Hello again, all. As a nice little treat, I decided to have a short wait time. The next wait time will be fairly short too. How nice.
Karina (I assume that is your name) will be positively ecstatic to hear that the reason for this is, because I am as much a sadist as I am a masochist, the next two chapters will be a harmless, irrelevant filler episode focusing on the one and only Noise Marie, because I would be a fool not to drag out a cliffhanger as long as possible. Also, the quality of this two-part is rather bad, as I typed it in a hurry, so please forgive me. I'm merely buying time.
Also, to my two dear reviewers, feel free to drop me a line via pm at any time - it is summer and I am starved for company and social interaction.
Finally, to Hn, feel free to comment this time using your account (I promise I will not read any of your stories without permission, or Karina's either). Thanks so much for the compliments; both you and Karina are incredibly kind, and I doubt I am deserving of it, but it is for that reason that I so enthusiastically gush in the author's notes and continue to write and post this story.
Without further ado,
Interlude - Noise Marie
Noise Marie was fifteen, and on a trip home.
Of course, the fact that he was traveling near his birthplace was merely a coincidence. The purpose of his mission was to neutralize an area that had become suspiciously akuma-ridden, probably with the help of a broker - one who targets the relatives and loved ones of the recently deceased, and ensures that they call back an akuma, in exchange for payments from the Millennium Earl. They were easy to deal with, but difficult to catch, hence the Order sending Marie, whose battle skills could be improved upon, but whose mind could not.
The brief visit home enroute had been uneventful, with the typical gauntlet of over-fond aunts who somehow felt the need to pinch the cheek of a boy already far taller than them. His parents and older sisters had remained virtually unchanged from the day the General had visited, and his younger brother had merely become taller. Marie still had an edge on him, though, and the pout he'd given when he'd discovered that had showed that he hadn't changed much either. The whole family had chuckled.
But Marie was...not happy, but not sad to leave. He had no need to stay.
It had been pleasant to catch up, yes, but the air he'd breathed fine for more than a decade now seemed stifling. The few days he'd spent there, with his finder getting more and more on edge, had been enough.
For a moment, he'd wondered, before coming to a realization.
Nothing there had changed. Now that he thought about it, nothing should have changed since his birth, but for the presence of his brother.
...
His shoes now clacked down on the cobblestones of the main square of this new town, but he paid no mind to the contrast between the thud of boots on the old dirt road and the harsher noise now produced by the cobbles.
The time for that would be later.
For now, he had to determine a strategy. Though his Innocence wasn't easy to convert to combat mode, it was extraordinarily useful in detecting akuma. Most exorcists wore a disguise while traveling alone, and so posing as a busker was fairly simple. His coat and the soles of his shoes were worn enough to suggest a life spent on the road, sleeping wherever there was a flat piece of ground to be had.
To be fair, that was the case on some missions. But never mind that — the key was that no one paid much mind to an ageless-looking boy sitting between stone buildings on a blanket, plucking out a childhood tune on a makeshift harp of strings clumsily tied to a few pieces of wood. They ignored him, but regardless, the music found its way to their ears.
Sometimes, like here, he'd hum a counterpoint, covering up the strings. Sometimes, the akuma were smarter than he'd like.
From here on in, it was the task of the finder standing in the courtyard of a cafe to observe the reactions of the crowd.
...
The square and the crowd within its confines weren't so large as to be difficult to see across, but they were large enough for Marie to get a coin or two in the cap he placed in front of him. At one end, a simple gothic-style church overlooked the milling mass of humanity, complemented by three walls formed of shops, bakeries, and a few houses.
He looked around for a moment, admiring the carvings around the doors of the church, then quickly looked back at the instrument as a shadow moved in the corner of his eye. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. He hoped the akuma here wouldn't be too observant.
A woman passed close, fine-stitched shoes marking her as a merchant, or the wife of one. Over top of them, the end of a muslin skirt swayed. Akuma, not akuma. Akuma, not akuma.
There was a way to deal with her, regardless.
Marie nodded at her. A friendly gesture. Then he smiled, but added an edge of the hunger of a destitute. That normally did it. If she stayed a moment longer, he'd hold out a hand expectantly. Even the most fascinated of watchers balked at the thought of giving money.
But happily, she wandered back into the crowd as quickly as she'd materialized out of it.
...
The song echoed out against the stone, playing out for a few more measures before he switched to a more dance-like tune.
