elarawritingtrash

[elarawritingtrash]

The butterfly mask mentioned in this One Piece story! At least how I intended it to be. Actually an edited version of this mask.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: One Piece

Written in 2016/2018

Summary: A girl from our world literally falls into the One Piece world. Seventeen years old, without the usual One Piece absurd physical capabilities, she... does her best.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, implied/threatened sexual assault

                                                       Part 1

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

In a horrifically anime-esque beginning, I was late. Not to school, though; to my part-time after-school-and-on-the-weekends volunteering job at the hospital. Because I was gonna be a doctor. Yeah. In ten years once I’d finished all of the schooling and my residency, anyway. Volunteering at the hospital was practically a requirement, because, with all of the competition I knew I’d have getting into medical school, I needed my résumé to be the best it could be.

But it had been storming hard last night, which had knocked out the power at my house, which had reset my alarm clock, which had caused the alarm to not go off. So it was obscenely early on Saturday, I was late, and I was running through the rain to get to the train because I didn’t have a car. I was going to be soaked when I got to the hospital – at least I wasn’t wearing my scrubs yet, so I could change when I got there.

That was about the only even marginally good thing about the day so far. And, ugh, there was a puddle in the way. It was in a large dip in the ground, far too wide for me to go around and too long for me to jump. I’d have to go through it. It didn’t look too deep, but it was probably deep enough to submerge the entirety of my feet, which would make my shoes and socks all soggy. I didn’t even have any replacements.

Ughhh.

There was a certain way it was supposed to go: I slosh my way through the irritating puddle, continue to the hospital, and have to deal with squishy socks and shoes for the rest of the day.

Because karma hates me, that was not what happened.

Instead, my first step landed in the supposedly shallow puddle – and kept going. With me unable to stop without steady footing – which, with one of my feet still falling, I certainly didn’t have – my momentum carried me face-first into the puddle. What might have been a very painful meeting between face and ground instead found me fully submerged in the dirty rainwater.

Down, down, down, I went. It must have been more than my own height deep. I knew that these were a thing, ‘puddles’ that were actually water-filled holes deep enough for people to disappear into them – there were videos of it happening on the Internet, after all. I just hadn’t expected it to ever happen to me.

Keeping my eyes closed to avoid getting who-knew-what in them, I thrashed my way to the surface. Once I broke the surface of the water, I took a deep, grateful breath of fresh air, then, my eyes still closed, flailed around in the puddle in the hopes of finding an edge. Half a minute, far more swimming than the relatively small in diameter sinkhole should have allowed me, and the realization that I was being moved around by a current later, I opened my eyes regardless of whatever might be in the water.

What I saw was definitely not the city I had been in previously. It wasn’t even a city. It wasn’t even land!

There was water as far as I could see. It was stormy and raining like it had been before, but I was in a much larger body of water. There were large waves splashing around me, dragging me around inside them. It was a miracle I hadn’t been submerged by one of them while my eyes were closed.

What?

I spun from side to side frantically, confused and bewildered and panicking and all of those other synonyms to the same thing: I had no idea what was going on. In most directions, there was just more of the same, more wave-filled water.

Finally, after spinning around almost completely, I saw something different: a ship, sailing towards me, and land behind it. The ship was kind of odd, wood instead of metal, and it had actual sails. A small, distant, oddly calm part of my mind wondered if there were actually still ships with sails. I had thought that we’d mostly moved on to engines, but apparently not.

Too relieved to question it further and too confused to care, I swam in the direction of the approaching boat, keeping a tight grasp on my messenger bag as I did. Everything I’d had in it was probably ruined, but I didn’t want to lose it. After a couple of minutes of swimming towards the ship as it sailed towards me, wherein it was doing the majority of the getting-closer, I noticed something… odd. Well, odder; it was already pretty odd. The ship was flying a black flag.

But isn’t that…?

Once I got a little closer, I was able to distinguish the flag a little better. It was, in fact, a black flag…

…with a skull and crossbones on it.

I stopped swimming, startled.

Pirates?

But that was ridiculous; even if pirates were still a thing, the skull and crossbones flag (a Jolly Roger?) hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. It couldn’t be real pirates.

…That was a lot of work to go to for a cosplay, though.

As I got even closer to the (pirate?) ship, I noticed that there was a weird, white line around the skull. Kind of like the outline of a half-circle, disappearing off the bottom of the flag.

That was weird, too. Not an important kind of weird, but weird.

Well and truly wigged out, I stayed where I was instead of continuing in the direction of the ship. To my chagrin, however, it continued getting closer at about the same speed. My swimming had apparently not been effective at all.

As freaked out as I was by the weird ship, I didn’t actually have a choice. It was either the ship or the land I could see behind it, which, judging by how quickly I’d been swimming before, would take quite a while to get to. Plus, I’d just fallen into a puddle and ended up in the ocean. The weirdness of the ship was nothing compared to that.

It turned out that I didn’t have much choice either way, though. The pirate ship continued sailing in my direction – very perfectly in my direction, and I scrambled to get out of the way before it hit me. I didn’t know what would happen to something hit by a ship in water, but I didn’t want to find out.

I did manage to get out of its path, thankfully. As I’d moved, the sailors on the ship had apparently noticed me, and a giant uproar started on the ship. Somebody dove off the ship into the water and swam up to me.

He didn’t bother with words or anything, merely grabbed me around the waist with one arm and started swimming back to his ship. His one-armed, dragging-a-person speed was faster than my alone, using-both-arms speed.

Too overwhelmed by the WTF-ery of the situation, however, I couldn’t handle his brusque, potentially pirate-y behavior. A small, logical, calm part of my brain noted that his briskness could only be because we were in the water, I probably seemed to have been drowning, and he wanted to get back to his ship quickly. All logical reasons.

The majority of my brain, illogical and far from calm, screamed that this was a kidnapping, he was kidnapping me, I should be freaking out, freak out!

So I… freaked out.

“What – what are you doing?” I asked, well aware that I was being loud and shrill and unable to help it. I started squirming and thrashing, kicking and shoving at him in an attempt to get free. “Let me go!”

But the (pirate!) man just ignored me, not responding to my words or my actions. His one arm was apparently stronger than all of me, as my attempts to get free accomplished exactly nothing.

Relatively quickly, we made it to his ship, and the others threw down a rope. Rather than scale it one-handed while carrying me as I’d been a little afraid of, the man tied the rope around my waist. Still ignoring my verbal and physical protests while doing so, of course. As soon as the rope was secure, I found myself being lifted out of the water.

I yelped despite myself and stopped trying to untie the rope in favor of holding on to it for dear life. As it turned out, the weird, wooden, old-timey, Jolly Roger-flying, actual-cannon-possessing ship was actually rather tall. Being lifted that high by nothing but a rope was really scary, okay.

The men on the ship dragged me on board and untied the rope from my waist. There were a lot of men on deck, all of them big, muscular, grimy, and particularly ugly. Seriously, they all had disproportionate limbs and other features; they were ugly in a way I’d never seen before. I was dimly aware of them dropping the rope back over the side as one man, as ugly as the rest and with a relatively impressive, unkempt, beard stepped right up into my space. He grabbed my chin with one hand before I could back away.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” he said, disgusting, rancid breath right in my face.

The man didn’t seem to expect a response, continuing, “An attempted escapee, hmm? Hah!” With that sharp bark of laughter, which caused me to flinch, he stepped back. “I, Captain Getsu of the New Moon Pirates, have never allowed anyone to escape, and that has not changed! This little drowned rat will meet the same fate as the other inhabitants of Royal Peaks Island!”

The crew cheered as Getsu drew a sword from his waist and pointed it at me. The tip of it brushed against my throat, opening a thin cut. Ow! I clapped my hands against the wound instinctively.

Wait, what?

I shrieked and stumbled backwards away from him. Heck no! I was not going to get stabbed. I’d rather take my chances with the ocean despite my crappy swimming ability. I didn’t make it very far, though, before I bumped into the guy who’d retrieved me from the water.

He grabbed me before I could flinch away. Even with one hand, he was stronger than I was – annoyingly enough.

“You know, Captain,” he said idly, drawing a hand through my still-wet, scraggly hair. I tried and failed to squirm away because wow creepy. “She’s not too bad lookin’ underneath all that drowned rat.”

Oh no. No, no, nope.

He was a creep. I felt severely creeped on.

“Let me go!” I said again, thrashing and fighting to get away from him. It was to no avail, however, as his grip didn’t budge in the slightest. “Let me go!”

Getsu gave me a contemplative look, sweeping his eyes down and up my body lecherously. I was suddenly glad I was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt rather than anything more revealing. “That’s true, hmm,” he murmured, lowering his sword. “It’s not too common to find a looker like this ‘un in East Blue.”

East Blue? He’d said it like it was a place, but I’d never – wait. I had heard of it; it was just… fictional. It was one of the oceans of the One Piece world. But that was ridiculous; One Piece was an anime/manga. I couldn’t be in the East Blue of One Piece.

But then again… puddle-portal. Plus it would explain the pirates and their old-timey pirate ship.

Well. All right then.

It didn’t even matter what I was in anyway; whether I was in my world or the One Piece world didn’t change the fact that I’d been captured by pirates. Even worse, pirates who were apparently actual bad guys, rather than the mostly-good-guyness of, say, Luffy’s crew.

What do I do? I wondered silently, panicking.

And ohhh, crap, crap crap I hadn’t been paying attention and I’d missed the end of their conversation. Now I had no idea what was going on because I was an idiot. My attempts to get away failed utterly as one of the other crew members tied my hands together at the wrists with rope.

“Stop it! Let me go!” My continued protests fell on deaf ears as they tied my ankles together. I couldn’t protest anymore after that, however, as they shoved a piece of horrifically dirty cloth in my mouth and tied it around my head, effectively gagging me.

The guy who’d retrieved me shoved me forward, and, my ankles tied together and unable to separate, I had to hop a couple awkward steps forward to stay standing. Thankfully (?), rather than spend the time forcing me to do that to get wherever he wanted me, the guy just picked me up under one arm. He then dropped me into a corner made by the design of the cabin, where I collapsed unceremoniously onto my side.

The crew then proceeded to ignore me.

What the…?

I struggled to get upright. With my hands and legs tied as they were, however, the best I could manage was to get to my knees. But, since it was more dignified than being on my side, I stayed in that position. Surprisingly well-protected by the walls of the cabin as I was, at least I wasn’t getting sprayed with sea water anymore.

But I was far from safe. The pirates had just been planning to kill me, had just been commenting on my physical attributes; I didn’t trust for a second that they’d suddenly had a change of heart. Plus, the fact that I was tied up made it rather obvious I was a prisoner.

Since I had the time, I quietly had a panic attack. Because what was going on how had I fallen into a puddle and landed in a different world why was I kidnapped by pirates what.

When I could breathe again, I forced myself to think. There was no point in freaking out; I needed to figure out how I was going to get out of this. With my arms and legs bound, I couldn’t exactly just jump off the ship. I could probably make it to the edge, true; however, since I wouldn’t be able to swim, I’d just drown. If they didn’t fish me back out first.

Belatedly, I realized that I still had my messenger bag. They’d never taken it.

…

Idiots.

Not that I was complaining, of course. I had a knife in my bag. Of course, I still needed a plan for after I cut the rope tying my hands and legs. It wouldn’t help anything if I couldn’t actually get away. But at the same time, I really didn’t like being unable to fight back. Not that I could with my hands and legs free either, though…

I was pretty close to the cabin door. It might be possible for me to hide in there and lock them out. Except that wouldn’t really help; it was more of a stalling method. And stalling for what, exactly? I had no guarantee anyone would come. But, even so, it might be better to have something to do when they stopped ignoring me, even if it wasn’t quite an exit strategy.

With that in mind, I maneuvered my bag into my lap so it hid my hands, then went hunting through it for the switchblade I knew was in there. Once I found it, I flipped it open. The locking gear to hold it open clicked loudly into place, and I froze for a moment. None of them seemed to have heard it, so I continued.

I awkwardly twisted the knife around so that I could slide the blade against the ropes around my wrist. Hopefully I wouldn’t accidentally cut myself, since I couldn’t see it. The rope was very thick, it turned out after a couple minutes of attempting fruitlessly to saw through it. I couldn’t even tell if I was making any progress at all.

“A ship!” came the sudden shout from the – what was it called? Eagle nest? Hawk nest? Whatever, the lookout position. “There’s a ship coming this way!”

The pirates all snapped to attention.

“They’re flying a Jolly Roger!” the lookout reported.

“A pirate crew, hmm,” Getsu muttered to himself. Then, louder, “Prepare for battle!”

Well, okay. That seemed rude. I hoped the other crew won. And were nicer. It would be just awesome to be saved from my captors only to be captured again.

The pirates all retrieved weapons – mostly guns and swords – and some of them got to work loading canons. Once everything was finished, there was a long period of waiting. To make sure the other ship was in range, probably.

After what felt like a long time, they started firing their cannons. Cannons were, it seemed, actually very loud in reality. By now, our ship and theirs were apparently close enough that I could hear the other crew shouting even over the cannons. I couldn’t see what was going on, though.

The first round of cannon fire ceased, and confused, angry muttering started up in the crew.

“What the f –“

“What just ha –“

“Did they just –“

Then Getsu spoke, sounding weirdly unnerved himself. “Don’t get discouraged! Keep firing! The New Moon Pirates have never lost before, hmm? We won’t start now!”

The pirates cheered in response, though it was much weaker than the last time.

The cannon fire resumed.

I wondered idly what had freaked out the pirates so much. Knowing the One Piece world, the other crew had probably knocked all of the cannons out of the air before they could be hit. Luffy’s crew loved doing that.

I kept sawing at the ropes with my knife. Hopefully, whoever won, I could get away while they were distracted. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be making progress very quickly, and I didn’t know how long this battle would go on for; it wouldn’t do much good if the battle ended before I could get free.

Finally, the other ship came into view. It was smaller than the New Moon Pirates’ ship, but newer-looking and cleaner-looking. It didn’t have a figurehead (that was what they were called, right?), and its flag was, obviously, a skull and crossbones. Theirs was apparently overlaid on a… spade? Like the card suit? And had a weird line horizontally across the skull, right above its eyes, with two blue… balls? Right above the line.

Well. That was possibly even stranger than the New Moon Pirates’ Jolly Roger – which, I now realized, was supposed to represent a new moon. It just didn’t work very well.

The ship continued its steady approach. The New Moon Pirates reloaded their cannons and fired yet again. At least I’d get to see how the ship was completely undamaged despite the barrage of cannonballs.

The cannonballs flew towards the other ship. People started jumping off the ship to attack the cannonballs, causing them to blow up midair and somehow not getting hurt as they did – not to mention the insane, impossible heights they had to be jumping to manage it. They did it at different times and places, so I couldn’t tell how many there were total. A couple cannonballs blew up without any visible interference. A long-range member, maybe? Or just faulty cannonballs – I didn’t know enough about them to know if that was possible.

I don’t know why I’m surprised, I thought. I really didn’t. At least it was all but confirmed, now, that I was in One Piece.

As their cannonballs continued getting destroyed, the New Moon Pirates got more and more freaked out and worried. The other ship continued approaching.

“Keep at it!” Getsu ordered. “They’ll make a mistake eventually!”

Spitefully, I hoped that they didn’t. Maybe the other crew would be worse and I’d regret it, but I wanted them to win.

In the meantime, I continued making no progress on cutting through my ropes. And my legs were starting to hurt from the way I was half-kneeling half-sitting on them.

The New Moon Pirates, for their part, continued getting more and more frantic.

“What the f –“

“What kind of monsters –“

“No way they’re human!”

“This is getting ridiculous, fu –“

In a climactic turn of events, three people from the other crew jumped off their ship, deflected the most recent batch of cannonballs – and landed on this ship instead of their own. They were all men: a huge man sporting impressive sideburns and, in place of a left arm, a machine gun; a relatively normal sized man wearing a domino mask and an open jacket with no shirt, revealing his not unimpressive abs; and another normal sized man, this one somewhat younger than the others, wearing a bright orange hat and a button-up shirt with none of the buttons done.

I squinted at the youngest, sure that I recognized him. He looked incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.

The New Moon Pirates got off a couple more cannon shots before catching up and turning to fight the three men. The cannonballs, however, all exploded mid-air; this time, I thought I caught bullets traveling through the air to hit them.

Horrifyingly quickly, the three men obliterated the forces of the New Moon Pirates. Within ten minutes – probably even less – all of the New Moon Pirates, with the exception of Getsu, were on the floor, the luckiest of them still conscious to groan in pain. Or maybe they were unluckiest?

Getsu and the youngest man started fighting; although it was definitely the longest fight any of the New Moon Pirates had put up, it seemed obvious that the young man was better. He had a wide, cheerful grin on his face as he dodged around Getsu’s sword strikes, occasionally dancing close enough to throw a punch. So far, Getsu had managed to block all of the punches with the side of his blade, but he was being overwhelmed quickly. Every time the younger man landed a hit on his sword, Getsu’s arms buckled, implying that the other man was a lot stronger than he looked.

The other two men didn’t interfere, instead standing back and watching. Both looked apathetic, and maybe a bit exasperated, as though tired of their crew member's antics.

Sideburns, apparently bored with watching the fight, glanced around and met eyes with me. He looked surprised, the first expression I’d seen on him, and hurried in my direction with surprising speed, skirting the edge of Getsu and the other man’s fight.

I panicked, stupidly and without reason. As Sideburns got close, remaining hand (not the gun) already reaching towards me, I reared backwards – ow, my legs – and dragged my hands from my bag, brandishing my knife threateningly at him.

He stopped in his tracks, switching to holding his hands out in front of himself harmlessly and backing away a couple of steps.

Belatedly, I flipped the knife around in my hands so that it actually pointed at him. My hands, I noticed, were already shaking, because I was a weak seventeen-year-old with too few muscles to hold the weight of my arms up this long. Or maybe it was because I was freaking out. Heck if I knew.

Also, the rope was actually most of the way cut. If I’d had a couple more minutes, I would have been able to cut it completely.

Behind Sideburns, Getsu went flying backwards as the other man finally landed a punch straight to his face. Getsu didn’t get up again, apparently out for the count after a single hit. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know exactly how strong the young man was.

“Hey, Aggie 68, what’s up –“ the young man started as he turned towards us. Once he saw, well, the situation, he cut himself off. “Oh,” he uttered.

The man with the domino mask turned too, and his eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

It was stupid to hold a knife on Sideburns, I knew; I didn’t even know if they were bad guys or not yet. Plus, if they were, it would probably just annoy them… It wasn’t like I actually had a chance of fighting them, anyway.

Yet I still couldn’t get my shaking arms to lower the knife.

The youngest man and Domino-Mask-Guy both approached. Domino-Mask-Guy stopped a couple of steps behind Sideburns, while the youngest continued a couple of steps closer than him. Almost without my doing, my arms turned to point the knife at him instead.

He crouched, holding his hands, open and empty, out harmlessly. “Hey there,” he said softly, carefully. I resented the treatment a little, but, well. With the way I was acting, it made sense. “I’m Ace. We’re not gonna hurt you, okay? You’re safe now.”

…Huh?

I stared blankly at him for a moment, the epiphany smacking me in the face that he was Portgas D. Ace. Luffy’s older brother! Well, adoptive – whatever. No wonder he looked familiar. So. One Piece universe. Definitely confirmed.

After another moment of glancing back and forth between Ace’s patient, expectant face and my knife, I forced my arms to curl in, lowering the knife. Ace beamed at me, looking unreasonably happy about something so small. He leaned forward, dorkily scooting closer without standing up straight when he couldn’t reach, and carefully took my knife. That – well. That was fair.

Then, still ever-so-careful – I was a little amazed the other two men hadn’t said anything yet – Ace reached to untie the cloth from around my head one handed, still holding my knife in the other. Once it was untied, I let it drop from my mouth – tossing my head so that it would land to the side of me.

Ace grabbed the rope around my wrists, his eyebrows raising a little for a moment before he cut straight through what was left, using my knife. I was a little jealous – he’d managed the same amount of progress in, like, a second, that had taken me several minutes. He gave my knife a funny look, then ran his thumb along the blade.

After examining his perfectly uninjured thumb, he turned back to me. “This knife sucks,” he said.

I let out a startled laugh. “Well –“ I coughed, realizing very abruptly how dry my mouth and throat were, and had to take a moment. “Well, I wasn’t really planning to have to use it, I guess.”

Ace grinned at me for a moment, apparently pleased with the pathetic retort. “What's your name?” he asked.

"Alyssa," I said honestly. My name didn't matter much. Hopefully it didn't, like, stand out as a name that didn't actually exist or something. That would be horrible.

Ace nodded. "Nice to meet you," he said politely. Somehow, it came across as rote, something he'd learned to say.

I supposed that made sense, given his backstory; hadn't Makino had to teach him to be polite?

"I wish I could say the same, but, well," I said awkwardly.

Fortunately, it seemed to surprise another laugh out of Ace.

"Yeah, no, I can see that," he said. He sobered. "What happened? Is there somewhere we can take you?"

I faltered for a moment. I flailed mentally - which direction did people supposedly look when they were lying? I didn't remember, so I just looked down.  I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, after all. But then, Getsu had given me the perfect lie, hadn’t he?

Thankfully, Ace spent a moment cutting through the rope around my ankles with enviable ease despite still using my knife, giving me time to get my story straight.

“I’m from Royal Peaks Island,” I said – lied, shifting into a more comfortable position. Ace nodded, and I continued, indicating the fallen crewmembers, “They… attacked us.” Horribly guilty about lying and just wanting to get the false story over with, I spoke quickly, “I – I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get to any of the ships in the port without going past them, so I – stupidly, I guess – just tried to hide in the ocean, but I guess I was unlucky, and they passed by me when they were leaving and they must have seen me, and…”

I took a breath, aware that I was rambling, and finished awkwardly, guiltily, “I don’t even know what happened to anybody else.”

That was true, at least. I really didn’t know what had happened to the real inhabitants of Royal Peaks Island. Getsu had implied that they were all dead, which was horrible. I didn’t want an entire island of people to be dead, but… if any of them were alive, they would know that I was lying. That just made me feel worse.

Ace nodded again, looking solemn. He stood and stepped back, offering me a hand. When I took his hand, he pulled me to my feet and calmly let me use his hand to steady myself when I stumbled.

“Well, we have to go check it out,” he said authoritatively.

Domino-Mask-Guy smirked. “And that has nothing to do with the fact that that’s where we were going anyway, right?”

“Of course not,” Ace sniffed with a baleful look at him. He turned to me. “Want to come with?”

Well, it was either go with them or stay with the New Moon Pirates. Huh. Hard choice, that.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

Ace nodded back, then turned and walked away without another word, obviously expecting me – and his crewmembers – to follow. We did.

Their ship had sidled up beside the New Moon Pirates’ in the meantime, and the fourth man I’d seen was standing at the edge of it. Ace and the two others jumped across the gap to it easily – which made sense; they’d jumped a lot further before. But it was a big gap, maybe ten or fifteen feet. There was no way I could jump it.

“Umm. I can’t… really jump that far?” I called to them, twisting the strap of my bag awkwardly. Ace never had given my knife back, I noted.

They turned back, looking comically surprised.

“Oh, really?” Ace asked.

He jumped back across easily. “Is it okay if I…” he trailed off, holding his arms out towards me in an obvious message.

I glanced from him to the gap and back. I sighed.

“It’s fine,” I said.

Ace grabbed me around the waist, and the next moment I found myself midair. I very carefully didn’t make any embarrassing noises.

We landed more lightly on the other side than I would have expected. I let out a quiet breath of relief for that as Ace stepped away to a more respectable distance.

I got my first look at the fourth member of the crew, the one who'd stayed to protect their ship. Another man, of course; that wasn't even a surprise, although I was personally disappointed by the lack of bad-A pirate women. He was very tall and thin and carried an awful, old-timey rifle.

He gave me a curious look, and I shrunk automatically to hide behind Ace. It seemed these ones were actually kind-of-good-guys like the Straw Hats, since I doubted Ace would have been the captain of ordinary evil pirates, but they were scary, okay. Except for Ace himself, who had a pretty normal character design thanks to being main character adjacent, they kind of had typical minor bad guy one-off pirate designs.

"What's going on, Captain?" he asked

Ace glanced at me. I didn't know what I looked like, maybe like a sad drowned kitten, but Ace looked surprisingly sympathetic.

"It seems that those pirates--" he jerked his head to indicate the ship of the New Moon Pirates, "-- attacked Royal Peaks Island. This is Alyssa, who they... abducted instead of killing."

I couldn't help but look down at my feet, unable to meet any of their eyes as my lie was repeated. Even though I had no other choice, I found myself wishing I hadn't agreed to go with them to the island. There, we would either find people who would contradict my story or we would find an entire massacred island.

It was awful, but I found myself selfishly hoping for the latter.

The tall man frowned. "How horrible," he murmured. He circled around Ace to get to me, but stayed a respectful distance away. "My name is Mihar."

"Oh yeah," Ace said as though just realizing something. I stepped away from him as he turned to face me. That was a little too close to bare chest for me. He gestured to Domino-Mask-Guy. "That's Masked Deuce--" a gesture towards Sideburns, "-- and that's Aggie 68. And I'm Portgas D. Ace!"

It was a little weird, he introduced himself last name first, which was the Japanese order, but everybody had spoken English so far. I would have thought the name order was just because the One Piece series was originally in Japanese.

Still, I couldn't help but smile. "You already introduced yourself," I pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but not my full name," Ace said with a shrug. "Is Alyssa your full name?"

I really had to think about that one. Obviously, I did have a last name, and usually I would introduce myself with my full name, including my middle initial, like Ace had, but. Did it really matter in this world if my last name was the same? It wasn't like any of my family was around for me to be related to.

Not to mention that, while it was fine in my original world, my middle name was Diane... which did, actually, make my middle initial 'D'. Here, that meant something, supposedly, which it didn't in my old world. So, I decided, might as well just leave it at first name.

"Well, it's the only name that matters," I said belatedly.

