Chapter 17:
I spent most of the next three days collapsed on my bed with the windows open, trying to catch a breeze as I practically melted in the sweltering summertime heat. Once again I was glad that the temperature of my home town was nowhere near as crazy as this.
The few times during those days that I could be bothered moving resulted in my sitting in the floor with my laptop on my knees, surfing the web and catching up on the news in Facebook from Emma and Mary. Luckily the time zones plus my laziness resulted in us never being on at the same time, so they couldn't have lots of angry IM chats with me.
After the first time I did that I had found out basically everything I had missed, which equated to absolutely nothing. The teachers were mad about me ditching school at lunch with 'that delinquent boy', and no matter how much Erika tried to convince the school that I was ill they wouldn't buy the fact that Lavi was a relative who had come to take me home. Other than that school was as it always had been, boring.
.:Later:.
On my fourth day of self-imposed solitary confinement I was starting to get seriously bored. You could only do so many things while locked inside a single room. One of those things had been watching people using the training field outside my window. It was something to do, and it was actually pretty interesting.
When Lavi had come by my room with my lunch, because I kept getting lost on the way to the dining hall so he had decided to get it for me, he had noticed me sitting in the window seat watching the empty grounds. No-one was training there today, and it seemed sort of empty, not to mention it gave me one less thing to do.
He handed me my tray of food before sitting down on my bed with his own. Apparently he felt it wasn't wise for me to be spending so much time alone cooped up in my room, so he had taken it upon himself to keep me company. To be honest part of the reason I had retreated to my room was to avoid seeing the Captain or first prince Bakkhos while I wandered through the castle hallways.
"How are you feeling today Jasmine?" Lavi asked suddenly, breaking me away from my non-attentive gaze out the window. Turning to face him I finished the sandwich I had been eating before replying.
"I feel fine, why do you ask?" He glanced past me out the window before returning his gaze to my boredom filled violet eyes.
"Well I had an idea see? I was wondering, if you were feeling up to it, if you would want to have a little sparring match with me, since you haven't really had a chance to get the feel of your new weapon." I let his offer spin around in my mind for a minute before looking straight at him and shrugging my shoulders.
"Sure, sounds good. I was starting to get cabin fever anyway." I unwrapped my second sandwich and took a bite from it, chewing thoughtfully before swallowing.
"Are you going to fight me with a sword? I didn't know you could use a sword." Lavi grinned at me, shaking his head ever so slightly. I raised an eyebrow at him as I continued to eat my sandwich, not bothering to speak again until I was completely finished eating.
"I seriously doubt that you're stupid enough to fight against a sword using hand to hand combat, even a sword in the hands of an inexperienced sword wielder. So how on earth are you going to spar against me?" I was genuinely curious, and I couldn't wait to found out exactly how this thing was going to work out. Unfortunately for me he didn't seem like he was about to tell me, so I was just going to have to wait and see.
"Are you ready then?" He asked, getting to his feet and putting our two food trays in a pile by the door. Climbing to my feet I wandered over to my bag, grabbed Athena, and turned to face him.
"I'm ready whenever you are." He nodded and went to go out the door, but I had other ideas. My room was on the ground floor, so I might as well take advantage of that fact. I walked over to the window and was over half way outside before Lavi even noticed what I was doing.
"That's one way to do it." He commented in amusement as he turned to follow me instead. His exit was still a bit more graceful than mine, since he jumped out and landed on the grass while I climbed out, not wanting to get ground shock. The grounds were empty, so there was no one around to see us climbing out of windows, which was probably a good thing when I thought about it.
Walking to the centre of the training field I turned around so that I was facing my room, with Lavi standing in front of me. Holding Athena in one hand I quickly tightened my bandana before checking my hair. I tied it up into a high ponytail so that it wouldn't get in the way during the match, but my bangs were still down so they would hide the un-healing scar on my forehead from any future spectators. I really wasn't looking forward to there actually being any spectators though, so hopefully we wouldn't draw too much attention.
As I tried to find a good way to hold my katana Lavi shoved his hand in his pocket before pulling out a tiny hammer. It seemed kind of familiar for some reason; although I was pretty sure I had never seen such a tiny hammer before in my life.
"What's with the hammer?" I asked curiously, finally deciding to hold my katana with two hands and just hope for the best. Lavi was being awfully secretive today, preferring the silent smile to any actual explanations. He held his hand out, palm flat with the miniature hammer resting in the centre of his hand.
"Big hammer, little hammer, grow grow grow!" I was about to ask what the hell it was that had made him say such a weird little chant, but then his hammer suddenly expanded into the thing I remembered seeing the night he had run into me and Ciel at the park.
"Wow…" I was utterly speechless. It would be so much easier if my stupid katana could shrink too! Then I could always have it with me, and not have to rely on other people saving me because there was no way to bring the dumb sword with me without raising suspicion.
"Are you ready to start?" He asked almost teasingly as he rested his giant hammer against his shoulder, watching me. Unfortunately for me, people were already starting to gather, drawn by Lavi's weird chant. Grasping my katana tightly in my hands I stared across at him, trying not to pay too much attention to the quickly growing crowd.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be I guess." Lavi gave a brief nod before charging at me, swinging that giant hammer of his in my direction. Crying out in fear I jumped back, barely dodging his first swing, before holding Athena in front of my face to block the second swing. The impact made my arms shake and I glared at him from around our weapons.
"Too much power?" He asked innocently, his voice still teasing as I glared daggers at him.
"No, I'm fine." Putting on a brave front wasn't the smartest thing I had ever done. He broke contact, jumping back and pointing his hammer at me. There were some jeers and shouts from the observers, which I ignored as I steadied myself, trying to figure out what he was going to do next. His eye had a glint of mischievousness in it, and I swallowed nervously.
