Fic: Chef-d'œuvre de négligence
Title: Chef-d'œuvre de négligence
Rating: PG - Violence
Status: One-shot; complete
Characters: Allen Walker (Noah), Yuu Kanda (Noah) and Linali Lee
Notes: Yet another one-shot from my Noah-centric AUverse. Warning: Character death
Timeline: After Disharmony, before Sweet Path, Come Home
---
The bean sprout was still asleep, out like a log. He was lying on his side, looking serene, a bit too serene perhaps, and it took Kyuuya a tremendous ounce of self-control to not actually bite the bastard’s nose until he woke up. But that was that. It was one of the rare times that Kyuuya was feeling nice; so he slipped out of bed (with some difficulty; the sprout had his arm around his waist; Kyuuya had to phase through and put a pillow in his place) and left the bean sprout to sleep as much as he liked. He walked out of the room, as soundlessly as a cat.
He was bored.
He descended down the stairs and walked to the kitchen with a mind to prepare himself some bento (he didn’t trust the Akuma maids with that one; the annoying things couldn’t cook worth a damn) when Rhode rounded the corner. Kyuuya stopped walking, and so did Rhode. They stared at each other in silence for some tense minutes, until the Eldest grudgingly stepped aside to let him pass first.
Hah. Bitch.
Kyuuya was careful to flip his hair at Rhode as he passed; the gesture never failed to annoy people, especially coupled with the smirk he now wore. Not that Rhode could do anything to him, really. Trapping him in her Dream was an old trick; being trapped there for a year taught him all the weaknesses of that technique, and Kyuuya was a person whom same tricks didn’t work on. Rhode knew that too, so she had to relent. Unlike him, she knew nothing about how his powers worked; only Kyuuya had the answers, and he wasn’t about to share. Woe to anyone caught within the range of his Altered Perception and Distorted Reality skills.
The 13th Noah moved around the kitchen easily, taking out the ingredients he’d need for his sushi platter. Only there was no tuna, so one Akuma servant was given some coins to buy the freshest slab of the said fish from the market in the fastest speed it could manage.
---
He had a cap on, and he biked easily through the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, the carefully-wrapped bento strapped carefully behind his seat on the bicycle. It was a beautiful summer’s day in the Portuguese capital; the sky was pure, untainted blue, with few and faint wisps of cloud dotting it here and there. Noah he might be, but Kyuuya still knew how to appreciate nature’s simple beauty. The transformation and Falling didn’t take that from him at least.
He stopped by a bridge and got off his bike, and walked to the railing to admire the river flowing below him. People passed by, a few of them giving him appraising looks.
I wonder when the Earl would let me out on the field. I’m getting bored in the house. If it wasn’t for Christopher I’d have grabbed the Earl myself and demand he give me something to do.
Maybe he was feeling too nice that day. Kyuuya nodded and promised to himself that he’d better get the bean sprout a new neck tie when he got home.
---
It had been hard for everyone in the Order to recover from Komui Li’s death at the hands of the 14th Noah. With the loss of Allen Walker, the morale among the Finders, Exorcists and scientists have reached an all-time low, and it seemed that there was no chance of full recovery. Linali remembered it very well. First there was Kanda’s death, and it dealt them all a fatal blow. Allen took that one very hard; it was surprising how he had reacted. Since Kanda died, Allen had stopped smiling and talking to anyone except Lavi and Krory, and even then the two said that it was as if Allen too had lost the will to live.
They could only guess why Allen reacted as much as he did.
Lavi must have known the whole time, but the Bookman refused to answer questions, even until now.
Allen’s depression took its toll on him, until his sync rate dropped from optimum critical rate. Central even slave-drove the Science Department just to get him back to tip-top shape, but for all of their efforts, Allen’s sync rate never rose again.
And then the day came when the alarms rang out in the middle of the night, shocking them all.
Allen was gone.
Komui, her brother, was dead in a pool of his own blood in his own office.
Standing over him was a figure that nobody ever expected to see. Long, white hair, crisply-pressed suit, well-polished shoes, long white hair, the Seven Crosses of the Noah family. The Will of Noah only said one thing to the Exorcists who had first arrived on the scene.
“You killed him, so now I will punish you.”
Even now, Linali still woke up from nightmares of the 14th’s blank face, with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“You killed him, so now I will punish you.”
---
Innocence.
Kyuuya lifted his head, his nose taking in that familiar, hated scent. The eternal Rage of the Noah slowly kindled in his system as he sensed the presence of three Exorcists, one of them a critical rater, a general.
