"Gopher. Gopher," Noah interrupted, his voice cutting through the boy's complaints like a steel edge, "Have you ever had a reason to doubt me before?"
He immediately shut up and stared at his master with wide, fearful eyes.
"It seems that once again you've forgotten your place. A tool has no right to question their master's judgment, so please do keep your emotions to yourself why don't you? Or better yet—you want to be of use to me? Then rid yourself of these useless emotions entirely—I'll thank you for that."
"But—but—Noah-sama…"
A sigh. "Enough, Gopher. I am tired of your nonsense. Your worries are irrational; our location won't be compromised to the enemy as I'm certain that our guest won't leave the church alive."
"O-of course, Noah-sama!"
"Yes, yes…" He waved his servant away. "Now run along and get out of my sight."
Gopher nibbled on his upper lip as he rose from his kneeling position, unaware of the shadow in the background.
"Yes, sir."
dipping your fingers in acid
- fitter, happier, more productive -
"Justin."
He already knew that something was wrong the first time somebody called his name. Even though his eyes were closed and the voices in his hea—the music in his ears drowned out all sound, he felt the ambiance of the hallway suddenly warp with a strange presence.
"Justin."
There was somebody there.
"Justin…don't do this to me. You know I hate it when you ignore me."
- comfortable, not drinking too much -
He opened his eyes and looked at the intruder. He felt himself startle and strained to keep the surprise out of his expression.
There was a girl in front of him.
A girl? There were no girls in this building, let alone Noah's group. Was this another one of his hallucinations?
"Hey. So it really is you. Long time no see, Justin." The girl smiled wearily at him.
Who was she again? He barely recognized her face. They had to be previously acquainted if she was familiar with his name…or perhaps she was lying? No. Justin vaguely recalled seeing her before, yet he couldn't pin a name to the face.
But even though it was an annoying setback not being able to summon memories on demand, it was nothing new to him. His mind had been somewhere else these past weeks. Dreams and reality blended together in a swirl of psychosis while memories seemed hazy and distant to him. Whenever he tried to think back on the past, he drew up a blank.
"What's with that look? Don't you remember me?" the nameless girl asked.
Focusing on her eyes, Justin was able to retrieve a scrap of recognition. She was Jeanne… the French girl. He remembered her now. If he recalled, the last time he saw her was around a decade ago and oh my…had she matured well. She was beautiful. She was extremely attractive. She was - she -
She—
What in God's name was she doing here?
"Jeanne. Always finding yourself in situations you don't belong in. How did you find this place?"
"I'm very persistent when I want something."
"I see." He kept his voice neutral. "And what is that you want from me?"
But to his surprise, Jeanne only smiled in response. The smile came and went, and then she was next to him with her back pressed against the wall. A lone door frame between the two was the only thing that separated them.
Justin inwardly stiffened at the familiarity, bracing himself for the inevitable awkwardness that would ensue. Would she confess her feelings to him now? Gaze shyly on the ground and mumble how she always loved him? Or perhaps she would get angry and try to persuade him to come back to DWMA…yes that definitely sounded like something she would do. But there was only silence.
"Yes, can I help you?" he said after a few seconds. His doubts had crept up again; now he was really beginning to believe she was a hallucination.
Jeanne shook her head.
Several more seconds passed and Justin didn't even care anymore. His thoughts automatically went back to Kishin-sama. The girl suddenly got weird, so he was done pretending to be polite for the sake of social norm. And if she was really a hallucination, another figment of his already disturbed mind - no foul, no harm, right?
His eyes drifted closed, and the ever-present, comforting rhythm of his music once again lulled him into a sense of isolation.
- o paranoia, careful to all animals -
- (never washing spiders down the plughole) -
- keep in contact with old friends -
- (enjoy a drink now and then) -
And then, he felt a hand enclose around his arm.
Justin's eyes snapped open and he instinctively flinched and jerked away, but she didn't let go.
She was real.
She was definitely real.
It disgusted him. Being touched disgusted him.
"A year later and you still shirk away from a person's touch," she said.
A year? What was she talking about? It had to be longer than that. Their last encounter was at least a decade or so…wasn't it? Ten years felt right. He could barely remember her, after all. The girl was crazy, talking nonsense.
Justin gritted his teeth, suppressing his body's instinct to grow a blade out of his forearm and cut her hand in two. He wrenched his wrist out of her grip and quickly composed himself, his neutrality vanishing, with his smirk and sarcasm automatically rising to the surface as a defense mechanism.
"And…I see that you still like testing other people's limits. You really haven't changed, Jeanne."
"The same goes for you."
He chuckled. "Oh, but I have. You just don't see it."
"I do see it," she insisted mildly. "Your wavelength is different from before."
His eyebrows rose in vague surprise. "You can tell?"
"It's very dark."
