Chapter 22: The Ark

Sitting on the edge of the dais I surveyed the throne room, bored, resting my chin on my hand. The place was in ruins from the battle against the Akuma, a battle that I still couldn't really believe had actually happened. The likelihood of there being an attack had been something along the lines of 0.01%, but it had still happened. Which just goes to show that you can never rule out a possibility, no matter how small it is.

Frowning I stared at the broken tables, at the rubbish, debris and food scattered across the floor. The room was an absolute mess, and it seemed to be a bad place to bring this mysterious Ark to. Letting out a depressed sigh I lay back on the cool tiled floor, shivering as the cold seeped through my jacket. There was still at least half an hour before Lavi and Bookman would arrive, so for now I was just going to rest.

Light footsteps sounded, echoing on the tiles as they grew closer to me. Brushing the noise off as being Sebastian doing some more of his irritating pacing I closed my eyes, stretching my arms above my head.

"Hey Sebastian, is it just me or does this seem like a really bad meeting place?" I called out to him impatiently, wanting the hour to hurry up and pass so that I could get out of here. Greece no longer held any attraction to me, not since the attack and my own grandmother calling me a demon. I wanted to get back to the Black Order, find an abandoned room and question Lavi about these Noah.

The footsteps stopped and when I got no response I scowled, cracking open one eye to see what was going on with my less than human butler. My mind was latched onto memorising the sight of that Noah Tyki Mikk, so it took me a while to realise that the person standing over me wasn't who I thought it was.

"Who is Sebastian?" He asked curiously, causing me to sit straight up, flattening my hair self-consciously with my right hand as I spun around to properly face him. He stared down at me, apparently not sure whether it was okay for him to sit down. I didn't want to talk to him, so I wasn't about to offer him a seat.

"That is none of your business Greg." I replied coldly, causing him to blink in confusion before sitting down nest to me on the ground. I glared at him from under my fringe, violet eyes angry and impatient.

"I don't understand you. You are so informal with everyone, like you are better than us, when we are royalty." He sounded bitter, and I couldn't tell if it was because of me or because he didn't like being royalty. "My grandmother was so open and worried about you when…" He trailed off.

"If you came to whine then go away. If you came to inquire on my health then I am fine, and go away." I was being unnecessarily rude, but I was in no mood to be talking to anyone who couldn't give me the information that I wanted. Some stupid Prince from Greece? He definitely wouldn't be able to help me.

"What is wrong with you?" He demanded angrily, glaring back at me with angry blue eyes. "I'm trying to be nice, and you are purposely being a bitch." I was actually kind of shocked to hear that 'bitch' was one of those English words taught in schools these days.

"I'm allowed to be a bitch; I nearly died at your stupid party. You should tell grandmother that it isn't nice to withhold information from the security she hires, since it could be the difference between life and death. If we hadn't gone down to the town we wouldn't have been prepared at all for the attack, since there were no reports of danger!" I was on my feet by then, yelling down at him with my hands on my hips. Sebastian smirked from across the hall at my rage.

"What do you mean 'tell grandmother'? She isn't your grandmother!" He climbed to his feet and glared at me. We were the same height, but I was younger. I smirked, eyes cold and hating as I waited for a proper reaction from him.

"I don't have time for this." I muttered irritably. "Sebastian! Get rid of him." Greg's eyes widened in shock at my words as Sebastian stepped forward.

"As you wish mistress." Unfortunately good old Bakkhos chose that moment to come for a leisurely stroll in the throne room.

"I was walking past the door when I thought I heard arguing, so I decided to investigate and look what I found." He said in a patronising way that made me want to strangle him.

"Oh fuck this." I muttered, storming off to go and stand with Sebastian away from the two men.

"Well would you look at that." He started again, eyes glinting in amusement. "My lovely little niece doesn't want to be in the same room as me." He put on a fake hurt look, which earned him a furious glare from me. Greg looked between me and his father before throwing his hands up in the air out of frustration.

"You people are crazy!" He screamed before marching out of the room. My Uncle gave me the evil eye before following after his son. Sighing in irritation I sank to the ground where I had been standing, crossing my legs and leaning against one of the pillars. Checking my watch I saw that there was only 10 more minutes until Lavi and Bookman were going to arrive, so I closed my eyes once more and settled in to wait it out.

-10 minutes later-

Lavi sent me a worried look when he stepped into the room after Bookman, which made me bite my lip in worry. I climbed to my feet, wiping imaginary dust of off my pants to hide my nerves. The meeting time had just ticked over, and we all stared into space in the centre of the room as we waited for the Ark. It would have been easier if I had known what it was I was supposed to be looking out for.

"Lavi…" I began, walking to stand beside the older boy. "… what exactly does the Ark look like?" He glanced down at me, reiterating the fact that he was taller than me, which made me frown.

