The Girl That Died

Confrontation

"Oh, do we?" 

The blond asked, a mischievous grin on his lips as he stepped closer again; he examined her features, seeing the forced confidence in her eyes as she stared back at him. Yvette nodded, glancing at him:

"We do. I want to make a deal."

"A deal you say? I must say the soul of a Shinigami would certainly be a gourmet meal."

His voice sounded teasing but the woman knew that even though the other was awarded that that was not the kind of deal she meant, he would have loved to devour her soul. It would have been easy; somehow, she wondered if he could do so without a formal pact.

"I will stay away from the other Shinigami. And go somewhere else and never mention you again. In return, you leave the others alone."

The demon tilted his head and put a finger on his chin as if he was genuinely thinking about it. The circles he walked around her made her nervous and she cracked her knuckles to hide how much they were shaking. 

"And why would I take that deal, mh? You could be lying, Yvette. I can't keep an eye on you all the time, you know? I am terribly busy."

With terrorizing other branches? 

The redhead thought bitterly, wishing for the demon to just stop walking around her. She wanted to leave.

"And I might be lying too. You could leave and I could still attack your precious friends, couldn't I?"

She stayed quiet for a bit; he was right, there was nothing to stop him from doing so. If it was his plan he would make it reality, he already had once before.

"But you said you don't attack weak Shinigami or those not knowing a lot about you."

"You really don't get it, do you? Everyone already knows so much about me. Jeremy never kept his mouth shut and Gideon even wrote about me, as you should know."

His smirk had changed from mischievous to malicious and the way he swung around the death scythe made the scissors in the woman's hand feel tiny and useless. It made her feel tiny and useless. Still, she knew there was no other way than to convince the blond. But before she could speak he interrupted her:

"Do you want to know how Jeremy died?"

"You killed him."

Yvette replied, even though she still didn't know how. It felt irrelevant but as long as he was talking he wasn't doing anything worse. 

"Wrong. I never killed him. I was planning to, I really was, but the thorns got him first."

It was obvious that he loved talking about it and he loved seeing the confusion on the woman's face as she tried to make sense of what he had just said. Finally, the man stopped walking in circles, standing behind her:

"You heard me right, he suffered from the thorns of death. I noticed it the first time I met him, it makes the souls smell very different, almost rotten. He was good at hiding it, hardly anyone knew."

Adrenaline pumped through Yvette's veins as the demon suddenly grabbed her, his hand covering her mouth as he held the machete to her throat, humming in disapproval right against her ear:

"Much better than your friend is at hiding his presence. Come out, come out don't be shy, Monsieur!"

William appeared in the corner of her eye, she couldn't tell where he had come from exactly, but she hadn't noticed that he was there already. The older Shinigami seemed irritated and slightly surprised that he had been noticed, correcting his glasses as his hand closed around his death scythe tighter, an assuring shimmer in his eyes as he looked at her for a short moment: 

"Let her go, she's no threat to you."

Black Rose laughed, a cruel laugh, that made Yvette miss Alexandre's, as his grip on her face became harsher:

"Oh, I know that William, but she makes such a nice hostage. Why do you even want to protect her? Wouldn't it be easier if she was gone? Gideon thought so about himself."

Yvette tried to struggle against him but quickly found that it had no use. The demon was much stronger than she was and she couldn't fight herself out of his arms. 

"Quit telling her lies. You killed Jeremy, we know you did. And Gideon never thought so."

The brunet said harshly, the tone in his voice very different from his normal strict yet held-back way of speaking. Anger glistened in his eyes but he didn't directly show it much further. Yvette felt a finger tapping against her cheek, right on the stitches on the wound that had not had much time to heal; it hurt but her pained noise was muffled;

"Ts ts, it's not a lie. Daime wrote it down in his third diary. You could read about it."

William ground his teeth, shook his head, and replied:

"There were only two."

Giggles erupted from the blond, his locks bouncing almost beautifully as he shook with laughter, the machete coming dangerously close to Yvette's throat, drawing an alarmed noise from her. Black Rose pressed up against her closer again once his laughing fit had ceased and his breath returned to her ear: 

"You've done such a nice job translating for your mentor friend, haven't you? He knows much more than before you came. Was it fun to read? Wouldn't you like to know more? You've been so very curious."

His eyes wandered back to the other man who could do nothing but stand there, frustrated and for once unable to decide what to do. 

"I took the third book, William, I read it quite often. It's so full of Gideon's fear, it's hilarious."

He removed his hand from the younger Shinigamis mouth, seemingly to take something out:

"William! Please!"

Yvette gasped, now that she could, desperate and giving him a look he understood quickly; she had been right. This situation needed to be solved with something the demon would not expect. 

The man acted swiftly and had Black Rose gasp in surprise.