Was Sylphiel-sensei possessed by a demon? Well, that would explain why she was acting so ill tempered and frankly quite rude today. And pulling up flowers with her bare hands? The teacher would normally remember to wear gloves before doing that!
Great, another demon to hunt down.
"Ano, Sylphiel-sensei?" Lina asked in a sickeningly sweet and innocent voice.
"Hm? Ara, Kusakabe. Shouldn't you be in class right now?"
Speak for yourself. Lina thought privately. "I was just wondering but did you buy a painting recently?"
"Well, yes I did, a very lovely one. Why do you ask?"
"Ah, um, no reason! I'll just...get back to class now. Ja!" Lina ran off, leaving dust in her wake. As out of place as it was to ask someone out of the blue whether they bought a new painting recently, she certainly couldn't ask if they were possessed by a demon! After a few of those questions, she'd be thrown into a mental asylum for sure.
"But where does Sylphiel-sensei live..." Lina crumpled up the paper in her hand in frustration. Wait, paper? "I forgot to give her my homework!!"
But that could be a good thing, that is to say, she could use this to her advantage. It would be a perfect excuse to drop by the teachers' office trying to find Sylphiel-sensei. Then she could look for Sylphiel-sensei's home address.
Lina couldn't help smirking. For once, she was going to find the demon before Filia. The little angel liked to rub it in that it was only because of her that Lina could ever find demons to slay. Well, she'll show her!
"Excuse me, I'm looking for..." Lucky! There was no one in the office! Well, what would you expect when it was kind of the beginning of class right now? Oh wait, class? Better make this quick then.
It was rather easy to find Sylphiel-sensei's desk. It had the bouquet of flowers on it. Of course, the petals had all been plucked from them and they had wilted for at least over a day. Leaving her homework on the top, Lina quickly began to rifle through the papers and notebooks on and in the desk.
"Yatta! Got it." Lina looked eagerly at the postcard, which was an invitation to a reunion? It was rather wrinkled as if it had been read over many times. The date was for tomorrow night. Well, that wasn't what interested her. Sylphiel-sensei's address was in the receiver field.
Eh? She lived in Kakimachi? Lina wondered what the chances were of two demons being over there at the same time. Unfortunately, they weren't very good. "Tch. Well, Filia will still need to send the notice. Lazy thing probably hasn't even located it yet. I'll need to give her a call now to get it out before tonight."
"Give who a call?"
Lina nearly had a heart attack as a low voice spoke right next to her ear. She didn't know why her face was suddenly aflame besides the fact that someone had sneaked up and caught her. A hand plucked the invitation away from her.
"Isn't this Sylphiel-sensei's? My, my, Lina Kusakabe caught looking through the teacher's desk. What a sensation this would make."
She didn't need to turn around to look to know who it was. It would be this creep. Grrrr. He must be working Ruby Eye to be annoying me this much!
"What are you talking about? I was just leaving my homework here because I couldn't find Sylphiel-sensei and I accidentally knocked some papers over so I was putting them back. Just what are you doing in the teachers' office?" she demanded, turning around to face him and found him uncomfortably close with that damn smug smile on his face.
Zelgadiss let his smile grow wider as he leaned really close to Lina, only several inches between them. Yes, he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on girls. And Lina, for all her bluster, was no different from any other girl. "I was looking for you."
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!?
POOF! Lina's face was doing a great impression of a tomato.
Yep, he still had it.
"Shall we find out what happens when this little bit of news get out, hm?"
"Like you care," Lina snorted weakly. Personal space invasion, warning, warning! "You're just trying to trick me into doing something."
"Me? I would never consider the idea of trying to get a girl through such an underhanded method. But if you want to me to keep my lips shut about this, then I don't think something like say a kiss would be out of the question."
W-H-A-T?!?!?!
Lina pushed Zelgadiss away, hard. She's stronger than she looks. Oh, she was angry, really angry, and if she stayed a minute longer in the same room as this jerk then...then...well, Lina's mind was too befuddled to come out with a conclusion other than leave the room before anything else happens. So Lina ran out.
The nerve of him to think he could get a kiss from her!
Zelgadiss was more clear-headed than Lina. After all, he was the one in control of the situation. :Hard to believe she's really the one. So little self control.: Accomplishing his mission was going to be a piece of cake. From inside his back pocket, he pulled out a sleek black cell phone and pressed for one of his fast-dial numbers.
