Chapter 7 – Planting the Seeds of Doubt

Winter was starting to come and go as snow slowly drifted down and stopped every now and then. In two months, Spring would show itself, but right now, it was still as cold as a damn freezer no matter where you went.

It's been two weeks since New Year's eve, and nothing much has happened other than school, Cravat dismissing that awkward feeling he had with Kneesocks after his dream as nothing but eating undercooked steak, Habit getting a new set of throwing knives and hatchets, Panty having sex with about thirty more men in the span of fourteen days, and Stocking starring in a commercial for ice-cream dressed as a giant scoop of Vanilla or something like that. Yep, nothing much happening. Oh, and the Ghost hunting. Can't forget about the Ghost hunting.

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"Dammit it all," Cravat cussed under his breath. He somehow found himself in a dumpster after the Chainsaw Ghost went texas-style-anti-tree-massacre on them and started shredding the hell out of an innocent oak the size of a building that was in its proximity, sending big chunks of bark-shrapnel all over the place, with Habit deflecting a six-foot branch by throwing her hatchet at it. Subsequently, it was deflected in his direction and pounded him right in the chest, sending him flying backwards past a mob of curious onlookers then into the shady depths of a sidewalk trash-can. He was lucky it wasn't a car she deflected at him, and in the name of clichéd exclamatory emphasis she was more than capable of doing so. He brushed off what he could only guess were the gooey remains of some yogurt... well, he prayed that it was yogurt, off his shoulder, and lunged himself forward towards the Ghost once again. Its form was that of a humanoid made of chainsaws, axes, and buzz-saws all neatly combined into one coherent form. Those buzz-saw feet were dangerous. Hell, the entire Ghost was a deathtrap. Try to strike it with a weapon and it just shreds it apart, a hard thing Stocking had to learn when it shattered her Stripes 2. Right now they were all just circling it and trying to get it away from the general populace, which was a hard thing to do when they're all fricking taking videos and pictures of the fiasco.

"I'M GOING TO FREAKING MURDER YOU," Stocking shouted, before dodging frantically to the left as the Ghost let loose a few lightning-fast spinning saw-blades of doom from its body in her direction. "… as soon as I find out how," she got up and started shouting at Cravat to distract it while she went and paired up with Habit for a flanking strike. Cravat sighed as he whipped at the Ghost's feet, creating a thunderous crack, catching the Ghost's attention. Cravat readied himself for a barrage of sharp and pointy objects since, well, as much as he loved sharp and pointy objects, they would probably cause severe bleeding and hemorrhaging at the least. Oh look, he was bleeding already, right where he got nicked by the branch earlier. It must have torn through his skin or something. Blood was really warm, come to think of it. It amazed him how he could bleed so much and not wind up blacking-out. Hurray for augmented Angel vitality. Was he thinking indiscriminate thoughts again? Yes, yes he was. Oh right, there's a Ghost about to make him minced meat any second now. Better get back to that. He slid on his knees matrix-style below the blades, which barely missed his head. He inched closer to the Ghost, and right as it swiped with a chainsaw-arm, he dropped down onto his back and flipped backwards, setting up space between the two of them again, and let out a barrage of glancing blows in front of the Ghost with his whips, sending shockwave after shockwave out, drawing its attention towards Cravat even more.

"You people will never stop me from getting my revenge!" The Ghost suddenly shouted while trying to stay steady from the shockwaves. The Ghost jumped into the air after Cravat, who tried to restrain the Ghost with his whips. The whips tightened around it, but were quickly shredded into bits as the blades started to rapidly spin again, freeing itself. Cravat cursed under his breath when the Ghost grabbed his leg, throwing him viciously towards the two girls who were to take the Ghost from behind, no innuendo intended. Well, not entirely. "Trees will never love you! You do everything for them, you protect them and what do they do? THEY BETRAY YOU!" It shouted with conviction as it landed back on the ground. "DO YOU WANT TO HEAR HOW I BECAME A GHOST SUCH AS THIS?" it asked suddenly, directing its question to Cravat as he helped the two girls up from their little pileup.

