Justification of Evil

By TheImmortalDoll

Chapter VII:

Fall in love with her? It seemed everyone was already. He defiance, her resolute will and determination, her beautiful looks; the boy started at her when she skipped into the breakfast room each day, even the guards adored her, despite that she often messed them around and drove them up the wall.

She often pulled disruptive acts in the middle of classes, making obscene comments or pulling completely bizarre stunts such as rearranging all the desks to face backwards whilst whoever was teaching was out of the room.

Again and again she was punished. Again and again she was sent to my office is disgrace. Again and again I would never end up punishing her, instead finding myself involved in deep and philosophical conversation with the child. She questions me on everything, and despite knowing better, I would reply to her queries. In turn, she would sometimes demonstrate great shows of power to me, making the objects around the room move just of her will, summoning her powerful spirit, even creating flashes of dark fire in the air.

"You are a demon," I would say and she would just laugh.

Months passed in this fashion I became almost accustomed to her presence, to her small but strong voice echoing in the room and her red curls brushing against my arms as she peered over at whatever I was working on. I am loathed to admit it, but the office almost seemed to quiet without her emphatic presence and it got to the point where I would almost look forward to the sound of small footsteps on the stone floor outside, before the door was pushed open and she bounded in as casually as if it were her own bedroom.

I trained her personally in Beyblading along with the rest of the team. Kai was now using his bit-beast freely during training, along with the other. I was most pleased with Tala's progress with his wolf spirit, amply named Wolborg, of course. But as good as the boys were, no one could come close to Kala's power. She was my perfect student, my weapon, my demon.

And it was during one of these training sessions that next major occurrence happened. I was closely watching my students battle when a voice suddenly spoke up behind me.

"Well Boris, things really seem to be coming together."

"Voltaire!" I turned quickly to face my superior, ordering the team into an obedient line behind me, pleased when the quickly complied.

Voltaire's lips curled before he looked to Kai. "How is my grandson coming along?"

"Very well, sir. He is making excellent progress and will excel in competition. He is one of the main threats of the team and can only get better."

"But the boy does not have a bit-beast? Have you not made any progress on this?"

I paused. "Well sir… as you know a bit-beast will appear to it's master when the time is appropriate. Regardless, Kai is very powerful."

Voltaire frowned, about to say something more when he stopped suddenly as his gaze landed on the small figure between Kai and Tala. He sharply looked back to me. "Boris? What is this? What is this girl doing here?"

I looked between Kala and Voltaire, quickly moving to explain. "My lord, I realize the facility was not intended to house female recruits and I have always obtained this. However, young Kala here is an exception. She is an incredible beyblader. Her power is unmatchable and her presence here can only benefit our aims."

"I don't care how good she is," Voltaire responded. "Get rid of her. No girls. I do not have the patience for girls. They are weak."

I opened my mouth to protest, but to my horror and exasperation, Kala did it first. "I'm not weak, you stupid old man!"

Voltaire's face quickly changed from composed, to stunned, to utterly outraged. He glared at the child, moving forwards quickly towards her and grabbing Kala by the front of her shirt. "Don't you dare talk to me like that, you brat! You're nothing but a little street mongrel, lucky enough to be given a bed here, but I will put a stop to that."

She shoved him off, stepping back and returning to my side. "You hardly have right to call me weak when I beat your precious Grandson in battle."

I looked to Kai who appeared suddenly ashamed. Voltaire's rage rescinded slightly. "You?" he said. "You- a girl- defeated Kai? Is this true, Boris?" He suddenly looked to me.

"Yes, my lord. As I said, the girl holds exceptional power."

Voltaire paused. " I see. Does the child have a bit-beast?"

"Yes, sir. A very unusual spirit. But powerful, very powerful."

Voltaire looked from Kala to Kai and back again. His eyes stopped on Kai. "You bring shame to this family, boy. Loosing to a girl. Do you think you could redeem yourself in something of a rematch?"

Kai fumbled. "Er, y-yes Grandfather."

I didn't at all like this proposition, but what could I do? I led the two of them over to the beydish and prepared them to launch. Two children battling one another for Voltaire's amusement.