"Good morning," chirped the voice on the other side of the line. "Aren't you supposed to be in class right now?"
"Forget about that. She'll be hitting the Kakimachi target tonight."
"Really? Well then, I'll just - "
"No."
"...I beg your pardon but did you just say...?"
"Yes."
"I see." The person on the other side paused. "You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much you get across with only a few words. So we're going to watch?"
"That's right. She doesn't appear to be much if it took such a blatant manifestation of a low level demon to get her to notice the possession," Zelgadiss snorted. He had seen the whole thing. Subtle obviously wasn't one of Lina Kusakabe's strengths.
"Well, there are reasons..." The person on the other end waited for Zelgadiss to grab the bait but the youth refused. "Aren't you even going to ask?"
"Are you going to tell me?"
"No."
"So I don't bother. You know when school ends. Try to do something useful until then."
"Why, I'm the epitome of usefulness!"
"Whatever." Without any type of farewell, Zelgadiss ended the call and put the cell phone away. Now to return to class and spend the rest of the day annoying the hell out of Lina Kusakabe. After all, it's always best to know one's target well, very well.
"Damn it, if I'm late I'm going to string that Zelgadiss Nagoya from his balcony with his tonsils!" Lina growled, glancing at her watch as she ran down the dark residential street with its spattering of streetlights. The second hand was nearing the hour.
Usually on nights like these, Lina would already have been at the 'crime' site half an hour early to watch the police make their foolish attempt to stop her. It was really pathetic how worthless the local law enforcement was. She always announced when she was going to 'steal' a painting by sending an ornate note to the painting's owner. The police and Amelia always saw that as part of her M.O. and ego trip.
But there was really another reason for it.
She needed the painting's owner near the painting otherwise it wasn't going to work. Why you ask must the owner be around when a painting has to be stolen? Just watch and learn, oh ignorant ones, watch and learn.
"If you didn't spend all that time hiding from that boy next door, we wouldn't be this late!" Filia scolded, flying around Lina's head. Lina glared at her.
"Hey, I'm not invisible to other people like some of us are! Can't you do something about him? He's been bugging me all day, the pimp, trying to get a date or a kiss. Hey, I know, maybe he's possessed by a demon too!"
"I would have sensed something like that."
"Are you sure? Maybe the demon is just hiding really, really well." Lina grinned evilly, images of beating the demon out of the jerk floating through her head.
Filia sweatdropped. She knew that Lina just wanted an excuse to beat the living tar out of the boy. And Lina knew that too.
"Let's just concentrate on tonight's work, alright Lina?"
"Oh no, I've only got five more minutes!!" Lina swore and really started to run.
"Amelia-san, what are you doing?"
A group of the policemen stationed here at the residence of one teacher were watching the police chief's daughter drag in something on wheels and covered with a large piece of cloth. Amelia had refused to let anyone touch it much less take a peek under the all-concealing cover.
Amelia straightened her back and cleared her throat. "This is my secret weapon against that heinous painting thief that has decided to further her reign of terror tonight by attacking this innocent, hard-working teacher's home and robbing her of a dear painting around which her life is built. You shall meet your end tonight, Thief Luna!!"
"So it will be. Whoever tries to steal my painting will die," Sylphiel-sensei said softly with an arctic cold expression. She walked past them, holding the painting in question to hang on the wall where Amelia had requested for her top-secret plan to capture the thief.
Amelia and the police officers shivered.
"Um, Amelia-san, isn't the teacher a bit strange? Beautiful, but strange."
"Perhaps she's having a mid-life crisis or something. She's been acting strange all day," Amelia shrugged. If you asked her, Sylphiel-sensei was strange since as beautiful and elegant as she was, she still wasn't married or even had a boyfriend. There had to be something going on.
She looked over at the very reluctant teacher, who was being moved away from the painting. It was a beautiful painting true, one of a couple in Victorian age clothing walking through a large estate garden in Europe, but it was not one of great renown. Though Thief Luna's method of operating was quite clear and simple, her reasons for targeting paintings were not.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Stealing is wrong and I shall deliver her to justice tonight! Turn off the lights!!"
Now, it's almost nine... Amelia looked at her glowing digital watch. Thief Luna was always punctual, arriving at the victim's house on the hour of nine. Okay...now!
Nothing happened.