"Well, no not really-"

"Very well then! I shall satiate… your curiosity!"

"What's with the bold letters?" Habit shouted playfully. Stocking and Cravat gave her a stare, the words 'Please don't encourage it' ever so decipherable from their expressions.

"FOR EMPHASIS!"

"Never would have guessed," Stocking sarcastically whispered to herself as she brushed off some dust that had gotten onto her dress. She noticed someone waving to her in the crowd that had gathered behind them. She nudged Cravat on the shoulder to cover her while she left, and he stepped ever so slightly to the side, blocking the Ghost's view of Stocking. Not that it mattered, it was pretty caught up in that little speech.

"Now then! I was a member of a company called Organization for Mass Greenerization, or O.M.G. for short, it was kind of like Green-Peace-"

"Kind of?" Cravat butted in.

"YES! KIND OF! ANYWAY, I WAS ONE OF THE MORE OUTSPOKEN AND DEDICATED OF THE GROUP AND LOVED TELLING STORIES-"

"I sincerely hadn't noticed," Cravat interrupted again. The Ghost was losing its patience, and a little orb in the middle of its chest started to poke out. 'That better be its weak spot,' Cravat thought to himself, 'I'm starting to get a migraine'. Cravat began to stretch his arms upwards, as if signaling someone, but then quickly brought them back down. "I'm sorry, do continue."

"LET'S JUST SKIP TO ME TURNING INTO A GHOST" it shouted, the orb on its chest starting to recede a little. Cravat just hoped she could pull it off wherever she was. 'Knowing her though, I bet she could,' he thought to himself, finding it absurd to even doubt her skill. "So I've been taking care of this giant tree for a while, the usual thing, watering it every day, sprucing up its branches, offering it squirrel sacrifices for lunch every Thursday-"

"Those poor squirrels! Why?" Habit suddenly asked, waving her arms in the air like a maniac, doing an upright capital D plus colon face, and not the happy kind.

"IT'S A THING I DID. Anyway, it was two weeks ago, just after New Year's eve and after witnessing a brawl with some crazy-ass cosplay characters in the city," Cravat could not help but, what was the term? Ah yes, L.O.L., but on the inside, when he heard that comment. He still had that bruise near his ribs. "I went back to my tree-friend to see if it was okay, then this drunkard suddenly comes up to me and tries to mug me!"

"Okay hold up. Was your tree near a church-looking building near a cliff…?" Cravat asked.

"Yes, yes it was. Why?"

"Oh no reason, no reason," Cravat said, scratching the back of his head. 'Wow, that's… interesting. Was it one of drunks who got it on with Panty and Stocking…?' he pondered for a bit, then dismissed the idea for now. "Go on, do continue."

"*Ahem*, now where was I? Ah yes, guy tries to mug me. So what do I do next? I TAKE A CHAINSAW AND HACK THE TREE IN HALF AND SHOUT 'Go! Defend your master!" the Ghost started to recreate the scene with over-the-top gestures and such. Cravat found the coincidental aspects of the entire thing to be amusing, but other than that he was just standing there and listening to buy some time. Habit was busy poking the ground with a stick and making pictures of butterflies, cookies, and breasts for some reason, with the word 'envy' underlined on the side, doing a pouty face while looking at it. "Anyway, point being, despite all the care and affection I showed it that damn tree fell on me and reduced me to a pile of mangled body-parts."

"Is this going anywhere…?" Cravat asked after a yawn, obviously not really paying attention to the story any more. The Ghost let out what Cravat could say was a smirk across the jagged lines on its face that was probably its mouth.

"So I planned my revenge on trees everywhere in those few seconds I had left before I kicked the bucket, and turned into this… this mass of tree-cutting technology. So I said to myself, 'might as well play the part well'. Ironic, seeing as I love trees and stuff like that," the Ghost deployed its array of deadly tree-cutting materials. "So I went on a freaking rampage for a week after I had carefully planned out my course of action…" the Ghost started to trail off for some reason, looking off into the distance as if searching for some meaning to all of it. Wow, that was deep. Sort of.