For some reason, they all looked very sad about it.

"Well, we should go to Royal Peaks Island to check it out," Ace said authoritatively. He sent me a softer look. "There might still be some people there."

That was very true. There could be. It didn't seem all that likely that a pirate crew would kill an entire island for no reason. If it was true, I was doomed.

So all I could do was clutch my bag close to me and give a short nod.

Fortunately, they didn't seem to think it was all that odd. They went about their business, surprisingly good at managing such a big ship with only four people. Before long, we were sailing closer to Royal Peaks Island. As we got closer, I noticed that it was aptly named; it did in fact have several tall mountains.

I stayed off to the side, as out of the way as I could get. Fortunately, they left me alone. I could practically feel them talking about me, but they kept it out of my hearing range.

We were on the correct side to land at the port town, but once we got close enough, it became apparent that it was on fire. Not the town itself, but the port. The dock, I thought it might be called? In any case, since we couldn't exactly dock (?) at the... dock, the others dropped anchor (?) off to the side, far enough from the flames to be safe.

I eyed the distance to the ground. It was... far. And scary. I was already getting premonitions of falling and dying.

Meanwhile, Masked Deuce, Aggie 68, and Mihar jumped casually off the side of the ship, landing easily. I was extremely envious.

Without so much as a by-your-leave, Ace scooped me up practically bridal-style and dropped to the ground. Startled, I could not restrain a shriek as the wind blew past me on the way down, wrapping my arms around Ace's neck in a death grip. Even carrying me, though, Ace landed just as easily as the others, smoothly enough that I hardly felt a bump at all.

I self-consciously unwound my arms from Ace's neck as he let me down.

Before I could apologize or anything, I noticed some bodies that were visible even from here, sufficiently distracting me. Horror rose up in my throat, but the instincts that had led me to want to be a doctor in the first place wouldn't allow me to leave them. I hurried over, checking each person.

They were all dead.

That led me closer to the main road through the town, revealing even more bodies further in. I started making my way through. In between checking bloody corpses for life, I noticed that the town was very pretty. It was all blues and feathers and other decorations. According to some signs, it was a tourist-y party town. A lot of the decorations reminded me of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

It was marred, however, by the bodies and blood seemingly coating the town. There was a somber air as I walked through, Ace and the others trailing behind respectfully. That made me feel bad, too; they were giving me allowances I didn't deserve under the belief that I knew these people.

As we got further, it seemed less likely that we would come across any survivors.

There didn't seem to be any form of police station, I noted. A small island like this probably relied on the World Government, and therefore the Marines, for protection. But there was no Marine base, leaving them vulnerable.

This was my world now, too. What a horrible world it was.

Whether it was the thought of all of the people who'd died or the thought that I was stuck here, I felt tears prickling at my eyes. Unable to stand this horrid funeral march, I got faster and faster until I was all but running between each body. Finally, I'd made it through the entire town and circled around to be near the burning dock.

I was in front of a small doctor's office. Inside, visible through a broken window, there was an old man with a kindly face and a white doctor's coat lying on the ground, covered in blood.

Suddenly, the tears overwhelmed me and I choked and started crying quietly. It was so stupid, I didn't even know these people. At the same time, though, their entire town was dead. Possibly everyone any of them had ever known. Didn't they deserve to have someone, anyone, cry for them?

And maybe I was crying for myself, too. My home, my family and friends, all my aspirations to be a doctor, were gone.

The others were still there behind me, I could tell. Probably, they were keeping their distance now less out of respect and more out of awkwardness. After a while, Ace, brave man, approached. After a moment of visibly struggling for something to say, he patted me on the back gently.

"I was going to be a doctor, you know," I said for no reason. It just kind of fell out.

I couldn't help staring at the dead old doctor in the building. Had he had an apprentice? Were they dead, too?

"Was that guy your teacher?" Ace asked hesitantly.

I wouldn't have thought that Ace did hesitation.

Still, I had to hesitate, then. He wasn't, of course, but I couldn't exactly say no now. There likely wasn't another doctor on the island.

"Yes," I lied, shoving down the guilt. "I was apprenticed to him, but."

But he was dead. But now any hope I had of going to my world's medical school was gone.

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. I hated crying.

"Now I have nothing," I said quietly.

The tears were encroaching again, but I forced them back. My eyes were going to be uncomfortable and achy enough already.

Ace was standing in front of me now. Though I was looking down, at the ground, I saw as he looked over my shoulder at his crew, obviously communicating. I'd always thought it was cool how people (fictional ones, anyway) could do that.

"You're a doctor?" Ace said.

I flicked my gaze up to look at his face. "I was going to be a doctor," I said. It wasn't quite agreement; the difference was, in my opinion, huge. I was a year of high school and seven years of medical school away from being a proper doctor.

Ace, however, seemed to think differently.

"Okay, so, look. We can drop you off at the nearest island, which we need to go to for supplies anyway," he added this almost sheepishly. "You can... try to make a life there, I guess."

He paused long enough that I was about to agree, since that was my best bet at this point and it was actually pretty nice of them to even offer, when he started again.

"Or you can come with us," Ace finished.

I stared. That sounded... like an offer of piracy. Like something Luffy might have said if he wasn't such a rude person. It was kind of interesting to find that Ace didn't bully people into joining his crew like Luffy did.

"Come with you?" I asked, just to be sure.

Ace nodded, seeming more confident now that I was definitely not crying. "Join my crew."

The fan in me was screaming. The chance to be a pirate! On the other hand, piracy was obviously quite dangerous and I didn't actually want to die. But then, the people on Royal Peaks Island hadn't been pirates and they'd still died. Maybe it was actually safer to be on a powerful pirate crew.

Of course, Ace had to also know exactly how useless I was. Why would he offer that? I'd be dead weight.

"Why?" I said. When Ace's face crumpled a little like he'd been rejected, I hurried to add, "Why would you ask me? I'm not... I wouldn't be very helpful."

"We need a doctor," Ace said.

"I'm not actually a doctor yet," I said.

Ace shrugged. "Closer than any of us," he said, including his three crew members with a gesture.

And, the fan in me pointed out, you can keep Ace from dying.

Because he would. If I decided to become a civilian here, Ace would go on to be a pirate captain, join Whitebeard's crew - and die at Akainu's hand in three years. But I could change things. Maybe. Either way, it might be interesting.

"Okay," I said. "I'll join."

Ace was starting to look entirely too smug, so I added, "But I still think you'll be disappointed in my abilities as a doctor."

"Nah, that won't happen," Ace said with a snort. "You need to pick some stuff up?"

I thought about it. I did need clothes, which, given I didn't actually live here, I'd probably have to steal from a store (because there was no way I was going into a house and stealing a person's clothes). Plus, my lack of actual doctoral ability meant I should probably take some, or a bunch, of books with me.

"Yeah. I do. Umm." I paused, trying to think of a polite way to tell them that I didn't want them to come with me.

"We'll wait for you at the ship," Ace said.

I blinked. That was perfect. I decided not to question it. "Okay," I said.

They were already walking away. I didn't bother staring after them, turning to go into the doctor's building instead. It was an awful feeling, tiptoeing past his dead body and the blood on the floor and looking around to find all of his books, and trying to find some kind of bag to put them in.

Fortunately, I found both of those things easily, and fled back out into the street. Not that it was any better there. And I still needed clothes. I found the least tourist-y store I could and went looking for clothes (and another bag to put them in). It took some looking to avoid all of the blue, feathery, and otherwise themed clothes, but eventually I put together a fair spread. On my way out, I saw, under the broken window where the pirates had likely stolen everything on display, a mask.

It was kind of a masquerade mask, shaped almost like a butterfly with massive wings arching out to the top and bottom away from the center. It was mostly silver, with blue lining around the eyes and blue gems set in the wings of the butterfly. It bordered on gaudy, like much of the other stuff in the store and, honestly, in the town as a whole, but I liked it. On impulse, I added it to the bag.

Then I went to meet up with the others.

I hummed to myself quietly. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Written in 2018

Summary: A girl from our world is reborn... into Sawada Tsunayoshi. Inexplicably female Sawada Tsunayoshi, even. She deals.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence.

Iemitsu and Nana loved each other. They really did; that was never fake on either of their parts. They had a whirlwind romance; it was only a few short months before he proposed. Only a few more months and they got married. Basking in the thrill of new love, they bought a house together.

Just less than a year after they met, Iemitsu had to leave for work. Nana understood. It was his job and he had to leave, and she wasn't mad about it. Still, understanding didn't stop the ache in her chest where Iemitsu had taken hold of her heart and left with it.

A matter of months after that, Nana realized she was pregnant. After three different types of pregnancy test, the excitement took hold of her and she called Iemitsu in a rush. It wasn't how they usually did things; his schedule was unpredictable and Nana never even knew what time zone he may be in at any given time, and so he was usually the one to call her when he had the time. This, however, Nana felt took precedence.

"What -- Nana? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Iemitsu said immediately upon answering.

Wherever he was, it was loud; there was a mash of indistinguishable noise audible even over the phone. Nana ignored it.

"I'm fine, dear," she said, and then, before he could interrupt and say he was busy, "I have big news! I couldn't wait to tell you!"

She could practically hear Iemitsu deflate over the phone. The silly man never had been able to deny her. "Is that so? Well, now you've got me all excited!" he said. "Tell me what it is, I'm dying over here, Nana, end my suffering."

There were voices on the other end, too quiet to make out words. Iemitsu ignored them, and so Nana did too.

"Oh, you big goofball," Nana said with a giggle. "Okay, here it is: I'm pregnant!"

Nana waited eagerly for Iemitsu's response. There was silence over the phone, accentuating what sounds like people hammering on wood in the background. Finally, Iemitsu responded, all but babbling in his excitement.

Of course, then there were more voices in the background and Iemitsu excused himself hurriedly, but that was fine. Nana understood that her husband was busy.

Several months later, he was also too busy to be there for the baby's birth. Nana wouldn't lie and say that one was fine, but, well, it's so nice to have any of the time together that they do get, she just wouldn't mention it. It wasn't worth it.

In any case, this one was a little problematic for Nana. She and Iemitsu had, in the intervening months since discovering her pregnancy, discussed names. Iemitsu wanted to follow his family's naming tradition and Nana was fine with that, since it seemed so important to him. However, they'd never actually covered what to do if the baby was a girl. All of the Tokugawa Shoguns were men, for obvious reasons, so how was Nana supposed to name their daughter? At a loss, Nana just went with her preferred choice of Tokugawa names she'd already decided on: Tsunayoshi. It was a boy's name, sure, but it could be cute enough to be a girl's name, too. She could already imagine it. Her daughter, Tsu-chan. That was cute, right?

Sawada Tsunayoshi was just over a year old when she realized that she was doomed. This realization, by sheer coincidence (except not at all) coincided with her first meeting with Sawada Iemitsu.

He was, after all, a little more recognizable than Nana, who for the most part could be a perfectly normal Japanese housewife.

So, yeah. Tsuna, or rather the formerly adult, American woman now inhabiting Tsuna's body, came to a sudden, awful realization and narrowly avoided swearing her head off in English and making everything much worse. Fortunately she did avoid that.

She was Sawada Tsunayoshi and in about twelve years, she was going to be forced into becoming the boss (candidate) of the Vongola Family. Tsuna thought about this. Unlike the canon version of Tsuna, she was not especially adverse to the idea. She was, in fact, rather fond of the idea of doing what Canon!Tsuna had planned to do. The problem, of course, was that she was totally going to die. Canon!Tsuna and co. only survived through sheer dumb luck and the fact that she was here at all likely meant she didn't have any of that.

Tsuna plotted. She had exactly three broad options in life. Number one: somehow manage to save all of Nono's legitimate sons who die before she's fourteen. Number two, flee the country and somehow manage to hide from the Italian Mafia. Three, become so amazingly awesome that she could win at not only life, but Tsuna's life.

Although tempting, number one and number two did seem difficult to achieve. Nigh impossible, really. That left number three.

Tsuna resigned herself to living through the canon storyline. It was pretty much her only real option. It brought up some more questions; how much could she change? How much should she change? The canon storyline actually went really well, all things considered. Except for, like, the emotional suffering of pretty much everybody involved. Still.

From what Tsuna remembered, the Daily Life Arc didn't really have anything important in it. Besides introducing people, anyway, and she probably couldn't change any of that and didn't really care to. She did actually like the characters in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, although it was a little questionable if she'd like them as real people. Well, accepting the weirdos that hung around Canon!Tsuna was part of resigning herself to his life, so whatever. In any case, besides that, she could probably change a lot of the Daily Life arc and not have it matter too much. Which is good, because Tsuna did not remember it well enough to micromanage the entire thing. Whoops.

The first truly important arc was Mukuro's appearance. How could Tsuna even change that if she wanted to? Go after Mukuro earlier than Canon!Tsuna would have? Follow Hibari? Oh, actually, if she changed the Daily Life Arc enough, Hibari wouldn't have Sakura Disease, so that could actually change a lot. Tsuna figured it doesn't matter too much; the Mukuro Arc probably didn't need to go in any specific way. Maybe it wasn't even really important?

If that was the case, then the actual first important arc would be the Varia arc. Which went exactly according to plan down to which Guardians won and lost and in what order. It had always kind of annoyed Tsuna, to be honest. But if it didn't go perfectly, then the Sky Battle probably wouldn't happen? And even if it did, if Tsuna didn't lose the Sky ring to Xanxus, he wouldn't fail the succession test thing and he'd probably never give up on usurping her as Vongola Decimo. But then, he hadn't really in canon anyway, had he? In the Future Arc, the Varia had still been refusing to acknowledge Canon!Tsuna as Decimo.

Oh, and that was the real issue. Arguably the most important and potentially disastrous arc in the series: the Future Arc. If it went wrong, well, there went the entire universe. Literally. Thanks, Byakuran. It would be easy to completely avoid, though. If Tsuna just kept that box of Ten Year Bazooka ammo from falling into Shouichi's hands, the Future Arc probably wouldn't happen at all.

That would be awesome, except. After the Future Arc was the Shimon Arc, and Tsuna and his/her guardians would probably not stand a chance against the Shimon Guardians or Daemon without the whole Vongola Gear thing which was only a thing because of the Future Arc. Plus Byakuran wouldn't have his future memories, so he wouldn't show up to heal Yamamoto. Of course, Tsuna could just keep that from happening, probably, but the point remained that they would most likely get their collective butt kicked in a straight fight if the Future Arc hadn't happened. Even more so than had happened in canon.

Not to mention that after that was the Curse of the Rainbow Arc (Arcobaleno Arc for short). Tsuna was sure the Arcobaleno could find representatives either way, but the end result was trying to beat the Vindice in a direct fight, which. That wasn't going to end well if everybody wasn't as strong as their future selves. The Varia would be weaker, Tsuna and her guardians would be weaker, Byakuran and Yuni might not even be there...? What if it was still Aria as the Sky Arcobaleno with only the Giglio Nero fighting for her? They'd get destroyed. And like, Fran wouldn't be there at all, so the Vindice might actually kill Mukuro or at least destroy his watch...

Thinking about the entire thing gave Tsuna a headache, so she decided to wing it. Or at least figure it out later. Whatever.

It was only potentially the fate of the entire universe on the line, it would probably be fine.

Tsuna's first order of business: keep Iemitsu and Nono from sealing her flames. She wasn't entirely sure why they'd sealed Canon!Tsuna's in the first place, but she figured that the best way was to be completely and utterly unspectacular and also make sure not to use flames around them. Like, obviously.

Her first meeting with Iemitsu was easy enough. She was one years old, he treated her like a newborn baby, and he only hung around for like a week anyway. For most of the week, he and Nana largely ignored Tsuna -- beyond the required caretaking of babies, anyway. Tsuna was already walking and talking, but that week she ardently refused to do either in the hopes of convincing Iemitsu she wasn't an impressive child. Nana did not do anything to hinder this. She didn't even seem to think it was strange.

But then, Nana was a strange woman.

Iemitsu left, and Tsuna started experimenting. The thing was, she really should have known what she was in, because, now that she knew the terminology, it was obvious that she could sense flames. She wasn't sure if that was normally a thing in the Hitman Reborn universe, but she definitely could. Iemitsu just... felt like a Sky. Tsuna couldn't explain it. She wouldn't have recognized it if she didn't know that he was, though, just like she hadn't recognized her own flames for what they were.

Other people felt strange too, gave off an energy of sorts that they never had in her original world. Without a reference point for what each type of flame feels like, though, Tsuna couldn't identify them. Since the only person she'd met that she knew the flame type of was Iemitsu, she could only identify Sky flames. Nana was... not a Sky, and that was as far as Tsuna could tell.

In any case, now that Tsuna knew, she started experimenting with flames. It was a shame that she had Sky flames, since as far as she knew, Mist flame users were the only ones confirmed to be able to use them independently, without a Box Weapon or Dying Will Mode. Still, that wasn't going to stop her from trying. Canon!Tsuna, at least in Hyper Dying Will Mode, was able to light his mitten-gloves on fire. Tsuna wanted to be able to do that too. She wondered if it was possible to will-power one's way to Hyper Dying Will Mode without the bullets or pills? It might be nice to skip the whole almost-naked normal Dying Will Mode phase.

Tsuna went through everything she could remember about using flames from canon (resolve, and whatnot), but saw no results for a long while.

As Tsuna got older, she noticed some odd things. Once, when Tsuna was two, she was coloring in the living room (because coloring can be fun, it's a normal little kid thing to do, and she was using it for the motor control practice it was) while Nana was cooking dinner. Nana wandered out to check on her, leaned over where Tsuna was coloring.

"Wow, Tsu-chan, you're doing so well!" she said.

Tsuna didn't respond, because she knew by now that Nana didn't expect her to, and continued carefully outlining the edge of the cloud in purple. After a moment of watching, Nana settled down on the floor next to Tsuna.

"Doesn't it get kind of boring being so careful?" Nana said.

She didn't question the purple cloud, and though Nana would never be her mother, Tsuna thought she might be able to love her anyway. She shrugged.

"No," she said eventually, because it wasn't. A child might enjoy the chaotic swish of crayon on paper, but she actually liked the precision work better. She'd never been good at drawing.

Nana hummed thoughtfully and stayed there, apparently entranced by the sight of her two year old coloring.

After some time, Tsuna paused in the middle of coloring a field of grass a perfectly normal green, looked up, and thought, the pot is going to boil over. She said as much, and Nana jumped to her feet and rushed into the kitchen. Tsuna blinked, feeling a little off. She listened, and yes, there was the sound of something bubbling from the kitchen, but she hadn't noticed it before, not really. She didn't even know what Nana was making.

That was the first time. Things like that kept happening, but it wasn't until close to a year later, when she warned Nana that somebody was at the door a full two minutes before anybody was actually at the door without any real reason to think so that she realized what it was. Hyper Intuition. Tsuna was a little baffled because she didn't remember Canon!Tsuna having it like this.

She wasn't complaining, though.

The next time, Tsuna told Nana that the mushrooms would go bad if they didn't use them that day (she was really starting to wonder at the Hyper Intuition, what was that), and Nana smiled and nodded like it was perfectly normal for a three year old to say such things.

"You know, Tsu-chan, your eyes turn such a pretty orange sometimes," she said casually, also as though this was perfectly normal.

Tsuna immediately found the nearest reflective surface to check for herself, but her eyes were the same brown as always. Disappointing.

She was still three when she had a breakthrough with flame usage. It was less through careful practice and her own resolve and more through sheer mindless panic. Tsuna woke up in the middle of the night, found a shadow that shouldn't be there next to her bed, and freaked out.

Sucking in a breath ready for screaming, Tsuna bolted upright in bed and, mid flail as her arm gets caught in her blanket, created a line of breathtaking orange fire. The fire lit up the room spectacularly, impacted the fan Nana put in Tsuna's room earlier that day, and fizzled away. Tsuna slowly let out the breath, her heart still trying to beat its way through her ribcage, and felt a little ashamed of overreacting so badly.

But it was definitely soothed by the triumph of making flames. Flames that were definitely Sky flames! And without Dying Will Mode or a Box Weapon or Ring! Tsuna was ecstatic.

She also started practicing harder. Now she had an emotion to focus on. At first, she made the mistake of thinking it was the panic, but it wasn't, not really. It was the knee-jerk refusal to go down without a fight. The instinctive nope to waking up to what she thought was a person at the side of her bed.

Resolve, kind of.

But really it was more like spite.

When Tsuna was four, Iemitsu showed back up for the second time in her life. This time, he came with a jovial old man with a white mustache and brightly colored shirts that he introduced as his boss. Timoteo. Vongola Nono.

Tsuna put the flame practice on hold, played the perfectly normal shy little girl, and spent the majority of her time looking down. She couldn't tell when her eyes turned orange. Though it was usually connected to her Hyper Intuition, she can't always tell when that's going off. This way they hopefully won't notice either.

It fit with her whole shy act, anyway.

Timoteo told Tsuna to call him grandpa, and Tsuna stared at his hands (the Vongola ring), smiled weakly, and obeyed.

Nana got the adults tea on Timoteo's request, set three cups on the coffee table, and sat down on a couch. Tsuna, perched uncomfortably on Iemitsu's lap for a number of reasons, looked at Iemitsu's cup, too-close-to-the-edge-it'll-fall. Iemitsu and Nana didn't seem to have noticed. Just as Tsuna was about to lean forward and push it away from the edge, Timoteo, still evidently engaged in the conversation, nudged it further onto the table without even looking.

Tsuna's heart just about stopped because she forgot Timoteo had the Hyper Intuition as well (it was, after all, Vongola Hyper Intuition). Given that they knew she was part of the line, he almost certainly would have noticed if she'd answered to its call. She didn't give herself away, but she very easily could have. With that, Tsuna resolved to ignore the Hyper Intuition until they leave.

Ten minutes later, Iemitsu got excited about something and leaped up from his seat, picking Tsuna up to avoid sending her flying, and knocked into the table as he did. The cups all rattled around dangerously, but none of them fell off.

Tsuna wondered how Iemitsu apparently managed to not only avoid getting the Vongola Hyper Intuition, but do it so spectacularly.

Despite the fact that both Timoteo and Iemitsu were supposed to be smart people, Tsuna managed to make it the entire two weeks of their stay without giving herself away. Nana, who knew all of Tsuna's secrets and didn't know they were secret, didn't give her away either. Tsuna had noticed something about Nana: she very rarely gave information away. She didn't tend to mention anything unless somebody else mentioned it first.

Tsuna kind of got the feeling that her parents were playing Mafia chicken: who was going to bring up the elephant in the room that was the Mafia first? If that was true, then she was impressed with both of their canon selves for making it until Tsuna was fourteen. And still going, actually.

When Tsuna was five, Nana sent her to kindergarten. This was also the first that she'd really been allowed out of the house save for the backyard and shopping, so she was pretty excited despite the fact that it was, you know, kindergarten. She was sure to be disappointed, but honestly she didn't even care.

Tsuna was not actually disappointed. Not really. Yes, kindergarten was not the greatest time, but neither was being a five year old that wasn't in kindergarten, so things could really only get better.

It was easy to pick out Kyouko and Yamamoto from the horde. Kyouko was an adorably shy five year old, curled in on herself and watching the world with big eyes. Yamamoto, meanwhile, was just as friendly as his future self, but more animated about it.

Hana was there too, and, glaring hatred at the boys in the class, primarily Yamamoto's rowdy group, she attached herself to Kyouko's side apparently without Kyouko's input.

Tsuna had a debate with herself. She didn't actually want to be alone until she was thirteen, but then she also wasn't sure about the ethics of befriending five year olds. Not to mention, Yamamoto seemed more than happy with the friends he effortlessly made and Kyouko and Hana seemed content with just the two of them. And if she waited, they'd probably end up friends anyway by way of the Powers of Canon.

Then again, this was her life now, and she wasn't Canon!Tsuna. Why should she wait until canon when, if they'd get along anyway, they could be friends now? With that decided, Tsuna also decided to try to befriend Kyouko and Hana first. They were... a little less impenetrable than Fort Yamamoto and Friends. It went really well. Being five, Tsuna walked right up to them and asked if she could sit with them.

Kyouko smiled at her and agreed, and Hana didn’t argue. Kyouko did have a nice smile, Tsuna decided, in a totally not-creepy way.

And apparently it was as simple as that. Suddenly they were friends now. Tsuna was allowed to walk over and sit with them without asking and vice-versa. She wasn't sure how to feel about it. Making friends was never this easy in her first life -- although, maybe it was just easier as kids.

Tsuna stuck with Kyouko and Hana for a while, watching Yamamoto for an opening. He had to spend some time not completely surrounded, right? As soon as that happened, she'd pounce. Even if they wouldn't exactly be canon style friends where they seemed to do everything together, she could get started on that friendship a little early. If there was anything she'd like to change about the Daily Life Arc, it was Yamamoto getting to the point of almost committing suicide. Well, there were probably other things, too, but that was the first one to come to mind.

She just couldn't make herself interrupt when he was surrounded by people.

"Um, Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan," Kyouko said, trying to meet their eyes and failing. "Do -- do you want to come over to my house after school tomorrow?"

The next day was Saturday, so they would have a half-day of school.

Hana shrugged. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Not like I want to hang around at home with my brothers. My mom will probably be thrilled, too."

Kyouko's expression brightened into an almost-smile. Her gaze shifted expectantly to Tsuna.

"I'd love to!" Tsuna said. There was really no other possible answer to those hopeful eyes. "I'll ask my mom if I can, but she'll probably say yes."

It wasn't like she had any reason not to, and anyway it was worth it just for Kyouko's sheer happiness.

After school, walking hand-in-hand with Nana to get home, Tsuna asked about it. "Mom, can I go over to Kyouko-chan's house after school tomorrow?"

"Hm? Of course! My little Tsu-chan making friends, Mom is so happy!" Nana said.

And that was the end of that. Nana didn't ask about transport at all, didn't care to ask about contact information, nothing. It was a good thing Tsuna wasn't really five, she reflected.