It seemed a déjà vu of their last battle at first; many months ago now but still fresh in my mind. Such power, such skill from two children so young.

Kai was determined, desperate even to prove himself. This small child that Voltaire placed the expectation of everything upon. This small, skinny child in his worn training clothes. This boy shouldn't have this power.

And naturally, Kai was once again refusing to summon Dranzer. He fought well without it, but the power of the beast was something that gave him a definite lift and without it, Kala was just too strong. His blade was out of the dish within minutes.

The boy fell to his knees, defeated.

Voltaire growled in anger. "You are a failure, child! Boris!" He turned on me suddenly. "You will get this boy a bit-beast!"

"What?" I was stunned, confused. How could I get someone a bit-beast? "I don't understand, my Lord. How? A bit-beast must come to it's master, it cannot be given."

Voltaire looked less than pleased. "I do not care for all that bonding rubbish, Boris. Find one, catch one, make one if you have to."

I was suddenly fascinated. Make one? Could such a thing be possible?

I moved to question further but Voltaire's attention was elsewhere, looking thoughtfully down at Kala as she picked up her beyblade and dusted off hers baggy boy's uniform. "The girl is powerful," Voltaire mused. I waited, almost afraid of where this was going. "Boris I would like to speak with this child alone. Take the other back to their cells, and punish my Grandson for his pitiful loss, he is of no use to me until he finally acquires a bit-beast."

I wanted to argue. I didn't want Kala left alone with Voltaire. I didn't want to punish Kai, but I did it all obediently.

When I returned there were two bodyguards with Voltaire, the old man still conversing with Kala who stood and answered each of the constant stream of questions: where did you get this bit-beast? How long have you had it? Where did you learn to beyblade so well? That boy, Tala, is your brother?

Looking up and seeing me, Voltaire stopped. "I am taking the girl, Boris."

What? It was suddenly the most horrific idea in the world to me. I felt a sudden surge of protection toward the child, and yes, even love. She was mine, my demon child. Voltaire had everything else in the world that a man could want. I would not let him have her. Not my Kala.

"M-my Lord, I believe the girl would benefit much more from reaming here. She is the team captain. She is meant to lead this team to victory. The entirety of our Beyblading future is based around her."

Voltaire frowned. "Boris," he said warningly. "You do not have the authority to go against me, so do not attempt to do so."

"Please sir, I must insist." I was quickly silenced.

"And I must insist that you be quiet if you wish to keep your job." Voltaire turned to the girl. "Come along, Kala."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "No thank you."

Voltaire was stunned. "What?"

Kala shrugged. "I said: no thank you. I would rather remain here. I like it here."

Voltaire looked between myself and Kala. "You do not understand, girl. If you come with me, I can give you a life you could never dream of otherwise. I am rich child, and I could make you rich also. I could put you into finery."

"Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love fancy clothes and stuff, but I really rather stay here. With my team, with my brother." She paused, before adding quietly: "And with Boris."

I expected Voltaire to become furious once more, to the surprise of all present, he laughed suddenly. "It's a good thing I like you, child. Very well. You may remain here. However, such a pretty little thing as yourself does not belong in such ruins. I used to say the same of Kai, but Kai refuses the inheritance and honor of the family. He has failed and put himself in this life of misery."

Kala shrugged, apparently considering this not her business. "So what's the deal?"

"Simple, my dear child. As long as you promise to remain and work for me and me only, to serve BIOVOLT, I can give you anything you desire. The world child. That is what I am offering you."

"Doesn't sound too bad," Kala commented. But she turned suddenly and walked back to my side. "Give me what you will. I'll serve you. Don't worry about that."

And he did give her everything. The next day, Voltaire returned and took Kala with him, promising to return her by the evening. I wasn't so sure about this, Kala- like all other students of the abbey- had never left it's walls since arriving, but she went along with him and when she returned, it was the start of a whole new form of seduction. A new era.

I didn't hear her come in. I did not realize she had returned, sitting in my office as I was, until I heard the gentle tap of footsteps approaching from the corridor. At first I wasn't sure it was even that; it was a different rhythm, not the scuffed and quick pounding of Kala's rushing around, but a tapping.

