Revised on March 31, 2020

Chapter 5:

The horse ride was relaxing with Doll. The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest. The silence seemed to comfort us both. But I couldn't help but worry about the result of tonight. If Smile really was Ciel Phantomhive than we made a big mistake in not noticing him when he first arrived. None of us had seen what the Earl looked like so it made sense that we didn't recognize him from the first sight. But I couldn't help but feel completely stupid and I felt everyone did.

I watched the trees around us pass and soon our horse grew tired from the long journey. Doll stopped whipping the reigns as she realized, too, that the horse was too tired to continue. We stepped off the horse after stopping next to a small lake and took a small sip of the untouched water.

"Bird..."

"Yes, Doll?" I answered back, a little worried about what would come out of her mouth.

"I just can't imagine it. Smile bein' a part of the yard. He's so frail and weak and it doesn't seem like he could be a good liar. Of course, we don't either, eh?"

"Doll, it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have had anything to do with Smile leaving. And who knows, maybe he isn't a part of the yard. Just don't think about it too much okay? We still have a bit of a way to go. We'll find out the truth once we get to Father's house. Let's go."

We saddled up the horse once again and started riding in the direction of Father's mansion. It was a quiet ride, but it was okay.

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Outside the line of the trees, I saw an orange glow in the distance. As we got closer I could smell the scent of smoke and debris and it got stronger the closer we got to Father's house. Everything was surrounded in roaring flames and there was nothing that I could do to stop what little of the mansion was left. I knew things wouldn't go the way we planned it but I didn't think that hell's fire was going to be literal.

I let curiosity get the better of me and looked behind me to see Doll's face. She was starting to panic and I saw tears almost forming in her eyes as she realized just what was going on in front of her. She cried for both of us at that moment. There was something in me not letting me cry and I couldn't get rid of it. I wanted to cry so badly. It was something I couldn't do, a true emotion that would suppress itself in the dark abyss of my mind and it was hard to change that. I was shaped differently and because of that, I looked like an uncaring asshole in my best friend's eyes.

Before the horse even stopped Doll flung herself off of the horse and started running to the continuously burning building. I couldn't grab her fast enough and she ran, screaming at the face of the fire.

"JOKER WHERE ARE YOU!"

There was no answer from within the fiery flames. I helped Doll call for Joker, hoping that it would help at least a little.

"Joker! Are you in there?! Please!"

Slowly but surely there was a figure emerging from the flames.

"Joker?!"

The figure came closer until I could finally see who the face of the person who I thought was Joker. My hope crumbled all at once. Once I saw the faces of Smile and Black I took a step back in disbelief.

"Eh? What are you two doin' here?! What's goin' on and where's Joker!?" Doll yelled in agony. She ran up to the pair, tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry to inform but he passed away," Black said with a small smile.

"What are you talkin' 'bout! Smile talk to me!" Doll cried while holding onto Smile's jacket.

Smile just shook her off like she was nothing but extra weight holding on to him.

"GET YOUR LOWLY HANDS OFF ME!" Screamed Smile.

Doll stood back in shock, obviously hurt that the person she thought to call her friend would so rudely push her away.

"We've been investigating on Her Majesty's orders about the kidnapped children. I assume you are familiar with it."

He threw me a small but obvious look. Doll took a step back, shock evident on her face. I looked at Black, not giving him a single emotion on my face because I genuinely didn't know what to think in that moment. I knew that whatever happened to me would most likely be what I deserved but I didn't want to die any time soon.

Every second that I looked at Black longer, the darker his persona became. He made me scared to take my eyes off of him in fear of him possibly doing something in the black of an eye.

"You mean you really are with the yard? You came to arrest us?" I asked.

"No. On the contrary, we came to erase you, on the Phantomhive name, the queen's guard dog." His eyes glowed a bright Fuschia and I knew that the odds weren't in our favor. My left hand began shaking at the thought of being killed by a demon. There was only one thing I could think of in a situation like this.

"Doll! Stay away from him!" I shouted.

Time seemed to slow drastically as I saw Doll running towards the pair with a knife in her hand and hear tears streaming heavily from her face. My feet moved on their own was I saw a hand go through my friend's chest and my wings slowed me to a stop. He had killed her without a single ounce of hesitation in his eyes. Her body fell lifeless on the floor but I didn't have enough time to react. I saw the glint of a knife in his hand before it was thrown at me at a fast pace. I was thankful he hadn't clipped my wing but I was worried. I tried getting myself in the air only to have something catch on to my right leg. I looked below me seeing his blank expression on his face and watched as he set down his master on the floor and grabbed my other leg to bring me completely down. I attempted a punch to his face only for it to be dodged with a swift motion.

I haven't had to use this since Father bought me... But it's my only hope of escape.

I grabbed one of his hands that were still around my leg and began absorbing whatever form of strength and speed that I could from him. I could feel the demonic abilities being absorbed into my being and with much more ease I released his hands off my legs. I'm still not completely sure how I got this ability, but I knew I had it in when I accidentally used it in my first fight.