"Grandma can't make the walk to come pick us up every day," Kyouko explained the next day. "So Big Brother and I walk home together."

"You have a brother, Kyouko-chan?" Hana said, scrunching up her nose.

Kyouko nodded happily. "Yup! He's a year older than me. He should be getting out of class soon. You have brothers too, right Hana-chan?"

"Ugh." Hana's disgusted expression worsened. "Three older brothers and a younger brother, and they're all awful."

Tsuna was maybe starting to see why Canon!Hana held such dislike for the 'monkey' boys in her class.

"They can't be that bad," Tsuna said with a giggle.

"They are!" Hana said. "They're loud and messy and in-- inco-- rude!"

Kyouko laughed. When Hana gave her a betrayed look, she patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said.

Hana frowned, almost pouting. "Anyway, have you guys seen the newest episode of Sailor Moon?" she said, obviously changing the subject.

Kyouko and Tsuna went with it. About ten minutes later, there was a shout. "Kyouko!"

A young boy rushed up to the gate where they were waiting, hardly slowing at all before practically tackling Kyouko in a hug. Kyouko seemed to be used to this treatment, and hardly reacted to almost being bowled over.

"I'm EXTREMELY sorry for being late, Kyouko!" the boy bellowed, evidently at top volume.

Kyouko just smiled. "It's okay, Big Brother," she said.

At this point in time, Kyouko was only five years old, but Tsuna could kind of see Canon!Tsuna's appreciation for her smile. It was sweet, but as bright as the Sun flames she shared with Ryohei.

"Big Brother, these are my friends, Kurokawa Hana and Sawada Tsunayoshi," Kyouko said, wiggling carefully out of his hold. She fumbled a little over the names, but not much. "Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan, this is my brother, Sasagawa Ryohei!"

Ryohei turned to them, and Tsuna got a strangely ominous feeling. "Kyouko's friends, huh? Well, any friend of Kyouko is a friend of mine!" he declared at only slightly less than the top volume he'd been speaking in before. "You can call me Ryohei, okay?"

It was phrased as a question, but Tsuna got the feeling it wasn't a question.

"You can call me Tsuna, then," she said. "It's nice to meet you, Ryohei-san!"

Hana turned to look at her aghast. After a glance at Kyouko's beaming smile, however, she swallowed down whatever she'd wanted to say. "It's nice to meet you... Ryohei-san," she said reluctantly.

"ALL RIGHT!" Ryohei said. Several nearby people flinched. "Let's go home, then!"

He pumped his fists, then held one hand out to Kyouko. She put her hand in his automatically. "Everybody hold hands so nobody gets lost," Ryohei said. It sounded like he was reciting somebody else's words.

Smiling, Kyouko held out her hand, and Tsuna obediently grabbed hold, then offered her other hand to Hana, who gave them both a pained look. Still, after a moment of Ryohei staring expectantly while Tsuna faced away from him and tried not to laugh, she grabbed Tsuna's hand.

Finally, they were off. Ryohei led them carefully through Namimori. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, and he watched the three of them as well as strangers carefully. Tsuna wondered if it was normal to have a six year old and three five year olds walk home from school together. It seemed like a lot of responsibility and danger.

But then, given what Kyouko said, they didn't have much choice. Their grandmother couldn't pick them up -- so their parents probably weren't in the picture? It kind of explained why Ryohei ended up so protective of Kyouko, Tsuna supposed.

A couple of weeks later, an Opportunity to befriend Yamamoto appeared. Kind of.

All of the students had been sent outside for recess, and as they usually did, Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana were sitting at the edge of the asphalt playground area talking. A shadow fell over them, and Tsuna looked up to find Yamamoto standing in front of them. There was a small crowd of boys behind him.

"Hi!" he said once he had their attention. "We're playing a game, but we don't have enough people. Do you want to play?"

One of the other boys stepped closer to Yamamoto. "But they're girls," he hissed in what he probably thought was an undertone.

"So?" Yamamoto said with an uncomprehending look.

Faced with having to explain exactly why them being girls was a problem, the other boy faltered.

Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana exchanged looks. Tsuna, having been trying to get an in with Yamamoto anyway, was instantly and totally on board regardless of boys being stupid. Kyouko, who was a friendly and generally open-minded person, was curious about it. Hana, who didn't like boys or rowdy people or sports, wasn't particularly interested.

After a moment, Hana visibly relented. Tsuna turned back to Yamamoto, already getting to her feet.

"Sure, I'll play," she said readily.

Kyouko hesitated, looking uncertainly at Hana, who nudged her.

"Ah, me too," Kyouko said eventually.

"I'd rather not," Hana said, then waved Tsuna and Kyouko off. "It's fine, I'll just watch."

Yamamoto flashed a blinding, 100 watt grin. "Okay!" he said.

The game turned out to be some strange kickball thing, where it basically followed the rules of baseball but with a soccer ball and kicking instead of a baseball and bat.  Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised about that, honestly.

The teams ended up with Yamamoto, Tsuna, and Kyouko on one against the other three boys Yamamoto had been with on the other.

Tsuna had never had much experience with baseball or kickball in either of her lives, and so honestly her grasp of the rules was extremely shaky. Kyouko, probably, was in a similar boat. Yamamoto, of course, was pretty much the king of the game, far outstripping the rest of them. He wasn't very good at explaining the rules to Tsuna and Kyouko, but he was patient about it.

Their team won against the boys, in the end, and Tsuna was vindictively pleased. Even if it was because Yamamoto carried them, they hadn't completely ruined his chances or anything.

Because children were apparently like that, after that Tsuna, along with Kyouko, was kind of friends with Yamamoto. The other boys seemed to disapprove of her or at least dislike her, but Yamamoto himself always seemed perfectly friendly even if she interrupted while he was with several of the other boys.

Still, it wasn't like Tsuna had usurped his other friendships. Yamamoto still spent most of his time with those other boys. It was just that now Tsuna was part of the In-Crowd who was allowed to approach him.

Tsuna still spent most of her time with Kyouko and Hana, anyway, so it was fair.

Regardless of Tsuna's intentions, her being more proactive did not cause canon to start early, so overall, very little happened for a long time. They finished kindergarten, started first grade, and eventually moved into second grade.

Whenever Tsuna wasn't actively spending time with any of her friends, she studied. Not the blade, since that was Yamomoto's thing (or it would be, anyway), but specifically she studied Japanese. Tsuna wanted to have an adult's reading level, but man. Japanese was hard. So she studied a lot.

It was also in second grade, at the age of seven, that Tsuna met Hibari for the first time. Tsuna was alone for lunch, for various reasons, and eating on one of the roofs which people weren't technically supposed to go up to.

Really, it was practically asking to run into Hibari. That definitely wasn't why she did it in the first place.

So, Tsuna was eating her lunch innocently, and suddenly Hibari, at the approximate age of eight, came swanning up out of nowhere and whacked her over the head with a tonfa.

Tsuna flinched away. "Ow! What was that for?" she complained, rolling away to remove herself from tonfa range.

"You are trespassing," Hibari said remorselessly. "Leave, or I will bite you to death."

There were two things about this that Tsuna noted immediately. First, the fact that he actually gave an option for mercy. She was about ninety percent sure that Canon!Hibari went looking for excuses to beat people up, and so would never give up a perfect opportunity. Second, he was already using his strange, strange phrase by eight.

And then she actually thought about the ultimatum he'd just given her. She had achieved what she wanted by hanging out on the roof, which was running into Hibari himself, and there were plenty of other places she could eat lunch. On the other hand, she was there first and Hibari wasn't actually allowed on the roof any more than Tsuna herself was. He was being a hypocrite, likely because he wanted to nap in peace, if Canon!Hibari was any indication.

So, because apparently she was suicidal, Tsuna frowned, got to her feet, and said, "You're not allowed up here either."

Something she knew would absolutely start a fight. With Hibari, there were very few other ways for an encounter to go, anyway.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. That was all the warning Tsuna got before Hibari was suddenly right back in her face, first tonfa already halfway to her head.

The thing was, Tsuna was not experienced at fighting. She had never done any form of martial arts in her first life, not even self-defense, and obviously this time around she was seven. And, apparently, Hibari was monstrously strong at all ages.

However, Tsuna had the Vongola Hyper Intuition and an adult brain capable of reading its urges and reacting to them.

As far as Tsuna would recall later, the fight went something like this: duck the tonfa, wait there's another tonfa, step back to dodge a strange upper-cut-like move, dodge roll to the left, get back to her feet fast, wait no back down to avoid the tonfa again, kick out at Hibari's legs, miss because he dodged backwards, back to her feet again, Hibari was approaching again, step back, WAIT watch out for the rock. Tsuna glanced down to find that yes, there was a rock where she'd been going to step which she would have tripped over. Then, having taken her eyes off Hibari, she was surprised when he got her square in the face.

From there, it was a mess, really. In the end, with a few achy new bruises, Tsuna was forced to flee the roof.

Tsuna wasn't ashamed, exactly. She was pretty sure it was a fact of the universe that Hibari Kyouya would always be able to beat Sawada Tsunayoshi -- although they'd never fought directly in canon after Canon!Tsuna really started getting strong. Still, she didn't think that losing was embarrassing.

It was just annoying.

The petty, contrary part of her was furious that Hibari had successfully chased her away. He was stronger than her, and he'd used that to get what he wanted. That was fair, but it didn't stop Tsuna from being irritated by it.

Thinking wistfully of her abandoned lunch, Tsuna decided then that she wouldn't let it go so easily. Hibari may be stronger than her, but she wasn't going to give up. Most days, she ate lunch with her friends, but after that, she took one day a week to go up to that roof, vindictively, just to annoy him. She would never allow him to nap in peace.

It was odd, though. Tsuna had gone up to the roof before and Hibari hadn't shown those times, which probably meant he didn't always nap up there during lunchtime. After that first encounter, though, he was there on the roof every time Tsuna was.

(Tsuna still got beat up and fled most of the time, and the bruises got hard to explain, but she wouldn't give up.)

The next year, Tsuna decided that her Japanese had gotten good enough to branch out a bit, and started working on Chinese. Going right for Italian seemed too on-the-nose, and she didn't want to be obvious about knowing about Iemitsu's job, and Chinese was cool. Plus, almost all of the Italians in series spoke Japanese, while I-pin, the Chinese speaker, did not speak Japanese very well, so Chinese would, ironically, be more useful.

"Is that a beginner's Chinese book?" Hana said dubiously when she noticed.

"Yup," Tsuna said.

"Ooh, you're so smart, Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Hana made a face. "But why? Isn't English enough?" she complained.

Both of them knew full well that Tsuna aced all of their English tests. Tsuna was pleased that neither of them bothered to mention it.

"I guess. I just like languages," Tsuna said.

It was actually true. She did like languages; otherwise she probably wouldn't have willingly subjected herself to a third one. Canon!Tsuna hadn't had to learn any extra languages for the storyline, after all. Still, Tsuna was pretty sure that if she was going to take over as the boss of an Italian mafia, she would need to know Italian at least. So really, she was subjecting herself to a fourth language in learning Chinese.

She found she didn't really care.

When Tsuna was eight, and Yamamoto was nine because his birthday was earlier than hers, he disappeared from school for several days. The gossip and rumor mills being what they were, the news of why got to the school before Yamamoto even returned.

His mother had died.

It was a little unclear exactly what had happened, and Tsuna didn't put any extra effort into figuring that out. That was none of her business. Even if she was dying of curiosity.

The point was, Yamamoto's mom died. Tsuna knew, intellectually, that that happened. She'd been dead for canon, after all. It didn't make it less sad, though.

Yamamoto was missing from school for the rest of that week, and reappeared on the next Monday. Given the crowd he'd drawn in the canon storyline when he was threatening to jump off the roof, Tsuna half expected that everybody would crowd around him. Offering condolences, maybe, or asking graceless questions about it.

That didn't happen at all.

Almost ghostly for the lack of color in his cheeks even now, Yamamoto slipped around like a specter. When confronted, he forced a smile onto his face and replied with horribly forced cheer, but he didn't initiate anything or speak without prompting.

As a result, or perhaps entirely unrelated to Yamamoto's behavior and simply because of awkwardness about his mother's death, the class, including Yamamoto's usual friends tip-toed around him, talking in undertones and going quiet if he approached. Overall, it was very much leaving him out, suddenly.

Tsuna wondered if none of them had ever dealt with a person who'd lost someone. She wasn't entirely sure how to go about it either, but this, she felt, was totally wrong. In a way, she thought, she was currently seeing why and when Yamamoto became emotionally distanced from his friends as he was in canon. She could even understand it: if they weren't willing to stick with him when he was grieving, if they didn't want to talk to him if he wasn't carrying the conversation, what was really the value in their 'friendship'?

It wasn't comparable at all, Tsuna knew. Yet she looked at Yamamoto, at the face of a nine year old whose mother had died and who felt like their entire world was falling apart, and she saw herself. Her parents in her first life had died, too, and she still vividly remembered the stabbing pain of the loss, but that wasn't what she thought of. She hadn't been a child when either of her parents died, after all. Rather, she thought of her own death and being thrown, screaming, into an entirely different universe. She wondered if that was what he felt like. Did life look different now? Was everything strange and off and wrong?

From the look on his face, she'd bet that was how he felt.

So Tsuna sucked up the awkwardness and the uncertainty about bothering Yamamoto while he was grieving, gave an apologetic look to Hana and Kyouko, and barged into his bubble of fellow-student-observed privacy.

"Hi, Yamamoto-kun!" she said, trying too hard for a cheerful tone.

Yamamoto looked up, surprise and something almost like dismay on his face for a split second before he gathered himself and started forming that fake, fake smile.

Tsuna just kept going, talking before he could even try. "So I noticed you were out of school for a couple of days and I was thinking I could catch you up on what's happened!" she said. "Not school work, I mean, the teachers probably helped with that, but like, did anyone tell you about the fight between Aosa-kun and Sarue-chan?"

Yamamoto blinked. "No, not yet," he said slowly.

"It was amazing. Or horrible. Depending on how you look at it," Tsuna said, sitting next to him now that he'd encouraged her even the littlest bit.

"Oh yeah? Which side are you on?" Yamamoto said, a hint of a real smile on his face.

Tsuna beamed. "Amazing, of course," she said, and without prompting, continued, "Okay, so, you know how Sarue-chan accused Aosa-kun of cheating, right? We~ll, it turned out that he was. Technically. I mean, he had his older sister helping him, so I think that counts as cheating. Sarue-chan obviously thought so too..."

Tsuna kept talking almost solid throughout the rest of their break, with only minimal input from Yamamoto. She considered it a success when, halfway through, Yamamoto laughed for the first time since he'd returned to school.

The next day, Kyouko and Hana, giving Tsuna extremely similar understanding looks, although tinged with different shades of emotion (approval in Kyouko's case and exasperation in Hana's), joined the two of them. Between the three of them, it was easy to keep a conversation going, though Tsuna was careful to make sure that Yamamoto was included in it. Hana had an impressive dry wit, and offered a different, yet still funny, perspective of things from Tsuna's version, while Kyouko found the both of them hilarious, and her laughter was infectious. To Tsuna's joy, within a couple of weeks, almost all of Yamamoto's smiles were real.

And, although once they considered it 'safe', Yamamoto's usual friends returned and he went back to spending time with them, he still spent a large majority of his time with Tsuna, and Kyouko, and Hana, when any or all of them were around. (After a while of this, Yamamoto slung his arm around Tsuna's shoulders and outright called her 'Tsuna' with no honorific instead of the 'Sawada' it had been before, so Tsuna looked back, raised her eyebrows, and called him 'Takeshi'.)

Even when Tsuna was doing her weekly lunch with Hibari, the three of them often spent it together without her, and Tsuna found that she was actually delighted by this turn of events. It was surprisingly cool that she'd managed to get them to become friends with each other, and not solely when they separately wanted to spend time with her.

So yeah, Tsuna was pretty pleased.

Through her weekly lunches (aka fights) with Hibari, Tsuna was slowly but steadily getting better at fighting. Their fights also steadily got longer and longer before the inevitable conclusion of Tsuna getting tired of getting new bruises and fleeing. Finally, halfway through third grade, the usual format changed.

Tsuna was keeping up surprisingly well, although she had a new bruise on one forearm, the other shoulder, and one of her shins. She was getting tired, though, and the new injuries hurt, making it harder and harder to keep up with him. Since it was practically all she could do to dodge, Hibari only had one Tsuna-inflicted injury, which she doubted was even a proper bruise; she'd just barely gotten him in the stomach with a kick, and he'd been dodging backwards at the time anyway.

So things were not going in her favor at all, and Tsuna was just about ready to call it and make a run for the stairs.

Then Hibari abruptly backed off, a thunderous scowl on his face. A second later, during which Tsuna could do nothing but gape, because Hibari didn't just stop, the warning bell went off. Lunch was almost over.

Hibari glared at Tsuna briefly, though it seemed different from usual, then spun around sharply and stalked over to the far side, where he settled on the floor and appeared to go to sleep. Tsuna stared for a moment. She knew he usually napped up there, or at least she'd assumed so, but didn't he care about class? Eventually, Tsuna just shrugged it off and left to go to her own class. Honestly, it wouldn't even surprise her if Hibari was planning to skip class just to get his nap in.

After that, Tsuna was surprised to discover that she had, evidently, earned Hibari's respect. That was not to say he stopped attacking her, because that was most definitely not the case. He did, however, stop fighting after thirty minutes and allow her to spend the rest of lunch on the roof while he napped (or appear to, anyway). Tsuna figured it was his way of conceding, even if only so that he still got some nap time before classes started again.

And of course she stayed on the roof once he'd given up; it was her hard-earned right to eat lunch on that roof, okay. It had taken her more than a year of getting beaten up by Hibari and then, each day, thirty minutes of narrowly avoiding being subjected to that fate yet again, to secure her right to eat on the roof. Tsuna was absolutely going to take advantage of it.

Several awful, wintery months later, they made it to February (an awful month to be true, yet the end of winter was in sight), and Valentine's Day reared its ugly head.

Tsuna debated with herself for a week and a half before deciding to try to make homemade chocolates for her male friends. All two of them, and that was reaching to count Ryohei. On a whim, Tsuna decided to (try to) make some for Hibari as well. Bribery was absolutely Tsuna's jam and she wanted him to like her even if only for her acceptable chocolates.

Because really, she doubted anyone else had the guts to give him chocolates regardless of his pretty face.

So, about three days before Valentine's Day, Tsuna asked Nana (who is a masterful chef in her own right) to teach her how to make chocolates. If it were what Tsuna still considered 'modern day', meaning the mid-to-late 2010s, she would have googled it. As it was, the year 2000 and without even a computer much less a smart phone, Tsuna could not do that.

Fortunately, Nana both knew how and was absolutely delighted to teach her.

"Aah, my little Tsu-chan, growing up and making chocolate for boys!" she squealed.

Tsuna knew it wouldn't affect anything if she tried to point out that the chocolates weren't romantic, so she didn't bother.

"So, do you want to customize them?" Nana asked. "You know, do something special for each boy!"

Tsuna blinked. Specialized chocolate? "Like how?"

"Well, you know, your dad really loves caramel, so I'd put caramel centers in his!" Nana said. "Do you know anything like that?"

"Uh..." Tsuna thought about it. She knew nothing about Hibari's preferences for obvious reasons. Takeshi, she was pretty sure, liked vanilla because he was that kind of person. Ryohei, in his on-going existence as being as extreme as possible, liked spicy foods.

She told Nana as much, who beamed. It turned out that there was a way to make spicy chocolate, and to put vanilla (but not like, pure vanilla flavoring) inside chocolates. And, because Tsuna didn't have anything to say for Hibari's, Nana decided on her own to give them caramel centers and refused to be dissuaded. Tsuna had obviously inadvertently caused her to feel nostalgic.

The first batch was almost entirely made by Nana, while Tsuna just watched, so naturally they came out perfect. Tsuna wanted to make the chocolates herself, though, or she would have just gotten store-bought ones.

So, she tried on her own, with Nana watching over her shoulder and giving her pointers. Still, even with the help, batch number one came out.... mushy.

Tsuna didn't even know that was possible.

Batch two came out crunchy.

Batch three was too salty, and it was a very good thing that the Sawada family, thanks to Iemitsu's illegal career, was rich, and Nana was a very understanding person.

Batch four didn't have enough salt.

Batch five was edible, but less like proper, balled chocolate and more like chocolate chips.

Batch six, finally, was both edible and even remotely correctly shaped. They weren't pretty, still, but Tsuna decided it was good enough. Her friends would just have to deal.

Honestly, Tsuna wasn't even sure why she bothered when, in the end, they went out to the store to get 'proper' boxes to put the chocolates in anyway. Nana gave her the choice of what colors to get, so, because Tsuna thought she was extremely funny even if nobody else would get the joke, she decided on a blue box with black ribbon for Takeshi, a yellow box with white ribbon for Ryohei, and a purple box with black ribbon for Hibari.

She was hilarious, obviously.

Valentine's Day itself came around. Tsuna gave her chocolates to Takeshi first thing in the morning, before class.

"Appreciation chocolates," she made sure to clarify.

Takeshi laughed. "Hey, thanks, Tsuna! I appreciate you too!" he said cheerfully and tucked the chocolates away carefully.

Tsuna shrugged. "Try the chocolates before you thank me," she said. "I tried to make them myself, but they didn't come out so well."

"Oh, Tsuna-chan, you know how to make chocolates?" Kyouko said. "That's so cool!"

"Well, I asked my mom to teach me, she's like this amazing cook. I swear she knows how to make everything," Tsuna said.

They were interrupted by a small group of girls walking up in a huddle to offer several boxes of chocolate to Takeshi. They weren't quite to the age, yet, where girls went crazy giving chocolates to popular boys, but apparently, they were old enough. Takeshi accepted the chocolates gracefully, and the girls walked away with heavy blushes.

By the time lunch came around, Takeshi had a small pile of boxes of chocolates.

"Somebody's popular," Tsuna said dryly. "Maybe I should take my chocolates back?"

"Aw, no way," Takeshi said with one of his usual grins. "I appreciate your chocolates the most."

Tsuna figured most of the girls who'd given him chocolate would have swooned at that, but. She wasn't really feeling it.

During lunch, Tsuna excused herself from eating with her friends.

"Huh? Why?" Kyouko said.

"There's somebody else I want to give appreciation chocolates to, but he's not in our class, so I don't know when else to find him," Tsuna explained.

"Somebody else?" Hana said with a wrinkle in her nose. "Who? ...Why?"

Tsuna laughed. "I just feel like it," she said.

"Nooo, Tsuna-chan, you can't say something like that and leave!" Kyouko said. "You have to tell us who it is!"

"I don't know if you'd know him," Tsuna said, but shrugged. They'd find out eventually either way. "His name is Hibari Kyouya."

To Tsuna's surprise, all three of them paled a little. All of them started talking at the same time.

"The demon?" Hana said.

Takeshi frowned. "Are you sure that's okay?"

"Huh? Isn't he super scary?" Kyouko said.

"I don't know, we've been hanging out --" technically, "-- at lunch once a week for a while now. I think it's fine."

And then Tsuna fled before they could refuse to let her go. Honestly.

She went up to the roof to wait. She wasn't entirely sure Hibari would show up, actually; it wasn't their usual scheduled fight-day. After a few minutes, though, he stalked through the door onto the roof.

Tsuna was impressed. He either had a sixth-sense for these things, did actually nap on the roof all the time now, or had the roof under surveillance.

"I don't want to fight," she said hurriedly before he could attack her.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. Tsuna dug the box of chocolates out of her bag.

"I just wanted to give you these," she said, offering the box. "Then I'll be leaving."

After a moment of staring at the box with something like suspicion, Hibari snatched it from Tsuna's hand.

"Fine. Leave, herbivore," he said, striding over to his usual spot and laying down.

Tsuna rolled her eyes, supposed she should count herself lucky he'd decided not to 'bite her to death' regardless, and skedaddled.

Later that day, she accosted Ryohei as he was picking Kyouko up so they could walk home together and gave him his box of chocolates. Ryohei accepted it with great enthusiasm and also a rib-cracking hug, so Tsuna figured that made up for Hibari's ungrateful attitude.

(Even later, Ryohei and Takeshi would both say that Tsuna's chocolates had been awesome. On her next fight-day with Hibari, after they'd finished the fight, he looked at her for a bit longer than usual and said that he didn't like the caramel, and then went to lay down. Tsuna was somewhat insulted but mostly just took it as a challenge to find something he did like.)

Truth be told, Tsuna hadn't even considered the existence of White Day when she gave her friends chocolate. She managed to all but completely forget it existed.

So, it came as a surprise, when, March 14th, Takeshi greeted her before class with a store-bought box of white chocolate. Tsuna stared for a long moment.

Takeshi, evidently unbothered, laughed. "I tried to make homemade white chocolate, but it didn't turn out that well, so! Here," he said.

It was then, after approximately thirty seconds, that Tsuna remembered that White Day was a thing. The day boys who had received chocolate on Valentine's Day were supposed to return the gift with white chocolate or jewelry or something.

"Thank you," Tsuna said on instinct as she took the box.

Takeshi laughed at her again.

Later that day, during the two entire seconds Tsuna was alone, Hibari appeared like an apparition.

"Herbivore," he said to get her attention. "It is White Day."

With that, he held out a modest-sized cake covered in white frosting and dropped it without waiting for Tsuna to reach out first, causing her to have to jerk forward to catch it. Tsuna examined the cake suspiciously. It wasn't especially large, definitely a one-person cake, but it was beautifully decorated with white frosting.

It looked really expensive. Much more than three times the worth of the chocolate Tsuna had given him.

But, when Tsuna looked up, Hibari was halfway down the hall, evidently making his escape while she was distracted, so she couldn't say anything about it. Tsuna stared after him for a moment.

Then she decided to redouble her Valentine's Day efforts the next year. Clearly, Hibari was the kind of person who had to win in all things, including giving gifts. Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised. But she was also not going to lose.

