A big and hearty thanks to ChikitaWolf for her favorite! Please review guys, I like knowing how my dear readers think that I am progressing.
Hiya guys, thank-you for being so patient with this chapter, the vacation was great and I had a ton of fun. I was even able to learn a few things about the world outside my state. *GASP*
Please enjoy. 83
"NO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE!" Uncle Komui cried, and Mom once again attempted to shake him off of her leg.
"Nii-san, we have to find the others!" Lenalee contradicted, only to be responded with shrill crying. It seems as though my dear uncle really didn't want his little sister to leave again.
"Mr. Lee, we all agreed that this place would be our headquarters. We will return… so can you please remove yourself from your little sister's ankle?" Uncle Link asked, both trying to convince and sooth the man who still had the death grip on my mother's appendage.
It didn't work. We had been going at this for about twenty minutes now, and Reever had ended up with a black eye from his Superior's violent temper-tantrum. I think that we were all on our last nerves.
I was sort of glad that Auntie Kanda decided to step in. Taking matters into his hands he activated Mugan and sent a horde of his Hell's Insects at the hysterical Chinese man. My only true uncle was soon running around the perimeter of the garden, with the bugs at his heels.
"Did you need to do that Kanda?" Uncle Marie asked with his tranquil face slightly etched with worry. Was that a content smile on Auntie's lips?
"He deserved it." With that we waved our goodbyes to the two forms on the porch, one of them holding an ice-pack to his face. I smile at the peace that surrounded that house even with the man running away from certain death in the vegetable garden. It kind of made me miss it already.
~.~.~0~.~.~
Aunt Miranda gazed at the map that Reever had given us with a perplexed look on her face. Unfortunately, being a scientist and chemistry major did not tone his drawing skills: "Is that supposed to be a building or a tree?" Chéri asked, her face contorted in confusion as she looked on from behind my godmother's shoulder.
"I truly do not know." She answered, and passed it around in the hopes that someone might be able to decipher its meaning. No one could.
"Where exactly are we going?" Alma asked, his brown eyes glinting with curiosity and joy at thought of another adventure.
"Apparently Timothy Hearst was last seen in… Spain." Alma groaned, and Chéri snickered.
"Can you two at least try to get along?" I chided, though they both shook their heads vigorously, I sighed: it was a hopeless battle with those two.
I then took the time to notice the one person that was drawing back from the conversation. Minnie's voice had not been heard once in the past speaking. There she was, dragging her feet, creating clouds of dust particles around her shoes.
She was hiding something from me. Trust me when I say that. I know all the ways of Minnie-ese. I knew her well enough to know when she was not saying something that she wished to say.
"Hey," I called out, also beginning to drag my feet so that we were soon moving at the same pace.
"Hi," she chirped, looking up at the crystal blue sky, her brown eyes, for once in a long time, glimmering with what seemed to be excited energy.
"What's going on to make you so chipper?" I asked, a smile placing itself on my lips from the positive energy that was radiating off of my friend.
"It's a nice day." She said simply before doing a spin. She was shutting me out and I didn't like that one bit. Timcanpy flew over and began to climb up Minerva's braids as if they were ladders. He then settled down in one of the crevices that the rows made. He was soon bouncing up and down contently.
I proceeded to poke the middle of Minnie's forehead with my left ring finger, "What's going on in that head of yours?"
The smile got wider and she stuck her tongue out, blew a raspberry at me, and then started to run ahead of the group, with me on her tail. Al soon joined us and we all began a very energetic game of Chase-Around-the-Adults.
~.~.~0~.~.~
Lavi had to laugh at the activity that all of the teens seemed to have. Chéri and Alma soon both joined in the games, and the entire crew of kids under twenty was soon wasting energy. They really did remind him of the lot of exorcists that used to be his 'friends'.
When he had been a part of the Order he felt as though he had actually had emotions. He had a heart then. He had laughed with Lenalee as they watched Allen eat all those towers of food that would have probably given a normal person a heart attack. He had occasionally even played chess with Timothy or Johnny. But that was rare.
He could remember having the stamina that all those children had. After all, how many times had he run away from Yuu-chan when the Asian was in a murderous mood?
But that was the past and the past cannot be changed from what it has been written to be. No matter how much they all may wish to change it. He could remember Bookman's words, "It's all just ink and paper. Don't let yourself be ruled by the things that man calls emotion."
There were times when he just wished that he had followed that command. Perhaps then he wouldn't have been so hurt when he had seen the Order fall to ruin. If he had listen then maybe he wouldn't have cried when he had found Bookman's battered body unceremoniously littered in the crumbles of the building. Maybe he wouldn't have ripped up the recording of the attack that the old man had worked up to his death on.
But still, he might have done the exact same thing. After all he had never had good control of his emotion. Besides what did it matter now? He wasn't even that 'Lavi' anymore. He was the 51-ist Lavi. He shouldn't have needed the emotion which still boiled in his veins. Though he couldn't rid himself of it. He couldn't halt the bittersweet happiness when he looked down on that little gray-eyed bundle that Lenalee had placed in his arms.
