Ciel sat uncomfortably beside me on the couch in my sitting room. Lavi was sitting on one of the armchairs across the room. When we had reached my house Lavi had insisted that we needed to talk, so now Ciel was stuck playing the role of younger cousin. Sebastian had positioned himself behind the couch, since he had taken an immense dislike to Lavi, even greater than the hatred he felt towards Allen simply because he was an exorcist.
"You say that's the second time you've been targeted by the Akuma this week?" I nodded slowly, knowing that Ciel was glaring at me since he didn't know what we were talking about.
"I really wish my katana could shrink like your hammer, then I wouldn't have to worry about how to take it with me." I was purposely trying to change the subject, bit by bit, because it wasn't something I really wanted to go in to too much detail about around Ciel. Sebastian cleared his throat menacingly and I glared back at him. Erika was spying from the doorway, making me slightly uncomfortable.
"Erika, in or out, what's it going to be?" The maid flinched and stepped into the room, looking rather guilty.
"Hey, I didn't see you there." Lavi's manner changed completely. Barely a second ago he had been serious and now he sounded oddly flirtatious, just like when he first ran into me. I frowned. Surely he was eighteen, max, and yet here he was flirting with Erika, a 25 year old woman. I blushed and looked away, suddenly unsure of what was going on in my head. There was no way in hell that I was jealous. Maybe I was just annoyed because he would rather flirt than talk business, no matter how much I had been trying to avoid it.
"Hey, look at the time." I cried in fake astonishment, making a big show out of checking my phone. "Your mum's probably waiting outside for you as we speak." Ciel nodded in understanding and his eyes filled with relief. He was still trying to get over his encounter with the Akuma. Pushing off the couch he murmured goodbye to everyone, an unnecessary gesture, but he was still playing a part after all. After that he swiftly left the room, doing that eerily silent walk those demons were so skilled at.
"Shouldn't someone go with him?" Lavi asked, snapping out of his daze. I glared at him and he actually flinched, surprising me.
"That Akuma today, it looked different to the first one I saw." I brought up the one subject I had been purposely avoiding. He scratched his head and the serious glint returned to his eyes.
"But the one from today was a level one, and they all look the same." I cocked my head to one side, listening intently.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but doesn't that just mean the one I saw wasn't a level one?" Lavi looked up at me, worry plain in his green eye. For some reason his eye patch didn't creep me out, although the pictures of Ciel wearing his own eye patch always bothered me.
"Did it speak to you?" I shook my head, not really understanding why he would ask such an odd question. "At least it wasn't a level four then." He seemed to gaze off into space, as though he was remembering something, and the room was enveloped in silence. Several minutes passed and when Lavi remained quiet I decided we needed to stop talking about Akuma, since it had obviously brought back a bad memory.
"Hey, let's call it quits for tonight, okay? Bookman's probably wondering where you ran off to anyway." He glanced up and grinned, although it was a bit forced.
"Yeah, that's true. The old panda will be mad when I come back if he figures out I've been slacking off." He climbed to his feet and I did the same. A real grin flashed across his face. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." He assured me, motioning for me to sit back down.
"Whatever you say." I replied cheerfully, sitting back down on the couch. "Erika will see you out." The maid blushed and I rolled my eyes. Lavi will never cease to amaze me, no-one has ever made Erika blush before. The two of them left the room and walked towards the front of the house.
"I don't trust him." Sebastian murmured from behind me. Turning I got up on my knees on the couch so that I was facing him.
"You're too tense. It's because he's an exorcist that you distrust him isn't it? You have no real need to worry. I have plenty of proof that the demons they hunt have nothing to do with you or the real demons. Akuma are completely different creatures, although it's odd that you were never around when they attacked…" He narrowed his red eyes at me, trying to make me uncomfortable, but I ignored him. "Anyway, neither Allen nor Lavi nor Komui or anyone else for that matter made any signs of thinking you were any less human than anyone else. That means they don't have the faintest inkling of what you really are." His eyes glowed brightly with demonic energy and I climbed off the couch to move away from him.
"However true that might be, it doesn't change the fact that those so-called exorcists make me uncomfortable." My eyes widened in shock. Sebastian, admitting to such a human emotion? "There is only one person that worries me more than they do." I grinned, knowing the answer.
"Yeah yeah, Grell Sutcliffe right? Ciel was saying the same thing earlier today." A smirk tugged on Sebastian's lips.
"You really are a strange mortal, taking everything so lightly. Not only has your life been filled with misfortunes, but now you are plagued by demons, shinigami, exorcists and these strange Akuma creatures." I shuffled backwards until I reached the doorway.
"And that's exactly the reason why nothing surprises me anymore." I added cheekily before turning and running up to my room.