Later, finishing off the near-perfect mirror of how Tsuna had handed out her chocolates, Ryohei found her just after school to give her yet another return gift. Ryohei's turned out to be what seemed to Tsuna to be a party-sized platter of cookies. However, due to the sheer enthusiasm of his giving them to her, Tsuna did not have an opportunity to refuse them.

Tsuna stared down at the package of probably ninety cookies and found herself making Hansel and Gretel jokes. There was no way she was going to be able to finish off that many cookies before they went stale.

(She ended up sharing them with Kyouko, Hana, and Takeshi.)

Tsuna had managed, so far, to skate by unnoticed by most people; the bullies left her alone, and despite being friends with the Two Most Popular Kids in Class(tm), people didn't really seem to consider her popular.

She liked to consider it a result of a healthy dose of minding her own business. It was, she reflected, almost a miracle considering how pitifully Canon!Tsuna did not manage the same thing. Maybe there was something more to it, but if so, Tsuna wasn't doing it on purpose, so she was at a loss.

Anyway, Tsuna didn't usually bother with the other students of her elementary school except for her usual five. Since she had such a small group of friends, she tended to notice when something was different.

Such as, for example, Kyouko not being there at the gate after class as she usually was, waiting for her brother.

Hana shrugged it off and left, which was fair because her mother generally got mad at her if she didn't report in for babysitting duty without warning. Takeshi was occupied with baseball as per usual.

So, it was just Tsuna.

She had a bad feeling about it. Given that she had little way of telling the difference between a 'my-schedule-has-been-interrupted-and-I'm-upset' bad feeling and a 'my-creepy-Hyper-Intuition-is-going-off' bad feeling, she listened to it and went looking for Kyouko. First she went back to their classroom, which was empty, and then checked the bathroom with the same results.

At a loss, Tsuna checked on Ryohei, who was in the boxing club even at this young age. The club was still going, and so she didn't interrupt, but as far as she could tell, Kyouko wasn't there either.

The bad feeling redoubled. Kyouko never left without her brother.

Tsuna went around checking the school grounds, but found nothing. Finally, she made her way back to find Ryohei, where the boxing club was now just finishing up. Tsuna slipped into the room, hurrying over to him.

“Oh, Tsuna! What's up?" Ryohei said.

"Do you know where Kyouko is?" Tsuna asked. "She wasn't at the gate where she usually waits."

Ryohei blinked. "No, I--" he froze. "NO! THOSE JERKS!"

He rushed off without an explanation. Tsuna sighed, but ran after him anyway. Unfortunately, given that Ryohei was the kind of madman who jogged every morning and Tsuna was not, he outpaced her pretty easily, but fortunately, he was easy to follow.

All she had to do was follow the cries of Kyouko's name.

Eventually, she caught up to him in an alleyway near Namimori High School. Ryohei was already embroiled in a fight with three boys wearing the high school uniform, while a fourth was standing to the side, holding onto Kyouko, who looked terrified but uninjured.

Well. Tsuna figured the proper course of action was obvious.

She flung herself at the boy holding Kyouko. Without jumping, Tsuna managed to reach just high enough to clip him in the jaw with a punch, and he released Kyouko and stumbled away with a surprisingly high-pitched yelp.

"Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Tsuna kicked one of his legs out from under them and then turned, hearing him fall to the ground behind her. Kyouko, the smart girl, had backed away to the mouth of the alleyway, out of danger. The boy Tsuna had knocked over wouldn't stay out of the fight, she knew, but she took the brief time it would take him to get back up and charged into Ryohei's one vs three battle.

They'd noticed her, unfortunately, and so she couldn't get a sneak attack, but she ducked past one's attempts to grab her and threw her weight into slamming elbow-first into his midsection, and he doubled over with a wheeze. While he was distracted, Tsuna raised her leg and kicked him where the sun don't shine. He whimpered, fell to the ground, curled up in the fetal position, and didn't move again.

The other boys converged on her, but Ryohei punched one in the side from behind, earning a shout, and they turned back. Tsuna turned just in time to dodge away from the fourth (now third) boy before he could grab her by the hair.

"You little brat," he said.

"You big bully," Tsuna said, and launched herself at his face.

The boy threw his arms up to protect the face with a shriek. Tsuna grabbed handfuls of his school vest and leveraged herself to knee him in the stomach, then, as she fell back down, inadvertently pulled him down with her. She landed on her feet, released her holds on his vest, and dodged out of the way as he faceplanted.

After jumping on his back just to hear him yelp again, Tsuna made her way back over to Ryohei, where he'd managed to get one of the boys to stay down. Tsuna flung herself onto the remaining high school student's back, grabbing him around the neck. He yelled and grabbed her arms, trying to pry her off. In doing so, he left himself open and Ryohei nailed him in the kidney.

The high school student crumpled with a whimper suspiciously similar to his friend's.

Breathing hard, Ryohei glanced around at the boys as if daring them to get back up. None of them did. Finally, he turned away and made his way over to Kyouko, who let out a sob and flung herself into his arms.

Tsuna followed out of range of the high school students, then shuffled and looked away awkwardly.

"Big Brother!" Kyouko sobbed out.

"Kyouko! I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Ryohei said.

She shook her head. "I'm okay, but Big Brother, you're hurt!"

Ryohei had a bit of drying blood coming from his nose and some trailing from his mouth, as well as what was probably going to be a beautiful black eye.

"What, this? This is nothing! I'm fine!" he laughed.

Kyouko looked doubtful, but then she apparently remembered Tsuna's existence and turned to her. "Oh! Tsuna-chan, are you okay? That was so scary when you jumped in!"

"I'm okay. They didn't even hit me," Tsuna said. None of those boys were even close to Hibari's level. "I'm glad both of you are okay."

"That was AWESOME, Tsuna! YOU WERE EXTREMELY COOL!" Ryohei said at top volume. Then, somewhat quieter, "I'm sorry you had to get involved!"

Tsuna shrugged. "Thanks, Ryohei-san. I don't really mind, though," she said.

Ryohei released Kyouko to loom over Tsuna, grabbing her by the shoulders. Tsuna looked at his hands, a little put out that he was getting blood on her.

"Tsuna! I want you to call me 'Big Brother' from now on!" Ryohei declared. "BECAUSE YOU'RE LIKE A SISTER TO ME!"

Tsuna blinked. "Um." She looked to Kyouko for help, who, much calmer now, just giggled. "I don't... think that's appropriate,"  Tsuna tried.

"CALL ME BIG BROTHER!" Ryohei said again.

Tsuna gave up. "Okay."

She was pretty sure Canon!Ryohei had done almost exactly the same thing to Canon!Tsuna. Maybe that was just one of those things that couldn't be changed? It wasn't like it really mattered, Tsuna supposed.

Tsuna was a pretty light sleeper. She hadn't always been, she knew; in her first life she'd sot of grown into it after being a sleep-like-the-dead sleeper as a child. In her second life, she'd somewhat learned how to sleep through things again as a baby and young child, and, again, grown out of it.

So she woke up when the front door slammed. As Tsuna was lying there wondering why the door would slam at a time like this (1:43 in the morning), she heard The Sound. Laughter. It wasn't such a strange thing, of course, except for the fact that ghostly laughter at 2am was pretty creepy. This wasn't creepy, though; she recognized it as her mother's laugh. Specifically, it was the way Nana laughed when Iemitsu was home.

This thought was worrying enough to have Tsuna slipping out of her room, to the top of the stairs. She stayed just around the corner out of sight of anyone looking up and listened.

Sure enough, there was Nana's voice, speaking in a contained murmur. Then a deeper baritone, recognizable as Iemitsu purely because it could be no one else. She certainly didn't recognize it because she heard it so often.

Tsuna huffed silently and made her way back to her room, flinging herself into bed, and tried not to sulk. It wasn't that she had anything against Iemitsu... Okay, that was a lie. She really didn't like him; she hadn't even liked him much as a character in her first life. Being in a world where he was a real person, and also a real absentee dad? She really didn't like him. And she hadn't even seen canon behavior like being drunk half the time he was home, yet.

Iemitsu just made it so easy.

The next morning, Tsuna dreaded going downstairs, knowing with certainty what she'd find. Nana would be glowing with happiness, dancing around the kitchen making breakfast while Iemitsu either waited patiently or distracted her repeatedly with literal dancing or any other variety of safe-to-have-the-nine-year-old-walk-in-on behavior. They would have a normal Japanese breakfast today for lack of ingredients, but later Nana would go shopping to get more exotic things to make breakfast from whichever country Iemitsu decided to claim he'd been in.

Tsuna was pretty sure that was part of their ongoing game of chicken, honestly, but she was so not going to get involved in it.

Whenever Tsuna relented and went downstairs, Iemitsu would greet her eagerly and expect her to reciprocate. Nana would quietly expect the same; she loved Iemitsu regardless of his absences, and it seemed she genuinely could not understand that Tsuna didn't feel the same way.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: D. Gray-man

Written in 2018

Summary: About a year before Allen joins the Order, General Yeegar finds a young accommodator.

Warnings: Same as the first 3 parts.

Part 1

                                                            Part 4

Once Allen and Lenalee arrived at the city in Belgium which Komui had directed them to, he explained the situation somberly.

Kevin Yeegar, one of the generals of the Black Order, had been attacked by Noah, one of which was likely the same one they had run into in Germany. His Innocence had been destroyed and, though he'd been found alive, he could not be saved. Even now, they were merely delaying his inevitable death.

While Allen was still stuck on the horror of it, Lenalee gasped.

"What about Alexandra?" she asked hurriedly, already with a look of dread.

Komui still looked grave, but he managed a smile. "She's okay," he said gently. "She was there, but she managed to escape, along with the eight Innocence General Yeegar had been carrying on him at the time."

"Thank goodness," Lenalee murmured.

"Alexandra?" Allen said.

"Another exorcist. She was General Yeegar's apprentice, so she's been traveling with him," Komui said.

"She's nine, or maybe ten now," Lenalee said.

Oh.

"I'm glad she's okay," Allen said, a bit sad. A nine-year-old?

Komui nodded. "As am I." Then, grudgingly, as though he knew how it sounded, he added, "Much of our information about the two who attacked them came from her."

Allen and Lenalee were soldiers too, however. Neither of them protested the callous sounding reasoning.

"What did she find out?" Lenalee asked.

"Not much," Komui said with a sigh, shaking his head. "There were two of them: a girl who seemed to be about twelve, likely Road, the Noah you encountered, as well as a man in his twenties. They both had the same gray skin, gold eyes, and cross markings on their foreheads. The man did most of the fighting, and he was able to fight on equal footing with a general, which means he's no pushover. He also, she said, had a strange ability; he was able to phase into the ground, only to come back out in a different place. The girl's fighting ability was less clear, but she was able to cause General Yeegar to collapse just by pointing at him. They also directly said that they were looking for the Heart to destroy it, confirming the phrase that the general has been saying."

He went on to explain the situation: in the wake of the attack on General Yeegar, the exorcists were all being sent after the other four generals to inform them if necessary and bring them back to Headquarters. The two of them, as well as Lavi and Bookman, would be sent after General Cross.

While Allen was busy being horrified by that, Lenalee asked, "What will happen to Alexandra?"

"We considered sending her to meet up with one of the other General Units, since the Cross Unit already has an extra person compared to the others. As they are all some distance away, however, we've decided to send her along with you guys, looking for General Cross," Komui said.

Lenalee nodded. "Is that all, Brother?" she asked. When Komui agreed, she said firmly, "I'm going to go find her."

"I'll come, too," Allen said.

And so they set off looking for their new companion. It turned out that Lavi and Bookman, who somehow already knew everything Komui had been telling them, had already found her.

"Oh, hey!" Lavi said as he noticed them. "You guys haven't met yet, right? Alex, meet Moyashi!"

He gestured grandly between Allen and a little girl with short blonde hair and massive wings.

Allen pursed his lips and tried not to frown. "It's Allen," he corrected irritably, then smiled at her as he held out his right hand. "My name is Allen Walker. It's nice to meet you."

"I'm Alexandra," she said in a soft voice, putting her hand in his. "It's nice to meet you too."

Timcampy popped out of Allen's hood to flutter around her. Tim hated being left out of meeting new people.

Alexandra leaned back a bit in alarm, but allowed him to investigate her. "A golem?" she said curiously.

"Yes, this is Timcampy," Allen said.

"I've never seen a golem that looks like that before," Alexandra said.

Lavi and Lenalee also looked curious. Allen laughed sheepishly.

"Well, I'm not really sure why he looks like this, either," he said. "He's my master's golem, actually."

"Your master?" Alexandra asked.

"General Cross," Allen said, unable to keep from shivering.

Alexandra noticed, somehow. "You don't like him? General Cross, I mean?"

"No, well, that is," Allen tried, then sighed. "My master isn't very nice."

"...Sorry to hear that," Alexandra said sympathetically, if bemused. She patted him gently on the arm. Then she blinked and looked concerned. "Isn't that the general we're supposed to be finding?"

Allen slumped, falling back into depression. Just when he thought he'd escaped him...

"I'm sure it'll be fine!" Lavi said with a laugh. "How bad can he be, really?"

If they only knew...

Following Timcampy's tracker, they made their way across Europe. This mostly just meant a lot of time spent on trains, with short periods in between of looking at maps to figure out which train to get on next. Either Cross wasn't moving much, or he was very far away, for Tim generally pointed them in the same direction.

Alexandra wasn't used to traveling with so many people, so it was odd for her at first. Gradually, she became aware of tension between Lenalee and Allen.

It was actually pretty obvious once one knew about it. Lenalee all but completely refused to acknowledge Allen. She never spoke to him. If he spoke, she almost never answered. Where she would check to make sure that Alexandra and Lavi were on the train (she never needed to make sure that Bookman was), she didn't bother with Allen.

Finally, she had to ask.

"What's up between those two?" she asked Lavi, making sure Lenalee and Allen were out of hearing range.

"Who knows?" Lavi said lightly, shrugging.

Alexandra side-eyed him, because that wasn't an answer, and she knew him well enough by now to be wary of that. But, she decided, it didn't matter that much, so she let it go.

In the meantime, she and Allen actually got along really well. She'd already gotten along with the others, of course. This was just the first she'd spent time with Allen. He was unfailingly polite, and she largely only knew polite language in English, so the two of them talking was interesting.

Lavi made fun of them both, of course.

Allen tended to get annoyed, though he visibly tried not to. Alexandra didn't mind as much, and once it started to bother her, she preferred to look sad and teary. If that in itself didn't get Lavi to stop, either Bookman or Lenalee would get mad at him, and that would stop him.

They were somewhere in Hungary, waiting for their next train, the first time Timcampy got eaten by a cat.

He wandered a little too far away from them, a little too close to the ground, and a stray cat leaped out of nowhere and swallowed him whole. There was a moment of silence as all five of them stared. Allen reacted first.

"Not again!" he said, jumping up to chase the cat.

The others kicked into gear, following after him. The cat didn't manage to get far away before Allen pounced on it, wrapping his arms securely around it.

"Again? Does this happen a lot?" Lavi asked dryly.

Allen sighed as he looked down at the cat, which he pulled into his lap. "All the time," he said mournfully.

"What do we do now?" Alexandra asked. They had the cat, sure, but getting Timcampy...

They all traded a look.

Later, after successfully getting Tim back from the cat, they were all a little more protective of the little golem.

They continued east, into Romania.

Alexandra was hanging out with Lavi and Bookman. They were doing their whole, super-secret Bookman conversation, though, which meant they were being boring. She was bored.

They had some time before their next train left, so Lenalee and Allen had gone to get supplies. Alexandra, figuring that the two of them were capable of getting supplies without extra help, had stayed behind with Lavi and Bookman. But, as mentioned before, they were being boring, and Lenalee and Allen were taking longer than expected.

Not that them getting back would mean they could leave. They couldn't do that until the train was leaving. But maybe one of them would be willing to talk with her.

She slumped down on the bench until she was more laying than sitting.

Finally, Lenalee came stalking up the path, seemingly upset. She was carrying a paper bag in her hands, so Alexandra assumed that the supplies had been acquired. Except... Alexandra leaned over, looking behind Lenalee. Allen didn't seem to be there.

"Where's Allen?" she asked.

Lenalee turned to look behind herself. "Huh? He was right behind me..." she said. "Maybe he was just a little slow?"

Lavi and Bookman looked up from their super-top-secret information exchange. "Hope he didn't get lost," Lavi said.

They all considered that. It was a big possibility.

"Maybe somebody should go looking for him?" Alexandra said.

Bookman nodded. "Yes, you're right," he said. "Lavi, you go."

"Wha--? Why me?" Lavi said.

Bookman gave him a look, and Lavi caved.

"Yeah, yeah, all right. I'll go."

He went.

Alexandra, Lenalee, and Bookman waited. They talked a bit, mostly about the path Timcampy seemed to be bringing them on. At this rate, they'd end up all the way in China.

And they waited more.

Finally, Lavi reappeared, Allen in tow.

"What happened?" Bookman asked.

Lavi and Allen exchanged a look.

"Well, the villagers asked us for help," Allen said slowly. "...Forcefully. By tying us up until we agreed."

"What? Are you hurt?" Lenalee said.

"Nah, they didn't hurt us," Lavi said. "In the end, I guess they really were just desperate."

"Did you help them, then? Are we leaving now?" Alexandra asked.

It was interesting, she noted, how Lavi and Allen had almost exactly the same guilty expression.

"Well, we haven't actually helped yet," Allen said. "We thought we should let you know what was happening. And they really do seem to need our help!"

"Apparently," Lavi drawled, "they've got a vampire problem."

Lenalee seemed to tense. "Vampire problem?" she echoed.

"It's probably akuma," Allen said. "According to the villagers, there's a Baron nearby, Arystar Krory the Third. He's always been reclusive, hiding away in his castle. Recently, there have been people turning up with teeth marks on their necks, drained of blood. Even more, they said that it began shortly after a visit from a member of the Order, who told them to ask people with the Rose Cross emblem if they needed help."

"That Order member was General Cross," Lavi said.

"Right. So we think there could be clues to his location here," Allen said.

"So we're not leaving," Alexandra said.

"Ah, well..." Allen said. Lavi threw an arm around Allen's shoulders casually. "Me an' the Moyashi can probably handle it," he said.

The train whistle blew, warning them that it would be leaving soon.

Lenalee frowned. "The next train isn't until tomorrow," she said.

"Well, you can go ahead, and Lavi and I will catch up once we've handled the situation," Allen said reasonably.

"We will wait in the next city," Bookman decided.

The four of them all nodded agreement. Alexandra wasn't entirely sure why they weren't all staying, but she didn't protest. Perhaps it was so that they could continue following Cross' trail?

"Be careful, you two!" Lenalee said. "Don't get bitten or anything, okay?"

"Why, Lena, you don't believe in vampires, do you?" Lavi said.

Lenalee shuddered. "Of course not," she lied primly. "I just think that situations like this require caution."

The train whistle blew again.

"We must go," Bookman said.

He made his way for the entrance, and Lenalee and Alexandra followed. Before she got on the train, Alexandra turned back to the others.

"Don't get yourselves killed," she said. "Or almost killed, or anything."

Allen smiled at her, and Lavi offered a salute.

"We'll be fine," Allen assured.

Alexandra nodded. "You'd better be."

Then, as the train whistle blew for the third time, she hopped up onto the train so she didn't get left behind too. She didn't know if she believed in vampires, but she didn't want to find out.

"Is it okay to leave them?" she wondered aloud.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Lenalee said. "They're both strong!"

"Yeah," Alexandra said with a nod. "Master was strong, too."

Her likely pessimistic fears were, it seemed, unfounded. Two days later, Allen and Lavi showed back up, only slightly the worse for wear, with Allen's left eye apparently working again. That was Alexandra's introduction to how it had worked in the first place.

Oh, and, of course, they brought the 'vampire' with them.

It turned out that the Baron in question, Arystar Krory, was not an akuma, but that the people who had been dying were akuma. Krory actually had a parasitic-type anti-akuma weapon that did make him act kind of vampire-y when it was activated. When it wasn't, however, he was soft-spoken and almost shy.

After checking in with Komui about having a new exorcist recruit, they had him continue traveling with them on their search for General Cross.

Since they hadn't actually gotten any new information about him, just that he had been through, they just kept following Timcampy's directions. Hopefully they would manage to catch up to him eventually.

There were a lot of akuma around, Alexandra noticed. More than she remembered running into with Yeegar; it seemed they ran into at least one akuma a day. As they moved further east, the akuma became more and more common. At least that was one way to tell that they were going the right way.

It figured their general would have found his way right into the thick of things.

Allen tended to dispatch the akuma first; with the way his arm could turn into a gun, he was the most long-range of them. Alexandra had actually been learning a lot, traveling with the other four, since they fought in much more unique ways than Yeegar.

Still, Allen may have been the fastest, but the repeated effort was obviously taking its toll on him. When they were somewhere in Chine, as he deactivated his Innocence and lowered his arm, Alexandra caught sight of some of it flaking off.

No, not flaking off, exactly. It was like it was turning to dust.

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, horrified. It was true that her wings weren't quite as sensitive as the rest of her body, especially not the feathers, but she could still feel them just fine.

She didn't think it would be any different with an arm.

Allen smiled tightly. "I'm fine," he claimed.

Alexandra frowned fiercely and went to argue, but Lavi spoke up before she could.

"Fine, my foot. You're wearing yourself out," he said.

Bookman nodded solemnly. "You are overusing your anti-akuma weapon," he said. "Your body cannot handle the stress."

"Really, I'm fine!" Allen said, too brightly, giving a fake laugh and waving both his hands in front of himself. More of his left arm dusted off. "I appreciate your concern, but truly, it's unnecessary."

Unconvinced, Alexandra stared at the ground. "We're here, too," she said quietly. "You don't have to do everything by yourself."

"That's right!" Lenalee said. "We're friends, aren't we? Aren't we supposed to share the burden?"

Krory nodded as firmly as he generally did anything. "Yes, e- exactly! We should do our part, too!"

"You could at least leave some akuma for the rest of us, Al," Lavi added.

Bookman didn't speak, but his expression showed his agreement.

It was probably for the best, as Allen was starting to look a little overwhelmed. He glanced between them all.

"Ah, I --" he stammered. Pulling himself together a bit, he smiled for real, which was smaller and more meaningful. "I understand. Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry for worrying you."

Lenalee nodded firmly. "Good."

And they continued through China.

Allen did stop trying to fight all of the akuma personally, but his hand didn't stop acting up. They couldn't actually do anything about it, so they were forced to let it be.

Timcampy ended up leading them all the way to the coast of China, and they found themselves in a bustling city. At a loss, they, meaning Lenalee and Bookman who actually spoke Chinese, went around asking about Cross.

Alexandra had a feeling that Lavi also spoke Chinese, but he seemed to be getting a kick out of pretending he didn't. As such, Lavi, Allen, Alexandra, and Krory all did their best, but there was only so much they could do. Only some of the people in the city even spoke English. Many of them probably did know English, but didn't care to speak with them.

"Lenalee!" Allen called.

Alexandra looked over from where she was trying to communicate with a very nice old woman who didn't speak any English at all. It sounded like he'd found something, so Alexandra tried to gesture that she had to go, not wanting to be rude.

It seemed the old lady understood, as she coughed out a laugh and gestured her away. Alexandra smiled and bowed a little, copying what she'd seen Lenalee do.

By the time she found Allen in the crowd (she wasn't tall enough to see over it), Lenalee was already there, speaking with a stall owner in rapid Chinese. Alexandra knew that it probably only sounded so fast because she didn't know the language, but it seemed like they were talking very quickly.

Meanwhile, Allen seemed to have acquired a bag of delicious smelling buns in the course of finding information about Cross. Alexandra stared hungrily, because she was always hungry, and Allen gave her one.

"Thank you," she said politely, and tried to savor it instead of just shoving the whole thing into her mouth.

It was a struggle.

Lenalee finished her conversation with the stall owner and turned to them. "Okay, he said there are Black Order supporters here in the city," she said. "They'd be the likeliest to know if General Cross has been through here."

"That's great," Allen said. "We should get the others, then, and we can go talk to those supporters."

Krory was easy to find, being tall, gangly, and out of place. Bookman, as the opposite, probably would have been difficult to find, but thankfully he and Lavi were together, Lavi's red hair leading them to him like a beacon.

With everybody gathered together, Lenalee said that she'd gotten directions to the establishment and led the way.

"It should be here... There! The Tenseiro," Lenalee said triumphantly as they came upon a large, grand building with many lamps lighting the front, the entire inside seemingly lit up with similar light.

Then, as one, Lenalee, Lavi, Allen, and Bookman hesitated. It was practically audible.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Krory asked.

The four of them glanced between him and Alexandra.

"I grew up on the streets until Master found me," she chirped. "I know what it is."

Although, she didn't actually know the name for it in English. Yeegar had never seen fit to teach her that.

Still, they all looked hesitant.

"Just... stay here, okay, Alexandra?" Allen said.

Alexandra sighed. "All right, sure," she said with an eye roll. It didn't really matter, she figured.

They all left her there, including Krory, who they apparently didn't care about corrupting. That was fine. She watched from a distance as Allen and Lavi were picked up by a tall, buff woman, and then as the group disappeared into the building.

If she suddenly got attacked by akuma or something, she would never let them live it down.

Fortunately, no such akuma attack happened. After what seemed like a long time, they reemerged from the building.

It turned out that the owner (Mistress? Madame?) of the brothel, a woman named Anita, was not only a supporter of the Black Order, but had been personally involved with General Cross himself. Furthermore, Cross had boarded a ship to Japan several days ago, which had then sunk at sea.

Despite this, Allen assured her, he was sure that Cross was not dead. Alexandra wasn't sure how that worked, but she went with it. Miss Anita, apparently touched by Allen's faith(?) in Cross, had agreed to help them follow across the ocean to Japan.

And she had a ship. Alexandra was starting to feel that this was all a bit too convenient.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: D. Gray-man

Written in 2018

Summary: About a year before Allen joins the Order, General Yeegar finds a young accommodator.

Warnings: Same as parts 1 and 2.

