As the darkness of her unconscious mind started to fade, Noelle could feel the back of her head thudding with a dull throb painfully. She could hear the voices of two people speaking over her for some strange reason as well.
"Look! Fresh meat!"
"Why are you saying that when you're standing over her holding a cleaver?"
Noelle hadn't been fully awake when she was aware of other people being near her, but the last comment combined with the first had her mind kicking into high alert. As her mind quickly started to formulate a plan to get away from the people immediately, she heard a third voice interrupt them.
"You do realize that she's listening to your every word right now, don't you?" The voice said dryly.
"She is?" The first two voices Noelle had heard speak said in sync.
There was a sigh and the third person, an older male, spoke. "Yes, she is." The male's sighed again. "Alright, you don't have to fake it any more."
Against her better judgement, Noelle forced her eyes open. Once her vision stopped blurring, she realized that she was lying on the hard floor and leaning over her were three people; two boys and a girl who were similar to her in age before she had died. The oldest of the trio, a guy, appeared to be her age while the other two were around the sixteen and seventeen range.
As she recalled the earlier conversation, the first voice that she had heard had been male and the second soon following after it was female. The boy who was holding the giant butcher knife in his right hand was no doubt the person who had spoken first.
Noelle could do nothing but stare blankly at him.
The girl who had no doubt been the one to question the boy on why he was holding a dangerous kitchen utensil in the first place smacked him across the head hard.
"Hey! What was that for?" The boy complained. He had golden blond hair and blue eyes that were darker than Noelle's as well as an authentic sounding Australian accent that Noelle was sure would have had the girls at Hollywood High squealing like fangirls.
"What do you think?" The girl snapped at him, scowling. She had shoulder length auburn hair and emerald green eyes that were flashing with anger as she glared at the boy. "You're scaring her with your stupid cleaver!"
"I am?" The boy looked puzzled... and annoyed.
"No. I'm sure it was a pleasant thing for her to wake up with someone holding a butcher knife over her." The girl's voice was dripping with sarcasm.
But before the two could break out into an argument that would have resulted in yelling and trying to throw someone into the wall, the oldest of the three interrupted the them again.
"Are you two really going to start this so early in the morning?" He asked dryly. He had black hair and hazel coloured eyes; he looked Japanese, but Noelle wasn't too sure. He appeared to be used to the boy and girl's quarreling.
The only response he got was an awkward silence.
"We should probably introduce ourselves." He said with a tired sigh. "I'm Arimoto Tsukasa. Tsukasa Arimoto if you go by the western pronunciation."
"I'm Stephen Carter! Nice to meet ya!" The blond haired boy winked at her.
"And I'm Heather Rosenfeld." The girl introduced herself. "So what's your name?"
"Noelle Kennedy." She tried to push herself off the floor, but after a minute of struggling, the only thing she was able to manage was rolling over on to her stomach with her face meeting polished wood.
"...right. Forgot that transition from the White room to the world of the living takes quite a bit out of you." Heather said, looking over at Noelle curiously after she had pulled off an accurate impression of a flopping fish on dry land. She turned towards her Japanese companion. "Hey, Tsukasa, carry her."
"Why me?"
"Cause you're a guy and I don't trust Stephen to carry her without feeling her up."
At that, Noelle stared at Stephen again wondering if he was the type of person she should avoid at all costs.
"You're making me look bad!"
"You don't need my help to look bad!"
And then the two teens were at each others' throats again with Noelle watching from the floor wondering if they were ever going to help her up or if she was going to be subjected to them talking over her until they remembered that she was right there listening to them.
With a look of exasperation on his face that clearly told her that he had gone through this scenario at least a million times, Tsukasa leaned down and scooped up Noelle in his arms.
"We better get you to your room. Those two will be at it for a while once they start."
And as Tsukasa carried Noelle out of the room, the blonde peered over his arm just in time to see Heather punching Stephen in the stomach with an upper cut.
"Are they always like that?" Noelle asked as she looked away from the deteriorating scene.
"It's usually much worse." Tsukasa rolled his eyes.
Shifting Noelle slightly in his arms, he turned the handle of a beautifully carved wooden door and it swung open open to reveal a room that was painted in shades of various blue. The bed was huge, at least king sized, with a princess canopy attached to the top of it.
And it wasn't just the bed that was huge; the entire room that Tsukasa brought her to looked as if it belonged to someone who lived in the mansions of LA. Not for someone who was born into a loving, middle-class family.
"This is your room." Tsukasa said, placing Noelle on the bed.
The girl was about to ask him if he was pulling her leg when she spotted her reflection on the mirror of a vanity table.
0000
"What was that?" Heather asked ten minutes later when she and Stephen peered into the room that Noelle had been brought in earlier. "We heard someone scream as if Jason was in their room trying to kill them."
Heather and Stephen had stopped fighting when they had heard someone's shrill shrieking and had decided to have a truce to go and investigate the source of the noise.