"Oh so you're the reason those parks went bald? I thought Global Warming was acting up again... well, considering it's winter right now but hey, stranger things have happened," Cravat sarcastically stated, already feeling bored and looking at his pocket-watch every now and then. Then the Ghost lowered its weapons, its blades ceasing to spin and the orb in its chest revealing itself more. Cravat readied himself for some sort of attack, but nothing happened. It merely stood there.

"But honestly? I'm tired of all this," the Ghost suddenly started, sighing. "I loved trees and all that. I shouldn't be killing them. It wasn't that tree's fault that it crushed me. It was just the way it was I guess," it continued in a dramatic tone of voice, with little sparkly and drama-esque sound effects emanating from the background. Where'd that come from? 'Huh, did I eat something or am I hearing regret from a Ghost right now?' Cravat thought to himself."Gravity and inertia and the angle I cut it in and all, it was its nature to be that way, perhaps."

"Uh… Okay…?" Cravat said with raised eyebrows, a little puzzled. Cravat started to pinch himself, making sure it wasn't another one of those hallucinatory dreams. Nope, this was real.

"I wanted to live a life that wasn't mine. But sometimes you can't live that way. You're lucky you can." The Ghost said, directing it at Cravat. He felt a slight chill in the air.

"Say what now?" he asked, a little unnerved by the comment.

"Just tell your sniper friend to shoot me already."

"Huh, you knew about that?"

"Boy, that bright red jacket in the middle of all that white snow on top of a building tends to blow your cover, wouldn't you say?" it said, and Cravat noticed a little red dot on the building behind them.

"It makes a good point, Ravvy," Habit commented, seeing the red dot as well.

"No more resistance from you then?" Cravat asked. The Ghost just nodded in reply. He raised his arm, signaling Panty in the distance. Stocking let Panty borrow her underwear so she could utilize a stronger form of it. Weaponized undergarments. The hope of the future. "By the way, before you kick the bucket a second time, what was that you were saying about me?"

"I find your predicament interesting. Don't you?"

"I seriously have no idea what you're talking about," Cravat replied as he dropped his arm, letting Panty know to take the shot. In a flash, the orb in the Ghost's chest was pierced by a holy, high-velocity 7.62x54mm round from Panty's Sniper Rifle. The Ghost smirked and let out one last war cry.

"IGNORANCE IS BLISS!"

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"Four Heavens. Is it just me or are Ghosts getting smarter and stronger these days?" Cravat said as he handed the coins to Panty and Stocking. The crowd watching started to disperse eventually, going to wherever it is they were going to before being distracted by the sight of a bunch of Angels plus a nun fighting a Ghost in broad daylight on the street. Just another sight to see when you live in Daten City. Oh hey, that rhymed. "Some of them seem to be retaining their sanity after turning into one."

"It happens. Same sappy-ass crap you hear in a game or on T.V., if the person that got turned has enough willpower to be in control, blah blah blah. Cheesy, but it's true. That means more Heavens for us though, since those are the ones that are actually worthwhile to kill," Stocking said as the bells from the church tolled in the distance. It reminded them of the school bell, which hadn't rung yet, thankfully. Hard to believe they were all doing this during lunch-break. Not that Panty or Stocking attended the classes anyway.

"Ghosts are Ghosts. One shows up, we kill it. They get stronger, we get stronger. That's all there is to it," Panty said, rubbing the sleeves on her dark red jacket.

"Says the girl who got spotted by her target," Stocking said teasingly. Panty slugged her sister on the arm, who let out a small laugh after exclaiming an obviously fake 'ow'.

"Yeah well what's done is done," the blonde replied. She let out a small sneeze, much to the amusement of the group. "Winter's still winter too. I'm freezing my ass off," Cravat looked at his wrist-watch this time. Yes, he had a wrist-watch and a pocket-watch. Any questions?