Part 1

Part 4

                                                          Part 3

Traveling with Yeegar was largely much less interesting than that one mission. They generally only ran into Level Ones, and not in such huge numbers. It took a month before Yeegar would reluctantly allow Alexandra to fight akuma again.

With more practice flying in general, as well as fighting akuma specifically, Alexandra got much better at it. She got faster at lost distance flying and with short distance flying and turning. The biggest achievement in her opinion was learning to fly, attack, and block simultaneously, which was actually very difficult. It got a lot easier when she switched to blocking individual bullets rather than just trying to block everything.

Not to mention, with increased speed came the ability to dodge rather than blocking the akumas' bullets; she herself, not counting her wings, made for a pretty small target, and akuma were not good at aiming.

Yeegar, and so Alexandra with him, visited Headquarters every couple of months. The first visit wasn't very interesting, as all of the exorcists, even Lenalee, were out on missions. Finders, for some reason, refused to talk to her.

The second, however, was amazing. Alexandra had so much fun.

While Yeegar went to talk to Komui, Alexandra had time to hang out. It turned out that Lenalee was out on a mission yet again, which was sad; Alexandra missed her. In exchange, though, another exorcist she hadn't gotten to meet yet was there, as was Lavi.

Lavi offered to introduce her to the other exorcist, an intimidating man (teenager? She couldn't tell) with long black hair and a sword.

Alexandra agreed innocently, thinking that the exorcists were all generally on good terms with each other. She was very wrong about that. Ten minutes later, she hadn't technically gotten to meet the other exorcist and he had Lavi at sword point.

Lavi danced backwards nervously. "C'mon now, Yuu! Don't be like that," he said.

"Don't call me that! It's Kanda!" the other exorcist shouted.

He advanced slowly, sword out.

"Think of the children, Yuu!" Lavi said, gesturing to Alexandra. "You wouldn't want her to see that, would you?"

Kanda (?) didn't even glance at her. The situation only devolved from there. Alexandra didn't really mind, though; Kanda hadn't threatened her at all, only Lavi, who arguably brought it on himself. Plus, she learned a lot of English words that Yeegar had never taught her. Like the many usages and forms of fuck.

She wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but she thought she'd gotten the general idea.

Although, she never did actually get to meet Kanda.

The third time wasn't as interesting as all that, but Alexandra did get to meet a couple new people. The teenagers she already knew were on missions, but there was a man named Suman Dark there. He was nice enough, she supposed, but kind of patronizing. He was also the first exorcist, or even scientist, she'd met who was actively weird about her age; the others, if they reacted at all, merely look a bit sad.

After a rather awkward conversation during which Suman seemed to try hard to be considerate of her age, Alexandra took an opportunity offered by Johnny and fled.

She also met a woman named Tina Spark. Tina was not actually very nice, but she was a lot easier to talk to, because she didn't care about Alexandra's age. She was very brusque and foul-mouthed for a woman, and Alexandra loved her.

Tina also told her about the other women exorcists. Alexandra didn't quite get why, but she was plenty interested in knowing about more exorcists. In addition to the two of them, Hevlaska, and Lenalee, there were two others. One was even a general! Alexandra was looking forward to meeting them. Apparently normal exorcists went on missions with other exorcists about as often as they got solo missions, so she'd probably get to meet most of the exorcists eventually. Maybe not the general, though.

Alexandra wondered when Yeegar would have her stay at the Order. She didn't want to ask, but it had been a year since she started traveling with him. She didn't know how long was customary, but it felt like a long time.

As usual, they left the next day after getting there. Maybe next time, she thought. Even after a year, Alexandra had no idea how Yeegar decided on their paths. At this point, she was convinced it was on a whim. They didn't go anywhere quickly, either; they tended to take a winding path, spending a couple days in each nice city they came across.

This time, they made their way across Europe to Italy. It took a couple weeks just to enter the country. Alexandra didn't mind, though; it was mostly spent looking at the sights and meeting new people, which was cool. And she really did like Yeegar. It was a problem, she'd realized: when she was at Headquarters, she wanted to stay there, but when she was traveling with Yeegar, she didn't want to stop.

So, she'd decided that she wouldn't decide. She would just let Yeegar decide, and she wouldn't pressure him in either direction.

After they got to Italy, they took a circuitous route, going through several big cities, to end up at the coast, in the city of Catania. Alexandra had wondered why Yeegar would want to do that, but then she found that coastal cities actually had a lot of people. Like, a lot. Then, they continued following the coast, all the way around Italy and back up, through France, and into Spain.

Somewhere near the French-Spanish border, Alexandra lay on her bed in their inn room, looking across at Yeegar and his bag of carefully-stored Innocence.

"Is it worth it?" she wondered idly. "Looking for compatible people."

"Why would it not be?" Yeegar said.

"You haven't actually found any," Alexandra said. "Not in more than a year that I've been with you."

Yeegar sighed lightly. "It is a fair concern," he acknowledged. "The problem is, there just aren't that many compatible people. Only 109 Innocence, and millions of potential matches. It can seem pointless, traveling around looking for those who are compatible, with months and years of failure. In the end, however, I am only one person. If I can find even one match, that person could likely do as much for the Order as I could. If I find two, then I have done more to help the Order than I could have if I'd been taking missions like the other exorcists. Do you understand?"

"Yeah. That makes sense," Alexandra said.

She meant that; it did make sense. It made her think, though. Yeegar was obviously very concerned with helping the Order, which only made sense, since it as an organization was the only thing trying to fight the Earl and his akuma. But Alexandra wasn't doing anything, traveling with him as she was. If he really only cared about helping the Order, why hadn't he sent her off yet?

"Master, when do you think I'll be ready to be a real exorcist?" she asked.

Yeegar's expression tightened and he turned away. "Alexandra..." he said with a deep sigh. Eventually, he said, "You are very young."

"But I'm not bad at fighting akuma," Alexandra said, trying to sound neutral. She had never wanted to argue with him about this. "And I could be helping."

Yeegar stepped around his bed, moving to sit on the edge closest to her. In response, Alexandra sat up to mirror him.

"Alexandra, I do not have any doubt in your ability to fight akuma or to help the Order," Yeegar said frankly. When she went to speak, he held up a hand. "Please, let me finish. You are good at fighting akuma, and you're very skilled for your age. In addition, I have dedicated many years of my life to the Order for a reason; I truly believe in the goal and it is my wish to help the Order in any ways I can."

He paused and took a deep breath.

"However. I have been part of the Order for a long time. In that time, I have met many exorcists, several of whom I have personally taught. Of those exorcists, a good deal have died," he said somberly. "The life of an exorcist is not safe. It involves a lot of fighting, sometimes alone, almost always in less than ideal situations. A single mistake can cost lives."

Yeegar reached out to brush some of Alexandra's hair away from her face, a soft look on his face. "I know you could be helping," he said quietly. "But please, let me protect you for a little longer."

Alexandra's eyes watered, and she blinked rapidly in the hopes of keeping from crying. In the end, she couldn't manage anything beyond a nod in response.

They continued down Spain, through to the city of Cartagena, where Yeegar decided to cut across the country to Madrid rather than continue following the coast. This all but confirmed Alexandra's belief that he was just making up the path as they went along.

It had been long enough, then, that Yeegar decided to begin making their way back to Headquarters. That didn't mean much; with the way their traveling went, it would be a good month or two to actually get there. Alexandra didn't mind.

Now, she emphatically didn't mind, having decided that she would absolutely not be upset about traveling with Yeegar. Well, not for like, another couple of years.

Alexandra found out through Yeegar, who found out through the Black Order grapevine, that they'd gotten a new exorcist. Apparently one of the other generals, who everyone thought was dead, had had a secret student. Alexandra was excited to meet them, too; hopefully the new exorcist would be at Headquarters when they finally got there.

They wandered back up through France. Alexandra learned some French words that she was sure Yeegar would disapprove of, and also learned a deep and abiding hatred for grape-based drinks.

They made their way through both Versailles and Paris, the previous capital of the country and the current one. Yeegar told her that one of the other generals, a man named Froi Tiedoll, was from France, and also confessed that he personally couldn't stand the language. On that day, Alexandra felt a sense of kinship with him that, she felt, had never before occurred.

Then, since Yeegar was on a coastal kick this trip, they decided to go through Belgium. When Alexandra said as much, Yeegar gave her a disappointed look.

"Brussels is hardly coastal, Alexandra," he said.

She shrugged. "We could go closer to the coast," she said.

Yeegar laughed, but they decided to go for Brussels anyway. On the way, Yeegar took a liking to a smaller town, not quite the usual cities he tended to spend his time in. Apparently, Alexandra thought, he'd decided to meet everyone there personally.

Finally, Alexandra got him to leave.

They had had to walk to get to that town, and so they had to walk to a nearby city to get to another train station. Because Yeegar did all traveling slowly, he walked slowly as well. It was a very slow and steady pace. Alexandra, getting bored, tended to wander in a circle around him.

Every now and then, she moved in closer again, just to make sure they both knew where each other was. As they got closer, her circles got smaller. When they were only about an hour away, she really only went from one side of the street to the other, and about the same distance to the front or back of Yeegar.

She couldn't say why, but she was always warier around cities than in the middle of nowhere.

Alexandra noticed Yeegar tense beside her. Looking ahead, she immediately saw why, and stepped closer to his side and fell behind him a bit. There were two people standing in the road ahead of them. A man and a woman.

It wasn't exactly suspicious to run into other travelers on the road. But two people standing completely still in the road? That was odd.

And, as they got closer, Alexandra noticed that they were both wearing weirdly formal clothing, unsuited for traveling. The man was wearing a full suit! With a top hat. Nobody did that on a dirt road unless they didn't care if it got dusty.

Yeegar stopped a fair distance from the two people. Alexandra knew that it was just outside the range of his pendulums.

Something about them was strange. They both had dark skin, which wasn't so weird, but it wasn't just dark, it was gray. Alexandra peered at their foreheads, which seemed to have black markings on them. It looked like a series of crosses across their forehead.

She stepped a little further behind Yeegar, finding something about them unnerving.

The man took a step forward. "Good evening," he said politely, tipping his hat.

"Good evening," Yeegar said, even as he nudged Alexandra into stepping further back. "Is there a reason you're standing here on the road?" he asked, somehow managing to sound polite rather than just accusatory.

The woman, who was really more like a girl, as she couldn't be much older than Alexandra, giggled. The man chuckled lowly.

"As a matter of fact, there is," the man said. "You see, we were waiting for you, General Yeegar of the Black Order."

"Is that so? And who might you be? I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," Yeegar said.

The girl skipped forward several steps. 

"We are Noah," she declared. With a slight, condescending smile, she said, "We are apostles of God. Together with the Earl of Millennium, we aim to destroy humanity."

Yeegar's Innocence activated with a flash. "Then, we are enemies," he said evenly.

No explanation needed, it seemed.

"So we are," the girl said, mocking smile on her face growing into a feral grin. "We're on a hunt for the Heart of Innocence, and you're our first candidate! Isn't that nice?"

Alexandra glanced between the strangers (Noah?) and Yeegar uncertainly. Judging by his expression, it was not nice. So she activated her Innocence.

The girl's eyes flicked over to her, that eerie grin not wavering, and Alexandra had to resist the urge to take a step back. She wasn't the only one who noticed, it seemed, for the next second, one of Yeegar's pendulums had whipped out, narrowly missing the girl as she danced backwards out of range.

Still, her grin didn't falter.

The man eyed her with an unreadable expression, maybe something like concern, but didn't speak.

"My, my. That was surprising," the girl said.

Yeegar's eyes were narrow. Alexandra didn't think she'd ever seen him like this. "What do you want with the Heart?"

"What else?" the girl said with a giggle. "To destroy it, of course! I hear, if the Heart is destroyed, all the other Innocence will disappear, too. Do you think it's true?"

Destroy it? All of the Innocence will disappear? Alexandra wanted desperately to ask if that was possible, if that was what would happen. Innocence could be destroyed?

"I will not allow you to do that," Yeegar said, frown deepening.

Yeegar lunged forward just enough to bring them into range, his pendulum flashing out. The girl moved back again, though she still looked more amused than anything. The man, however, dodged past it gracefully and moved closer. He was fast; almost before Alexandra could react, he was up next to Yeegar.

Too close for Yeegar's long to mid-range weapon to be effective.

Before she even thought about it, Alexandra had flung herself between them, wings blocking a blow from the Noah that had enough force behind it to send her stumbling backwards into Yeegar. She spread her wings, forcing the Noah to retreat or be sliced up. Wisely, he chose to back up, putting him back in Yeegar's ideal range.

However, she'd made a mistake. One she needed to stop making. The Noah immediately dashed back in, Yeegar's dual pendulums seemingly little more than a passing concern.

The Noah's hand closed around the front of her coat, and so fast that she couldn't bring her wings back around, he'd picked her up and bodily flung her out of the way. It was easy enough for her to catch herself midair -- she had too much practice maneuvering by now to have failed -- but she lost sight of them for several precious seconds.

By the time she got them in view again, the Noah's outstretched arm which he'd thrown her with was reaching for Yeegar, but the chain of one of Yeegar's pendulums was securely wrapped around it.

He yanked roughly to the side, dragging the Noah off his feet, and the other pendulum swung around in a deadly arc.

The girl Noah, meanwhile, was merely watching from a safe distance. She'd pulled a lollipop out and was idly licking it. It was possible she couldn't fight, but she'd moved plenty fast before.

In any case, it turned out that she didn't need to be worried for her fellow Noah; long before Yeegar's second pendulum could make contact, he'd managed to shake off the one around his arm. Then, with no warning, he sank straight into the ground.

Alexandra stared.

Several heartbeats later, he slid back up out of the ground next to the girl.

“Alexandra," Yeegar said urgently, and her eyes snapped back to him. He looked worried. "Run."

"Master--" she started, but he interrupted her.

"No. Just get out of here. Call the Order, tell them what happened," he said. It was unmistakably an order.

Alexandra looked back to the two Noah, who were watching them very casually.

"Are you done playing, Tyki?" the girl asked idly, biting down on her sucker.

The man waved one hand carelessly. "I suppose so. This man doesn't seem very interesting," he said.

"You're just not imaginative enough," she said with a giggle.

She pointed at Yeegar, who made a quiet choking noise and collapsed to his knees. His eyes, Alexandra noted with alarm, were still open, but blank and unseeing.

Run.

Call the Order, tell them what happened.

Please, let me protect you for a little longer.

Alexandra didn't know what the girl had just done to Yeegar, and with two of them, especially with the man's strange ability, she didn't think she could win. Not alone. She spread her wings, preparing to take off, but first.

To destroy it, of course!

First, she dove for Yeegar, snatching the bag that held the extra Innocence he carried. She knew, after seeing him remove his own anti-akuma weapon, that it wound all the way up both his arms, reaching across his back under his coat. There was no way she could take that one as well.

She had no choice but to hope it wasn't the Heart, whatever that was.

"Hey--" the man Noah started, sounding perhaps mildly alarmed, but mostly just curious.

A flap of Alexandra's wings brought her into the air. The man started towards her, possibly realizing what she was doing, but in this case, she was faster. Her second flap, harder now that she was off the ground and had more room, brought her far above. Then she made her way over them, towards the city she and Yeegar had been traveling to.

And she pretended that the tears prickling at her eyes were just from the wind.

What would have taken close to an hour at walking speed was, at Alexandra's top flying speed, only a couple of minutes.

She landed just outside the town, not wanting people to notice her wings, deactivated her Innocence, and ran inside, the bag of Innocence clutched to her chest. From many, many train stations, she knew that they almost always had a phone that people could use.

Sure enough, several minutes later of running that, somehow, stole the breath from her lungs far more effectively than flying, Alexandra found the phone.

There was somebody using it, but she just tugged at their sleeve, not bothering to hide the tears on her face and in her eyes, and gasped, "Please, I need... It's an emergency."

The man at the phone vacated it quickly. Alexandra felt a little bad; it wasn't technically an emergency. Unless there was an exorcist in the town, they likely wouldn't make it in time. No matter what happened now, Yeegar would almost certainly die.

Because Alexandra had abandoned him.

She called the Order's number, which was essentially a front desk. Or maybe just a front. After Yeegar had brought her to Headquarters for the first time, she'd been given an exorcist ID, which she now told the operator. After a long enough wait to give her time to compose herself, she was sent through to somebody more important. Not Komui himself, or anything, still somebody who's job was answering a phone.

But still, somebody important enough for the information she needed to give them.

The Black Order loved its dark, shady tendencies, so when the person answered the phone, they didn't speak. Alexandra only knew there was somebody because of the breathing.

It was very melodramatic.

"My name is Alexandra. I'm an exorcist traveling with General Kevin Yeegar," she said. "We were attacked by two people who referred to themselves as 'Noah' and claimed to be working with the Millennium Earl."

The person on the other end didn't speak for a moment. Then, "Location?"

"Just outside the city of Wavre, Belgium," Alexandra said.

"Any other information?"

Alexandra had to take a breath. "The general was still fighting the enemy the last I saw," she said dully. "He may not have made it out alive."

The person paused long enough to ensure that she didn't intend to add on any more information. "Understood," they said.

With a click, they ended the call.

Alexandra stood there for a long moment, curling around the bag of Innocence she still held to her chest. She wondered if she was safe in the city. If the Noah would come after her. They had probably attacked in the middle of nowhere on purpose, but she'd gotten away with nine Innocence, counting her own. They might not be willing to let that go.

She might have been tempted to take off her coat, try to blend in and hide. But, even if that hadn't gone against what the exorcists where supposed to be, she had no hope of hiding with her wings; if the Noah could see them while they were deactivated, she'd stand out like a sore thumb.

So she didn't bother.

Depending on who the Order sent and how far away they were, it would be at least a day before anybody showed up. So Alexandra made her way through the city, found an inn with a keeper who spoke English, and got a room.

The thought of Yeegar, possibly still alive, still fighting the Noah, still dying, made her want desperately to go back to him. But what good would that do? She could die with him? And she had to protect the Innocence, anyway. Eight extra Innocence that weren't ordinarily her responsibility; a responsibility that was usually only given to generals.

Alexandra couldn't leave them, and there was no way she was bringing them back to where those Noah could still be hanging around.

So she stayed put.

The next morning, a group of finders came to... well, find her. Exorcists were generally easy to find in a town; there were people everywhere who recognized the emblem of the Order. Slinging the bag of Innocence over her shoulder, she led them back out to where the Noah had attacked.

After taking the last bit of path at a breakneck pace the previous day, it was odd to walk back. They were in a hurry, of course, so they moved faster than Yeegar and Alexandra had been before, but she had to pace herself with the understanding that they were finders, not exorcists. A pace that was a jog to her was sprinting to them, despite their longer legs.

So despite being in the lead, Alexandra let them set the pace at a jog for them. Well, until the end, anyway. At that point, when she recognized the area, when she saw what might have been Yeegar -- well, she sped up, quickly getting ahead of the finders. And she was right: it was Yeegar. Yeegar, barely recognizable, general's coat stripped off, clumps of hair missing from his head, pinned up to a tree in some strange mockery of a crucifixion. There were wounds on his back in the shape of words: 'God Matter'.

Alexandra gasped. "Master!" she said like a sob.

Yeegar wheezed.

Alexandra threw herself forward, scrambling at his restraints even before the finders caught up.

Because, "He's not dead!" she said. "He's not dead..."

But when she and the finders had gotten him down, gently put on the ground, he just stared ahead blankly.

His lips parted slowly. "The Thousand Year Duke is looking," he sang slowly, somewhat offkey, in a hoarse voice. "He's looking for the Great Heart... I didn't have it...

"Who will be next?"

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: D. Gray-man

Written in 2018

Summary: About a year before Allen joins the Order, General Yeegar finds a young accommodator.

Warnings: Same as part 1.

Part 1

Part 3

                                                        Part 2

Europe as a whole had a surprisingly well established railroad, so it didn't take them long to get into the country. They made it all the way to the nearest city before running into trouble. The problem was, the town in question was so small that there were no trains running near it. Ordinarily, there would probably be carts going back and forth with supplies, but for the past couple of months, nobody was willing to go near it because there had been so many disappearances in that area.

So, unable to find any better method of travel, they had to walk. Alexandra didn't mind, exactly, and apparently, despite his age, neither did Yeegar. It was just slow. So slow.

Despite the reports of akuma, they didn't run into any at all during the walk to the town. For a while, they walked in fields, until abruptly they came upon a creepy looking forest. Although Alexandra was decidedly wary of the forest, which just seemed darker than it should, they continued into it.

Several times, Alexandra swore she heard or saw something, but upon closer look, there was never anything there. She scolded herself for being jumpy. It wasn't very much like an exorcist.

Yeegar frowned.

"This is unnatural," he murmured. "Ordinarily, an akuma should have attacked us by now, if the reports are correct."

"So what do we do?" Alexandra asked.

Yeegar raised his arms in an elegant shrug. "We continue onward. There is nothing else we can do," he said.

Alexandra didn't complain, but she did move closer to his side. She could tell he was getting worried like she was, because he didn't move away even though one of her wings was partially through him.

They made it to the village without any mishaps, however. Without a single akuma sighting.

It really was a small village; the kind where everybody knew each other, surely only a hundred people at the most. There were people all around; tending to yards or walking through the streets or just talking in front of buildings. Alexandra was getting a bad feeling about this, but she didn't know why.

Yeegar searched out the store. Alexandra was surprised there even was such a thing in a village like this.

The shopkeeper, a plump woman with dark skin and hair, looked up as soon as they entered. "Oh, outsiders!" she said jovially, seeming more happy than surprised. "We don't get many of those around these parts, no, no. Passing through?"

"We have business in the area," Yeegar said, smiling politely. "I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."

"Of course, of course!" the woman nodded rapidly. She smiled slyly. "I don't suppose I could interest you in any of my wares?"

She gestured around the shop.

"Certainly," Yeegar said to her, then quietly to Alexandra in Russian, "Look around for something to get, please."

Alexandra wasn't sure how she felt about that, but she nodded and skipped over to the wall to examine the items. While she looked around, she listened in on Yeegar talking with the shop keeper.

"Has anything strange been going on lately?" Yeegar asked.

"Hmm? Odd? Well, well, not that I've noticed. Everything around here is pretty much the same all the time," the woman said, laughing boisterously.

Alexandra came across a section of produce. She poked around, hoping to find a good fruit, but it was all mushy. When she picked one up, it smelled of rot. She made a face and continued looking.

"Oh? Perhaps we were just unlucky, then," Yeegar said. "We weren't able to find anybody traveling this way."

There was an awkward pause.

Then the woman laughed. "Yes, yes, it's just like the boys in the next town to do things like that," she said. "So mischievous, those boys. Don't like outsiders much at all, not at all."

Alexandra skipped over a section of odd-smelling meats, and found some cheap, relatively unoffensive dried foods. She brought them over to the counter.

"Yes, I can see that," Yeegar was saying with a smile.

Alexandra put the food on the counter.

"Oh, how cute. Your daughter?" the shopkeeper said to Yeegar as she picked up the food and examined them.

He chuckled. "You flatter me. No, my granddaughter."

Alexandra didn't react to him saying so only because he'd used that excuse before. There weren't many other reasons he could give to explain an old man and a little girl traveling together.

"That's nice," the woman said, then gave them the cost for the dried foods.

Yeegar handed over the money, then said, "Well, thank you very much for your help."

"No problem, no problem at all!" the woman said with a toothy smile. "By the way, if you just go next door, my sister will usually let travelers stay at her place for a night or two. There's no inn or anything in the village, unfortunately."

"I see. Thank you very much," Yeegar said.

They left. Outside, there were still people all around, very casually doing normal, everyday things. As people tended to do.

Yeegar had Alexandra wait outside while he talked to the shopkeeper's sister, since it was indeed getting late. She realized that she didn't know either the shopkeeper's name nor her sister's. While she waited, he couldn't help but hunch a bit, curling her deactivated wings around herself protectively. Though there didn't seem to be anything wrong, she had a really bad feeling about this village.

After about fifteen minutes, during which absolutely nothing happened, Yeegar emerged from the house. Now that he was back, Alexandra felt a little silly.

"This building has a separate second floor which can only be accessed from the back," Yeegar explained. "The owner, Zophie, has graciously allowed us to stay the night."

He showed her a key, presumably to the upstairs door, then led her around. There was a staircase at the back leading up to the door. Inside was very simple, minimally furnished. It turned out to have just an entrance sitting room, a kitchen, one bedroom, and one bathroom. That was more than their inn rooms usually had.

Yeegar locked the door behind them, checked all three rooms, and then sighed and said, "This is probably the most private we will find." He looked very serious. "What do you think so far?"

Alexandra jumped to attention, feeling like this was a test. "Um. It's weird that they don't seem to have noticed that nobody is willing to come here," she said slowly. "And a bunch of the food in that lady's store was rotten."

"Yes, exactly," Yeegar said. "Without any import or travelers coming this way, they should have noticed. The shopkeeper especially should have noticed something out of place. If there are indeed akuma nearby, they should not be acting normally, either."

"So... you think something is wrong with the people?" Alexandra asked.

Yeegar nodded. "I do. Something isn't right here." He fell into a thoughtful silence. Eventually, he said, "How many people do you remember seeing in this village?"

Alexandra tried to remember all the people she'd seen. "I don't know, fifteen? Maybe twenty, I guess?"

Yeegar nodded once more, but didn't explain.

"There is only one bed in the bedroom, but I would feel more comfortable if we stayed in the same room," he said.

Alexandra was totally on board with this plan.

"You take the bed," Yeegar said. "I will sleep on the floor."

"No, it's okay," Alexandra said hurriedly. "You take the bed. I don't mind the floor."

She was more than used to that, after all. Not to mention, Yeegar was like, old as dirt. He didn't look like he'd survive a night of sleeping on the floor.

She didn't use that argument, but Alexandra did eventually get him to take the bed. She noticed that, though he usually took his Innocence off before sleeping and left it nearby, tonight he kept it on. She supposed she'd never know what that was like.

