Dancing Shadows
A/N: Warning, mixing a bit of anime, manga, and non-canon in this chapter.
"Dialogue"
Thoughts, emphasis, etc.
/ Flashbacks and dreams /
*sounds, actions*
Formal attack names
"Akuma (in their true forms) speech"
[Time passing]
- A Simple Game –
Raven rubbed the sides of head in an effort to calm the throbbing.
"You okay there, Nightingale?"
Raven lifted his head from his lap. "Yeah…just a headache. I've suffered from chronic headaches for most of my life. They kind of got worse since the whole episode with the Noah, but I'll be fine."
Raven slung his pack around to the front. Miraculously, his stuff remained unbroken despite the amount of crashing and fighting he brought the bag into recently. Even the very delicate crystals were perfectly preserved. Like his name, the young man had a predilection for shiny things. Especially anything metallic or gem-like. His mother sometimes thought magpie would fit him better at times. No wonder he took to pickpocketing at such a young age. He found comfort in his stash, although his little pendant would remain the most important of the little treasures he kept.
Speaking of comfort…
Krory sniffed and sobbed in a fetal position on his seat. No amount of reassurances could soothe the heartbroken exorcist. He was a monster in the eye of the villagers of his hometown. Raven could understand it a little. Most people from his childhood distrusted his oddly colored eyes and strange markings. Don't even mention how his wings factored into it. In the end, Lavi's suggestion produced the best results. Krory went off on his own to explore the train.
Three hours passed.
"What do you suppose Krory spent three hours doing?" asked Raven, eyes not straying from his latest book. The young scholar decided to brush up on his supernatural herb and plant lore after meeting Rosanne's parents.
"We should probably go look for him" sighed Allen. Raven nodded in compliance, shutting his book close.
The three exorcists called out for Krory as they walked the narrow walkway of the train cars.
"Kro-chan!"
"Krory!"
"You don't suppose Krory could have gotten lost in a straight corridor?" considered Allen. Raven reached over to cuff his head.
"We are looking for Krory, not you, Allen. Where could have he gone? Outside?" Why am I the "older" brother sometimes?
Allen slid open another car door to reveal a most unexpected sight: their missing comrade without most of his clothes, three smirking men holding playing cards, and a child no more than a couple years younger than Raven watching them all.
"Krory?"
The one in the middle wore thick glasses whose distorted surface reflected swirls. He blew out some smoke from his cigarette and proclaimed, "Sorry, but kids such as yourselves aren't allowed to enter here. Now, my good sir, what would you like to wager next?"
Raven leaned against the train car door and banged his head against the frame. "Seriously?"
"Krory, what are you doing?!" exclaimed a much suffering sounding Allen. His brother should be familiar enough with this scenario, but best to stick with appearances.
"*Sniff, sniff* These nice men invited me to play something called poker and…"
Raven didn't need to hear the rest. He sighed and walked over to where Krory knelt. He draped his traveling cloak over the poor man.
"Would any of you gents like to play my brother and me?' He asked with a smile. Allen helpfully offered to bet his own coat the same as Raven's vest.
"Call: Three of a kind," declared both exorcists to the dismay of their opponents.
Allen as always cheated, but Raven actually never played tricks at cards. Road was right about one thing. Raven did have an unusually charmed life. Allen struggled for months to perfect his skills, but Raven could walk into a poker match and take home most of the winnings. The only caveat to his unusual luck seemed to be intent. If Raven wanted or needed to win badly enough, he would play miraculous hand after hand after hand. If Raven wanted to lose for sake of not being hunted down, he could get a streak of terrible or normal hands. The younger brother could never really explain how, it just happened much to the elder's displeasure (Allen quit playing against Raven after the third time the younger Walker stripped him in a "friendly" match).
"Man, you guys are quite lucky," chuckled the man in the center, a lit cigarette smoking idly. Raven and Allen share a smile.
"My little brother is always lucky. I wouldn't want to bet against him in a million years," boasted Allen. "Raven could probably steal the Crown jewels and get away with it just by the skin of his teeth."
"Allen, what did I tell you about my ideas of theft? No point in risking your life in the future when there's smaller fish in the present," jested the masked exorcist.
"Shounen, shouldn't you be discouraging your younger sibling?" chuckled the blonde-haired man.
Eventually, the train arrived at Kirilenko Station. Allen and Raven as good gentlemen handed over the unneeded suitcases of clothes to their respective owners. Raven nodded his head and turned away when something was tossed at his brother.
"Take that as recompense for your generosity!" shouts the thick glasses wearing traveler. "May we meet again!"
The two exorcists returned to their friends. Raven still felt odd since meeting the other man. Something about him seemed familiar. He tried looking with his sight, but all he earned was another pounding headache. He shook off his thoughts as Lavi exclaimed on how he never knew what demons the two Walkers can be.
In the quiet of the train car sometime later, Raven looks over the Walker brother's new set of playing cards. The unique and dark design seems to send an edge of foreboding through the younger Walker. Then Raven finally noticed something else: his beloved pendant has fallen off somewhere during the train ride.
- Interlude I –
Tyki Mikk bantered a little with the Millennium Earl as per usual, but his mind was elsewhere. The smaller shounen made him – not uneasy per se but discomforted, especially with him wearing a mask of all things. But, there was something familiar about him. Of course, the mask made it hard to tell where the Noah of Pleasure could have seen him. Then again, the little shounen was in the company of exorcists, an exorcist himself even. It probably didn't matter anyways.