Amelia wondered if her watch was running fast. Well, there was no reason that Thief Luna had to be here at nine on the dot. Maybe give her a few seconds...
A full minute...
Another minute...
"Just where the hell is she?!?"
"I'm right here!"
"She's on the roof!" cried the policemen stationed outside. "Be careful up there! It's slippery!"
"Thanks for the warning. I'll be careful not to slip," Lina, that is Thief Luna, called down to the waving men below. See what she meant by pathetic?
"Just where in the world have you been? It's 9:02!!" Amelia yelled, sticking her head out of a window to glare up at Luna. "What happened? You missed your subway train?"
Well yes she did but Lina wasn't about to admit to that. "Then shall we just cut right to the chase? Don't think you can dissuade me by turning off all the lights!"
Taking advantage of the ready open window, Lina leaped through, taking to account Amelia's own reaction time so they didn't end up in one tangled mess of arms and legs on the floor. And Amelia, predictable, moved out of the way, slightly tripping over something in the dark. Something flickered in one corner of the room. Lina peered through the darkness to try to figure out what it was.
"Gotcha!" Amelia threw the switch and yanked off the cloth covering her secret weapon of justice. "No evil can escape the great beacon of justice and righteous!!"
"It's just a damn spotlight!!" Lina hissed, shadowing her face from the intense light but the 'damage' was already done. Her vision was clouded with blind spots. Well, she had to give it to Amelia to come up with a half-decent idea.
"Now you can't see either the painting or an escape. I have finally caught you, you thief!" Amelia laughed.
"Baka..."
"Luna! Remember, if you can't - "
"I know!" Lina snapped. She didn't need her eyes to see, she should be able to sense the location of the demon if it was within this room which was what she had been trying to do before Filia interrupted her. Too bad she couldn't use this for something more useful like say locating money or something.
Something...faint...on the edge of her perception...but that was too far away, outside of this room. The demon wouldn't have left with the painting, the real one, right here. Lina tried again and this time she found.
"You're always so predictable!" By her will, a slim short rod with a long red ribbon attached to it materialized in her hand. She wasn't quite sure why she had this 'weapon' since she doubted the original Luna would use a rhythmic gymnastic weapon in medieval Europe but hey, this wasn't the time to think about. At least she could use it.
Using it more like a whip, Lina snapped the spotlight to turn it to face another direction, that of the demon. Sylphiel-sensei was standing before the painting as if to prevent the thief from stealing it. But it wasn't the painting Luna was really here for.
"I can see you," Lina smirked in a sing-song voice. And she could see it, as the power she inherited from her legendary ancestor was stronger when she was 'Luna'.
The dimness that appeared to cover Sylphiel-sensei hissed and withdrew into itself, away from it's now discarded host. "You can, can you? Then you have some power...I shall possess you next!"
"Oh no! It's going to possess me. Help!" Lina squealed as the slightly amorphous darkness leaped toward her. To everyone else, it looked like Thief Luna was crazy. After all, she was cringing from nothing at all. Demons are just as 'invisible' to normal people as angels are.
"Is what I should say but I never liked the helpless damsel in distress role," Lina shrugged, shedding her frightened facade to watch the demon smash against an unseen barrier. "You think a worthless demon like yourself can possibly possess the reincarnation of Ceiphied's champion Luna Inverse?"
From the golden rosary on chest, Lina summoned forth a white dart from the red gem at the crossing. "In Ceiphied's name, with this I will slay you, spawn of darkness!"
"A dart?" it scoffed. "What can a measly dart do to me?"
Lina grinned widely. "You wanna know? Watch real closely now."
She threw it.
But not at the demon.
It struck the painting.
And time stood still.
"Impossible!"
"Didn't I already say I was the reincarnation of Luna Inverse? Surely you remember what she does." Lina blew a kiss to the demon that was rapidly disappearing. "I'll see you on the other side. Let's go, Filia!"
"Right!"
Angel and reincarnated champion of god both dove into the painting as if it was a pool of water.
"Hmmm, it took her awhile to get around to it but she did manage to open the portal."
"Too much chatter and showing off," snorted another voice that didn't sound impressed. "She shouldn't be so confident challenging the demon on it's own terms."
"Shall we go in and watch?"
Shrug. "She isn't skilled enough now to detect us coming in but the demon would notice. Besides, she's sure to see us once the slaying is finished and the entire dimension falls apart."
"True...want some popcorn?"
Withering look.