Justin was well aware that Jeanne's soul-perceiving abilities lay below an average meister's. 'Very dark' was another way of her saying, 'I'm guessing there's a drastic change in your soul'. It was a shame, really. Had Jeanne been anything like Maka Albarn, then he could have subdued her right there and then and forced her to use her soul perception to discover Kishin-sama's location…and kill her if she refused—a raw soul worked just as well, after all. But Jeanne was pathetic at best, and so she was useless to himself, as well as Noah.
He flashed another smile, entirely sarcastic. "Very dark. You're quite the perceptive one."
Jeanne was unfazed, yet remained broody. "Are you still an autonomous weapon?" she asked after a moment.
"Things like that don't change."
"Good, good…" Was it good? She wasn't sure. "Wielding a guillotine is hard," she commented. "Do you still kill things?"
A beat.
"I kill sinners."
"Would you kill me?"
"If you give me a reason to," he replied evenly.
"What if you had a reason to?"
"Then I would."
She frowned. "What if you were ordered to but I posed no threat?"
"I wouldn't hesitate," he replied without skipping a beat.
Chances were, the hypothetical scenario she had just laid out would turn into the reality; as soon as Noah found out there was an intruder he would order her to be eliminated—an order Justin would carry out in an eye blink. This girl meant nothing to him. She was merely a relic of his past—the past that he could barely recall. Attachments? Bonds? What were these things? …oh you mean the same way the Clown had attached and bonded to his soul.
Jeanne pressed her back to the wall, looking contemplative. "I would never kill you," she finally said. "Not unless you give me a good reason to."
At this, Justin had to smirk. "Don't make it sound as if you're doing me a favor. I don't think it's a matter of mental hindrance, Jeanne. You couldn't kill me if you tried."
"…I can kick your ass, you know."
He chuckled. "All talk and no bite."
"Fuck you."
"Watch your mouth," he reprimanded automatically.
A pause.
Justin felt a frown make its way to his lips. Was she truly that naïve? She had wandered into enemy territory all by herself and completely unprotected and then went forth to insult the very person who could easily kill her. Yet, the bigger question was why was he even putting up with any of this?
… It was his mood. He was in a good mood now. His head felt clear and disentangled as compared to before. His memories were becoming easier to access. The madness felt less… painful. He didn't mind entertaining her questions for now. She was a harmless girl who he could dispose of the instant her presence became unwanted. She was no threat to him. Plus, it was nice to be able to see an artifact from the past.
Then it dawned on him that Jeanne was still in touch with DWMA.
Suddenly, her usefulness was bumped up the ladder by several rungs. Though he almost certain Jeanne was no longer a student there, she still had several ties to its people—specifically, two of the Death Scythes. While she had no allegiance or formal obligations to the school and was far too blunt and emotionally vulnerable to be a spy, the question arose as to how she knew of the location of Noah's hideout…and that had DWMA's fingerprints written all over it. He wondered how much information he could extract from her.
"Is there any reason why you decided to come here, Jeanne?" he asked, keeping his tone at perfect casualness.
"Don't you remember?"
"Remember what."
"I promised to visit you once every year."
Ah, so that was her motivation for coming here? He was right. Women and their needy attachments.
"The last time we talked…" She trailed off and glanced away, looking rueful. "I apologize for things I said. It's your decision to dress however you want, not mine."
Justin closed his eyes. "Trivial nonsense."
"That trivial nonsense riled you up last time."
"Is that all you came here for? To apologize?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
Another beat. "… No. Stay here."
The moment Jeanne stepped foot into the church, the moment she revealed her presence to him—was the moment that her contract with life had expired. This was the final mistake she would make. She was currently living on borrowed time.
And he really didn't want to have to hunt her down if she wandered off.
Apparently, he had said the correct response because Jeanne smiled. Justin almost felt sorry for her. Women were so easy to manipulate. They were like children, innocent and needy, who got distracted by small scraps of affection.
"Jeanne. Te—" Tell me what you did this past year, was what he was about to say, but she cut him off first.
"Yes, Tezca told me what you had done."
For the first time, uncertainty flickered in Justin's eyes. "Tezca?"
"I'm not angry, but…"
He was barely listening to her. Things started to click into place. It all made sense now. How she was able to track him down—it hadn't been her terrible soul perception, after all. And if she knew of his location, then that meant Tezca and DWMA…
"I see…" Justin muttered, lost in thought.
Within a moment's notice, the haze of uncertainty solidified into resolve and he turned to Jeanne with a new determination in his eyes.
Stupid. She was so stupid. She practically fed him the information he wanted to know.
Justin muttered a prayer and drew his arm to his chest; a guillotine blade appeared from his forearm.
"I'm sorry, Jeanne. This has been a lovely conversation, but I'm afraid I can't let you live any longer now that you have served your purpose."
As he said those words, she detected maybe just the tiniest hint of regret in his voice.
She had already moved away from the wall, and was now slowly backing away from him. Justin advanced on her in calm, steady steps.