He may, at one time, have hated the general Allen Walker, the one man that took away the one woman that he cared for more than anything. But at the same time he couldn't help but feel happiness for his 'best friend' when he saw that care shining in his eye when he looked down at Lenalee. Trust him when he said that he knew that the words 'friend' or 'family' were not just ink on paper.
He had known that since she asked him to hold that small, little girl.
Now that little baby had changed into a formidable adult, one so much like her father that it was slightly frightening. He could only smile at the way that the years passed by him. Passed by him like the records that he had worked on so diligently all of those years.
And all that he could do was smile and work his hardest to aid his 'niece' in her seemingly never ending battle against the foe that ruined the 49-th and 50-th 'Lavi's' lives.
Oh how the ways of the Bookman had changed over the years.
Not that he particularly minded.
~.~.~0~.~.~
Finally the two foreign teens stopped running in circles in order to catch their breath.
"Spain… why Spain?" Alma whimpered, shaking his mess of dark brown locks in frustration.
"What? Scared who you are going to meet up with?" Chéri's smirk got only wider at the anger that soon flashed in the boy's brown eyes.
"Not funny."
"Je m'en fous."
"Watch your language."
The girl and boy both fell into silence as they both continued to go down the dirt road. Both sets of eyes were set on their general, watching with intent in order to be ready for anything to be thrown at them.
"He seems to have been in a bad mood for a while now." Chéri nodded at the statement.
"Ouais."
"I can only wonder if we are once again going to fight against the Noah soon."
"Naturally, we are basically the only thing that is on their minds right now."
"But Elena warned that girl,"
"It doesn't matter; they will simply come after us again and again, like the water of the ocean crashing against the rocky shore. Until they break us in two they will not falter. Besides, I thought that you were hoping to fight Tiki Mikk after what he did to your mother."
"Need you bring that up?" Brown eyes were now fully ablaze, and for once the girl backed down, mumbling a quick apology.
Still the cards in his front pocket seemed almost to be itching for the blood of Akuma. He knew that revenge was not a good reason to fight. He knew that if his 'dad' learned that he battled against the demons only in the hope that he will one day be able to kill the Noah of Pleasure in cold blood… well he didn't want to know what would happen.
His shoulder brushed against the girl beside him and she mirrored the action. A masked form of comfort that they had created. Sure, at times they did not get along, though there were also times that they were the only thing that they could rely on.
They both raced up to join the rest of the group.
~.~.~0~.~.~
The train station was crowded, people rushing to and fro, trying to get to their destinations. It was to the point where we were squished into the very back of second-class cart. The seats were hard seeing as they were made of maple wood. But still it was far better than driving the unforgiving long distance between Paris and Madrid. Still it would take about five days, and about seventeen train switches.
I pulled down Timcanpy from my head and looked at him with false hope, but his radar wasn't working on either Timothy Hearst or any of the others. This made me really depressed and I curled up into a ball on the seat.
Timothy Hearts was apparently the youngest of the Exorcist that Mom and Uncle Link had worked with. Bak Chan was a scientist and also one of the branch chiefs. I hadn't asked about Johnny Gill or Lou Fa, though I silently pleaded that one of them was an exorcist because we really needed the aid that we could get in battle.
There were fourteen Noah and ten of us. Maybe Hevlaska could join in battle or something. That was, if she could fight in a battle. It wasn't like I doubted someone that I knew was older and far wiser than me, but I was really tired of always being on the frontlines.
I was pretty sure that we all were.
Leaning back against one of the people beside me, most likely Al, I closed my eyes hoping for sleep to come and over take me.
Sure, I did sort of miss having to go to school, or even doing house-work. Though if I hadn't been introduced into this world of Innocence and terror I wouldn't have been able to meet all the new people that came before me.
I guess that it was a lose-win situation.
But I couldn't help but keep that small smile on my lips as the train flashed by the beautiful countryside.
~.~.~0~.~.~
The brakes to the train were pulled back ever so slightly as the conductor reached the sixteenth station that day. Rain had begun to pour down with suddenness, and the man was having a hard time seeing only ten feet in front of the machine.
He grumbled to himself about not being paid enough for all the crud that he had to go though, though after ten minutes at the station, he dutifully took off. After all, it was what he was paid so little for. He couldn't deal with being fired either: he had a family of four children and a wife to look after, after all.
Squinting and cursing coarsely to himself he revved up the engine and took off in the rain.
After about twenty or so minutes of driving he spotted what he assumed to be a group of trees ahead. Not taking any notice he continued, until he remembered that there was no forest on this stretch of land. Not to mention that trees didn't bend and form the way that the objects in front of him were.
There were several flashes of what he assumed to be thunder as he called for his assistant. There was a loud 'crash' and pain erupted through his body, then just as quickly disintegrated, just as his body had done; leaving only a pile of ash in the spot that he had been sitting in.
More flashes lit the sky, aiming for the train, each hitting a spot and was soon followed by a chorus of scream of terror and agony.
There was a flash in the last passenger compartment, the glint of steel, the glimmer of magic. The exorcist had arrived.
Well hope that you enjoyed this chapter, please read and review people, I really don't like it when people don't review for three chapters straight... it makes me sad.
Please message me if there is anything confusing so that I can clear it up. Thanks a lot.
Marine :)
Translations
"Je m'en fous."-Like I give a fuck~French
"Ouais." Yeah~French