"-ello? Earth to Tyki?"
Tyki banished all thoughts of the shounen and returned to the present.
"Yes, Road?" Tyki was rewarded with a book shoved into his face.
"Please, please help me with my homework?" begged the eldest child. Sometimes it could be disconcerting when Road acted like a little girl she appeared to be.
The Millennium Earl had his usual grin as he regarded the two Noahs. "Tyki-pon is unusually broody today "
"Earl, please don't call me that." Tyki eyed the piles of books surrounding Road. "Err, why do you have so many books, anyways?"
"She slacked off until the last minute again. Her homework is due tomorrow so she told me! " chuckled the Millennium Earl.
"Oh, Rooooooad~"
Tyki's face fell. His older brother apparently had some time to spare if he joined them this meal. Sheril Kamelot swept into the dining room and lovingly swung Road up.
"Aww, my darling Road~ You slacked off on your homework again, didn't you? I'm sure Tyki and everyone will help, right?"
At his name, Tyki slouched a bit into his chair, but straightened when his older brother glared at him.
After a disastrous attempt at Road's homework (/ "I told you, I never went to school," smirked an unrepentant Tyki as Road yelled at him for writing the number 10 for everything. It was worth Sheril's outrageous lamentations to mess with his niece. /) and dinner, the Earl got down to business. The fat man held out two diamond-backed playing cards. On one was a location. On the other, a list of names.
"For your first job, I need you to accompany me to this place "
"Why are we going to such a far place?" complained Tyki as he took the two cards.
"It isn't that far, especially between Road's ability and the power of the "box". As for your second job, I need you to "delete" these people listed by name."
Road peered over Tyki's shoulder. Her dark blue eyes flickered with understanding. "Tyki going after people relate to him?"
The Earl hummed in confirmation. He flipped a third card from his sleeve. "Finally, I need you to retrieve the young man described on this card. Alive and relatively sane. Try not to overdo it, since I need to check on something."
The Earl passed the card to the disgruntled Tyki. The Noah of Pleasure couldn't hide his reaction. His eyes widened. Raven Walker. The picture was definitely of the young man he met on the train, masked face staring off to the side but his hair was free and laid curled around his shoulders. Furthermore, the given information rang a bell in his memories. He read this description somewhere before. But where? The card listed him as an orphan and adopted brother of Allen Walker – one of his "to kill" targets. The Earl had also lent Tyki some restraints made of dark matter for this mission.
"Is something amiss, Tyki-pon? "
Tyki hummed before replying, "…Nothing. It's nothing. I actually met this young man a little while ago, so it should make things easier. Why do you need this exorcist alive?" That really was out of character. The Earl of the Millennium never had asked any of the family to leave an exorcist relatively unharmed, much less kidnap one.
The Earl hummed, "Oh, it's because of what Road told me about him during her little confrontation with the exorcists the other day . The young man demonstrated unusual abilities. Also, Road couldn't seem to read his mind, oddly enough. So, I want to have a look at him personally "
Tyki could barely repress a shudder. The Millennium Earl looked like he had plans by that horribly wide grin. But the Noah knew better than to question or argue any further. He gave a nod of acknowledgement and got up from the table. Something clattered onto the floor.
"Hmm?" The noble and occasional vagrant picked up the silver item that somehow ended up in his pockets. The mysterious object had a thin broken chain and a silver raven pendant.
Sheril who had taken a seat to him frowned. He held up a hand for the object. Having no objections, Tyki handed it over. His brother's eyes went wide as he examined it over.
"…Tyki, where did you get this?"
"I'm not sure…wait. I think I saw the young exorcist from the train wearing this. It probably fell off and made its way into my clothes after the two shounen beat me at poker. Why? Is it important?"
Sheril had an unreadable look on his face. "I remember this charm very well. I had it handmade for Aurora on her 16th birthday. It even has the same engravings on the back."
"But why would the little shounen have it?"
Sheril hummed. "Well, it may have been stolen. It wasn't on her body when we went to pay our respects. Although, I think one of her maids mention never seeing her mistress wear it since the birth of her child, the one that went missing shortly after his mother's death. He would be about 13 now, I think."
Tyki Mikk had a lot to think about now. The ownership pendant may be connected to why the shounen looked familiar.
- Final Heading –
Raven looked up and down the train but couldn't find his pendant. This put in a state of depression nearly as bad as Krory's. For this pendant was the only thing he had of his mother.
After taking care of some meddlesome akuma, the group reunited in China. With little leads, they broke into teams to question the locals about Master Cross. They seemed to have no luck until Allen and Lenalee ran into one food stall owner. According to the man, a red-haired man with a half-opera mask frequented a large and glitzy brothel. This broke though the young exorcist's depression in its sheer outrageousness and familiarity. Raven had groaned, face palming. If it's not expensive wine, it's disreputable women. If the two brothers knew anything for sure, it was that their master probably had dumped more bills on them.
After so many hundreds of miles, the Cross Group finally caught a solid lead. Anita-sama, the owner of the establishment was a second-generation supporter. She supplied Cross with a boat to cross the sea. The boat supposedly sunk, and the sea in the surrounding area became tainted with the akuma blood virus. A massive horde of akuma must have attacked the ship, but Master Cross would never fall so easily. So, the group plus Anita-sama, Mahoja-san, and the rest of the supporters prepared a ship. The exorcists planned to meet Master Cross at his ultimate destination: Edo, Japan.