Letting out a slow, faint hiss as the hairs at the back of his neck rose, Kyuuya let the egg sushi he had been holding fall back into the bento box. There goes his appetite. The presence of Innocence never failed to put the Illusion of Noah into a foul mood. He turned his head just as the distinct white hood of a Finder peeked from the corner of a building some three hundred meters away from him.
Gray eyes changed into the color of molten gold as fair skin made way for this distinct grayish hue, as the Seven Crosses appeared on unmarred forehead.
It’s play time.
The world rippled, and color fled from everything as Lisbon distorted upon itself, the buildings warping and bending under the mercy of the Illusion of Noah.
---
They dropped dead, as easily as that. Linali braced herself, Dark Boots activated, as her two teammates died with apparently no reason at all as the world rippled and warped around them. Peaceful, beautiful sunny Lisbon disappeared, to be replaced by an unrecognizable wasteland of bent street lamps and a dreary, gray graveyard.
The Innocence fragments of her dead teammates floated off toward an outstretched hand she knew so well.
Kanda, Kanda as she remembered him in life, was standing in front of her, wearing that dark sleeveless shirt, that distinct, flaring pants and boots, with that patterned belt around his slim waist. She could see vividly the marks of Mugen on his left shoulder. The fragments swirled in the air and landed onto his waiting hand, which closed and easily shattered the things into a million shards of glowing green chips.
Linali shook - from anger or grief, she could not know. When Kanda turned to look at her, he tilted his head, the ends of his red hair tie dancing behind him. He smiled at her, that smile he had long forgotten, and the smile that froze Linali’s heart.
“Linali,” he said. “I am so very happy to see you.”
The female general shook her head and gave an almighty jump toward her enemy - enemy! Enemy! He’s an enemy now! - Dark Boots poised and ready for a deadly kick.
---
She was ten years old. He was waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d promised, bokken clutched in his hand. She had just come from one of her sync sessions which always left a limp in her walk for the first three hours. Her legs hurt, but in two years she had gotten used to the pain.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms and wiggled uncomfortably.
“Linali.”
It was a promise they made that they would grow their hair, and that nobody was going to cut it. If one of them ever got their hair shorn short, then the other would flick the unlucky person on the forehead twenty times.
He still smiled then. He smiled at her as she kissed his cheek, but the smile faded when he’d noticed the limp in her walk.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“It always hurts, Kanda.” She answered. “Let’s go spar?”
“But you’re limping. I can’t spar with you when you’re not in top shape.”
“I’m okay, Kanda! Let’s go~?”
He’d sighed at her and pinched her nose. “Don’t force yourself when you can’t! I’m the one who suffers Komui’s temper!”
They both laughed afterward.
---
She was fourteen. He was still waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d always did, only this time he had a real sword in his hand. She had just come from one of her sync sessions, but she no longer limped. It still hurt, though.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms and wiggled uncomfortably.
“…Linali.”
It was a promise they made that they should ask questions when the other got too quiet. He never neglected his half of the bargain. Sometimes, just sometimes, when her legs hurt terribly he would tell her to remove her shoes, and he would massage her legs and feet until the pain went away. While he worked on her feet she would be busy wailing to him about how the Crow members held her down again, about how boring Jerry’s lessons were getting. Sometimes she would ask him if she got fat, or if her breasts were a bit bigger now. She liked his frank honesty; he was the only guy who could tell her that she was fat and not get smashed into a bloody pulp with her boots.
She had finished telling him about a joke Komui shared, but only she got the real meaning of it, and ended up laughing alone. She blinked at him, and he blinked back at her.
“It’s a joke, mou.” She said, poking his forehead as he fitted her shoes back onto her feet again. “You’re supposed to laugh.”
“I didn’t get it.” He said bluntly.
---
She was sixteen. He was still waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d always did, only this time he had a real sword in his hand. She had just come from a mission with Allen, and frankly she was bursting with stories to tell him.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms but remained still.
“…Linali.”
She was too excited. She told him about the mission, about the new friend and comrade, a rather twitchy woman named Miranda Lotte, who could manipulate Time to some extent because of her Innocence. She also laughed shrilly and told him that she was probably starting to like Allen Walker - what with his gentleman’s manners, his easy humor and his enjoyable companionship. She also told him that their ages were just really close, never mind she was a year older, and she hoped that Allen liked her too. She was just about to tell him about their outstanding teamwork, but the way he looked at her, his sharp gray eyes unblinking, shut her up.