"Extend!" He shouted, and I resisted the urge to scream as his hammer came hurtling towards me. Making a split second decision I decided not to jump out of the way. Instead I swung my katana; hitting the side of the hammer as it came into reach and knocking it off course just far enough for it to miss me. I let out a sigh of relief. My arms were killing me, because Lavi was really going all out even though it was just a sparring match, and my first one as well.
"That has got to be cheating!" I shouted back at him as I dived to the side, avoiding the hammer as it shrank back to its previous length. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins, but I was also getting pissed off.
"Lay off would you? Or did you forget I'm injured?" Unfortunately Lavi didn't have a clue what I had just said, since my anger had confused my language skills a bit and it had come out in Greek. The spectators all turned to me, astounded by my little outburst. Most of them probably didn't speak English, so they hadn't understood anything that we had been saying up until then.
Lavi just ignored me, swinging his hammer down at me from above. With nowhere to run to I held Athena above my head, gripping the hilt for dear life, and braced myself for impact. My arms quivered and shook violently as the hammer made contact with the blade, but I managed to hold it up. I'm pretty sure that when Lavi had seen that I wasn't going to dodge he had lowered the speed and the force so that I wouldn't get crushed. He didn't want me to die after all.
My legs were shaking now too, and I sank to my knees on the dusty ground, letting out a grunt of annoyance. My pale blue denim shorts were now covered in brown dust, and my arms were still up above my head keeping the giant innocence hammer at bay. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate all my energy on keeping it off my head.
When the weight suddenly disappeared a let out a small sound of surprise, dropping Athena on the ground in front of me as I opened my eyes. The crowd started to cheer and clap, and I saw Lavi's hammer shrink back to pocket size. Looking down at myself I saw that my hands were shaking, so I rested them in my lap as I changed into a more comfortable sitting position. I wasn't so sure that I would be able to get up any time soon.
"Nice job." Lavi commented, holding out a hand to help me up. I gladly accepted it, letting him pull me to my feet before he grabbed Athena for me.
All of a sudden we were surrounded by guardsmen, all of them cheering and throwing around congratulations and thanks for the 'show' as they called it. When the older men left us alone some of the younger guys came over to us, supposedly the guards in training. I was trying not to show it but I was leaning heavily on Lavi, I was that exhausted. One of them clapped me on the back, smiling, and I looked over at him, attempting a weak smile of my own.
He stayed behind, and together he and Lavi helped me back to my room, this time using the door instead of the window, for it just didn't seem right to go that way when we had company. When we got back to my room I collapsed on my bed, drawing an odd look from Sebastian who had been sitting on the window seat, apparently watching our little match.
"He could have killed me." I muttered accusingly at Sebastian. "Why didn't you intervene?" The demon's red eyes glanced down at me, a hint of amusement in their depths.
"I knew he wouldn't hurt you." Was his simple reply. I rolled over on my bed, ignoring the fact that I was getting dust everywhere.
"That's a stupid reason. One of these days you're going to be wrong, and then what?" His pupils flashed to slits as he glared at me, not liking what I was insinuating. Lavi cleared his throat awkwardly and I looked back at him and the other boy.
"Sorry." I apologised sheepishly, having completely forgotten that they were still there.
"There's three more days. I suggest that you rest for most of that time." I nodded as I kicked off my shoes.
"That was a really amazing fight." The other boy perked up, speaking in Greek since he had heard me speak it, otherwise he probably wouldn't have bothered approaching us. "I have never seen someone fight with a hammer before." He directed that last part at Lavi, but since Lavi couldn't understand him I translated.
"Hey, I'd love to stick around and chat for a while, but I'm exhausted, so I think I'll take a little nap." Yeah right, like I was going to take a nap. I was just going to sit here and examine my arms for bruising, but I still wanted some peace and quiet in order to do so.
"Yeah, good point. I should probably go and find the old panda; he'll probably want my help with something." Lavi gave me another smile before turning and leaving, dragging the Greek boy along with him.
"Sebastian." I called after the two had left.
"Mmm?" Something told me he wasn't really listening.
"Never let me spar with an exorcist ever again." He laughed at that, a dark, low laugh that chilled my core. Demons shouldn't laugh, it's just unnatural.
Rolling over on my bed once more I saw a digital camera on my bedside table. Curious I reached out and grabbed it, turning it on and switching to picture viewing mode. Normally I wouldn't go through someone else's camera – unless it was Emma's – but this was different. Sort of.
The latest pictures on the camera were of me and Lavi's sparring match, and most of them were of me. It was interesting; it almost looked as though I actually knew what I was doing.
Getting out my laptop I copied the pictures onto the hard drive, making sure not to accidentally delete any from the camera so that when the owner came back they wouldn't have a clue what I had done. It's not like I was ever going to show the pictures to anyone, but it would make a nice memory, pictures of me looking like a real warrior and not some weakling like the people at my school seemed to think I was.
I yawned, apparently even more exhausted than I had thought I was. I quickly shut down my laptop and put it along with the camera back in their rightful places before collapsing back onto my bed, eyelids drifting shut as I succumbed to sleep.
A/N: Awesome, 2 chapter updates in 2 days! I could have finished this chapter yesterday, but my mum dragged me out to some stupid concert at the new stadium. I hate concerts! They're too noisy and crowded, urgh. Anyway, next chapter shall be actiony! (and yes, I know that's not a word). Do you lot remember the Noah? Well try and guess which one will be making a guest appearance next chappy!