Just for situations like this, Alexandra had a blanket in her bag, which she took out and curled up with, deliberately in front of the door. On a night like this, in this eerie village, she wondered if she could even sleep at all.

She had experience with sleeping in a potentially dangerous situation, but there was something especially and creatively terrifying about the thought of falling asleep here. Something about it made you feel like you weren't going to wake up being attacked, you would just never wake up.

Alexandra lay there, listening to Yeegar's breathing as it evened out into sleep. He probably had experience falling asleep in dangerous situations, too. Eventually, the heavy drag of her eyelids won out against the paranoid fear.

Alexandra woke up slowly, which was odd, because Yeegar was standing over her, his Innocence out.

"Alexandra! Alexandra, wake up," he said urgently.

She tried, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes, but she was so tired. For some reason, her eyes didn't want to stay open.

"Master? What's happening?" she asked drowsily.

"I think there's an akuma with an ability to make people sleep, or something," he said. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah, yeah... I'm awake," Alexandra said around a yawn, forcing herself to her feet.

She made her way over to the window to see if anything had changed. Everything seemed slow and sluggish, even Yeegar's movements, but she dragged every ounce of energy she had, trying to activate her Innocence. Finally, she felt the shift as her wings took a solid form. It was difficult just to hold them active, which was odd.

There was nothing out the window. It was completely empty of people, and somehow darker than it should have been, though a full moon was shining brightly overhead. Alexandra hadn't realized that it was already a full moon.

"Master, what --" Alexandra started, beginning to turn.

One of his pendulums glanced off the feathers of one of her wings with the ear-rending shriek of metal on metal. Alexandra yelped and spun, curling her wings around herself protectively. Somehow, despite the circumstances, everything was still hazy and distant.

"Master?" she said, alarmed. "What are you doing?"

Yeegar (maybe?) sighed heavily. "Why'd you have to go and do that," he complained. "And right before I coulda gotten you, too."

Alexandra blinked. She wasn't so sure this was Yeegar after all. But he had his Innocence, which she knew only the accommodator could use.

"You're not Master," she said, and it came out a lot steadier than she felt. "You're an akuma?"

He grinned wide, too wide, and gave a hyena's laugh. "Ah, you caught me, you caught me!" it said. It must have been a shapeshifter, then.

Alexandra was still unreasonably tired, and the real Yeegar was nowhere in sight. She very much doubted that he would have just left her unconscious, and if he'd been fighting, she would have woken up at the noise.

And... for some reason, this akuma had woken her up. Why would it do that, instead of killing her in her sleep?

"Why would you wake me up?" she asked, as the akuma didn't move to attack.

"Maybe, maybe, I just prefer my prey alive and kicking," it said with another cackle. "It's no fun, no fun at all if they're asleep!"

It kept doing that, echoing its words in a way that should have seemed absurd, but came across as creepy instead. Alexandra didn't have time to contemplate that, for it swung one of its pendulums forward again, and she had to duck behind her wings. This was enough to block its attack, and she realized that it was nowhere near as skilled as Yeegar himself.

She looked up at the akuma, which paused between its attacks. Despite its claims of having fun, its teeth were grinding together in its creepy smile.

"Where is Master?" she asked it.

"Where, where do you think?" it asked back, gesturing down at itself.

Alexandra frowned. "You're not Master."

"I'm in his body, though," the akuma said.

Alexandra faltered. Possession, not a shapeshifter? But there was no way Yeegar would let himself be controlled by an akuma, right?

"So, you can't attack me, or, or you'll hurt him, too," the akuma said with a nasty smile. "Wouldn't want to hurt, hurt your grandfather, would you?"

It was completely unrelated to the situation, but she suddenly realized, "You were the shopkeeper!"

The akuma froze. With no warning or time to shift, it was very abruptly the woman from the previous day. "Ah, I shouldn't, shouldn't have said that," it said.

Alexandra stared for a long moment. "Liar. You're not in Master's body," she accused.

"No, no, not at all," the woman said.

Alexandra thought about it. The drowsiness, the way every thing seemed distant and echoey. The reality-bending shift of the akuma's form. The moon being full on a night it shouldn't be, but not lighting anything as it should.

And the fact that the akuma had woken her up for absolutely no reason.

"I'm not awake. This is a dream, isn't it?" she said, a wild guess that sounded ridiculous to her own ears.

The akuma sighed. "Yes, yes, you caught me out, you did, you did," it said. The massive grin grew across its face once more. "It's my ability, you see! I can go into people's dreams while they sleep. And the best part is... once I kill them in their dream, they die for real! For real, you see?"

It dove at Alexandra unexpectedly, seemingly uncaring that it hit only her wings. It was still enough force that, having not expected it, she fell backwards to the ground. With a yelp, Alexandra shoved the akuma back with her wings. It seemed unaffected, even with the multitude of cuts it had gotten from the feathers, and dove right back onto her, in the gap her wings had left.

The wind was knocked out of her as a knee slammed into her stomach, and the akuma wrapped its hands around her neck, keeping her from drawing any air back in. She clawed at its hands with her own and clawed at its back with her wings.

It was too close to her, and against the floor as she was, she didn't have room for a proper swing, but her feathers were all sharp. She dragged her wings against the akuma's body, and wounds opened up as the feathers cut like a cheese grater. The akuma just laughed, however, still squeezing the life out of her.

"It's no use, no use at all!" it said gleefully. "No matter how you injure me, I cannot, cannot die in this dream. Only you can!"

Alexandra choked. Giving up on injuring it, she twisted a wing awkwardly, managing to get it in between herself and the akuma, and shoved it away. It almost brought her with, using the grip it had on her neck, but in the end its fingers were dragged off, leaving bloody lines of pain.

Gasping in sweet, sweet air, Alexandra curled her wings around herself defensively in the hopes of keeping that from happening again.

The akuma was starting to look annoyed, now. "You little brat. How dare, how dare you. Just die already!" it said.

It pulled a butcher's knife out of its pocket. Some part of Alexandra's brain protested that as impossible, but everything was so hazy... she was tired. She shook herself, feeling like she wanted to fall back to sleep.

Something occurred to her.

"You woke me up," she said slowly, and the akuma started walking towards her. "If you woke me up, but I'm not awake, then what is falling asleep?"

Alexandra had tried to wake herself up, but it never worked. And, if she'd been woken up into a dream, maybe she could fall asleep and get back out of it. That... didn't actually make much sense, she felt. Still, it was possibly her only option, or fight this akuma until, what, something from the outside world forced her awake?

Talk about falling asleep in a dangerous situation, she thought, almost amused.

Then, with the akuma approaching, knife in hand, she gave in to the pull of her heavy eyelids. She let her wings deactivate, curled up right there on the floor, and fell asleep.

And opened her eyes. She sat up quickly, looking around. She was back in front of the door where she'd fallen asleep. The bed, as it had been in her dream, was empty, and the window was open.

There was a creepy baby-thing with wings hovering in the center of the room. Not wings like hers, but the decorative kind. It was maybe half her own height, and largely made up of head.

"You! You little, little brat!" it shrieked at her. "Little brat, little brat!"

It dove at her, and, panicking, Alexandra started swiping, bringing both wings in front of herself, as she activated her Innocence. The akuma's charge brought it straight into the arc of her wings, which cut through it easily. With a last, wordless scream, the akuma exploded.

Alexandra sat there for a long moment, breathing hard.

Her neck hurt. Reaching up, she found blood on her fingers. Presumably, the injuries the akuma had given her in the dream had been mirrored on her actual body. She felt something like horror rise up as she realized just how close she had been to dying. Before she could actually start hyperventilating, she forced herself to think of something else. Like Yeegar, and how he was missing.

Standing, she made her way over to the window yet again. She almost didn't want to look, afraid of finding an empty street and a full moon, but she looked anyway. Her fears were unfounded, it turned out. The moon was a quarter sliver, and the street was not empty.

Rather, it was full of akuma. There were probably two dozen of them total, thankfully all Level Ones.

Alexandra admitted to herself that she was wrong. This was probably worse.

As they noticed her and started shooting, she jumped out the window. She didn't trust the flimsy walls of the house to give her reliable cover, so they would only end up getting in her way. She didn't bother using her wings to slow her descent, using them to cover herself instead. It wasn't a long fall, in any case.

Yeegar had taught her that akumas could only fire for so long before they needed to stop. 'Reloading time', he called it, although they didn't truly need to reload. Since Level Ones were too stupid to stagger their attacks so that at least one would be attacking at all times, Alexandra just waited for the lull. Finally, it came.

She leaped up, a beat of her wings giving her the extra height to reach the akuma (given that Yeegar, being old as dirt, was still capable of jumping that high with no assistance made her feel kind of weak, but oh well), cutting through the nearest two easily before she had to use her wings to block again and fell back down.

Damn akuma, she swore, then continued swearing to herself in Russian.

It seemed the akuma weren't so stupid after all; they still all fired together in one burst, giving Alexandra time to strike during their reloading period, but they spread out. This made it more dangerous for her, as she ended up surrounded and had to be more careful that none of her body was uncovered. It also made it so that she could only reach one akuma each time before she had to guard again.

It made for very slow going.

Alexandra hated this. She obviously wasn't a very good exorcist; if it was Yeegar, he probably would have killed all of the akuma in a swipe of his chains. She needed to be faster, or have a wider range attack, or something. What use were wings as a weapon, anyway? Who decided that was a good idea?

Very slowly, she picked the akuma off one by one. With more than twenty akuma to start with, it took a long time. She was glad there didn't seem to be any more Level Twos around; she might not have been able to handle the Level Ones and a Level Two. Still, she was worried about Yeegar. It wasn't like him to run off like that, and without even waking her up.

The number of akuma was getting low, Alexandra noted with relief. There were only six left. She was almost done. They were more spread out, now that there were so few. Each time, she had to go further to get to the next akuma. 

And then she messed up. She was too slow; getting to the akuma took up too much time, and she didn't guard fast enough after killing it.

She got shot. Only once, but still. It hit the fleshy part of her thigh, and burned. With a cry of pain, Alexandra fell to the ground. She had just enough presence of mind to curl her wings around herself protectively as she sat there, weight on her good leg. She'd never been hit by an akuma bullet before, since Yeegar had always protected her.

But she'd seen other living things be hit, times when Yeegar and she were too late. She'd watched the horrible pentacle marks grow, watched people and animals turn to dust with no way to save them.

Alexandra poked at the hole in her pants. She could see the black mark on her skin through it.

People had told her that parasitic type exorcists could purge the akuma virus from themselves, but she didn't know how to do that. Not to mention, this was not the best environment to figure it out, with akuma still firing at her from above. It was only a matter of time before they realized that her defense wasn't perfect, that there were gaps where her wings couldn't protect.

She tried, willed the virus to go away, but it obviously wasn't working, and she was wide awake now, but she still couldn't concentrate with the akumas firing at her and the virus spreading up her leg.

How long did it take the virus to kill somebody? She didn't know, she'd never paid attention before.

Alexandra gasped desperately for breath. It seemed hard to breathe, but she didn't know why. She didn't think that was a part of the akuma virus. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she realized that she still didn't know where Yeegar was.

Was he okay? Surely he was, he was a general. Meanwhile she was just a stupid kid who'd managed to get herself killed, and how was she going to pay him back now?

During a lull in the akumas' fire, under the sound of her own harsh, quick breathing, Alexandra caught the sound of rapid footsteps. The next time the sound of gunshots rang through the air, it wasn't followed by impacts against her wings.

Then she heard the sound of five consecutive akuma explosions.

"Alexandra!" came Yeegar's voice, filled with panic.

Cautiously, Alexandra peeked out. Sure enough, Yeegar was standing there, completely uninjured, and the akuma were gone. Without her permission, the tears that had been hovering in her eyes spilled over, running down her cheeks.

"Master," she said. "I'm sorry."

His expression, which had been relieved, turned to worry. He hurried over to her to kneel in front of her.

"Sorry? What for?" Yeegar asked.

In response, Alexandra carefully moved her wings away, revealing the injury on her leg. "I got shot," she said miserably. "An', and I don't know how to purify the virus."

The tears were spilling over faster now, and she gasped around a lump in her throat. Alexandra hated crying.

Yeegar reached out, gently brushing tears off her cheeks, then cradled her face between both hands, encouraging her to look into his eyes. He looked calm, now, but under it she could see that he was scared, too. Scared for her?

"It's okay. It's okay, Alexandra, don't give up. You can do this," he said. "Listen to my voice, all right? Are you listening?"

Alexandra breathed in like a sob, then said, "I'm listening."

"Good, good." Yeegar's thumbs brushed under her eyes gently. "All right, focus on your Innocence. You can feel it, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's good. Concentrate on that feeling," he said calmly.

His eyes flicked downward, and he breathed in sharply. Alexandra followed his gaze, and found that the pentacle markings were visible on her hands, now. That was bad, she knew.

"Alexandra. Look at me," Yeegar ordered gently, tipping her face back up. "Just keep looking at me. Are you concentrating on your Innocence?"

She hadn't been. At his words, she remembered and focused again. "Yes," she said finally.

"Good. Hold on to that feeling, and try to draw it out," Yeegar said. "Imagine it spreading through your body."

Alexandra did her best to imagine it. She could feel the akuma virus in her now, burning in an itchy kind of way and so, so wrong. Oddly enough, that helped. She focused on the warm, soft feeling she got from her Innocence, like curling up in a huge nest of pillows, and imagined it forcing the icky virus feeling out, until her whole body was gently warm and not burning.

Yeegar let out a sudden, relieved breath. Alexandra opened her eyes, which she must have closed without realizing, and looked down. Her hand was clear again. She practically sobbed in relief, and the tears, which had stopped as she was distracted, started up again.

This time, it was from relief.

"Good, well done, I am so proud of you," Yeegar said, a stream of words that fell out of his mouth as if on instinct.

He surged forward and, carefully, wrapped her up in his arms, practically pulling her into his lap. Alexandra went willingly, deactivating her Innocence so she didn't have to worry about hurting him, and curled her hands in his coat. Holding her tightly to his chest, Yeegar let out a shuddering breath against her hair.

"I am very glad you're okay," he confessed to the top of her head. "I'm so sorry I was not here to protect you."

Alexandra sniffled a little. "It's not your fault," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, I-- I wasn't good enough."

Yeegar pulled back, at that, but not all the way. He left his hands on her shoulders, holding firmly but not painfully.

"Do not say that. You are good enough, more than good enough," he said fiercely, possibly the most emotional she'd seen him yet.

The tears did their best to make a reappearance, but Alexandra fought them back.

Noticing the blood on her neck, Yeegar frowned a bit in concern. He tilted her head up gently to get a better look at the marks.

"That isn't from a Level One," he said.

"Oh. No," Alexandra said, remembering the Level Two. "There was a Level Two, but I'm all right."

"You fought a Level Two?" Yeegar asked slowly.

Alexandra blinked and nodded.

Yeegar chuckled softly. "Cheeky child," he said affectionately, but didn't explain. He stood, lifting her with him.

Alexandra yelped a bit, but didn't fight being carried. Although akuma bullets weren't like normal ones, her leg still had a hole in it.

"Come, let us see if we can find some supplies to take care of those injuries," Yeegar said, making his way into the house. "And then you can explain to me what happened with this Level Two you fought."

Alexandra sighed. "Yes, Master," she said. Remembering, she added, "And you can tell me where you were, too."

Yeegar left her sitting on a chair at the kitchen table as he searched for supplies. Finally, he returned with a small cloth, a wad of bandages, a gauze pad, and another pair of Alexandra's pants. He wet the cloth at the kitchen sink, and very gently cleaned her neck.

His mouth tightened as he noticed the bruising in addition to the cuts, but he didn't mention it then. Once the blood was cleaned off, he wound bandages around her neck, firmly but not enough to cut off her air supply. Still, Alexandra itched to claw them off, the memory of being choked still fresh.

Then he turned to the bullet wound in her thigh. For obvious reasons, he couldn't do anything with her pants on.

"You want me to take my pants off?" Alexandra asked with a perfectly deadpan tone.

Yeegar still caught her meaning, and gave her a chastising look. "Child, I am eighty-eight years old," he said dryly. "Believe me, you are safe with me."

"I know," Alexandra said softly, and then wiggled out of her pants before he could respond.

She was wearing underwear, of course, so it wasn't too bad being pants-less in front of him. Besides, they both had another thing to worry about. Her leg had bled a lot more than she'd noticed. It was still bleeding, in fact.

Like before, Yeegar cleaned it carefully, but where the wounds on her neck had mostly stopped bleeding, the hole in her leg still bled sluggishly even as he was cleaning it. Then, Yeegar put the gauze pad on it and used the bandages to secure it to her leg. This, since it wasn't as sensitive an area, he bound more tightly.

Finally, he allowed her to put on the new pair of pants he'd brought. Then, he sat down in another chair at the table.

“Now, tell me what happened as you know it, please," Yeegar said.

Alexandra nodded and launched into as detailed an explanation as she could. Everything from when she 'woke up' in the dream until he found her in the streets. She even explained the akuma strangling her, and everything, even though it made his expression tighten with anger or guilt, she couldn't tell.

"I see. Thank you," Yeegar said once she was done.

Alexandra gave him an expectant look, and he managed a small smile. "I suppose I do owe you an explanation, do I not?" he said, but continued without waiting for a response. He didn't look at her, staring instead out the window. "I am not entirely sure of the specifics. There was another Level Two akuma beside the one which assaulted you, and it targeted me with a... unique ability. I will relate my experience as it seemed at the time."

He took a deep breath. "I woke up in the night to the sounds of screams outside. I am ashamed to admit that I did not think of you at the time, which may or may not have been a result of the akuma's ability. I left as quickly as I could, through the window for the sake of speed. I cannot be sure of why, now, but I believe I had the feeling that something terrible was happening, and I needed to fix it. Outside..." He shook his head. "I found a trail of bodies. I followed the trail, which led me a ways into the forest. There, I found many... old students of mine."

His lips quirked up into something that almost resembled a smile. "I don't believe I have told you. Before I became an exorcist, I was a schoolteacher."

Yeegar fell silent for a moment, but Alexandra didn't dare interrupt.

"The children I taught then were killed by an akuma, which led me to join the Black Order," he continued eventually, voice thick with grief. "In time, I became an exorcist, and then a general. This allowed me to take new exorcists as students. However, by now, those old students, like the children I once taught, have become casualties in this horrible war. In any case, it was all of those very same students that I came across in the forest.

"I cannot explain my reasoning now, but at the time I was frantic with the belief that I needed to save them. That, if I did better now, I could resolve myself of my past failures. It... was a long fight, and unclear to me now in a way that causes me to believe that much of it was the result of the akuma's ability. At one point, I very nearly gave my own life in an attempt to save my students from meeting the fate they once did."

Finally, he looked at Alexandra, this time with something much closer to a real smile on his face. "It was only the thought of you which kept me from doing so. I believe that it was the akuma's ultimate goal to have me allow myself to be killed in the defense of the illusions it had created. Most likely, that is how it kills any victim too strong to fight directly. That... close call, however, brought me to my senses, and I realized that the students I had been trying to protect could not be real. With the reminder that those people were long dead, I forced myself to strike them down, and in the end, it turned out that the akuma itself had been masquerading as one of the children.

"After that, I returned to the town, and, of course, you know what happened after that," he finished.

Alexandra nodded. "You killed six Level Ones easily," she said, staring at the table. "I couldn't do that."

Yeegar patted her gently on the head, making her look up. "Perhaps not, but do not forget than I am close to eighty years older than you," he said. "Furthermore, you defeated a Level Two; there are not many exorcists who could have done that. And, using the abilities and knowledge you have, you were able to defeat more than ten akuma despite your young age and relative lack of experience in such matters."

"...You shouldn't praise me so much," Alexandra said. "I'll get a big head."

But she smiled.

After that, they searched the village and surrounding forest. Alexandra could still walk, although Yeegar looked faintly disapproving about it. In acknowledgement of that, and because it did hurt, she flew whenever she could instead.

Since when flying, she was much faster than even Yeegar could be on land, he sent her to search the forest while he looked in the village. They hoped to find survivors, maybe even a finder, but, given the state of things and how many akuma there had been, they somewhat doubted it.

After an hour of flying around the forest, as low as she could without hitting the trees, making steadily larger loops around the village, Alexandra gave up and made her way back to the village.

She found Yeegar standing in the town, looking somber. After one last look around from up high, she landed lightly in front of him, careful of her leg. Without a word, he gave her a slight questioning look, although he already seemed to know the answer. Alexandra shook her head, and Yeegar sighed with a single nod.

"That is it, then," he murmured. "No survivors."

Alexandra looked around the village. It seemed sad and empty, but at the same time, there was no evidence of the many people who must have died there.

"The akuma killed the entire town?" she said.

"They must have. That is their purpose; to kill humans," Yeegar said.

"...How awful," Alexandra said.

In the end, the report was a sad thing: no survivors, no Innocence to recover. Just a lot of dead akuma. Alexandra tried to be comforted by that, the fact that they had potentially kept future people from dying.

It didn't really work.

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: D. Gray-man

Written in 2018

Summary: About a year before Allen joins the Order, General Yeegar finds a young accommodator.

Warnings: Pretty much nothing you wouldn’t find in canon? Canon-typical violence, canon-typical body horror.

Part 2

                                                      Part 1

Alexandra was one of numerous children living on the streets of Ryazan, Russia. Like many of the others, she didn't remember her parents at all; her earliest memories were of living on the streets alone.

Unlike the others, Alexandra had wings. They were huge and, in her opinion, beautiful, with white feathers that slowly turned green towards the edge until the very edge itself was a bright, acid green. However, this had little bearing on her life, as, improbably enough, the wings were both invisible and intangible. She could see them, of course, but it seemed nobody else could. This was, she knew, not normal. Even stranger was that she knew she hadn't always had them. She could distantly remember finding a shiny green cube, and then pain in her back so bad she thought she would die.

Knowing it was strange, Alexandra never mentioned it to anyone. With the wings being intangible even to her, and nobody else ever being able to see them, she had gotten quite used to ignoring their existence by the time she was eight. She had plenty of other things to worry about, besides.

The orphan children largely had a non-interference policy when it came to each other; they wouldn't help any others, but they wouldn't hinder them, either. For the most part, they stole only from adults and not each other. They all needed it far more than the adults, after all.

It was everyone for themself, basically. For the most part, Alexandra liked it that way, even if sometimes it seemed unbearably lonely. And sometimes it would be nice to have a group for operations like stealing from stalls.

This stall owner in particular, Alexandra knew, was a major target for street rats like herself. He had a ton of good, edible food that seemed to her to be terribly overpriced, although the adults buying from him didn't seem to agree. The road was also good for their purposes; wide and empty enough with enough separating streets to allow for a quick getaway, with enough people that the stall owner would have a hard time chasing them.

Of course, being a prime target had made him wary, and with wariness came meanness. He was likely to strike out at any street rat that he caught approaching the stall. It wasn't exactly easy for them to pretend not to be, either.

So they had to sneak up on him, which was usually hard unless he was sufficiently distracted. This was why Alexandra had been waiting for over an hour for him to get either a rush of customers or one especially demanding one, in the hopes of getting close before he noticed her. It was times like this that she did wish the other children would team up with her; with one or several of them deliberately drawing his attention, it would be easy to get some food from his stall.

An opportunity opened. A family with three children approached the stall, and the owner was quickly distracted by the three loud, demanding children. Refusing to let her eyes linger on the family, Alexandra dashed out of the alley she'd been hiding in. It was a simple matter to shove an armful of the rolls off the side of the stall into her shirt, which she used as a makeshift basket. The owner noticed, and swung at her with a shout.

Alexandra leaped backwards, narrowly avoiding a smack to the head that surely would have knocked her down for the count. Getting caught by adults like this was always bad. With a slight advantage in time as he had to get out of his stall, she fled back the way she'd come. Not to the closest alley, which she'd been hiding in before, but one further; this one connected to another street, and hopefully if she could get onto that one, she'd be free and clear.

Her getaway alley of choice was filled with loose garbage and cargo boxed, which made it difficult to get through. Alexandra dodged through with the ease of practice. Behind her, the stall owner swore and stumbled over the obstacles. At last, she came to the point in the alley she'd been waiting for: several piles of boxes had collapsed onto each other, leaving only a tiny space between boxes and one wall. Even Alexandra, eight and small for her age, had to squeeze through, and the boxes were heavy enough that she didn't think the stall owner could push his way through fast enough.

She was so thankful that her wings were intangible. Each one was twice as long as she was tall, and the width to match. If she'd had to worry about hitting things with them, she wouldn't be able to manage half the hiding places and escape routes.

To Alexandra's relief, she managed to get away. It seemed that the boxes stopped him completely, as she didn't hear him chasing her after that.

Safely in another alley a ways away, she checked her loot. She'd gotten four rolls; small ones, not the big one-footers, but she was pleased. That was enough she didn't have to worry for a while.

Not expecting anyone to be in one of these back alleys, Alexandra took a bite of one of the rolls while walking, taking a moment to savor it. Unexpectedly, she bumped into someone. She jumped away, hurriedly getting out of reach, and eyed the person warily.

It was a woman, tall and fair-haired, and she didn't seem angry. Alexandra didn't recognize her, but that wasn't a surprise; Ryazan wasn't that small a city.

"Sorry," she muttered.

The woman stared at her for a long moment with blank eyes. A slow smile worked its way onto her face as she continued to stare. Alexandra noticed with a sinking feeling that the woman wasn't looking directly at her; rather, she was looking over her shoulder.

At her wings.

"Well, well," the woman said, the smile on her face still growing. "Look what I've found!"

Alexandra was getting a really bad feeling about this. Nobody had ever been able to see her wings before, and this woman was really creepy. She backed up further, but every one of her steps was matched by the woman, who was, thanks to her longer legs, gaining ground.

"What?" Alexandra said.

The woman didn't respond, her face getting all weird as veins swelled up unnaturally. As soon as a line split down the woman's middle and she started growing, Alexandra turned and ran, dropping her rolls in the process. She didn't need to know what was going on to know it was dangerous, and she wanted no part in it.