As he shifted his fingers, a quick glance up to the finder revealed that the crowd was about half-and-half — a broker was definitely facilitating the Earl in his work.
The akuma would have to be eliminated, but not before the broker was found. They were observant, knowing that their lives were worthless to those nominally in the service of God. Any disappearances and fights would be duly noted, and before the day was up the town would be missing a cleric or a doctor. Or, in one odd case, a dentist.
Marie continued to play after this conclusion, the reasons for which were threefold.
1. He would still need time to deduce the location of the broker.
2. Stopping too early would attract suspicion.
3. A little extra money was never a bad thing.
The finder had disappeared for now, likely to pay a visit to the office of the local bookkeeper, and then to any hospitals she could find. Marie would have a look at the church once he was done playing. If anyone saw the two of them together, they were both wandering workers, traveling together for protection. She was a seamstress and occasionally an accountant, he a busker and music teacher. The Order's training was fairly comprehensive for anyone wishing to specialize.
...
In fact, he'd often wondered why Beatrycze (for all her stocky build and six feet of height, nicknamed Trixie) was a finder in the first place. She was certainly skilled enough to be a tailor, and her aptitude for mathematics would have made her at home in the office of a Lord.
As with most finders, you didn't ask questions. Though Trixie had been a fairly regular companion for the years he'd been at the order, he knew her no more than he did his aunts.
Until they quit, finders were walking corpses. Any friendship or otherwise was discouraged.
In the end, because he couldn't let a question go without at least one explanation, he'd decided that she was as much a thrill seeker as were some of the younger exorcists: she took mostly one-exorcist missions, where the finder was essentially a bipedal telephone, compass, encyclopaedia, and work horse.
Perhaps a life behind a sewing machine or a set of books would never allow her peace.
Whatever the reason, Trixie was efficient, and they'd both run these types of mission before. As mentioned before, the difficulty was not in the planning, but in the execution.
One bullet was a death sentence, unless you resorted to self-mutilation. Akuma either had to be dealt with stealthily, in small groups, or all at once. From the looks of this town, and the number people wincing as they passed, Marie would be glad of his strings' ability to paralyze and isolate akuma. He'd probably do that, and get Trixie to round up as many as she could in barriers before wiping them out all at once.
But first, they'd kill the broker.
...
Theoretically, Innocence could not kill.
Realistically, the strings were strands of metal that could as easily garrotte a human as an akuma. This made many things tricky for equip-type users and some parasite-types. The young girl who had just joined — Antonina, her name was — had strangled a dog in self-defence with the Innocence in her hair before being brought to the order.
Poor Antonina. She loved to play the piano.
...
Now, that aside, would a town this small have a hospital? It was once far larger, but that was no guarantee the building would still be operating…
…
The strings played a last diminished chord as Marie decided that the broker was most likely working out of the church. The crowd in front had been losing its akuma concentration when he'd started playing, so likely there was just a high initial density to protect the church.
He bowed for posterity — no one had stayed to watch the simple boy with his simple instrument — and packed up his bag. No one wondered why a busker had a pack with enough pockets to hold five dollars' worth of fossilized penny candy. They just parted as he passed on his way through the church doors.
Actually, that last bit was untrue. The crowd parted for a short funeral procession of two mourners, and a coffin no more than four feet long.
Marie quickly stood off to the side, and considered thanking God for the luck of having someone die so conveniently. He decided against it. From what he'd seen and heard, God might not be appreciative of that particular wording.
...
The procession passed in short order, and the crowd flowed back over the path like the Red Sea.
Marie slid between bodies, apologizing for each stepped-on foot, and walked softly though the church's side door.
It was like entering another world, of silence and darkness.
From the grey-lit antechamber, he could hear the eulogist speaking on the virtues of the deceased, namely that her life had been devoid of sin, and so she was rewarded with an early ticket to heaven.
Marie hoped briefly that the eulogist was right, but from the one voice be heard sobbing, he doubted that the mourner would give up the chance to have the child back. They never did. They never do.
A pity.
He leaned against the wall, out of sight, and waited for the speech to end. If he could take care of the broker here, Trixie could search for data linking to the Earl.
He ran his fingers over the stone as a pastime. Not too finely carved…maybe limestone?
In half a decade, he would be able to identify the type of stone by touch.
He waited in the half-light. Marie was good at waiting.
Though, he never quite knew what he was waiting for.