Joshua laughed at the apparition.
"Don't laugh at me!" she said, her voice sounding like static from an old radio. Her appearance wasn't all that stable either- if you chose not to blink you would see the form fade out for a moment before violently snapping back to view.
"You can't do anything to me." Joshua told the apparition with a light chuckle.
"I can."
"Then prove it."
For a long time, the apparition looked Joshua dead on. Slowly, the background behind the two dissolved and formed into a new background. Joshua yawned.
"Is that all?" he asked.
The apparition growled.
Slowly, something started to appear around Joshua's neck. It took him a few moments, but when he found out he looked at the apparition as if she was insane; a noose was forming its way around his neck as the ground around him fell away.
"Are you scared now?" the apparition asked maliciously. Her nose was bleeding in crimson red- it amused him to think that whatever she was doing to manipulate the environment was taking a rather hard toll on her.
"Not of you." Joshua told her.
The apparition sneered at him, then disappeared in a blink of the eye. The world around Joshua returned to normal and the noose disappeared without leaving a mark on him. Joshua wasn't afraid of her, but he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't interested- if only by a little. She could, however, may be of use in the next Reaper's Game...
. . .
"Emmeline! Emmeline answer your father!"
She hadn't even realized her nose was bleeding so badly until she was being shaken from her dream-like state. She didn't want to leave just yet- but the tone of her father's voice made her know that she had to leave. Her head was light and her stomach felt sick- maybe it was from the mass hemorrhage, or from her elated sense the she could screw with him... or both. But she needed practice. Even Carrie had practiced her hell-sent power before she unleashed it- why couldn't she do the same?
"Emmeline Utada Fredericks, you look at me now!" her father demanded with enough worry in his voice to make her flinch.
With her mind and thoughts back in the real world- she did as she was told. She looked up at her father as tears started to flow from her eyes.
Wrong emotion- wrong reaction... why...?
"You are mad." she said, choking on her words a little. Her father looked at her with so much relief that he nearly started crying.
"We need to get you to the hospital." her father told her before turning the Erasona-san. But it was the Japanese businessman that said something first.
"I think your daughter is more than just 'disabled' Mister Fredericks. We will pick this up another day."
Her father looked at the businessman with a look that wasn't sure whether to be insulted or not. Regardless, he gave a formal bow before saying,
"Thank you Erasona-san, for your time."
The Japanese businessman said nothing, but he gave Emmeline a look that revealed his true thoughts well enough.