She sank into uncomfortable silence under his scrutiny. To lighten up the mood, she poked her hips.
“Do you think I’m fat?” she inquired.
“Who cares if you’re fat?” was what he replied as he rose and went back inside, leaving her alone and confused at his sudden hostility.
---
She’d always pinpointed that moment as the first crack on their friendship. After that Kanda had drifted away from her, and she dismissed it as sheer vanity on his part. He had always been difficult to crack, and she had to admit, her patience had worn thin. She spent more time with Allen and Lavi instead, and there she found the laughter and appreciation that Kanda failed to give her.
It wasn’t as if they’d stopped being friends, though. She just thought she couldn’t hang around him anymore - he was too gloomy anyway. Despite this, she still came back to him, sneaking into his Zen chambers whenever Leverrier was around and sitting down, because he never asked her questions, she was able to relax. Sometimes she still couldn’t help but rant and whine at him, but now he had stopped reacting completely, but she found she was okay with that. He was her screaming wall, and walls weren’t supposed to talk back, right?
---
Kyuuya tilted his head at the woman who lay immobile at his feet. He bent and picked her up by her hair.
“What? This is it? You’re already broken?” He spat. “You’re a strong woman and this is what you give me? What the fuck is this?” He shook her and gave her a slap, sending her landing a few feet from where he stood. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? GET UP, EXORCIST. GET UP. GET UP AND SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE GOT!”
He kicked her in the face, adding a fresh bruise on her cheek. He was trembling with anger - not just anger for Innocence, but anger for the whole Shitfuck load of them who had created him.
“GET UP, EXORCIST!”
He kicked her again in the stomach.
“GET UP, EXORCIST!”
He kept kicking her, like a boy would kick around a rock as he walked home from school.
“GET UP, EXORCIST! GET UP! GET UP! GET UP! HOW DARE YOU BREAK EASILY! HOW DARE YOU BREAK EASILY IN FRONT OF ME! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!”
She raised a shaking hand and touched his leg. She gripped his pant leg with what strength she still had, and forced her eyes to crack open and look at him.
“Kanda…I’m…I’m…I’m sorry…I’m so…sorry…so…sorry…”
“Sorry?” He picked her up by the hair again. “You’re sorry? Did I hear that right?”
“…I’m…sorry…I’m…so-…”
“Behold your creation, Exorcist.” Kyuuya snarled, making sure her eyes met his. With his free hand he raised his bangs, making sure the Seven Crosses were the last thing she would ever see. “Behold the monster you created with your own hands.”
He gripped her neck, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She gagged and sputtered and tried to struggle, but it only made him grip her some more, and her face changed from scarlet to purple rapidly.
Divine Punishment!
She glowed purple in his hands, struggled with what she had left in his grip. But reality rippled easily, bowing to his whim. Linali Lee disintegrated into a thousand black butterflies that fluttered frantically in all directions.
No apology, Exorcist. No amount of apology can bring Yuu Kanda back.
---
When Christopher heard that Kyuuya had decided not to come to the ball in Norway, he was quick to make his own excuse to be able to stay at home. He said that his face hurt. He begged Rhode that he could not be able to smile properly or dance with the guests, and she had taken pity on him and kissed him and convinced the rest of the family to leave him alone. He saw them at the door, waving merrily as they left, and Tyki Mikk had flipped him the finger for cheating yet again.
He closed the door and went up to Kyuuya’s room, but not after washing his face with soap and bleach.
“Kyuuya?”
The pretty, fourteen-year-old image of Yuu Kanda looked up from the copy of Othello that he had been reading. Christopher let himself in and sat down beside the boy.
“You okay…?” He asked, leaning over and kissing Kyuuya’s cheek. “If there’s anything you want to talk about…anything at all…”
“Why the fuck do you smell like bleach, bean sprout?” Kyuuya demanded.
“Long story.” Chris answered. He sniffed Kyuuya’s hair. “You…stink.”
“The stench of one Linali Lee. Urgh. I need another shower to get rid of it.”
He rose and made to go to the bathroom, dropping Othello to the floor. Christopher had his arms around his waist though.
“You killed her?”
“Just now.”
“Tell me?”
Kyuuya half-turned, blinking at the taller Noah that held him tightly. He recognized that glint in Christopher’s eyes.
Oho.