"Just come out already!" Lina yelled. When nothing happened, she threw the ball of flame in her hand at another tree, setting it on fire. A good quarter of this fake garden was either aflame or burned to ash because of her temper. "Do you want me to burn everything?"
"Luna! You shouldn't waste Ceiphied's power like this!" Filia complained, flying circles around her charge. Honestly, not only was Luna Inverse's descendent greedy and selfish, she was also violent and reckless. At least, in situations like this. "We're supposed to be preventing Ceiphied's power from being absorbed by Ruby Eye through his demons but you waste nearly as much trying to slay the demons themselves!"
"Well, excuse me," Lina huffed, tossing several flames the size of her hand into the air to float round her like will o' wisps. "Maybe you should try asking the demon to show itself. It certainly isn't listening to me."
"Use Ceiphied's power to find it like you did earlier," the quasi-angel lectured in that slow, didactic tone that teachers use on particular slow and exasperating students. "That's how you're supposed to use the divine power. It isn't for arson!"
"If you have the power, why not use it?" Lina muttered before closing her eyes to concentrate again on sensing the energy lines that marked demons and angels and other supernatural things for what they were. She really didn't like this method, it left her too open for attack in her opinion.
"Luna!!"
Like she said, open to attack. Lina cracked open an eye to find herself trapped, arms pinned to her side, by a fist of dirt or whatever was the ground in this illusionary world of the painting. Standing before her was some creature, nothing like the amorphous shadow in the real world, but this one looked kind of like a something with a snake's tail, the torso of a man or other heavily muscular thing, and the head of a bull's skull. Yuck.
"Eww, you must be pretty low level to only be able to come up with that kind of form."
"Like you're one to talk. I'll be awarded greatly for bringing a bearer of Ceiphied's power to Lord Ruby Eye."
"Really? What do you get?"
"Luna!!" This time, Filia was yelling at her for getting distracted. Hey, Lina was curious.
"Fine, fine. Hate to pop your bubble but you don't quite have me. In fact, I think it would be more accurate to say I have you," Lina smirked.
"Big talk for someone who can't move."
"Oh trust me. I won't have to lift a finger. Ever notice those little bits of fire floating around you?"
The small flames Lina had created earlier were now floating around the demon. It's eyes, or whatever passed for them, grew wide as it realized what was about to happen.
"Not quite a queen's sacrifice," she winked, as the small flames exploded into an inferno, incinerating the demon. The fist of dirt fell away from her. "Oh, did I forget to say 'Checkmate'?"
"She's coming out."
"Took her long enough."
Ignorant of her critics in the peanut gallery, Lina popped out of the painting with Filia not far behind. In the quasi-angel's arm was a chess piece, a white pawn to be exact. Filia looked quite happy.
"Good work, Luna."
"Naturally." Lina snapped her finger and time began to move once again. That entire battle in the painting had taken no more than a nanosecond of time to everyone else if they even knew about it which they didn't.
"Eh? Eh? EH?" Amelia looked around the room devoid of Thief Luna. "Where is she?!"
"Ah! The beautiful teacher has fainted!" (Yes, the policeman actually said that.) "Get a stretcher and call the ambulence!"
"The untouchable Slayer Luna has scored another one tonight!" Lina cheered, leaping away as she threw, for some indiscernible reason, a shower of rose petals. "Until we meet again!"
"Bye, Luna!" said the chorus of policemen.
"What are you doing just standing there and saying 'good-bye'?!?!" Amelia yelled. "Go chase after her! How can you call yourselves enforcers of justice?!"
"But Amelia-san, she always leaves a more beautiful painting in the place of the one she took." The policeman held up the painting, the scene before now replaced with a dreamy-eyed angel sitting in a tree swing looking at the flower in her hand. "No one has complained yet about the exchange so perhaps we should just drop the case? And no one has figured out exactly how she makes the exchange either."
"Yeah," another one chipped in. "And where she gets these paintings of angels."
"Maybe she painted them herself?"
"If she did, I'd like to buy one."
"Fat chance. The only way you could get one is if she tries to steal your painting."
"Hmm, guess I'd better start hitting the art galleries huh?"
Amelia towered over them, the flames of righteousness roaring around her. "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE DEFENDERS OF JUSTICE!!!"
"Wah!!!"
