean I didn't think it!"
Tsamo whacked Jethese on the head with his staff. "It would be in your best interest not to say things like that around Silverton, Ackers."
"Could I ask you a question?" Allen spoke while twiddling his fingers. "You said earlier that Nova was long deceased…How exactly did she die?"
"And how did innocence that was inside Nova's body get into Silverton's?" Kanda added.
Tsamo shook his head. "Pardon me, but there's no way I'm going to show you that memory. It's far too gruesome…but what I can tell you is that when Nova's body was destroyed, the innocence transferred into my apprentice's body as a new host."
"Who knew innocence was capable of such things…" Bookman said, assessing the situation. "However, you are aware that since she is an accommodator of innocence, she has to be brought back to the order with us. She needs to be under the supervision of a general."
Tsamo smiled. "I'm well aware of that. In fact, I knew today would be the day she achieved her goal of becoming an exorcist. However, she is already under a general's supervision. She just hasn't trained with him personally yet. I assumed that's why you were sent here, Kanda."
Kanda finally understood.
"When I discovered she was able to destroy akuma, the first person I made aware was Froi Tiedoll. I told him that it was Silverton's wish to be my apprentice but she also needed to be connected to the Black Order. Froi then permitted me to train her myself until the day I felt she was ready to move onto being an exorcist. Silverton has never met Tiedoll before, but now she's finally ready to become his disciple, alongside you, Mr. Kanda."