Rating: PG - Violence
Status: One-shot; complete
Characters: Allen Walker (Noah), Yuu Kanda (Noah) and Linali Lee
Notes: Yet another one-shot from my Noah-centric AUverse. Warning: Character death
Timeline: After Disharmony, before Sweet Path, Come Home
---
The bean sprout was still asleep, out like a log. He was lying on his side, looking serene, a bit too serene perhaps, and it took Kyuuya a tremendous ounce of self-control to not actually bite the bastard’s nose until he woke up. But that was that. It was one of the rare times that Kyuuya was feeling nice; so he slipped out of bed (with some difficulty; the sprout had his arm around his waist; Kyuuya had to phase through and put a pillow in his place) and left the bean sprout to sleep as much as he liked. He walked out of the room, as soundlessly as a cat.
He was bored.
He descended down the stairs and walked to the kitchen with a mind to prepare himself some bento (he didn’t trust the Akuma maids with that one; the annoying things couldn’t cook worth a damn) when Rhode rounded the corner. Kyuuya stopped walking, and so did Rhode. They stared at each other in silence for some tense minutes, until the Eldest grudgingly stepped aside to let him pass first.
Hah. Bitch.
Kyuuya was careful to flip his hair at Rhode as he passed; the gesture never failed to annoy people, especially coupled with the smirk he now wore. Not that Rhode could do anything to him, really. Trapping him in her Dream was an old trick; being trapped there for a year taught him all the weaknesses of that technique, and Kyuuya was a person whom same tricks didn’t work on. Rhode knew that too, so she had to relent. Unlike him, she knew nothing about how his powers worked; only Kyuuya had the answers, and he wasn’t about to share. Woe to anyone caught within the range of his Altered Perception and Distorted Reality skills.
The 13th Noah moved around the kitchen easily, taking out the ingredients he’d need for his sushi platter. Only there was no tuna, so one Akuma servant was given some coins to buy the freshest slab of the said fish from the market in the fastest speed it could manage.
---
He had a cap on, and he biked easily through the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, the carefully-wrapped bento strapped carefully behind his seat on the bicycle. It was a beautiful summer’s day in the Portuguese capital; the sky was pure, untainted blue, with few and faint wisps of cloud dotting it here and there. Noah he might be, but Kyuuya still knew how to appreciate nature’s simple beauty. The transformation and Falling didn’t take that from him at least.
He stopped by a bridge and got off his bike, and walked to the railing to admire the river flowing below him. People passed by, a few of them giving him appraising looks.
I wonder when the Earl would let me out on the field. I’m getting bored in the house. If it wasn’t for Christopher I’d have grabbed the Earl myself and demand he give me something to do.
Maybe he was feeling too nice that day. Kyuuya nodded and promised to himself that he’d better get the bean sprout a new neck tie when he got home.
---
It had been hard for everyone in the Order to recover from Komui Li’s death at the hands of the 14th Noah. With the loss of Allen Walker, the morale among the Finders, Exorcists and scientists have reached an all-time low, and it seemed that there was no chance of full recovery. Linali remembered it very well. First there was Kanda’s death, and it dealt them all a fatal blow. Allen took that one very hard; it was surprising how he had reacted. Since Kanda died, Allen had stopped smiling and talking to anyone except Lavi and Krory, and even then the two said that it was as if Allen too had lost the will to live.
They could only guess why Allen reacted as much as he did.
Lavi must have known the whole time, but the Bookman refused to answer questions, even until now.
Allen’s depression took its toll on him, until his sync rate dropped from optimum critical rate. Central even slave-drove the Science Department just to get him back to tip-top shape, but for all of their efforts, Allen’s sync rate never rose again.
And then the day came when the alarms rang out in the middle of the night, shocking them all.
Allen was gone.
Komui, her brother, was dead in a pool of his own blood in his own office.
Standing over him was a figure that nobody ever expected to see. Long, white hair, crisply-pressed suit, well-polished shoes, long white hair, the Seven Crosses of the Noah family. The Will of Noah only said one thing to the Exorcists who had first arrived on the scene.
“You killed him, so now I will punish you.”
Even now, Linali still woke up from nightmares of the 14th’s blank face, with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“You killed him, so now I will punish you.”
---
Innocence.
Kyuuya lifted his head, his nose taking in that familiar, hated scent. The eternal Rage of the Noah slowly kindled in his system as he sensed the presence of three Exorcists, one of them a critical rater, a general.
