"You're too slow."
The stout twig in Allen's hand was snapped into half, and he swallowed as the tip of another stick swung in to point at his neck.
"I win," Kiara said mildly, a hint of smugness in her voice.
Sighing, Allen slumped to the ground, pushing his white bangs away from his face.
"You suck," he whined.
"Suck it up. One day you'll thank me when you can't fight with your Innocence," sniffed Kiara dismissively, before breaking into a grin and helping him up. "You're improving though. Maybe in another couple of months we can convince Master Cross to buy you an actual pair of knives."
"He says they're called tanto."
"Whatever," she grinned. "I don't care."
It had been three months since Kiara joined them in China, and Cross had insisted that she teach Allen how to fight without using his Innocence.
In return, she'd insisted he teach her how to cheat at poker, a fact that Cross discovered and decided to exploit. Now, with her and Allen cheating people of their money, they could pay off a significantly larger amount of Cross' overflowing debts.
It annoyed her sometimes, how Cross was such an incredibly lazy bum that he had to exploit his disciples to pay off his huge alcohol bills.
Life now, however, was much better than back at the Order, so she never complained.
They were in Korea now, tracking down a possible Innocence lead.
At least, they had been. They had found it, and Cross had decided to leave them in their inn room and go to a brothel that night, leaving them to safeguard the Innocence.
Kiara sat on the edge of the bed, kicking her legs idly. It was already late at night, but she was not sleepy in the least.
A banging on the door startled her.
"Kiara?"
Allen's voice was muffled through the door. Pulling on her tattered coat over her shirt and pants, she opened the door to see an extremely panicked Allen with his eye already activated.
"There are Akuma!"
"You do realize it's dangerous for us to fight it alone, Allen-kun," Kiara stated dryly. "You're the only Exorcist, unless you plan on stalking into the brothel and yanking out Master Cross."
"But…"
Allen looked at her with puppy eyes, and she gave in.
"We're going to get Master Cross though, if you really want to fight the Akuma."
"Deal."
It was easier said than done, because neither of them knew where the brothel was. They snuck around, keeping to shadows in back alleys, silently trailing the Akuma while Kiara kept an eye out for a brothel.
The weight of the Innocence crystal in her coat pocket made her feel slightly guilty. She had not told Allen about bringing it along, and while she knew it was risky she couldn't leave it in the inn room unguarded.
"This way," Allen hissed to her, and slipped into another alley.
She followed suit, but cringed and immediately flattened herself to the wall as her foot hit a glass bottle, causing it to fall and crash loudly.
Shit, she mouthed, as she noticed the Akuma pause and rotate in their direction.
They were floating closer and closer. Squeezing her eyes shut, Kiara prayed that they wouldn't be spotted.
A yelp drowned her hopes, and her eyes flew open to see Allen rolling away from a smoking hole in the wall.
A mechanical whirring, and the barrel of the Akuma changed to point in her direction.
"Get away from her!"
Allen's arm was activated now, and he leapt at the Akuma, swiping at it. In the distance, she could see two others approaching, and fear rose to claw at her throat.
"Stay back, Kiara!" Allen gasped, before trying to swipe at the Akuma again. He succeeded in killing it, but was too late to avoid a bullet from one of the other two Akuma.
"Allen-kun!"
"It's okay," he rasped. "It hit my left arm."
Kiara began to hyperventilate as the Akuma, losing interest in Allen, turned to point at her.
"Stay away…" she whispered, clutching her coat closer to herself unconsciously.
The Akuma did not react.
"Go away!" she shrieked at it, voice full of irrational panic. "Leave me alone!"
And suddenly there was a flash of black fire.
The Innocence was no longer in her coat pocket, but there were now slim tendrils of black flame twining around her wrists, some connected to the ball of flames that now engulfed the Akuma.
"…This is…Innocence…?" she breathed.
Before she had time to wonder the Akuma exploded and the flames dissipated. At the same time, a golden bullet came flying, getting rid of the last Akuma.
"Master Cross?" Kiara yelped, spinning around. "How did you find us?"
"You two were making such a huge racket, how could I not notice?" asked Cross dryly.
Rolling her eyes, Kiara glanced at Allen, who was now picking himself up.
"Congratulations, by the way," Cross added. "You're an Exorcist now, brat."
A/N: Alright, I know this is an incredibly short chapter. DON'T KILL ME. D:
This is the last of the prologues though, next chapter onwards we'll be getting to the plot! And I will try to update faster this time. I'm having midyears now, which means more slack time to write! (Because I'm very obviously a procrastinator.)
To Lathya: I figured I'd reply your questions here in case anybody else was wondering. I wrote Allen as this nice kid because…well, I figured if he's already such a nice guy in the manga he must have been nicer when he was still an innocent little kid. (Or well, as innocent as you can get around Cross.) As for the next question, Kiara looks Asian. Allen thought she may have been Japanese so he just gave her a Japanese name. Also because Japanese is the only Asian thing he knows at this point in time – mitarashi dango does not count – so by association he just gave her a Japanese name.
I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I have a Livejournal where I post all my writing. It's mainly JE fics, but I have some random manga-related fics there which I may or may not have posted here yet. I update it more often than this, so feel free to check it out~ The link's on my profile.
Until next time (which I hope is soon),
Luna. (aka espeon16)