They still had about fifteen minutes of lunch break left, but they were at least a few minutes walking distance away from campus. "We should be heading back. Some of us here actually try to be covert," Cravat called over his shoulder. He was already starting to head back, Habit following closely behind. She looked at the expression on his face when she caught up. He was still a little bothered by the Ghost's words.

"It was just trying to get into your head. Those things do that sometimes," the small red-head told him, trying to convince her partner to not think too deeply on the matter. "Remember that one Ghost last year? Almost convinced you that you were a Demon."

"Huh, I don't remember that," he said, a little puzzled.

"Well, it was a long time ago. Just don't dwell on it anymore," she said reassuringly.

"Alright alright. I doubt a Demon can infiltrate Angel ranks anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Their group started to walk back. Just another day of doing their job.

Once they did arrive back at Daten High, the Anarchy sisters once again went off to loiter and cut classes. It was for 'reconnaissance', they always claimed. They were just bored of school, Cravat always thought. Well, who could blame them? It did get pretty mundane sometimes, and he's only been attending for about a month, counting the two weeks before Christmas break last December and the two weeks after the break ended. He always wondered of the significance the lessons they were having on his actual life as an Angel. Where's 'x'? He would always think 'It's right there' before encircling it and making a giant pointy arrow. Of course, he had to erase it and write the correct answer, unless he wanted to fail, which he supposedly shouldn't. But every now and then the questions they got were actually relevant to his life. How can frying pans be utilized in saving a kingdom, why is it that when you grab a boob you take-off in a blast of rainbows and have an adventure, if you were an apple, and the square root of death is equal to knife, then how annoying would an orange be, those kinds of questions. Now those he could understand.

Of course he had to learn things beside that. If he or Habit failed or flunked anything, the principal would call their 'father', in this case Garterbelt, to come to school for a little 'talk', and God knows what that man would do in a building full of young boys. They always shuddered at the thought. So it's good to have a tutor every once in a while to help out to prevent any… lawsuits. Habit didn't need one, and he only ever asked for help if he fell asleep during the last half of Philosophy. That's where Kneesocks comes in. Such a nice girl to tutor him every now and then, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something odd about her sometimes. It wasn't her unbridled affection for her sister, Scanty, who just came back from that trip she was talking about last December, that teeters on the edge of something incestuous, which he never questioned, or her dedication to the rules that one small anomaly in what she saw was lawful would result in a vicious word-bashing, nor was it that feeling he had when he dreamt of her when he fought that Firecracker Ghost, which he already got rid of, deeming it nothing more than the occasional infatuation everyone gets sometimes. Was it her horn? Maybe…

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"Kneesocks, I've been meaning to ask," Cravat started. It was after-hours, and they were having a little study session in the library before they both headed home. "Kneesocks?" he called out again.

To his right sitting beside him, the light-blue haired girl was busy reading her notes, sitting cross legged. When she was intent on something she shut the entire world out. Cravat seized the moment to try something out. He ever so stealthily reached for the horn on Kneesocks' head and gave it a quick upward stroke with his finger, like trying to tickle someone's back. But the sound he heard was far from being tickled. When that sound left her lips he thought he would die in the next few seconds after she'd recovered. Her face was flushed even more than it usually is, and she fumbled to keep herself from falling off her chair as her back arced slightly, and she gripped tightly onto the table as if it were her lifeline. It all happened in a matter of moments, and lasted only for a second, but the impression was still there. Her gaze turned to Cravat, who had already used the swivel chair's wheels to good use and pushed himself at least three meters away from impending doom. Her eyes were a little blank, her breathing slowly became less ragged, and, regaining her composure, stood up and walked over to him. 'Uh-oh, she's coming... oh look a pun and an innuendo,' Cravat leaned back on his chair and raised his hands in front of him in self-defense. "Erm, I'm sorry?" he managed to let out.

She was still staring at him like a hawk, and then smacked him upside the head with her notebook. "You will not speak of what had just occurred to anyone. Do you understand?" She said, her face still a little flushed, clearly embarrassed. "Do you understand?" she exclaimed, trying to keep a commanding tone but at the same time it sounded like she was a little girl with a secret she wanted to keep from everyone else. With good reason, too.