Letting out a slow, faint hiss as the hairs at the back of his neck rose, Kyuuya let the egg sushi he had been holding fall back into the bento box. There goes his appetite. The presence of Innocence never failed to put the Illusion of Noah into a foul mood. He turned his head just as the distinct white hood of a Finder peeked from the corner of a building some three hundred meters away from him.
Gray eyes changed into the color of molten gold as fair skin made way for this distinct grayish hue, as the Seven Crosses appeared on unmarred forehead.
It’s play time.
The world rippled, and color fled from everything as Lisbon distorted upon itself, the buildings warping and bending under the mercy of the Illusion of Noah.
---
They dropped dead, as easily as that. Linali braced herself, Dark Boots activated, as her two teammates died with apparently no reason at all as the world rippled and warped around them. Peaceful, beautiful sunny Lisbon disappeared, to be replaced by an unrecognizable wasteland of bent street lamps and a dreary, gray graveyard.
The Innocence fragments of her dead teammates floated off toward an outstretched hand she knew so well.
Kanda, Kanda as she remembered him in life, was standing in front of her, wearing that dark sleeveless shirt, that distinct, flaring pants and boots, with that patterned belt around his slim waist. She could see vividly the marks of Mugen on his left shoulder. The fragments swirled in the air and landed onto his waiting hand, which closed and easily shattered the things into a million shards of glowing green chips.
Linali shook - from anger or grief, she could not know. When Kanda turned to look at her, he tilted his head, the ends of his red hair tie dancing behind him. He smiled at her, that smile he had long forgotten, and the smile that froze Linali’s heart.
“Linali,” he said. “I am so very happy to see you.”
The female general shook her head and gave an almighty jump toward her enemy - enemy! Enemy! He’s an enemy now! - Dark Boots poised and ready for a deadly kick.
---
She was ten years old. He was waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d promised, bokken clutched in his hand. She had just come from one of her sync sessions which always left a limp in her walk for the first three hours. Her legs hurt, but in two years she had gotten used to the pain.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms and wiggled uncomfortably.
“Linali.”
It was a promise they made that they would grow their hair, and that nobody was going to cut it. If one of them ever got their hair shorn short, then the other would flick the unlucky person on the forehead twenty times.
He still smiled then. He smiled at her as she kissed his cheek, but the smile faded when he’d noticed the limp in her walk.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“It always hurts, Kanda.” She answered. “Let’s go spar?”
“But you’re limping. I can’t spar with you when you’re not in top shape.”
“I’m okay, Kanda! Let’s go~?”
He’d sighed at her and pinched her nose. “Don’t force yourself when you can’t! I’m the one who suffers Komui’s temper!”
They both laughed afterward.
---
She was fourteen. He was still waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d always did, only this time he had a real sword in his hand. She had just come from one of her sync sessions, but she no longer limped. It still hurt, though.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms and wiggled uncomfortably.
“…Linali.”
It was a promise they made that they should ask questions when the other got too quiet. He never neglected his half of the bargain. Sometimes, just sometimes, when her legs hurt terribly he would tell her to remove her shoes, and he would massage her legs and feet until the pain went away. While he worked on her feet she would be busy wailing to him about how the Crow members held her down again, about how boring Jerry’s lessons were getting. Sometimes she would ask him if she got fat, or if her breasts were a bit bigger now. She liked his frank honesty; he was the only guy who could tell her that she was fat and not get smashed into a bloody pulp with her boots.
She had finished telling him about a joke Komui shared, but only she got the real meaning of it, and ended up laughing alone. She blinked at him, and he blinked back at her.
“It’s a joke, mou.” She said, poking his forehead as he fitted her shoes back onto her feet again. “You’re supposed to laugh.”
“I didn’t get it.” He said bluntly.
---
She was sixteen. He was still waiting for her on the rooftop like what he’d always did, only this time he had a real sword in his hand. She had just come from a mission with Allen, and frankly she was bursting with stories to tell him.
“Kanda!”
She’d hugged him from behind, the beautiful strands of her black-green hair mingling with the pretty ones of his blue-black locks. He stiffened noticeably in her arms but remained still.
“…Linali.”
She was too excited. She told him about the mission, about the new friend and comrade, a rather twitchy woman named Miranda Lotte, who could manipulate Time to some extent because of her Innocence. She also laughed shrilly and told him that she was probably starting to like Allen Walker - what with his gentleman’s manners, his easy humor and his enjoyable companionship. She also told him that their ages were just really close, never mind she was a year older, and she hoped that Allen liked her too. She was just about to tell him about their outstanding teamwork, but the way he looked at her, his sharp gray eyes unblinking, shut her up.