Sitting down on the middle of my bed I flipped open my laptop and logged into my email. There was one which caught my eye. I didn't recognise the sender address but the title was MISSION BRIEFING, so I decided to read it first. It turned out to be from Allen, which now that I thought about it was kind of obvious.
"Jasmine, sorry to force this on you so suddenly but Komui thought this would be a good mission to start you off on. You'll be going with Lavi, so that when you leave will be more or less determined by Bookman. Komui and Reever are both trying to contact him as I'm writing this, but so far they haven't been able been able to get through. Anyway, about the mission, we were contacted with a rather unusual request for security. It's not exactly the sort of thing that we would normally take on, but they are willing to pay a lot and Komui thought it would be a good job for your first mission. It's in Greece, they want security for a celebration. It may be unorthodox, but some countries are rather tight lipped about abnormal attacks, so we don't know for sure whether there have been Akuma sightings in the area or not. My best guess is that you'll be leaving for Greece within a week. Good luck, Allen. P.S. Do you think you could pass this on to Lavi for me?" I smirked, thinking.
"Greece huh? That's pretty good timing really." Rolling my shoulders I shut down the computer and put it away in my laptop bag. "I can't wait."
The next day…
Emma had informed me that the auditions for the talent show were going to be today at lunch time, so when the bell rang I trudged along to the hall to wait my turn. My thoughts were mostly focused on the email I had gotten from Allen and the conversation with Lavi, so I completely forgot about my plan to self-sabotage my audition. I even chose a song I wasn't particularly good at, just in case I got distracted. Unfortunately though, since my mind was wandering, I ended up singing it the best I ever had.
"Jasmine, that was incredible!" I looked up, realising that the audition was over.
"Really?" My mind filled with curses. I wasn't supposed to do a good job, I was supposed to suck.
"I can't wait to have you perform in the show. We almost never get people singing anymore." CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP! That's not what I wanted.
"Sounds good." I said, pasting a big fake cheerful smile on my face.
"The show's tomorrow evening and there'll be a meeting about it at lunch tomorrow." My eyebrows shot up. I hadn't expected it to be so soon. If it had been later then I still could have gotten out of it.
"Alright." Screaming internally I walked calmly outside, kicking the door frame on the way out and swearing when I actually hurt my toe. Mary's face lit up when I sat down beside Emma.
"How'd it go Jas?" She asked cheerfully. I glared angrily at her and Emma flinched, as usual being the only one to notice.
"Hey, that's great news." Emma called quietly, holding her hands up in a silent apology. Mary's grin got even wider when she heard that.
"You got in? Awesome, I knew you could do it!" Ignoring Mary I reached into my lunch box and pulled out an apple and a knife. Glaring at them I started to dissect the apple. It was something my therapist had taught me, it was supposedly to help me calm down. Mind you, I never actually needed a therapist, but when I turned up at school after being absent for months on end the principal had decided to send me to one. Ms Briggsby realised on the first day that I wasn't going to open up to her, and on the second day she discovered my wicked temper. The school was paying her, so she would tell them I was making progress and keep taking their money. I didn't mind, it wasn't my problem. Telling a person that a good way to control their anger would be through stabbing fruit? Now that I look back on it I'm starting to think that maybe she didn't really know what she was doing. It seemed like a pretty sure-fire way to breed murderers.
I paused with the knife barely an inch away from the apple. Breeding murderers? Suddenly the idea didn't seem absurd at all. Carefully I put the knife away in my lunch box and took a bite of the remaining apple.
"Something wrong Jas?" Ahh Mary, innocent naïve Mary. Emma was too shocked to even stop her, since she hadn't seen me resort to the apple trick in two years. Today however, it didn't calm me down, it only made me focus on something else. If you could breed murderers, then it wouldn't be such a stretch to train people to erase murders, making them seem like they never happened. And that means…
"I see what their game is now…" I muttered to myself, crushing the apple core in my fist. There must have been some professional clean up team working my parent's murder, because while I definitely saw it, no-one else, not even the police, have any record of it ever happening. I knew something was up when Sebastian failed so many times to find information about the murder. I stood up suddenly, dropping my apple core on the cobblestones.
"Is something the matter?" Mary asked again curiously. I ignored her and stared determinedly up at the cloudless blue sky. It may not exactly be a new lead, but I had found a renewed interest in finding out not only who killed my parents, but why. Someone was purposely covering it up, and even after 3 years they still hadn't let anything slip. I decided then and there to rise to the challenge and make whoever was responsible grovel at my feet.
A/N: So guys, I know right, a talent show. Why? Well I got kinda bored, so it's partially side storyish but also vaguely important.
Not too much longer until they go to Greece either :)
Yup, Jasmine had to go to therapy after her kidnapping (not that the school knew she was kidnapped), but face it, what good did that do?
Anyway, reviews please! It would be nice to have the opinion of a stranger as opposed to my mates being overly nice about it :P