The night was silent, almost too silent.
Two people picked their way through the leaf litter on the ground, looking around as though in search of something.
"…Are we there yet?"
The taller person sighed irritably, and tiptoed to peer in the distance.
"I think we're almost there," the reply came after a short pause. "Master Cross did say something about a cliff of some sort."
Ten minutes later, the duo had arrived at the base of said cliff. They paused then, and the shorter one let out a long sigh.
"I don't suppose there is some sort of…secret entrance that will allow us not to climb this?"
The taller one shrugged, and produced a pair of knives from thin sheaths strapped to both legs. Gripping one in each hand, a knife was driven into the rock face of the cliff.
"Well, see you at the top, I guess."
"W-wait!"
Ignoring the shorter one's protest, the taller one began to move up the cliff, using arm power alone with the knives as anchor points. Below, the shorter one began to do the same.
It was a strenuous climb, and before long the shorter one had begun to complain about aching arms.
"Shut up," the taller one grumbled. "It's all Master Cross' fault that we're here since he so kindly abandoned us, so just plot different ways to kill him instead of whining. Besides, whining wastes energy that you could be using to climb instead."
Scowling, the shorter one did so, concentrating on trying to get higher up the cliff wall.
"Pretty stupid to have a base on top of a cliff when your allies have to climb up but your enemies can just fly to the top," the shorter one complained a while later, prompting a shrug from the taller one.
"The Order's stupid, so it's rather like them to do it anyway," came the dry reply, laced with a slight hint of hate and annoyance.
The shorter one sighed, scrabbling for a foothold on the rocky surface.
"You really hate them, huh."
"You think?"
This shut the shorter one up, and they continued to climb up to the top in silence. After a long while, the taller one finally got up onto the top of the cliff, squinting a little to look at the flat surface illuminated by moonlight. Behind, the shorter one collapsed on the edge of the cliff surface, totally exhausted by the climb up the dark cliffside.
"Are we here now?" came a tiny moan.
"Yes, Allen. We're here. Now, get off the ground."
"Kiara, you're harsh," whined Allen, but he dutifully peeled himself off the ground and followed his partner to the giant door of the castle in front of them.
Kiara's eye twitched slightly and her scowl deepened as she sunk further back into the shadows.
Somehow, the incompetent and untidy Supervisor had managed to lose Cross' letter in the mess of papers on the table. To make things worse, the gigantic face on the door of the castle had taken a look at Allen's scar and then promptly declared the pair of them Akuma (even though it had mentioned earlier that she was completely fine). Now, some swordsman had popped out of nowhere. She had been smart and quick enough to dodge out of the way, but Allen had not been fortunate enough, which was why he was currently trying his best to fight off the swordsman.
"Sloppy organization," she muttered to herself. "Should have expected no less."
She had not been very pleased when she had waken up one morning days ago, only to discover that their master Cross Marian had slipped away sometime in the night, leaving behind only his golden golem Timcanpy and a note with instructions on how to get to the Black Order. Kiara remembered being rather vocal on several accounts on how she would not like to go to the Black Order, and thus had plotted several detailed plans on how to murder her master after she had seen that note.
Needless to say, the mess they were in now was doing nothing to help improve her mood.
Finally, the black golem that had been hovering around crackled to life, and the Supervisor's voice came out of it. Apparently, he had managed to find the letter sent to him by Cross, and thus was trying to coax the swordsman – named Kanda – to stop fighting.
However, the fighting did not stop until a girl in pigtails had run out and given the swordsman a hard whack on the head with a clipboard. By then, Allen looked even more exhausted than before, and just mutely trailed into the castle after the girl and Kiara.
"Welcome to the Black Order," the girl told them, and then introduced herself as Lenalee Lee, sister of the very same supervisor who had landed them all in this trouble in the first place.
Kiara took the moment to take in the interior of the Order's Headquarters. Previously, she had mainly been confined to the Asia Branch, and thus the interior here looked rather different. The somber and oppressive atmosphere, however, remained depressingly familiar.
She trailed along behind Lenalee and Allen as they were brought on a walking tour of the castle. After that, they were brought to meet Lenalee's brother, Komui, who offered to help fix Allen's arm that had been injured by the swordsman from earlier. Lenalee dragged her out of the room just as her brother whipped out a hard hat and a couple of dangerous-looking drills.
"Trust me," she whispered. "You don't want to be in there."
As if on cue, a pained scream emanated from the room, and Kiara winced.
"He sounds like he's being tortured."
"It happens," Lenalee agreed, and then abruptly changed subject. "Do you know about the types of Innocence?"
"Parasite-type and weapon-type," Kiara responded, remembering when Cross had mentioned it briefly a long time ago. "Allen and I are both parasitic."
"I'm weapon-type," Lenalee told her cheerily, but was prevented from saying anymore when the door of the room opened and Komui appeared, with a rather traumatized Allen in tow.
They followed Komui onto a floating platform next. As Kiara watched, Allen was suddenly grabbed from behind by a large white thing that had risen up from what looked like the bottomless pit below the platform. The thing, which Komui called 'Hevlaska', began to analyse Allen's Innocence before setting him down and reading him a prophecy.
Then, it was her turn.
Having watched Allen go through the process already, she thought she would be more prepared for her turn. Still, it came as a major surprise when she was suddenly lifted off her feet into the air, glowing white tentacles reaching out to prod at the slim black flame-like tattoo around her wrist.
"…86%!" Hevlaska proclaimed finally. "That is your maximum synchronization rate for now."
The moment she was set back down on the platform she stumbled a little. Behind her, Hevlaska waited patiently for her to turn around before beginning to speak again.
"There will be a time when all is dark. In that time, you are destined to rise up like a phoenix in the night and become a destroyer of the darkness. That is what I have seen. That is my power."
At last, they had been led to their rooms.
Kiara was glad for an individual room, but still it only felt desolate and empty as she looked around.
"So," she muttered to herself. "Back at the Order, eh?"
She lay back on the bed, and Hevlaska's words from earlier came flooding back into her mind.
Destroyer of the dark…
Eyeing the bracelet-like tattoo on her right wrist, she let out a small sigh. A tiny flash of black flame sparked and flickered for a moment, before she willed her Innocence to deactivate itself again.
"We shall see about that…"
A/N: I'm on term break now, and it's possibly my last free one before I start junior college next year, so I'll see if I can squeeze in another chapter before school starts again. I've had exams and won my first Nanowrimo, following which I suffered a writing slump, which is why I was not able to start working on this until now.
Once again, I will reiterate that I am not exactly the most frequent of updaters. I will try to put another chapter out before my holiday ends, but no guarantees there.
Until the next chapter!
~Luna (aka espeon16)