'How the hell was I supposed to know that would happen anyway,' Cravat thought to himself. "Yes yes, I'm sorry I'm sorry, I won't tell anyone. I didn't know."

"You're forgiven this time. You can't be held at fault for something you did not have knowledge of beforehand, and I'm partly at fault since I did not warn you earlier. But as you can see, it isn't exactly something I can… bring up in a conversation."

"You don't say," Cravat jokingly said, trying to lighten the mood. Kneesocks had no intention of laughing the entire thing off though.

"The next time you try that again I will personally see that you receive the death penalty. Am I understood?" she said, finally regaining full composure. Her tone of voice was back, which Cravat found to be more tolerable than hearing her with… that kind of tone. It was, to put it simply, too foreign a tone to be hearing from someone with a normally stern and straightforward attitude.

"Y-yes ma'am," he finally replied. Kneesocks turned around and sat back down on the table. Cravat rolled himself back as well, acting as if nothing happened. Over the next fifteen minutes the two shared nary more than small talk here and there, and a 'yes' or a 'no' when asking something. He started to think there was something else Kneesocks wasn't telling him. 'Ah well'.

"I think that will be all you would need for today," Kneesocks said, adjusting her glasses and standing up, collecting her belongings. "I'll be taking my leave then… Hm? Oh, sis? Sis!" she called out to someone. A girl in the Daten High uniform stood by the library entrance, looking like she was waiting for Kneesocks. She had long, wavy tea-green hair, which flowed all the way down past her waist until her thighs. Kneesocks said her goodbyes again to Cravat and almost skipped towards the girl she called out to. She looked very happy to see her.

"Huh, that must be her sister Scanty then…" Cravat said to himself. He got up and started to pack his belongings, heaving his messenger bag over his shoulder. He walked outside the library and saw the two sisters talking up a storm. A stark contrast to a certain pair of Angels, who were at each others' throats three out of five times a day. At the corner of his eye, he saw two red bumps poking out of Scanty's wavy hair near her head. Cravat could only guess that those were her own set of horns. Come to think of it, why did the two of them have horns? 'Unless…' he pondered on an idea that had entered his head. 'Naaaah,' he dismissed it without a second thought. Habit met up with him in the parking lot clad her specially made nun's uniform that was lined with insulation on the inside. "Where's the other two?"

"They said they'd be here to pick me up soon. By the way, what are you going to do about your weapons?" Habit asked, blowing into her hands to warm them up a bit.

"What about them?"

"Well, it's going to take a while before your originals get repaired. Didn't you bring along your backup ones from Little Tokyo?" she asked.

"I have back-up weapons?" Cravat blinked, not realizing that he could have been using more than two whips per battle, one in each foot and one in his mouth. Yes, he was being sarcastic.

"You always forget these sort of things don't you? Every Angel has backup weaponry, in case your current ones break or something. You used to break your whips often the first time you came here," Habit said jokingly, before letting out a small sneeze. Cravat was scratching his head. He didn't even know he had a weapon stash, nor does he even recall breaking his whips ever. He's taken good care of them for as long as he could remember. "They're probably still there. Our little hovel's been locked ever since we moved out."

"And how am I supposed to get in-" Before Cravat even finished his sentence, Habit was already dangling what looked like those old fashioned skeleton keys. Cravat took them without further arguments.

"You can be back by dinner if you're quick. Don't get lost, and please don't cause any accidents. We barely got out with being framed for that little highway pileup you and Panty caused last week." She said as they walked towards Lash-Out.

"Yes, mother." He jokingly said as he got on his bike. She pouted, trying to be intimidating. It was failing pretty badly, since he was trying to stifle a laugh. "Don't want to come with? It could be nostalgic y'know."

"With you at the wheel? It'll be as nostalgic as it is traumatizing for me. Now go on, I think Garter's cooking pasta tonight," she called out as she went to wait for Panty and Stocking. All that was in Cravat's head right now was how good that Pasta was going to taste.