She heard a sound like rapid gunfire, shockingly loud. She swore she could feel what must have been bullets zipping past her legs and hitting the ground, but she didn't slow to look.

Alexandra made it around the corner, but for some reason the street was empty when it shouldn't have been. There was a whir behind her, presumably the creepy woman, or whatever she'd turned into. Panic growing in her chest, Alexandra kept running.

Finally, she saw another person. Unfortunately, it was an old man. He wasn't even facing the right way, so he didn't see them.

"Run!" she shouted at him.

The old man turned with surprising speed. When he saw her and whatever was chasing her, his expression barely changed. Instead of running like she'd told him to, the old man stepped closer.

There were chains coming out of his sleeve, Alexandra noticed. She hadn't noticed them before, as they were the same color as the gold gilding on his jacket.

Alexandra came even with the old man, which meant that the thing chasing her was getting close too, but he didn't move. She reached out and tugged on his arm, trying desperately to get him to run. She didn't know what was going on, but she didn't want some random old man to die or something.

"Run! What are you doing?" she said desperately.

For the first time, she looked back and saw what was chasing her. It was horrifying, a massive metal abomination with a bunch of what looked like canons coming out of it and a human face.

More of the golden chain slipped out of the old man's sleeve, and he flicked them outward as he murmured something Alexandra couldn't understand. It might have been in English, she thought.

The chains glowed, and a sharp-looking end formed on each of them. Almost casually, he slung the chains forward, towards the metal monster, and they reached out far longer than they should have been. The sharp ends sliced easily through the monster, which split apart with the awful sound of rending metal. Before the halved monster could even hit the ground, it exploded.

The sharp ends of the old man's chains disappeared with a flash, and they retreated back up his sleeves. He turned and crouched to be on her level, a kindly smile on his face. He was obviously trying very hard to keep his eyes on her face, but they drifted over to look at her wings, and Alexandra stepped away from him, wary. The creepy woman who was secretly a monster had been the only other person who could see them, so what did that make this old man?

Alexandra resolved to be more aware of people looking at her or her wings.

"Hello," the old man said gently, which was a better start than the monster woman. However, it was in English.

Alexandra was not good at English.

"H-Hello," she repeated. Then, desperately, she said in Russian, "Russian?"

He pursed his lips, but then said in Russian, albeit with a horrible accent, "My Russian is not very good. Are you all right?"

"I'm... fine," Alexandra said, unused to people asking after her well-being. "What was that? What are you?"

"I'm an exorcist. My name is Kevin Yeegar," he answered. "That was an akuma."

A demon? "Akuma?" she said, alarmed.

"Weapons made by a man known as the Earl of Millennium," Yeegar explained. He held up one hand, and the golden chain from before slid out of his sleeve. "This is an anti-akuma weapon. It is Innocence. The only thing that can damage akuma."

Alexandra just stared at him, feeling a little out of her depth. Yeeger gestured, very clearly, to her wings, and she shuffled them closer to her back uncomfortably.

"Those are also an anti-akuma weapon," he said. "I think it's why that akuma attacked you."

She took a step back. It sounded crazy, like a story. "W-What?"

Yeegar looked very solemn. "Do you have family?" he asked out of the blue.

"No," Alexandra answered slowly. "Why?"

"Akuma will only keep attacking you," Yeegar said. "If you don't learn how to defend yourself, you will die." She must have made some awful expression, as he hurriedly said, "But if you come with me, I can teach you. You can become an exorcist like me."

Become an exorcist like him? Fight those monsters?

"I can't," she said. "These wings, they don't touch anything."

For the first time, Yeegar looked a little surprised. "They don't? May I?" he asked, reaching a hand out.

Alexandra shrugged and spread one wing a little, allowing him to wave his hand through it.

"I can't," she repeated miserably, thinking of what he'd said. If she couldn't fight them, she'd die.

He hummed thoughtfully. "I think you can. Part of learning how," he said, smiling at her. "Will you come with me?"

Alexandra thought about it. It wasn't like she especially cared for her life as it was. And she didn't want to die if another one showed up.

"How do you make money?" she asked. It was important.

Yeegar laughed. "I work for an organization named--" he seemed to be thinking of how to say it, "--the Black Order," he said. "They pay all of their exorcists. Quite well, in fact."

"Okay," Alexandra said. "I'll go with you."

He smiled. "What's your name?" he asked, holding out a hand in invitation.

"Alexandra," she answered.

After a moment, she put her hand in his. He closed his hand around hers gently.

"It's nice to meet you, Alexandra," he said.

Alexandra had not honestly expected much from Yeegar. She had hoped he wasn't evil, and that he would teach her how to fight monsters -- akuma -- with her intangible wings, but she had expected it to be like a business transaction. He would teach her how to fight, and she would join his organization and fight for them.

She hadn't expected him to be nice.

But he was. He would let her stay in his hotel rooms with him, and after the first one he'd had before her, he even got rooms with two beds so she could have one. Not only that, but he got her new clothes, and he even got her food. He was a really good cook, it turned out.

He helped her learn English, which he said would be important. Alexandra could understand that. Unfortunately, he was kind of weird about it. He insisted she use proper language, none of the slang she'd picked up, and she had to use 'please' and 'thank you' or he would give her a disappointed look.

Fortunately for her, he didn't know the ruder side of the Russian language, so if she really had to be rude, she just used Russian and he didn't know.

And, of course, he did actually teach her how to use her wings. She was already good at moving them, since she'd had years to practice, but he helped her learn to make them tangible. It turned out that she had to do what he had done before fighting the akuma: activate her Innocence. It sounded weird to her, but oh well. It worked. Her wings didn't seem to change much, but they became tangible. That was not necessarily a good thing. The first time she'd done it, she had completely wrecked a shirt, as the wings won the abrupt fight against the back of the shirt. Alexandra had been horrified, but Yeegar laughed it off. After that, he got her a lot more backless shirts and jackets instead of shirts with backs.

After practicing a bit with activating her Innocence and keeping it active, which Yeegar seemed to think should be difficult but Alexandra didn't think so, she tried flying for the first time. It turned out that her wings were really strong, easily able to throw her body around. She'd accidentally thrown herself backwards a couple times moving them too quickly. It was actually easy to fly, she found. Not to mention fun. She couldn't really do it around people, because they could see her and, with her wings activated, the wings too. Still, she had a lot of fun practicing air maneuvers.

Yeegar, despite generally being kind of boring, actually encouraged this. He said that, given the nature of her anti-akuma weapon, she would probably fight mid-air a lot, so it was good that she was practicing.

Alexandra supposed that made sense.

She traveled with Yeegar for several months. Apparently, that was what he did all the time, because he was a 'general' with the Black Order. Normally, he explained, exorcists would spend their time at one of the Black Order's branches and wait to be sent on a specific mission. As a general, though, he wandered around trying to find Accommodators -- like her -- as well as trying to find people compatible with a number off Innocence that he carried.

"You're still in training, so you'll travel with me for a couple of years," Yeegar explained. "Sometimes that's not the case, and an exorcist will be sent on missions immediately after joining the Order." He looked somewhat disapproving.

Alexandra was glad she'd get to travel with him first. Being an official exorcist seemed a little scary -- they were sent on missions alone a lot.

About two months after she started traveling with Yeegar, who had told her to refer to him as 'Master' in English (although dubious, she did), he let her fight her first akuma.

"I'll be right here in case you need help," he assured her.

Alexandra activated her wings, feeling the sudden wind and pressure as they became tangible. Taking a deep breath, she jumped, a single flap of her wings more than enough to propel her up and over to the akuma.

She angled herself correctly so that she wouldn't hit it dead on. The akuma fired its guns at her, and she curled one wing in front of herself to block the bullets. She got the feeling that normal birds' wings didn't work like that, but she wasn't complaining. The other wing, the one on the same side as the akuma, she left straight out.

As she passed by the akuma, dangerously close, the wing sliced right through the akuma's body shockingly easily.

Alexandra flared her wings out to come to a gentle landing as the cut akuma exploded behind her. She spun to face Yeegar, beaming already.

"Master! I did it!" she said excitedly.

Yeegar smiled. "So you did. Well done, Alexandra," he said.

Alexandra bounced in place. She was a real exorcist!

A month after that, Yeegar decided to bring her to the European Branch. It was, he said, about time for him to check in; he didn't like to go long periods without contact. Furthermore, he wanted to introduce her officially, although she would continue traveling with him as his apprentice.

It was still several weeks' travel away, but Yeegar decided that, so she'd practice English, he would speak to her solely in that language. If she wanted him to acknowledge her words, she would also have to use English.

Alexandra hated it, but she did get better at English. Yeegar explained that everyone in the Order tended to speak English as a common language, since so many of them were from different countries. Due to that, she needed to know English to communicate, with no guarantee that anyone would speak Russian.

And then finally they were there. The Black Order's European Branch, or Headquarters, was a very obvious building. It was a ways away from any civilization, but as soon as they were close, Alexandra was able to see the massive spire of rock, with an even taller tower built on top of it.

"Whoa," she said, unable to help it.

Yeegar chuckled.

They went in through the Order members' entrance, which meant taking a boat up the river through the mountain. Alexandra was almost sad; she might have liked to fly up the other way.

There were a lot of Order members, Alexandra found. Most of the people wore strange, knee-length yellow jackets (Yeegar told her those were the finders). The others largely didn't seem to be wearing a uniform.

There was a teenage girl wearing a uniform that looked like Yeegar's, except silver where his was gold. She had long black hair and was carrying a clipboard.

 A normal exorcist, Alexandra realized.

"General Yeegar. Welcome back," the girl said in English, smiling. "Oh, and who's this?"

"Thank you, Lenalee. This is Alexandra," Yeegar said. "My newest apprentice."

Lenalee's smile didn't falter. "Nice to meet you, Alexandra! My name is Lenalee Lee, I'm an exorcist here," she said cheerfully.

"Nice to meet you," Alexandra echoed nervously.

"Is the chief in his office, Lenalee?" Yeegar asked.

"Yup!" Lenalee said. "Probably slacking off work like usual. I'll walk there with you, if it's okay?"

"Please," Yeegar said, nodding.

They set off. Lenalee led the way, though Yeegar probably knew it himself.

"So, Alexandra, how old are you?" Lenalee said, sounding genuinely interested.

"I'm eight. Almost nine," Alexandra answered. That was how old she thought she was, anyway. "What about you, Miss Lenalee?"

Lenalee giggled. "Oh, you can just call me Lenalee," she said. "I'm fifteen."

The building was very large, but it didn't take too long to get to the chief's office. Lenalee opened the door without knocking, which Alexandra felt was not how it was supposed to go, and led the way inside. It was a big room, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books, a desk, and a couch.

The desk was piled high with paperwork. The paperwork was also on the ground and on the couch. Lenalee walked over to the desk, and Alexandra noticed for the first time that there was a man sleeping in the chair, slumped over the desk.

Lenalee stood over him with a thunderous scowl. "Brother! What are you doing?" she said, raising the clipboard threateningly.

The man snorted and jerked upright and stared at Lenalee. There was a paper stuck to one side of his face, but Alexandra was able to make out most of his features. He had black hair and his eyes were the same as Lenalee's.

"What? Oh, Lenalee!" he said cheerfully, adjusting the beret on top of his head.

"General Yeegar is here to give his report," Lenalee said with an exasperated sigh.

The man sobered up quickly. "Of course. Welcome back, General," he said, then noticed Alexandra. "Ah. A new exorcist?"

Alexandra fluttered her wings nervously. The man didn't look at them.

"Yes, my new apprentice," Yeegar said with a nod. "Chief Lee, this is Alexandra. Alexandra, this is Komui Lee, the chief officer of the Black Order's European Branch."

"Nice to meet you," Alexandra said uncertainly.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Komui said, looking amused. "What is your anti-akuma weapon, if you don't mind me asking?"

Alexandra blinked and looked at the wings. She didn't know why, when only Yeegar and akuma had been able to see them before, but she had expected the people at the Order to, as well.

"Umm. I have wings," she said hesitantly.

Komui, understandably, did not look like he believed her. "I see," he said slowly.

"When not activated, they seem to be invisible to humans who do not possess Innocence themselves," Yeegar said, taking pity on her.

"Oh! It's a parasitic type, then?" Komui said, now much more interested. "Can you activate it?"

Alexandra looked to Yeegar for help, or permission, she wasn't sure which.

"Chief, I do have a report to give," Yeegar said. "I was also hoping to introduce Alexandra to Hevlaska."

"Oh, of course," Komui said, sufficiently distracted. "We can get her a uniform, as well."

"I can bring her," Lenalee volunteered, then winked at Alexandra and said to her, "That way you won't have to sit through a boring old meeting."

"Great! Thank you, Lenalee," Komui said.

With no further ado, Lenalee gestured Alexandra to follow her out of the room. They walked through the grand hallways until they came to what must have been the center of the tower, as it was a massive hollow area. Lenalee led her down several staircases.

"Um, Lenalee?" Alexandra said hesitantly.

"Hm? What is it?" Lenalee said, perfectly nice.

"What's Hevlaska?"

"Oh!" Lenalee laughed lightly, but it didn't sound mocking. "I'm sorry, I forgot to explain. Hmm, I guess you could say Hevlaska is like the keeper of the Innocence. She can be scary, though. She'll pick you up so she can see what your synchronization rate is."

"Synchronization rate?" Alexandra asked.

"It's like, how well you and your Innocence work together," Lenalee explained.

"Oh. Thank you, Lenalee," Alexandra said politely, as Yeegar insisted upon.

Lenalee smiled at her, then gestured her into a tall, dark room, though Lenalee didn't join her. She was standing on a balcony of sorts, above a long drop. 

Alexandra immediately saw Hevlaska -- as Lenalee had said, she was scary looking, a giant semi-see through creature with tentacles. Down below, she could see tons of the same little green cubes that her Innocence had been.

Hevlaska reached out with her tentacles without saying anything, wrapping them around Alexandra. She tried not to scream as she was lifted into the air unceremoniously. Even though she could fly, it was kind of scary.

She was very glad Lenalee had warned her.

Hevlaska gently touched Alexandra's forehead with another tentacle. There was an uncomfortable feeling like something looking through her, and her wings tingled.

She slowly counted up. "56... 67... 78%. Your synchronization with your weapon is 78%," Hevlaska said slowly, setting her down.

Alexandra didn't know if that was good or not. "Um. Okay. Thank you," she said awkwardly.

Hevlaska nodded slowly. She seemed to do everything slowly. "I am Hevlaska. I apologize if I startled you."

"Oh, well, Lenalee told me about you," Alexandra said. "So I kinda expected it."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"I guess... I'll just go, then," Alexandra said. "It was... nice to meet you, Hevlaska."

"God be with you, young exorcist," Hevlaska said solemnly.

Alexandra tried not to look like she was running away as she did just that. She found Lenalee still waiting outside.

"Hey!" she said warmly. "How'd it go?"

"Awkward," Alexandra mumbled. "She said my synchronization rate is 78%."

"That's not bad," Lenalee said. "Parasitic type anti-akuma weapons tend to have higher synchronization rates, I think."

"Parasitic type?" Alexandra asked. Komui had said the same thing about them.

Lenalee nodded. "Yep, there are two types of anti-akuma weapons. Parasitic type, like yours, is a part of the user's body, while equipment type is a separate object. Like mine, for example, which is my boots. Or General Yeegar's, his chained pendulums."

She lifted one leg a bit to show off her boots, which did have the same green as the tip of Alexandra's wings.

"Equipment type is a lot more common," Lenalee continued.

"Okay," Alexandra said. "Thank you again. Where are we going?"

"I'm bringing you to Johnny. He's one of the scientists, and he usually handles exorcists' uniforms," Lenalee said.

"Oh."

"Do you have any requests for it?" Lenalee asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, special things you want it to include. For me, I always ask for short skirts or shorts so I can use my boots. I assume with your wings you'd need something special," Lenalee said.

Alexandra nodded. "Master got me shirts that have no back so I don't shred them," she said. "And I have to take my jacket off before I activate my wings."

"That does make it hard," Lenalee said sympathetically. "I'm sure Johnny can figure something out, though!"

As if on cue, they entered yet another massive room, this one full of people wearing the same white lab coat Komui had been wearing. Lenalee approached a man with glasses and frizzy blonde hair.

Johnny was weird and enthusiastic, but friendly, and an hour later they had a design for Alexandra's exorcist uniform. Unlike Lenalee's, which included her skirt, it was just a coat. It would be long, down to her knees, and Johnny had specially designed the back of the coat. The portion that would cover her back wouldn't be entirely attached to the rest, only at the bottom, and would have buttons to connect it at the top. Ideally, she'd be able to unbutton it and the top half, everything above the waist, would fall backwards to join the rest of the tail of her coat, leaving her back free.

Alexandra wasn't entirely sure how the sleeves, for it had long sleeves, were supposed to work then, but Johnny assured her he could get it to work. She wasn't sure about it, but she figured she might as well trust him. If he was wrong, then she had to take her coat off for every battle the same as she did now. No big deal.

However, it would, he said, take time to make. A day, at least. This worked out well, as Yeegar had wanted to leave the next day. Upon hearing this, Johnny had to hurry to make sure it would be done.

After that, Lenalee and Alexandra left Johnny to work and made their way back towards Komui's office.

"Ah, perfect timing!" Komui said at their entrance. "We just finished."

"You met with Hevlaska?" Yeegar asked Alexandra.

She nodded. "I have a synchronization rate of 78%," she said.

Komui moved closer, looming over Alexandra. She stepped back nervously.

"Will you show me your anti-akuma weapon?" he asked very pleasantly.

Deciding that the looming wasn't on purpose, Alexandra stopped moving away. She looked at Yeegar, who nodded.

First, she took her jacket off, because she was usually good at remembering not to wreck her clothes. Then she concentrated a bit -- the more she activated her Innocence, the easier it seemed to be. She wondered if that was what 'synchronization rate' meant.

Innocence, activate!

Lenalee and Yeegar, like Alexandra herself, likely didn't see much different. However, Komui gasped as her wings seemed to materialize.

"Fascinating," he murmured. "I've never seen an anti-akuma weapon like this before." He reached for one, then seemed to remember his manners. "Ah, may I?"

"Um..." Alexandra tried to flatten her feathers, hoping it would keep them from being sharp as they tended to be while activated. It didn't work. "It's okay, but be careful... The feathers are sharp," she said.

He smiled. "Thank you for the warning," he said warmly, and reached out to carefully brush his fingers against one of her feathers. "It's soft," he said in surprise.

Alexandra shrugged uncomfortably, careful to keep from jostling her wings and hurting him.

Komui drew back. "Well, I'll let you go," he said. "General, you're staying the night?"

"Yes." Yeegar nodded. "We'll head back out tomorrow, once Alexandra's uniform is finished."

"Great! If I might take up a bit more of your time..." Komui said cheerfully.

Lenalee gently steered Alexandra back out of the room as Komui drew Yeegar back into conversation. Alexandra deactivated her wings so she didn't have to worry about hitting anyone or anything.

"I thought they were done," Alexandra said, confused.

Lenalee giggled. "That's just how Brother is sometimes," she said. "Are you hungry? I can show you the cafeteria."

"Yes, please!" Alexandra said.

The cafeteria was, as with so many other rooms in this ridiculous building, massive. It did have to hold a lot of people, Alexandra supposed. There were picnic tables spread throughout the room. The tables were mostly empty, with a couple finders spread through the room and, alone at a table, a teenage boy wearing the exorcist uniform. At one side of the room there was a window in the wall, looking something like an ordering counter.

When they got close, a man popped into view with black dreadlocks who was, for some reason, wearing sunglasses.

"Well~ hello there!" he said.

Alexandra stared.

Lenalee laughed a little. "Hi, Jeryy. This is Alexandra. She's a new exorcist, visiting with General Yeegar."

"Aren't you a cutie!" Jeryy squealed, pressing his hands to his cheeks. He reached down over the counter, running a hand through some of her ash blonde hair, which she kept at shoulder-length now so that it wouldn't get in the way of her wings. Alexandra noticed that he did it slow enough that she could have pulled away. She didn't particularly care to, but she appreciated the intent.

"I've never seen such blue eyes," Jeryy continued, cooing now.

"It's nice to meet you," Alexandra said uncertainly. What else was she supposed to say?

"It's nice to meet you too! What can I get for you ladies?" Jeryy said.

Lenalee looked down at Alexandra. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Umm, I don't know," Alexandra said.

"Nothing at all?" Lenalee prodded. When Alexandra shook her head, she ordered for both of them.

Jeryy must be magic, Alexandra decided, because he made the food extremely fast. Lenalee took both plates, then led Alexandra straight towards the teenage boy exorcist. He had fluffy, bright red hair and he was wearing an eye patch over one eye.

"Hey, Lavi," Lenalee greeted. "Back from your mission already?"

The boy looked up and grinned back at her. "Yup! Wasn't too hard," he said, then looked to Alexandra. "You're new here, huh?"

For once, nobody spoke for her, so Alexandra nodded. "My name is Alexandra. I'm visiting with General Yeegar," she said.

"Oh yeah? Nice," he said. "I'm Lavi. Nice to meet'cha."

"Nice to meet you," she said.

Lenalee sat at the table, encouraging Alexandra to sit as well.

"Alexandra, huh?" Lavi said, the first person to say her name correctly. "That's kinda a mouthful. I'm gonna call you Alex, 'kay?"

Alexandra blinked.

"Lavi, don't be rude," Lenalee scolded, then turned to Alexandra. "You don't have to let him if you don't want to, okay?"

Alexandra shrugged. "It's okay," she said. "You guys and Master are the first ones to call me by name at all, anyway."

Lavi had a thoughtful expression, while Lenalee looked sad. Alexandra blinked at them both. They shook it off quickly, and continued the conversation.

Alexandra felt a little out of her depth, especially when the conversation eclipsed her knowledge of English, and it probably was not helped by the fact that they were so much older than her, but they were both friendly. They tried to involve her whenever possible.

She had known she was probably getting herself into a lifetime of being an exorcist, but she hadn't really thought about what it'd be like beyond fighting akuma. She hadn't expected to like the other exorcists this much.

But she really, really did like them. She couldn't wait until Yeegar decided to let her stay as a normal exorcist.

Among everything else contained in the massive Order building, there were a ton of bedrooms. Enough for Alexandra to get her own room! She was thrilled. Not that she minded sharing with Yeegar, exactly, but it was nice to have a room to herself.

The next morning, Johnny had finished Alexandra's uniform. Apparently he stayed up late to do just that, which she felt bad about. She made sure to thank him extra for that.

It turned out she should have had faith in his design after all. Even the sleeves worked. Like all of the jackets, it had buttons in the front. The cloth went far enough back to form the sleeves, but only wrapped all the way around at the neck and at the bottom. The rest of the back was not attached all the way, only with the strip of cloth at the bottom, and there were buttons at the front of the shoulders that it could be attached to. There was enough baggy extra material that, with the back buttoned on, it was almost impossible to tell there were gaps. As expected, it fell to her knees and the bottom was baggy, as were the end of the sleeves, but around her neck and upper arms was snug. The material was sturdy and thick feeling.

Alexandra loved it.

She was so excited that, after modelling it for him so he could make sure it fit correctly, she leaped forward to hug him around the middle without thinking. 

Once she remembered her manners and that people didn't generally appreciate being touched out of the blue, she made to pull back and apologize. Before she could, though, Johnny laughed and hugged her back.

"Do you mind activating your wings?" he asked, pulling away gently. "I want to make sure it works right!"

She'd shown him them the day before as well, so he could plan a design around them. Alexandra shrugged and fiddled with the buttons. She usually had trouble with buttons, since she'd had no experience with them until Yeegar, but these ones were easy to undo.

Once the panel had fallen down away from her back, she curled her wings around herself so they wouldn't take up a lot of room, then activated them.

"Okay, looks good," Johnny decided. "You have a full range of motion, right?"

Alexandra paused. "...A what?" she said, somewhat embarrassed.

"A full range of motion," Johnny repeated, then said, "It means the coat isn't stopping your wings from moving at all."

"Oh." Alexandra hadn't really tried to move her wings to their fullest extent, since in the Order building she was usually surrounded by people, but she figured if there was anything the coat would get in the way of, it was curling her wings in front of her as she was doing. "No. I mean, yes. It -- It's not in the way."

Johnny beamed. "Great! Oh, I think I have a full-length mirror if you want to see," he said, then moved as if to grab her hand, but hesitated when he realized her wing was in the way.

Alexandra was deactivating it and reaching back before she thought consciously. Before she could be embarrassed, Johnny had grabbed her hand straight through her now-invisible (to him) wing. She didn't care much about people moving through her wings -- in a lot of cases, it was inevitable -- but she'd noticed that the other exorcists tended to avoid them even when they were deactivated. She wondered if others would do the same if they could see them.

As Johnny dragged her (gently, as everybody seemed to treat her) through the science room, he asked, "Do your wings actually disappear when you deactivate them?"

"No. They're still there, just can't touch anything. I think other exorcists can see them," Alexandra said.

"Oh, wow. Can you still feel them?"

"Feel how?" she asked. "They don't touch anything."

"Yeah, but you can feel them like a limb, right? Move them around and everything?" Johnny said.

"I guess," Alexandra said. "I can still move them and I know where they are even when they're not active."

"That's so cool!" Johnny said. He apparently found the mirror he was looking for, as he steered her in front of it, saying, "Here, look."

Alexandra looked. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be looking at. She pulled her wings out of the way, moving one through Johnny, so she could see herself. The uniform was much the same on her as on the others, although Lenalee and Lavi both wore much closer-fitting ones. She was wearing pants under it like Lavi, although where his were denim, hers were dark cloth.