"You'll know it when you see it." He assured me, ruffling my hair in a way which made me want to hit him. I was very sensitive about my hair, and I never said that he could touch it. I was about to yell at him when there was a flash of light, which quickly dimmed down to show a sort of door, hanging in the air.

"What the… THAT is the Ark?" I asked, bewildered, as I clung to Lavi's sleeve, not sure if I liked the new development. The door began to swing open, and I clung to his arm, brain not processing what it was that I was doing since I was too busy freaking out about the door floating in the middle of the room. A figure appeared in the doorway momentarily before jumping out, landing on the tiled floor.

"Hey beansprout! Long-time no see!" Lavi called cheerfully, earning himself a heartfelt glare from both me and Allen. The white haired exorcist gave me a confused look, and I looked down, seeing my arms wrapped around Lavi's arm. I cried out in shock, pushing him away and blushing angrily. Allen smiled and Lavi pouted as I smoothed my hair down nervously.

"It's only been two weeks." Allen pointed out, sharing a silent conversation with Bookman which made me suspicious. I didn't trust Bookman, I had a good feeling that he was hiding a lot of things from me, and yet he expected me to spill my guts to him about my innocence. It wasn't exactly the best method of gaining another person's trust.

"So… I… uh… I guess we should get going now." I managed to choke out into the awkward silence which followed, glancing at Sebastian as I edged away from Lavi. That hadn't been one of my best moments, spacing out like that. Allen nodded in agreement and turned to head back into the mysterious Ark. Sebastian narrowed his eyes as he examined it, not happy with the unnatural phenomena in front of him. Although he didn't really have any right to be judgemental about it, all things considered.

Giving him a hard jab in the ribs I stepped forward, following Allen and Lavi into the Ark. I grabbed the back of Lavi's jacket at the last moment, closing my eyes and letting him guide me. I wouldn't admit it out loud, but I was pretty nervous about going inside. There was a sound like a door closing and I opened my eyes again.

"What is this place?" As far as I could tell we had stepped out of the throne room and stepped into a seemingly never-ending white town. Lavi glanced over his shoulder at me and smirked.

"You're inside the Ark now." My eyes widened in surprise as I smacked him in the back of the head for making fun of me.

"Well yeah, but what is this? Some sort of inter-dimensional travel?" He laughed as we started walking again, following Allen who somehow seemed to know where we were going.

"I think you've been reading too many sci-fi books Jas." I glared at him before running up to walk with the white haired exorcist instead. Allen had been kind of quiet, and I wondered what it was that was eating away at him.

"Hey Allen, where do all these doors lead to?" I asked curiously, having noticed the multitudes of doors that we were walking past. Occasionally we would pass one that had a sign on it, but I didn't make much of an effort trying to read any of them. He glanced up at me, eyes guarded.

"They could go anywhere. We haven't had the time to check all of them yet." He explained cheerfully, taking a sudden right turn that caught me off guard. I really had no idea where we were going. I hugged my stomach as we walked, unsure of how I felt about the Ark. Sure it seemed like a much more efficient method of travel than taking the plane, but it also felt dangerous. If so much had yet to be explored then the doors really could lead to anywhere. Lavi thought I was confusing this with some science fiction drama, but to be honest the whole situation was pretty sci-fi already, it didn't need my help.

"How much longer are we going to be in here for?" I asked suddenly, starting to inwardly freak out as I began to feel trapped. I was completely lost and helpless, and I was putting my trust in a guy that I had known for two weeks, who I had barely spoken with in that time. So yeah, shoot me, I have trust issues, but that's not really such a hard thing to believe. I'd had a less than conventional life over the past 3 years, although the exorcists probably weren't really any different.

"Not much longer." Allen promised, hesitating at a turn before heading left. Irritated I started plaiting some of my hair that had fallen in front of my face as we walked. More of the doors were labelled down this street, or whatever it is that I should call it, but as I took the time to look at them they were actually just numbers, which meant someone must be logging them as opposed to openly signposting their destinations.

"How do you even know where you are going?" I mumbled more to myself than to anyone in particular. Allen stopped in front of a numbered door and the rest of us stopped behind him. Lavi had a blank look on his face as Allen opened the door. I stepped out after him, blinking my eyes at the sudden change in lighting as all the white disappeared.

Looking around there was something that I quickly noticed about the place where we had arrived.

"This isn't headquarters is it?" I stated bluntly, crossing my arms across my chest aggressively as I surveyed the people gathered around the entrance.

A/N: So I've finally figured out how I'm going to end this story, although that won't be for quite a few chapters still. I really had no idea how many chapters I would end up writing when I started this, and now I've got 22 :)

For any of you who read my other story Daughter of the Sound I've put some thought into it and come up with a sort of basic outline for the rest of the plot, so hopefully I should be able to update it soon. It's going to spin into an un-canon plotline, because I haven't really seen much of Shippuden or actually read much of the manga, so just bare with me.