"A piece of cake!" Lina grinned, tossing the pawn up and down in her hand as she skipped along the sidewalk. She still hadn't removed the 'Luna' disguise yet. That's all it was, a really good transmutation disguise using Ceiphied's power. Lina kind of wished she could change the appearance it gave her, purple hair was so not her style, but she didn't really know how it worked in the first place. The transformation could only be activated by the combination of the gems on Filia's brow and on her rosary.
Rather inconvenient if you asked Lina.
"Now if you could only work this hard every night, I'd be a true angel in no time," Filia sighed dreamily.
"Hey, for a wish from Ceiphied, I'll work 24 hours around the clock!"
"You'd never cut it."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Lina demanded, glaring at Filia. The quasi-angel shook her head. She hadn't said anything. "Eh? But if it wasn't you and it definitely wasn't me, then who...?"
"It was me."
Lina and Filia looked up to the source of the voice. On one of the rooftops was a person standing before the moon. It shouldn't be realistically possible but the full moon looked like a spotlight behind him. She couldn't see his face but he appeared to be wearing a loose white coat.
"I saw you 'working' tonight and I have to say I wasn't impressed. This is a serious line of work. I suggest you quit now before you get hurt."
"Is that a threat?" Lina asked narrowly.
"Take it as you will," he shrugged.
"You're saying I'm not good enough for this job? What do you know about it? Are you another - " Lina caught herself before she said 'demon slayer'. Who knew who this quack was? Normal people couldn't see demons so he couldn't have seen what she was fighting. He was probably talking about her performance as a 'thief' which Lina had to admit was most likely poor. Of course, she wouldn't admit that to anyone else. "Another painting thief?"
"I'm as much of painting thief as you are."
Hey, are you trying to say that you're a demon slayer too?!
"You obviously have an inflated view of your skills. How about a little challenge?"
"Like what?"
"We'll see between the two of us who can 'steal' more in 24 hours. The loser will quit working."
Lina frowned. As much as her ego roared to take up the challenge, no one gets away with deriding her, but logically, this was too perfect for him the mysterious challenger to come out of the blue with this. Like hell she was just going to go along with it!
"I see no reason to accept a challenge from a person that has to announce it from a distance on a rooftop," she snorted, crossing her arms.
The mysterious stranger almost slipped off the roof. He shook his head. Her response hadn't been quite what he had been expecting. "Alright then."
Lina barely saw him move, going from roof to fence to street, landing right before her. Up close, she could see him a bit better. His short hair was silver, a blue scarf wrapped around both as head and hair band keeping it away from his eyes. The white coat covered a loose dark blue shirt and mottled blue jeans. A white handkerchief covered the lower half of this face.
Is this guy some kind of weirdo? Not that I should be judging someone else based on how they're dressed, I mean, just look at me!
"So, Luna, do you think you're good enough to beat me within a 24 hour period?" he smirked. Ohhhh, he was just so full of himself wasn't he! "Well?"
"Hmph. I don't even know who you are nor have I ever heard of anyone else in this line of work. Obviously I'm better if you've heard enough rumors about me to come looking," she snorted, tossing back some strands of purple hair.
"Yes, I heard rumors of a loud, pretentious, clumsy person calling themselves Luna."
"Who are you calling a loud, pretentious, clumsy person?!?" Lina roared, grabbing his coat to jerk him down to her level.
He arched an eyebrow, amused. "Care to prove otherwise?"
Oh no, I'm going to fall that easily. Lina let go. "I have no need to prove anything to you," she said as she began to walk away from him. "Not to a person who came out of nowhere."
"So you know you'll lose."
"I never said that!"
"But you wouldn't take the challenge. If you knew you would win, you'd accept it. Since you didn't..." He let the unspoken but well understood conclusion hang.
...damn him!!!!
"Fine! I'll take your stupid challenge. It's your own fault that you're going to be so utterly and completely humiliated. And one more thing, I get to decide the date and area!"
"Fine with me," he shrugged. He turned around to walk away.
"...hey!" Lina yelled. "I don't even your name, you idiot! How am I supposed to tell you when I decided?!"
"Don't worry about meeting me again. I know exactly where to find you," he said over his shoulder. "But since you asked, you can call me Sinbad. You can figure out the rest."
Lina stared at his back as he vanished. "Ahhhhhhhh! Ceiphied!! Why did you have to curse me with TWO of the biggest jerks in the world!! I'm working aren't I????"
Part 3 | Fanfiction