She'd asked Yeegar for pants instead of skirts, uncomfortable with the idea after wearing pants her entire life, and he'd agreed. Most of her pants were the same. It was the same with her shirts, though the one she was wearing couldn't be seen under her exorcist coat. Since they had to be backless, there weren't many options; the most common was the kind that wrapped around her neck and around the bottom of her back, much like the design of her coat. They also tended to be sleeveless. Almost all of the clothing he'd gotten her was black or dark gray, which at least meant she had no problem color coordinating with the uniform, but it stood out starkly against her light skin and hair.

Alexandra still wasn't sure what Johnny had expected her to look at or how long it was supposed to take, so she just continued staring. He was a lot taller than her, she noticed. He wasn't even all that tall compared to some of the other people, but he seemed to dwarf her in the mirror.

Age, she supposed. He was an adult and she was still a child, even though she didn't feel like one.

Finally, Johnny spoke. "Do you like it?" he asked.

"I love it," Alexandra replied. She couldn't help but smile at his happiness.

After all that, Alexandra was a little sad to leave. She liked Yeegar too, of course, but he wasn't as much fun as Lenalee, Lavi, and Johnny were. He could be kind of stuffy sometimes, especially when he was trying to teach her. And he didn't approve of swearing, or impolite language in general, so she had to use words he didn't know the meaning of if she wanted to insult people.

Meanwhile, she'd accidentally slipped with Lenalee and Lavi and, judging by his reaction, Lavi had totally understood her even though she didn't say it in English. He hadn't gotten mad, though; actually, he'd laughed.

Yeegar had decided that she should travel with him for longer, though, so she would. And he was leaving to continue trying to do his job, so she would leave too.

She thanked Johnny again, and said goodbye to him, Lenalee, Lavi, and Jeryy. She had found out while talking to Lavi that there was another exorcist at Headquarters, who'd been with Lavi on his mission, but she never got to meet him.

"There's an exit to the top of the mountain, right?" Alexandra asked as they were leaving.

Yeegar looked somewhat amused as he nodded. "Yes, several. I presume you wish to go out through one of those?"

"Yes, please!" Alexandra beamed.

She loved flying, and going down the side of the mountain looked like fun. It wasn't like there was anyone else nearby to see her, anyway.

"I'll meet you at the bottom," Yeegar said, chuckling.

Ten minutes later, Alexandra was looking down at the biggest drop she'd ever seen. It was awesome! There was something so much more satisfying about jumping off of high things than just flying up high on her own. After unbuttoning the back of her coat and activating her wings, Alexandra took a running leap off the side of the spire-like mountain. She tucked her wings in close to her side for maximum speed, although there was only so much she could do about wings that were each twice her height. She laughed out loud, enjoying the wind tossing her hair and her coat around as she fell for a long, long time. Then, when the ground was getting close enough for her to worry, she spread her wings out to catch the air.

She glided around in circles to control the speed of her landing. She'd landed fast and hard before, and it was mostly fine, but Yeegar disapproved of her being 'reckless' like that.

"But 'wreckless' is good, isn't it? I didn't crash!" she'd protested once, and he'd thought it was funny enough that he stopped scolding her.

He did, however, explain the difference between 'reckless' and 'wreckless', to make sure she couldn't use that as an excuse again.

Alexandra landed lightly next to where they'd gotten into the boat to go into the Order building yesterday, assuming that was where Yeegar would disembark. Her way, she decided, was much faster. For obvious reasons.

While waiting for Yeegar to catch up on the long path, she deactivated her Innocence and rebuttoned her coat. And then she waited. And waited.

Finally, she saw the boat emerge from the hidden entrance.

She bounced forward to meet Yeegar as he stepped off the boat. He smiled down at her.

"Have you been waiting a while?" he said.

"Forever," she agreed with an emphatic nod.

Yeegar laughed gently and patted her on the shoulder. "Well, let us go, then."

Alexandra followed as Yeegar started walking. "Where are we going, Master?" she asked.

She couldn't tell how he usually decided where to go, so she generally assumed that it was on a whim.

To her surprise, he said, "The chief has given me a mission, in fact."

"A mission? To do what?"

"It seems that the Black Order has been getting reports of a large number of akuma accumulating near a small town in the country of Serbia," Yeegar explained. "Recently, the finders there who had been sending the reports have lost communication with the Order. Chief Lee requested that I investigate the situation for his peace of mind."

"Oh." Alexandra thought about that for a moment. "But that's not that weird, is it? Wouldn't they just send a normal exorcist?"

Yeegar nodded. "Yes, in most cases they would. However, due to the reports, which included sightings of a number of Level Two akuma, the chief said he would be more comfortable sending me, as a general, just in case," he said.

"What's a Level Two?" Alexandra asked.

"Akuma are capable of evolving, in a way, when they've killed enough people," Yeegar said patiently. "All of the akuma we have run into so far were Level Ones, which is the basic level and most common. A Level Two is stronger and more intelligent, often with a unique special ability. Overall, they can be quite difficult to deal with."

"Oh. Okay."

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: Avengers (MCU) Crossover with X-Men

Written in 2015

Summary: Darcy was normal, even through the entire thing with Thor and then the other thing with Thor, and -- well, just overall. She’d always been normal. That was, at least, until her boyfriend turned out to be a traitorous Hydra !@#$%^.

Warnings: none? Possible implied dubious consent

‘ware of tense changes, for I have always been bad at keeping one continuous sense

The thing about Darcy Lewis’ life is that she’s never really mattered. Oh, don’t get her wrong, she knows she’s awesome – but it doesn’t matter what she thinks, it matters what everybody else thinks.

When Darcy was born, it was not only as the third child, but as the unexpected, unwanted third child. Her parents, stereotypically enough, had wanted two children, a girl and a boy, and they had gotten those children. Darcy showed up a couple of years later as a complete accident.

It’s not like her parents were terrible people or anything – they didn’t abuse her or even neglect her – but there was a distinct… lack of care. Her parents would still read her bedtime stories, still help her with her homework – but her accomplishments received mild, faked enthusiasm and a condescending, “That’s nice, dear,” rather than the excitement that either of her siblings’ achievements got.

It didn’t help that Darcy was easily bored, not the greatest at concentrating on most things – causing her grades to be average rather than great – and painfully uninterested in sports in addition to being somewhat uncoordinated. 

(“Who wants to spend hours chasing a ball across a field or trying to hit a ball with a stick?” Darcy argued, but nobody else seemed to agree.)

Darcy’s sister became a soccer player, and a good one at that, and her brother became a trauma surgeon, while Darcy… well, Darcy had always been indecisive. First, she decided that Biochemistry was the field for her – you know, help people, create the cure for cancer or something equally world-changing, become famous. Yeah, no. Biochemistry did not turn out to be as cool as Darcy thought. So she switched majors (and that was a fun conversation to have with her parents), figuring that if she couldn’t change the world in a medical way, she might as well try Mechanical Engineering, which also had cool, world-changing options. Alas, it was also a bust, and Darcy switched yet again, this time to Journalism, but that turned out to have way more writing class and literature requirements than Darcy had the patience for. Finally, she switched to Political Science. It wasn’t perfect; it wasn’t what Darcy had pictured herself doing, and it had plenty of dry, soul-sucking history and politics classes, but it wasn’t horrible. It was the best she’d found so far.

(Also her parents had decided that they weren’t going to pay her tuition to Culver anymore if she switched majors again. But that totally didn’t have anything to do with it.)

But then, it turned out that Darcy needed physical science credits to graduate. She had discovered already that she didn’t like physical science much, which was why she’d dropped all of those classes before finishing them. It was too late for her to get into any classes or clubs or anything that would fill her physical science requirements – except an internship. The problem, then, was that no scientist ever would want a political scientist for an intern. Except Dr. Jane Foster, who had no other applicants and thus had about as much choice in the matter as Darcy herself – that is to say, none.

So to New Mexico with Dr. Foster it was. Surprisingly, the internship wasn’t as bad as she’d expected – she was as unimportant as ever, but she’d expected that. Since she knew literally nothing about astrophysics, Darcy mostly stuck to cleaning up after Jane (who didn’t seem to care about much if it didn’t pertain to her work, and who had not, in fact, so much as noticed when her intern began inappropriately calling her by her first name), organizing files, making sure that everything got recorded somewhere and nothing got lost, putting together and helping keep together Jane’s random-metal-pieces-and-duct-tape machines, and occasionally reminding Jane to take breaks for food and sleep.

Actually, Darcy wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly, Jane was so intent on doing all the time considering that she never seemed to get anywhere, but then astrophysics was supposed to be mostly theoretical, which did not seem to be what Jane was attempting. There was a reason nobody else had applied, after all, and Darcy didn’t really care as long as she finished out the internship with the six credits she’d been promised.

It turned out, eventually, that Jane wasn’t as crazy as everybody thought, and also Norse mythology was correct (ish) and Darcy met an actual, true fax god, and also was at ground-zero for an alien attack. Darcy was so not prepared for this! Six college credits did not even come close to being worth it. Of course, Darcy, as always, didn’t matter. Jane mattered, a little, because of her work and because she and Thor totally hit it off (in a romantic way), but even she didn’t really affect much.

Still, even with the danger and Darcy’s position on the sidelines, it was really cool. The coolest thing that had ever happened to her, probably – how many people could say that they were there for one of the first alien sightings? Well, not Darcy, actually, because Creepy-Government-Agency-of-the-Jackbooted-Thugs (CGAJT for short. It was a work in progress) was very clear in their instructions that nobody else know details about it, but whatever.

Plus, during Thor’s brief stay on Earth, Darcy had apparently been brought through Jane’s barrier of professionalism from ‘intern with whom Jane shares a tiny living space’ to ‘girl friend with whom Jane shares a living space and is good for gossiping with’. It turned out that besides the obvious problem (Jane’s polyamorous love affair with her work and Thor), Jane was actually a pretty good friend.

(Also, Darcy and Thor got along surprisingly well, though not to the same extent that Jane and Thor did. Darcy’s enthusiastic, shameless personality got along well with Thor’s cheerful, shameless personality. It didn’t hurt that she’d tased him, surprisingly; he actually thought that it was hilarious and impressive and dubbed her his ‘Lightning Sister’. Darcy would be lying if she said she wasn’t pleased.)

Both of those were why, after Darcy’s internship was over and she’d graduated from Culver, she went back to working for Jane – this time as an assistant, rather than an intern, albeit still an unpaid one. Jane was even worse than before, of course, because not only did she love her work, but she was desperate to get her boyfriend back from the far reaches of space (or wherever Asgard was). That was okay; Jane clearly needed someone to make sure she didn’t forget about herself in her obsession, and Darcy didn’t mind being the one to do that.

They got an intern, and between his actual ability to science! and Darcy’s nagging capabilities, they actually had Jane willingly (kind of) going on dates within two years. One thing that helped on the getting-Jane-to-date side but not so much on the Jane’s-emotional-health side was Thor’s appearance on Earth and coinciding decision to not contact Jane. Darcy loved Thor (in a completely platonic way), she did, but when he got back he was so getting yelled at. She loved Jane more.

Thor did show up again, brought by another disaster, but Darcy didn’t think that a lecture was the best idea considering the circumstances. You know, murderous, universe-destroying Dark Elves generally take precedence. This time, Darcy was useful! She helped save the world, like a boss, and it was awesome. Also nerve-wracking and mildly terrifying, but, still.

Except, she played a fairly small part in the saving of the world. All she really did was help set up the science! thingies with Ian. Jane was a lot more important, what with the whole parasitic, destructive thing that took up residence in her body, and Darcy was not jealous of Jane, she really wasn’t, and she was a little glad that she wasn’t important in that way, but she couldn’t help but wish she was important in some way. She firmly shoved that part of herself down, forced herself to be properly supportive of Jane and later happy for her, and got over it. Darcy became even closer bros with Thor (his nickname for her of ‘Lightning Sister’ had, at first, been a little weirdly familiar, but now Darcy was totally willing to consider him her brother. She certainly liked him a lot more than her biological brother), continued assisting Jane with science!, and started a tentative relationship-slash-friends-with-benefits thing with Ian (inspired by that one kiss that had been fueled by nerves, adrenaline and relief but which had actually been pretty good). Her life was good, in Darcy’s opinion, even if she was stuck sharing a tiny English ‘flat’ with Jane and Thor (which was way worse than just twice as bad), Jane still didn’t have the funding to pay her so she had no spending money but plenty of her parents’ disappointment, and she was still unimportant.

At least two of those things changed, though, when Tony finally wheedled Jane into agreeing to take funding from Stark Industries (included in the deal was two rooms/suites/apartments and a lab in Stark-now-Avengers Tower). Darcy was a little confused that Jane was bringing her with, since Jane now had the funding to hire assistants who could properly science! with her, but she was certainly not going to complain. She was also not above taking money she didn’t technically deserve and free housing that she didn’t have to share with Jane and Thor (even if she did have to admit that she and Ian were, in fact,  at the point where they could cohabit together).

Darcy was even happier than before, because her boss was awesome and her boyfriend was great and now-Avengers Tower was incredible. Plus, she got onto speaking terms with Tony Stark (!) and Bruce Banner (slightly less !, but he was pretty cool, too), and became BFFs with Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye (!), through Say Yes to the Dress marathons and a prank war that Darcy lost, but not without dealing some good blows to him first. Natasha Romanoff was slightly harder to become friends with because she was absolutely terrifying and also didn’t spend as much time in the tower (Clint apparently hadn’t taken nearly as many missions lately as he usually did and Natasha still was, and Darcy was too afraid to ask why). Captain America she didn’t meet at all, supposedly because he was living in D.C instead of staying in the tower.

Jane was doing well, too, because she had her boyfriend back and a ton more funding than she’d ever had before, even if she still refused to use it to hire more assistants. Instead, she just forced Ian to work insane hours with her (Darcy didn’t technically have to, but she did anyway out of solidarity).

Really, considering their lives, it was a miracle that Darcy and Ian’s relationship was as smooth as it was. They only rarely fought, and Darcy had never been truly angry at him, not the kind of angry that would have made her even consider breaking up with him. Considering that most of their time (both together and in general) was spent working together, that was incredible.

But then, if Darcy was impressed with the ease of her own relationship, she was in awe of the perfection that was Jane and Thor’s. They were, like, the absolute dream couple personified; both of them had separate, time-consuming jobs so they didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, their relationship was occasionally long-distance, and they seemed to have nothing in common. Yet they had never fought to Darcy’s knowledge, and Darcy would know if they did because Jane would be heartbroken and mopey about it and Darcy was the only friend she had to weep about it to.

Still, even the dream couple deserved to have a couple of date nights, right? Right. That was why, on Ian’s suggestion, Darcy pestered the next time Thor would definitely have a free night on Midgard out of Tony (the very same day, it turned out) and nagged Jane, with Ian’s reassurance that he and Darcy could handle things for one night, into leaving the lab to go on a date with him (the phrase, “If you can spare the time to get dressed up and go on a date with Richard, you can do the same for Thor. You know, love of your life and all that jazz,” may have been included).

So Darcy hustled Jane up to the veritable apartment that she shared with Thor and stared her down until she got dressed and put makeup on. Finally, with Jane properly ready to go out on a date, Darcy had planned to drop her off to meet Thor in the lobby of the tower. Jane apparently did not agree with this plan. Jane gasped suddenly as they got in the elevator. “Wait! I forgot to collate the data from that last experiment!” She practically wailed, darting forward to press the button for her lab’s floor.

“Jarvis, can you ask Thor to meet us in Jane’s lab?” Darcy requested quietly with a sigh (so close!) as she watched Jane bounce impatiently on her toes, oblivious to Darcy’s conniving. Hopefully, Thor would get to the lab in time to prevent Jane from being able to resume working. Jane could never resist Thor in person. “It’s fine, Jane, Ian and I can do that,” Darcy reassured her somewhat hopelessly, raising her voice so that Jane had no chance to pretend she hadn’t heard. “You go enjoy a night with Thor.”

Jane shook her head firmly. “No, this is more important,” she declared, although she wilted guiltily as soon as the words had left her mouth.

Darcy continued trying in vain to convince Jane all the way down to the proper floor and into the lab, where they found Ian as he removed a USB from a computer. He shot Jane a startled look and then raised his eyebrows at Darcy questioningly, even as he moved to intercept her from getting deeper into the lab. Darcy knew he was perfect.

“Jane, Ian and I are perfectly capable of collating that data without you,” Darcy tried, more to explain it to Ian than actually convince Jane. “Don’t worry about it, go out with Thor.”

Ian positioned himself in front of Jane (even Jane on a mission wasn’t quite willing to sidestep one of her coworkers like that) and stared into her eyes earnestly. “Really, Dr. Foster, I’m sure that it’s nothing you need to do yourself. You can go have a night off while Darcy and I handle this,” he told her. Darcy really appreciated Ian sometimes; he was amazing at backing her up with very little context.

“No, I really – that data will only be there for so long before it’s overwritten, I should stay and help you guys with it,” Jane responded, pursing her lips doubtfully.

With perfect timing (because Darcy wasn’t sure how long she and Ian could have held Jane off), Thor appeared through the door. “Jane!” he called in his deep, deep voice. Yeah, Thor was Jane’s and Darcy would never contest that, but she could still appreciate him, okay? And there was a lot to appreciate tonight.

Thor was dressed in some semblance of modern Midgardian formal wear, though his coat was a little strange, and apparently he was really hot when he wasn’t wearing a hundred pounds of armor or a T-shirt and jeans (well, he was always hot, but he was looking particularly hot right then).

Darcy wasn’t the only one affected, either, because as soon as Jane turned towards him her jaw dropped and her eyes widened.  Thor grinned smugly as Jane’s appreciative gaze swept over him several times.

“Thor,” Jane responded a little breathlessly as Thor strode forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

As Thor began leading Jane towards the door, he nodded to Darcy and Ian. “You have my thanks, Lady Darcy, Intern Ian,” he said solemnly.

(Darcy had stopped referring to Ian as an intern, because honestly that was just awkward when they were sleeping together, but it had taken a while to break herself of the habit, so Thor had caught on. He was just as stubborn as Darcy and didn’t have the same reasons to stop, which meant that she couldn’t get him to. At this point, Darcy was pretty sure he was just doing it to mess with them.)

“Darcy, don’t forget to collate that data! From both machines, not just the one,” Jane called over her shoulder as Thor steered her through the door.

Then they were gone. Darcy let herself breathe a sigh of relief; now that Jane was out of the lab and with Thor, they were in the clear. “Jeez, I thought we’d never get her to go,” she said to Ian, who smiled back, looking just as relieved as Darcy felt.

“I know, it’s like she doesn’t care about anything else when there’s work to be done,” he responded.

“Right? You know what she said about collating this data?” Darcy paused, and Ian stared at her with the proper amount of expectance. “’This is more important’! Than Thor! Can you believe it?”

Ian shook his head. “No, I certainly cannot.”

Darcy got the feeling he was humoring her with that one, but she gave him a kiss anyway.

With that, they got to work collating the data Jane had been so frantic about (once they figured out what data and which two machines). After all, if they lost the data now, Jane would never go out on a date again.

It took barely twenty minutes, not even close to as long as Jane had apparently thought, and they finished with hours before the pertinent data would have been erased.

Darcy spun in her desk chair long enough to make herself dizzy. “Hey, what were you doing with that USB?” she asked belatedly, having forgotten it until then. Her momentum kept her spinning lazily as she pressed her eyes shut tightly and rubbed at her forehead.

“Hm? Oh, that.” Ian hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I was using it to download all of Jane’s data, which you so kindly recorded onto the computer, so that I could run away and bring it to my evil commanding officers,” he said, his voice commendably even to keep with the joke, and Darcy touched her feet down on the floor to stop her spinning while facing him.

Her mouth was open before her eyes were. “Ha ha, very –“ Then her eyes opened, and she took in the scene: Ian, his face stony and his eyes cold, and his hand tightly holding a gun pointed directly at her. Darcy stared wordlessly for a moment, because what do you say to that.

“I’m really sorry, Darcy,” Ian told her earnestly, seeming to really mean it. Darcy thought of his earnest attitude when trying to convince Jane, and didn’t believe it. “You’ve been great, really, it’s just… well, my employers are rather persuasive, and the mission matters more.”

Employers, Darcy thought. That was an interesting word. “Your employers, huh?” she said, half expecting her voice to break, but it held steady. Nothing felt quite real, yet, but Darcy could feel the encroaching edges of panic and hurt. “And who is that? Hydra? AIM?”

“Got it in one. I always knew you were smart, Darcy.” Ian let his fake expression fall. He moved over to the computer, plugging his USB back in and beginning the transfer. “I work for Hydra, and they sent me in undercover to get Dr. Foster’s findings. She really is a brilliant astrophysicist, isn’t she?”

Darcy couldn’t do this, couldn’t small talk with her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, some part of her corrected hysterically) while he stole her best friend’s life’s work. “Why are you doing this?” she asked in a shout, and oh, there was the break in her voice. And where were the Avengers who were home? Jarvis should have sent them by now. Except no, they wouldn’t be coming, Darcy realized with a dawning sense of horror, because Jarvis wouldn’t be sending them because Jane had had Tony disconnect Jarvis from her lab before the last experiment, citing sensitivity reasons.

Ian, of course, would have known that just as well as Darcy. He must have planned it that way. It was that, above anything else, that for some reason brought it home to Darcy that this was Ian, her boyfriend, the intern she’d pestered Jane into getting, that was holding a gun on her and stealing Jane’s work.

“It’s the job,” Ian explained with a careless shrug. “That’s just how it is, Darcy.” How dare he. How dare he. Darcy was scared, yes – how could she not be when there was a gun being held on her – but she was angry, too. Furious. Because she’d liked Ian, really liked him, and he’d been using her the entire time. For Hydra. And now he thinks he can call her by her name as casually as ever? No.

“How dare you!” Darcy shrieked, and threw herself at him bodily, damn his fucking gun.

Ian clearly hadn’t expected that, as her tackle brought them both to the floor, his breath being knocked out of him as Darcy’s full weight landed on top of him. Darcy didn’t bother to move off of him, instead going for his eyes immediately (unfortunately, she’d left her bag, which had her taser in it, upstairs). Except, Darcy may have been a little… overeager, and before she could actually claw Ian’s eyes out, he recovered enough to defend his face with his left hand. His right hand, still holding his pistol, came around and backhanded her quicker than she could react, and she fell to the ground beside him. Her glasses skittered away.

Ian swung himself over her, rubbing at the tiny scratches around his eyes. “You little –“ he began, snarling. He was cut off as Darcy slammed both hands, clasped together, into his stomach as hard as she could.

Darcy tried to scramble out from underneath him, but Ian pinned her legs beneath one of his own and grasped her wrists in his left hand, slamming them to the ground above Darcy’s head.

“HOW COULD YOU I TRUSTED YOU JANE TRUSTED YOU, YOU BASTARD!” Darcy screamed at him, practically incoherent, as she thrashed under him. Ian was forced to release his gun to hold both of her hands, and he was clearly struggling to keep her pinned.

Good, Darcy thought viciously. If she couldn’t stop the traitorous bastard, at the very least she was going to cause him as much inconvenience as she could.

“Stop it, Darcy,” Ian snarled at her, calmer than she was but still clearly annoyed. “God, you always were an annoying shrew.”

That achieved the desired result, as Darcy stopped struggling for a moment in sheer, disbelieving fury. “What?”

Then she continued struggling, however, because she was going to get one good punch to his stupid, smug, traitorous face.

“LET GO OF ME YOU ASSHOLE I’LL CLAW YOUR EYES OUT TEAR YOUR STUPID NOSE OFF AND FEED IT TO YOU!”

Darcy really, really wanted her taser because nobody had ever deserved to be tased as much as Ian did. It would even be worth getting tased herself through the contact with him.

Ian grimaced at her. “Do you ever shut up? Even in bed you never shut up, not for a single second.” He leaned close, whispering conspiratorially, “You’re pretty hot, so I thought it wouldn’t be too bad, but honestly, you were the worst lay I’ve ever had.”

Darcy screamed, long and wordless and enraged and kind of hurt. She couldn’t believe this. That would have pissed her off no matter who said it but it was Ian and she had thought they had something, he’d been her best boyfriend ever and he’d been faking it the entire time, and all that meant that it wasn’t just infuriating, it was insanely hurtful too and Darcy had been sure that her last breakup had been the worst it got but no, no, this was worse. Darcy hated Ian and she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid – she’d had sex with this man, but she hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t into it, much less that he’d secretly been working for Hydra. She’d thought, for a little, that she might be okay with marrying him.

Something pulled from deep inside her, painfully, and her scream became less emotional pain and more physical pain. Electricity arced across her skin and jumped in little bluish-white sparks onto Ian. Ian screamed, too.

Until he wasn’t screaming, anymore. It felt like an eternity of pain before the pain stopped, too, along with the electricity. Darcy was left feeling hollow, filled with nothing but a bone-deep exhaustion. She was so tired; she didn’t really want to move at all. But Ian (Ian’s body…?) had slumped down on top of her, which was really quite creepy, and she was having a hard time breathing.

So Darcy forced herself to move, wiggling her wrists out of his now lax grasp and squirming until she could shove him off her onto the floor. His hands had electrical burns on them, she noticed with a distant sense of bewildered horror. Reluctantly (she had to know, had to, but at the same time she really didn’t want to), she reached out to press her pointer and middle fingers to his neck.

No pulse.

[elarawritingtrash]

Hey so, I’m going to start this off by saying I have no idea how tumblr works! None at all!

So I wanted somewhere to put all of the crappy little unfinished things I write, which is in fact most of the things I write at this point. (technically i have a wip i’m supposed to be working on but i’m not im sorry) Anyway, the point is that most of the things I post are probably not ever going to be continued, but I kind of want validation.

But at the same time, I’m not sure I want people to find these things! So! I’m not going to tag anything on this blog. I actually have no idea if people will ever find it then, but I think I may still end up showing up on the recommended blogs? Or maybe not, since I heard you have to reblog things to get un-marked as potentially being a porn bot. Which I’m not going to do, because I have my other blog for that, so.

Of course, so that (in the event somebody does find this blog and ends up going through it) it’s not completely horrifying, I will put fandom names and small summaries of each thing. Again, that might cause it to show up in search results? I don’t know.