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"Ooooh, here they are," he whispered to himself as he rummaged through the dresser. A bunch of clones of his pseudo-neckties, all neatly folded and seemingly untouched. No wonder he couldn't find them. They were in Habit's unmentionables drawer, and he never dared look there for anything. But if they were so important, why would Habit not tell him before they moved? "No use blowing my mind over it now."

Cravat sent the box through a portal, same one he tried to sneak through before. He knew better than to touch it now. Cravat went out the front door and locked the entire place down again, but a noise just behind him threw him into an alerted state, readying his newly acquired weapons. He spun around and was about to strike, when he saw the frame of a large, well-built man carrying a giant oar.

"Old-man Epik?" Cravat asked out loud. The man seemed to recognize him, and squinted, before putting on his glasses.

"Oh, it's just you, kid. How many times have I told you to stop calling me old man?" Epik asked, stabbing the oar a few feet into the ground. Now he was one human Cravat did not want to pick a fight with.

"I'll stop when you stop calling me kid," Cravat said, laughing a bit.

"Fair enough. So, what brings you back here?" Epik asked. As Epik accompanied him back to Lash-Out, Cravat explained what had happened over the past month after they'd left, keeping the details about unimportant things like Panty's sexual addiction to a minimum. He didn't need to subject someone else to mental scarring. "Sounds like you've had quite a New Year… Not bad for some foreigner who's been here for half a year."

That statement piqued Cravat's interest. "Half a year? I think your memory really is going old-man, I've only been here for three months." He said. A moment of silence followed, until Epik decided to speak up again.

"I think it's your memory that's going kid, I'm pretty sure you arrived here sometime around June," Epik insisted. Cravat scratched the back of his head. 'The cold must be getting to his brain,' Cravat thought. "By the way, how's Habit? You been good to her?" Epik said, changing the topic.

"Well, yeah, of course I am."

"Good to hear that. You know, she told me never to mention it again, but you were a real prick to her first time you came here. She was even afraid of you at one point, went over to my place to tell my wife about it whenever you left," Epik said, as if reminiscing the past. 'Okay, someone's been smoking I have no idea what,' Cravat thought to himself. "Good to see you've turned over a new leaf. I couldn't believe it at first either, but you sure proved me wrong."

"Oh…Okay, then…?" Maybe he'd been drinking. That was probably it. First that Ghost and now this. "Have you been drinking lately old-man?"

"A few bottles of Tequilla, and some caramelized pork rinds dipped in the stuff, but who's counting?*hic*" Epik bellowed. Well that explains things. Been drinking his ass off silly again.

"Keep off the the alcoholics, Epik. It might do wonders for your liver," Cravat joked, a little relieved now that it was all just the ramblings of a drunken man who owned a well known restaurant in Little Tokyo, Legendary Banquet Epoch.

"Bah, that's what my wife always tells me," Epik muttered. "Well I shouldn't keep you. You should probably be getting back to Datsin… Datsen… something or whatever."

"Nice talking to you old-man."

"You too, m'boy. Glad you're not a complete and utter asshole anymore, *hic*," with that, Cravat revved Lash-Out up and headed back home. The cold was pretty nice right now actually, cleared his head a little. Then he thought back to where he was six months ago. Probably still in Heaven, before being sent on a mission down here in Earth. He thought of those days in his head, just waiting to see what images would flow back. But then that was just it. Whenever he thought about six, five, even four months back, nothing happened. Earliest he could remember was the first week of October, discovering the internet, taking Habit on supermarket trips, though she was a little reluctant to come along at first, and his first Ghost hunt at the end of that week, where Habit had saved him. Whenever he thought of something further before that, he got nothing. Not even blurry visions or slight recall of what had happened. There was nothing there.

Just one big white blank.

Author's Notes: I'm baaaaaaack, haha. I started this chapter on Tuesday, finished it this Thursday afternoon. Yay for inspiration o3o. Hope you guys enjoy this one. YAY FORESHADOWING. And if you think that you know what the big twist is, think again. I've got one confusingly hopefully satisfactory ending in mind. Hope you guys stick around for it ^_^