She sank into uncomfortable silence under his scrutiny. To lighten up the mood, she poked her hips.
“Do you think I’m fat?” she inquired.
“Who cares if you’re fat?” was what he replied as he rose and went back inside, leaving her alone and confused at his sudden hostility.
---
She’d always pinpointed that moment as the first crack on their friendship. After that Kanda had drifted away from her, and she dismissed it as sheer vanity on his part. He had always been difficult to crack, and she had to admit, her patience had worn thin. She spent more time with Allen and Lavi instead, and there she found the laughter and appreciation that Kanda failed to give her.
It wasn’t as if they’d stopped being friends, though. She just thought she couldn’t hang around him anymore - he was too gloomy anyway. Despite this, she still came back to him, sneaking into his Zen chambers whenever Leverrier was around and sitting down, because he never asked her questions, she was able to relax. Sometimes she still couldn’t help but rant and whine at him, but now he had stopped reacting completely, but she found she was okay with that. He was her screaming wall, and walls weren’t supposed to talk back, right?
---
Kyuuya tilted his head at the woman who lay immobile at his feet. He bent and picked her up by her hair.
“What? This is it? You’re already broken?” He spat. “You’re a strong woman and this is what you give me? What the fuck is this?” He shook her and gave her a slap, sending her landing a few feet from where he stood. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? GET UP, EXORCIST. GET UP. GET UP AND SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE GOT!”
He kicked her in the face, adding a fresh bruise on her cheek. He was trembling with anger - not just anger for Innocence, but anger for the whole Shitfuck load of them who had created him.
“GET UP, EXORCIST!”
He kicked her again in the stomach.
“GET UP, EXORCIST!”
He kept kicking her, like a boy would kick around a rock as he walked home from school.
“GET UP, EXORCIST! GET UP! GET UP! GET UP! HOW DARE YOU BREAK EASILY! HOW DARE YOU BREAK EASILY IN FRONT OF ME! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!”
She raised a shaking hand and touched his leg. She gripped his pant leg with what strength she still had, and forced her eyes to crack open and look at him.
“Kanda…I’m…I’m…I’m sorry…I’m so…sorry…so…sorry…”
“Sorry?” He picked her up by the hair again. “You’re sorry? Did I hear that right?”
“…I’m…sorry…I’m…so-…”
“Behold your creation, Exorcist.” Kyuuya snarled, making sure her eyes met his. With his free hand he raised his bangs, making sure the Seven Crosses were the last thing she would ever see. “Behold the monster you created with your own hands.”
He gripped her neck, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She gagged and sputtered and tried to struggle, but it only made him grip her some more, and her face changed from scarlet to purple rapidly.
Divine Punishment!
She glowed purple in his hands, struggled with what she had left in his grip. But reality rippled easily, bowing to his whim. Linali Lee disintegrated into a thousand black butterflies that fluttered frantically in all directions.
No apology, Exorcist. No amount of apology can bring Yuu Kanda back.
---
When Christopher heard that Kyuuya had decided not to come to the ball in Norway, he was quick to make his own excuse to be able to stay at home. He said that his face hurt. He begged Rhode that he could not be able to smile properly or dance with the guests, and she had taken pity on him and kissed him and convinced the rest of the family to leave him alone. He saw them at the door, waving merrily as they left, and Tyki Mikk had flipped him the finger for cheating yet again.
He closed the door and went up to Kyuuya’s room, but not after washing his face with soap and bleach.
“Kyuuya?”
The pretty, fourteen-year-old image of Yuu Kanda looked up from the copy of Othello that he had been reading. Christopher let himself in and sat down beside the boy.
“You okay…?” He asked, leaning over and kissing Kyuuya’s cheek. “If there’s anything you want to talk about…anything at all…”
“Why the fuck do you smell like bleach, bean sprout?” Kyuuya demanded.
“Long story.” Chris answered. He sniffed Kyuuya’s hair. “You…stink.”
“The stench of one Linali Lee. Urgh. I need another shower to get rid of it.”
He rose and made to go to the bathroom, dropping Othello to the floor. Christopher had his arms around his waist though.
“You killed her?”
“Just now.”
“Tell me?”
Kyuuya half-turned, blinking at the taller Noah that held him tightly. He recognized that glint in Christopher’s eyes.
Oho.