The Girl That Died

Making A Plan

"So do we confront him? Or hide her somewhere?"

Alan asked, tapping his fingers on the table in thought. The 5 Shinigami sat around the table they had taken breakfast at, Yvette and Alexandre on the ground, and tried to come up with a plan on what to do next.

"I would prefer hiding her."

Alexandre said, correcting his glasses.

"Confronting him carefully might be more helpful. Maybe he'll be ready for compromise if we make sure to keep her away."

William shook his head at the other man in disagreement. The redhead cracked her knuckles and sighed:

"Alright, we know you two will never be on the same page please try to be willing to compromise before asking Black Rose to be."

"Yes, you two are on timeout for now. But I have to agree with Will here, if he allowed us to find a solution beneficial to both sides, say we keep Yvette from spreading what she knows in exchange for him leaving the association alone..."

For a moment Adette stopped speaking, thinking about what to say:

"But I would prefer not to take Yvette with us then. To show him she will be out of his business from now on."

A short coughing fit interrupted their conversation, as Alan turned away to cough into the crook of his arm. 

"Alan, dear, are you alright? Do you need a moment?"

The motherly woman asked as she tied her hair into a ponytail to keep the locks out of her face. The other shook his head once he calmed down:

"No, it's fine, thank you. Stress just tends to make it worse that's all."

Nobody had to reply, but Yvette knew that everyone at the table wished they could take this disease off him, even if just to ease his pain a bit. Yvette never bothered to ask if he was scared to die and planned to keep it that way. There was a lot she didn't know about all of them and hoped to get answers once everything was over.

"But what would we do if we do manage to agree on some deal with Black Rose? We just go back and tell everyone? They would cut our heads off for even acting on our own and bringing Madame Moreau here! Let alone talk to him. Hiding her would be safer."

He continued after his breath became more regular again. Alexandre nodded, adding a gloomy joke:

"Gerard would kill me and Couture would burn my body. But I'm afraid it would be the same outcome to hide her. Except then we don't have a solid solution either; if Black Rose doesn't know she is not at the association, he might still attack it."

It was surprising that he brought up this point, but not bad. Yvette was glad that he realized that not everything would just be fine because she would be safe for a while. 

"How are our chances if we ambush him?"

She asked, having nothing else to contribute to the debate even if she knew it was not a good idea. 

"I mean, 20 years ago he surely wasn't alone, right?"

William shook his head, clearly despising the subject as much as everyone else:

"No, Madame Moreau, he was not alone. But he still won despite having much fewer helpers than we had people. And even if we did attack him, the chances of hurting one another are too high and if we don't succeed, he will most definitely not take it lightly."

Silence settled among them again, a thoughtful silence, uninterrupted for quite a while. A light rain had started to fall, drenching the room in a darker light and an even more melancholic atmosphere. It made the group feel drowsy, with a lack of sleep and their long travel to the country house. It was a nice house, one Yvette could imagine living in, and she almost envied the old woman as it seemed like a peaceful life if there weren't emergencies like the one at hand. 

"If we decide on going to see him, for whichever plan, would we even know where he is? He could be anywhere!"

Adette asked, quickly enlightened by Alan:

"Not quite, apart from his appearance on your premises, he hasn't left the area of the orphanage. It's quite likely he is still there. The area is big and open, especially now with the building missing. If that was intentional, he may have prepared for a fight." 

"We don't know that for sure, he may have just done it to lure Yvette into a trap. He knows she loves and cares deeply for children. And he was successful the first time, so he might hope to lure her back again."

Alexandre gave back with a shrug; it didn't seem to matter much if it was for certain or not because nothing seemed to be. And even if anything was foreseeable, Black Rose was not. The demon's action always seemed to be out of everyone's hands and it was impossible to tell what move he would make next. At this point, any plan seemed so good and yet so bad, that it was hard to decide which advantages or disadvantages were worth or not worth a try more than others. At the same time, it was even harder to have no plan at all, and impossible to just let everything play out and do nothing. 

"So, fighting is not an option. Hiding is not an option either. Our best chance lies in trying to make a compromise, but that means we might get in bigger trouble later."

Yvette summarized head tilted slightly as she thought about it all:

"But if we manage to make a compromise they can't possibly be that mad at us, right?"

"Madame, that is correct, but there is still the fact that Black Rose might not keep up his end of the deal. You see now why it's so hard to make a plan, and why our superiors didn't bother to suggest anything other than using you."

Yvette nodded in understanding and agreement:

"Maybe our best shot would be something entirely unexpected then."