I flew high into the air and watched as Sebastian almost followed me until Ciel Phantomhive ordered him not to. I was thankful. Although I was skilled at airborne attacks I wasn't invincible to the wrath of a demon.

After they left I flew back to the ground and landed next to Doll's lifeless corpse and looked into her empty eyes. I looked at her with regret and pity. I could have saved her but I just stood there and watched as Sebastian ripped her chest open with his hand. I looked at her face and continued looking at her face until I felt streaks of water rolling slowly down my face.

"Ha. Looks like I can still cry," I told myself, yet her at the same time. "I'm sorry Doll. Please be in a better place than this."

I closed her still open eyes and set her down on the floor. I gazed in the direction of Sebastian and the Earl and decided to follow them on whatever path they were taking. I couldn't go back to the circus and face the other members. I couldn't tell the others, especially Beast, that Joker had moved on from this world.

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I watched from the sky as the Earl and his butler entered a train. I didn't know where it was headed to but I couldn't care less. Anywhere would have been better than nowhere. I couldn't consider the circus my home anymore so I had nowhere in Britain to go. I also needed an explanation of why they lied to us about being low lives when they could have just come in guns blazing.

With the train not moving yet and the whistleblowing letting passengers know to board, I plopped my body on the rood of the train, spreading my wings around me to relieve them of the stress from my long flight. I crawled along the roof in search of the little Earl's compartment and soon found it to be in the first-class section. I strained my ears but couldn't hear anything over the screeching of the wheels of the train as it began moving.

Staying on top of a moving train was extremely difficult. I held my wings flat against the surface of the train to keep the wind from getting underneath my wings and sweeping me off the train. The position of my wings hurt my back, causing me to lay down on my stomach in an attempt to relieve the tension from slumping over. It was much more comfortable than my previous position.

During the ride, I watched the scenery as the ground flew by in a whiz and the sky seemed to move slower than the land. I took this moment to enjoy the small scenery and breathed in the fresh air pushing against my being. Serenity. The feeling was pleasant. I hadn't felt relatively calm in a long time.

Soon the train came to a slow stop. The town it stopped in looked as if there were barely any residents to its name and looked almost deserted. I sat up and watched the entrance of the train to see the two people that I had been following exit the train. They continued to walk along the path and stopped when a man with a wagon rode in front of them.

I flew off the train's roof and hovered high above the unsuspecting pair and watched their encounter. I watched as they handed a bag of coins to the man and the Earl sit in the back of the wagon, leaving Sebastian to walk along the road with them. The two dogs accompanying the man got on his wagon. It took only a few minutes for the man to stop the small ride and the two riders to get off. They didn't spare the accommodator a second glance as they walked up the rest of the hill. They continued walking until they stopped at old ruins. Ruins I recognized to be the old Orphanage that was destroyed.

Why are they here? Why am I here? At this point, it was smarter of me to at least be visible for them to notice my presence. I flew lower and landed a seat on a piece of wall, one leg hiked up to rest against my chest. I disapparated my wings and watched the two males.

"-wasn't lying about the workhouse." I heard Sebastian say.

" It's completely deserted and dilapidated. And likely for quite some time. I doubt the orphans lived pleasantly here."

The Phantomhive boy started laughing maniacally and clutched his stomach as he bent over in even more fits of laughter.

"There was nothing this whole time! Everything they thought they were protecting was long gone! They had no idea! They were desperate fools to protect this place. They even died for it! We're more demonic than demons are."

I couldn't bear hearing him speak of my members as though they were insolent fools. They were bad people with good intentions and good hearts and I felt I had the right to defend them.

"We humans may be more demonic than demons in many ways Phantomhive but the one thing that makes us less demonic is our emotions. We can never get rid of them. No matter how much some of us try."

He turned around, shocked for a moment but glared at me just as fast as the shock came.

"You knew Kelvin was lying to you then? You knew way more than the others didn't you?!" I shifted the leg resting on my chest and brought the other one up in the same position on the tallest ruin.

"No. All I knew was that this place was a goner. I know a lie when I'm told one. That and he was obsessed with you. Other than that I knew nothing."

"Then why would you want to help him?"

"Because I owed him. And if I didn't then no matter what, even if he was dead, I still had to owe him."

"If I may ask" the demon spoke up, eyes glowing, "why is it that you are here?"

"Do you want to know?" No one answered and we sat there in silence.

"Well, to be honest, I don't know. I guess I could say it was because I wanted to know where you lived but then again I really don't care. So I guess, I just followed you on a whim."

"So you came to try and get revenge on the others." It was more of a statement than a question.

"No. Believe it or not I don't want revenge. They, as well as I, knew that karma would come back to bite us in the ass so I can't really say that I want revenge for something that was bound to happen." I brought out my wings and flew down to the ground gracefully.

"Am I mad that I watched you two come out of this alive instead of Joker and Doll? Yes. But there isn't any use in crying."

The revelation of my words hit them. But as soon as it appeared it disappeared, being replaced with anger.

"I don't want to talk to you anymore. Sebastian this is an order: kill her!"

Without a moment to waste, the fight began.