And then she appeared in the doorway, no longer the child from the streets adorned in boy's clothing. At first I almost believed it to be someone else; the small childish face and mussed curls had been transformed. I only then realized how long her hair had grown over the months, now falling well past her shoulder to her mid-back, shining now with a whole new pampered luster. Her small face now matured with carefully done make-up appropriate for someone three times her age. Her eyes seemed yet an even brighter blue, outlined in black with long eyelashes heavy with mascara, the lids dusted with a light purple color. And even her cupid-bow shaped mouth painted in a delicate pink shade. Her top half was held in a tight-fitting corset-style bodice of sky blue, the rest covered by silk skirts of dark blue that trailed to the floor.

She smiled and twirled theatrically before me, holding up her skirts so as not to trip while I cast a glance at the white stiletto heels strapped to her small feet.

"Well," she began, her skirts falling down around her as she stopped and grinned at me, tossing her shining her back over her shoulder. "What do you think? It's a little over the top, but I quite like it."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how I felt about this insane transformation. It was as if she'd suddenly transformed into a woman right there and then, and she was still only a child of seven (as of the previous month).

She trotted over, putting her hands on the edge of the desk opposite me and peering up as if curious of what I would say.

I sighed. "Amazing what money can buy," I muttered.

She cocked her head at me, before coming round to stand beside me. "Voltaire wants you to get Kai a bit-beast," she said.

"I know," I replied. "Though how exactly I am supposed to go about doing that, I really have no idea."

"Well," Kala drawled. "Like Voltaire said, make one!"

I turned and looked at her. "I don't even know if such a thing is possible, Kala. I have doubts about my ability to play god."

"But there's all those machines downstairs!" She said. "Surely with all that junk you can make a bit-beast somehow."

"I may have the equipment," I said. "but I don't have the ingredients. Who knows what a bit-beast is even made of." I paused. "And besides, we're forgetting that Kai actually has a bit-beast. It's just… secret."

"I know," she said. "And I know what a bit-beast is made of."

In astonishment I turned to look at her. "What?"

"It's easy," she said. "It's just a spirit with a material form. A sacred spirit. I guess that's what mine is: a sacred spirit, but it's material form is a man. Bit-beasts are usually animals, right?"

"I can't even begin to fathom the physics of that spirit of yours. But yes, they are generally animals." My mind was suddenly running riot with ideas. Kala had a spirit, could that spirit be turned into a true bit-beast form? I began calling up my staff, ordering the hiring of scientists and experimenters alike, anyone who knew anything about physics, bio-chemistry, cellular structure. Bring them all to me.

As I made phone call after phone call, hiring whatever contacts I felt appropriate, Kala pulled herself up onto the desk, kneeling right on top of the wood and opening several of my files.

After a while I peered over her shoulder to see what she saw looking at, finding the girl reading through my endless pages of bit-beast research that I had collected over the years. She'd taken a highlighter and began picking out odd bits of information, drawing all over the pages, regardless of the fact that it was someone else's property. But then again, this was Kala.

"Ancient animals," she said. "That's what this is all getting at. They're ancient spirits that have come back through the beyblade's power to contain their energy."

I stopped between phone calls. "What else can you work out?"

"It's all to do with spirits," she said. "Lost spirits looking for a place to go, and when they find a master with enough power to summon them, they go to them, and in turn, into their beyblade. They're like the ghosts of dead animals, I guess. More powerful animals make better bit-beasts. You know, things like dragons and tiger are fierce in battle. And other types of power, elemental control, if an animal is strongly associated with something such as the sea, or fire. Like a phoenix, like Dranzer."

I was deep in thought. "What… what if you could take a spirit and merge it with another? What if you could combine the powers of two spirits to take on both of their powers?"

She looked up at me, long eyelashes curling upwards as her eyes widened. "It would be something all-powerful. Twice the power."