"O god, I ask for your forgiveness for the sin I'm about to commit. Although I hold no personal vendetta against her, she cannot be permitted to continue walking the earth. Bless her soul, Kishin-sama, for she can still be saved by madness…in the afterlife."
The blade began to glow.
"Justin…" But she wasn't scared. She looked tired—pained almost. "Justin…I…"
"This is the will of god," he said softly. "You'll die a painless death."
"Justin…"
"Law-abiding silver gun."
A blaze of white tore through the hallway of the church, flooding the windows with blinding light and destroying everything in its path.
When the light faded, Jeanne was crouching on all-fours in the middle of the floor, her golden hair billowing and wind-swept.
"The will of whose God, Justin?" she mumbled. "Because it sure as hell isn't mine."
He regarded Jeanne's survival with a mild sigh of exasperation. She had always been like this, stubborn to no end. He recalled that she used to prolong their conversations just get the last word. Now she refused to be killed.
(They had lived together. Just like he knew all her flaws and weaknesses, she also knew his.
There was a weak spot in his attack. She was the one who had pointed it out to him.)
Justin sighed again.
"Which is yet another reason why you must die—nonbelievers. Always making things complicated." His eyes drifted towards the ceiling. "What am I to do with you, Jeanne? What's the real reason you came here? To see if the rumors were true? You know they are. Did you come to try to talk some sense into me?" He laughed, cold and cruel. "Do you honestly think madness can be cured by something as insignificant as petty words?"
"…why? Honestly Justin, I don't know. It's because…you meant a lot to me, I guess. I care for you."
A mocking smirk worked its way to his face. "How cute."
"Yeah. What can I say? You were always mon petit frère—my little brother."
His smirk froze.
Little…brother…?
She regarded him like a little brother, like he was something cute, not to be taken seriously. Was she looking down on him? Was this woman actually looking down on him?
Justin didn't even realize a deranged grin had taken over his face until his brain was telling him to repress the shudders racking his body; he was suddenly aware that he was shaking uncontrollably, and that his cheeks were hurting from stretching so much.
He wanted to retort to her insult (it was an insult—no one looked down on him), he wanted to scream at her, but he could barely form full words, let alone coherent sentences. His mind was churning; his thoughts were scattered all over the place in some unrecognizable mess; his memories, hopes, ambitions, and fears tumbled around helplessly in the typhoon of insanity. Justin quickly set his crumbling mind to a task—to find a single word amidst this clusterfuck of chaos. It took mental effort to keep his mouth shut while he sifted through the madness—unless it spewed out a string of giggles instead.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally found the word he was looking for—and by that time, he had long forgotten the name associated with that beautiful face of hers—
"Clown!" he shouted (gaspedgiggled) with a snap of the fingers. The personification of madness instantly appeared behind his shoulder.
And behind his other shoulder there was the revving of a motor starting up,
and suddenly,
the air reeked of cheap whiskey.
A hint of recognition flashed through Justin's hazy eyes and he shifted out of the way just before a jagged blade of light came crashing down in the spot where his shoulder was milliseconds ago.
"Giriko…" he muttered.
"Tch—HEY ASSHOLE! How 'bout ya don't kill the girl before I can have my way with her?!"
"…you?"
The tone of recognition in the intruder's voice must have struck Giriko as funny because he stopped and stared at her. "Hmph!" He geared his head to the side. "Wait a minute…" Eyes narrowed. "Aren't you that girl?"
For the first time since she entered the hideout, Jeanne wore an expression of genuine shock. "What—what are you doing here?"
"Well shit, Sherlock. I dunno, maybe I'm just here to—… " Giriko cut off mid-sentence with the unfinished sarcasm hanging thick in the air. 'I'm here to fuck the girl before she's killed' didn't even sound right in his head, let alone to the person it was directed towards.
Pause.
In a surefire way to save face, Giriko whaled on Justin instead.
"…oi, an' all this time I was here thinkin' you were some gigantic virgin. Why didn't ya tell me you were fuckin' a hot chick, yeah?"
Justin's unsettling smile didn't waver. "Leave while you can, Giriko."
"Ooh, lover's spat? TELL IT TO SOMEONE WHO GIVES A FUCK! YOU AIN'T KILLIN' HER TILL I'M DONE WITH HER!"
"Why don't you ask if she'll consent to that first?"
"WAIT, NO, I got a swell idea! WHY DON'T I KILL YOU FIRST, AN' THEN—"
"…damn it, it's not like that, Sou."
For the second time, Giriko stopped in his rant mid-sentence. He looked at Jeanne dumbly, his mouth slightly agape. It had been a long time since somebody last called him that.
On the opposite side of the hallway, Justin's expression also flickered with confusion.
The weariness, the sadness—the overall tone of melancholy she had shown with Justin was now completely gone. Jeanne looked flustered.
"Don't get it wrong, Sou. I'm not his girl or anything like that. I was…"
Justin glanced away, his smile dissolving.
"…I was his meister."