"What if we… if we combined your power… with Kai's?" I stood up suddenly, going to my shelves and hunting down several books on the history of bit-beasts, their legends, their structure and physics. I put them in Kala's arms as she hopped off of the desk. "Take these downstairs, to the underground chambers. I'll order endless amounts of equipment, we'll create a laboratory, a place of creation."

She nodded and hurried away, blue silk flying out behind her. I went straight back to the phones, ordering my people to find me the finest equipment around, money no matter, Voltaire would do anything when it concerned the bit-beasts.

Within two weeks, I had a fully-fledged laboratory and a good thirty men in white coats working for me. I piled them with every file and book I had of information concerning bit-beasts and told them to set about their task of creating one.

I kept Kala at my side. skipping around the lab in an array of high-heels and fancy skirts, and allowing her to give her input wherever and whenever she desired.

Indeed an array of clothing, for Voltaire had lavished affection upon her. It seemed even the most high and mighty were immune to her charms, for yes, everyone and anyone that saw her fell in love with her. She was beautiful, overwhelmingly intelligent, utterly perfect. And she was mine; I found I was pulling her closer and closer to me and unable to let her go. For indeed yes, I loved her as I had never loved anyone or anything else before.

The experiments were forming and rising around us. Glass tubes attached to control panels were constructed, designed to contain the new spirits' as they grew within as if these were nothing short of mechanical wombs. The magic of playing God.

Animals, dead and alive, were brought in for experimentation. I watched as they were tested, experimented on, driven seemingly insane at times. There was one occasion when a snarling wolf broke loose of its chains and began charging around the lab, terrifying the staff before it was suddenly struck down by some invisible force and I caught a glimpse of the dark spirit-man and for the first time noticed Kala standing on the balcony above.

She was gone the next time I looked; the girl moved as swiftly as a phantom herself.

It was weeks of this routine of experimentation and study and creation before I realized that, unwittingly, I had somehow given indirect permission to Kala to do whatever the hell she wanted. I often saw her loitering around the corridors, or hanging about the labs, peering in the glass cylinders. And more often than not, I would be working on some form paperwork or study in my office and she would enter silently and merely be there. And yet there was something seductive about her lying there, draped over the velvet couch pushed up against the side wall, demon icy blue eyes fixed upon me. She seemed a scaled-down version of a woman, not a child. She was a seductress and she seemed to find endless amusement and interest in consistently torturing me with mad insinuations and tempting poses.

But I stray from the point, back to my original issue: she had somehow rid herself of all restrictions of authority and roamed the abbey as she pleased. Voltaire often sent her luxurious gifts of clothes and perfume and jewelery, apparently having found a replacement for his "disappointment" of a Grandson. He would have her destroy obstacles with her beyblade for his amusement and often discuss with her matters that would usually only shared between high class business man and world leaders; politics, law, finances… what kind of child had knowledge in these things?

But with all this in her life, she'd abandoned all sense of structure and order existent for every other student. She barely attended classes, and if she did, she would wander in when she chose. The guards had given up attempting to track her down, I had given up attempting to discipline her. So instead she spent her own time loitering around the halls, or even doing her own research into our vast topic of bit-beast creation. Other times I did not see her for hours. Other times I unexpectedly stumbled across some insane stunt of hers: constructing a tightrope to climb along between the two top towers of the abbey, convincing the boys to respond to each other's names, stealing the guards head-wear and giving them a chase through the abbey in order to get it back.

These stunts brought anger and annoyance and exasperation to myself and the other staff, but her fellow students adored her antics. She was their only form of amusement within the dark walls, bringing carefully concealed smiles to those who needed encouragement. It was against everything I instructed and taught, and for some insane reason, I allowed it.

Perhaps it was because she made me smile, too. As you may have gathered, I was not one for idle amusement or time spent on mere enjoyment. Yet she would endlessly amuse me by abruptly coming out with some abrupt comment of rather hilarious insinuation. There are comments she made on Voltaire's age and appearance that were so vulgar and daring that I often had to stop myself from thinking about them in said man's presence. As amusing as they were.

But the boys of the abbey loved her. And to my amazement, it miraculously appeared that she knew of every single one's name and to everyone she always had time. One moment I would see her talking to Alexander, the next milling around Vladimir, another time even advising Leonid on his launching technique.

She had even pulled her own team together somewhere along the line. I began to observe that Tala, Bryan, Spencer, Ian and even Kai sat together at designated meals and were often seen together after classes.

I soon realized to my horror, amazement and with a sense of irony, that she was more in control of the abbey then I was myself. She was the essence of it, the centre of it, even the leader in some ways.

And as much as she endlessly fascinated me, I knew I could not allow the girl to acquire any more control. I went about recruiting another member of staff.

Babysitters, nannies, au pairs and every other sort of child carer under the sun was trialed. And yet she defeated everyone of them. Many quit, nearly in tears, apologizing profusely and sobbing that they "just cannot handle that child". Other stormed out angrily, swearing never to return and threatening to sue. Some even just ran away in fear, never to be seen again. I had many coming running to me, claiming the child to be "of the devil" before they furiously handed in their resignation. Many sightings of "dark spirits" and "witchery" were reported to me.

After having exhausted every angle of the care system in Moscow, I tracked down Kala and quizzed her on these events.

She smiled, currently adorning a glamorous dress of blue and silver, and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "They are no more than forms of amusement to me, Boris. Bring me a man of good company and I will allow him to stay. Someone of high wit and with an open-mind, such as yourself."

Yes, the girl somehow had given herself the belief and right to decide on a personalized job description for whoever would be so graced as to supervise her. I told her she would have nothing of the sort.

Yet the very next day, I came across my answer. A man was being interviewed by the scientists for his knowledge in research of old artifacts and spirits, merely for purposes on information. I wandered in on this visit, Kala at my side, who immediately beamed at the man and ran to peer over his shoulder at all the papers on the desk.

"Mr. Balkov, I presume?" He said upon seeing me, casting a slightly wearing glance at the child who rather rudely took his seat as he stood up to greet me.

I nodded and quickly apologized for the behavior of the damn child.

The man shrugged it off and smiled down at her. "Pretty little thing. I wasn't aware that girls were also accommodated here. Most people have heard of this place and say it is an all-boys facility."

"Generally," I replied. "The girl is… an exceptional case. A great amount of power and ability."

The man nodded. "Fascinating." He then extended a hand to me. "Jean-Paul Barthez."

I returned the greeting and we were soon involved in a discussion on his work and research, much of which I was interested in. I decided on a proposition.

"Mr. Barthez, I have an offer for you and I would be most delighted if you were to accept." Somewhere along the line I had picked up Voltaire's art of aristocratic speaking and I enjoyed using it and the way it made me seem like one of a high-class background. "I would like you to come here and work for me. Permanently."

He was surprised by this offer and seemed willing, so I quickly added in the catch. "However, among your research and scientific duties, I would also like for you to take upon another responsibility."

I turned my gaze on the demon-child sitting in Barthez's former chair, a large book of archaeology balanced on her small legs.

"I need an extra pair of eyes kept on that girl. She is rather… wayward. If along with your other duties, you could keep a look out on her, then I will be willing to pay you a high sum."

I knew I had won him over. "First of all," he began. "Please feel free to call me Jean, and secondly, I would be delighted to take your offer. I must admit I am frightfully short of work at this moment and this comes as a most welcome opportunity. There are so many people, unlike yourself, who have no interest in my field of work, and the ideas I have heard you are testing here are most exciting."

We shook hands and the deal was done.

"I will fill you in on all the details of our research later, but I will put you in charge of a large number of people." I stood and summoned my young prodigy. "Kala!"

She looked up, smiled, and skipped over to my side. I explained our new recruit and informed the girl she was to look to him as a temporary guardian in my absence. Kala was delighted with this new… playmate. She quickly introduced herself and began chatting away, and again unwittingly, I realized I had done exactly what she had wanted me to once again.

Damn seductive demon child.

But later that evening, when I came across Barthez in one of the deepest corridors in the abbey, I ensured to make one thing clear. "She is mine, Jean. Do not forget that."

Already on first name terms, he smiled at me as a true friend. "Do not worry, Boris. I wouldn't dream of it."