"Why do I look like I'm six? I'm eighteen!" Noelle was screeching as she stared at herself in the mirror. She was standing on the chair that came with the vanity table since without it, she would only be able to see the top of her head.
Staring back at her was a little girl with the same blue eyes and platinum blonde hair as her. A look of complete and utter disbelief as well as horror that she was sure was displaying on her own face was also etched onto the little girl's face.
Somehow, someway, she was back to being a six year old girl again.
She pulled on her cheeks and the little girl in the mirror did the same thing.
Stephen turned away from her, looking in Tsukasa's direction as he jabbed his thumb in Noelle's direction. "You forgot to tell 'er about that, didn't ya mate?"
Tsukasa flushed. "I was about to... but then she saw the mirror before I could say anything."
"WHY AM I SIX YEARS OLD AGAIN?" Was the shrill scream that came from the girl who was still staring at her own reflection.
0000
After managing to calm Noelle down, Heather promptly kicked the two boys out saying that only one person needed to explain what was going on and like hell was she leaving her in either of their company.
"So, what do you want to know?" The older girl asked as she dusted her hands off and turned to Noelle who was sitting on the huge bed sulking.
"Like why I LOOK like I'm SIX! I'm eighteen! EIGHTEEN!"
"Okay, okay. Calm down." Heather said, trying to settle the agitated blonde down before anything drastic happened.
Noelle fumed; how in the world was she supposed to calm down when she just reverted twelve years in age?
"Don't worry, this sort of thing is normal... for those who have already passed away in the worlds they were born in." Seeing Noelle's eyes widen and her head snap up towards her, Heather chuckled and ruffled the girl's hair.
"Yup. We're like you; beings who died in their original worlds and are now here as part of the trials they're supposed to complete."
Seria didn't mention anything about there being other Guardian Angels in the Katekyo Reborn Hitman world. Not that Noelle thought of herself as being the only Guardian Angel (or soon to be Guardian Angel) in the world, but then again the Angel of Trials didn't really explain anything to her other than the fact that she was going to be the protector of someone she had always thought of as being fictional.
"Oh."
One of Heather's eyebrows went up. "Didn't the Angel of Trial who gave you your task explain anything to you? You're awfully clueless, even if you're a new arrival."
Remembering how the raven haired angel just dropped her in a hole that magically appeared underneath her feet, Noelle's expression deadpanned. "Not at all, other than the fact that I'm going to be a Guardian Angel."
"So you're a 'Guardian Angel', then?" Heather asked.
"Isn't that what you are?" Noelle told her incredulously.
"No. I was given a different task." The older girl shook her head. "I go around... exorcising people."
"..." Noelle was sure she hadn't heard her right. Exorcising happened in mangas like Rin-ne or any other story that had to do with demons and evil spirits.
"Exorcising: To free a person, place or thing of evil spirits or malignant influences." Heather announced the definition as if she was reading it from the pages of a dictionary.
"So by that, you mean demons and poltergeists?"
"That's the general idea, yes." Heather folded her arms across her chest together and nodded.
"That kind of thing exists?" Not that Noelle would have denied the very idea; she had already gone through enough the past... well, after her meeting with Aelius and Seria especially, she wasn't about to go into denial over it. But this was the Katekyo Hitman Reborn world. Sure, there were 'flames' you could produce from your hands with the elements 'sky, storm, and sun' ect. but demons?
"They exist in EVERY world; it's just that most people among the living don't realize it."
"But... this... rings! Flames and rings! Mafia fights with sky flames and storm flames! I've never read about demons and evil spirits!"
Heather looked amused by Noelle's outburst as well as thoughtful. "So you come from a world where the events of this world are fictional?"
Seeing the gaping look of surprise on Noelle's face, she smirked and ruffled the little girl's golden hair.
"Don't look so surprised; several of us come from worlds where the mafia here that uses multi-coloured flames is nothing but a story on pages. I'm not from one of those worlds but I know that idiot Stephen is."
"Kay." Noelle wasn't sure how much more she could take before her brain exploded infinitely. "Can we get back to answering my original question? Like why I'm suddenly six again? I can't guard Tsuna like this! He's fourteen!"
"Tsuna is the name of your charge?"
Noelle stared at Heather strangely. "Of course! Don't you know who he is?"
"Nope."
"He's the future Tenth Vongola Boss! Or at least candidate! How can you not know?"
For once, it was Heather's turn to gape at her. "Are you serious? Vongola?" She whistled. "Wow. That's impressive; wait till the others here about this!"
Why did she have the feeling that she had just entitled Heather to some bragging rights?
"We're getting off topic again. Can we please get to the reason as to why I'm like this?" Noelle gestured at herself. "And why I'm wearing strange clothes while we're at it!"
Noelle was no longer wearing the white dress she had on when she had been in the Fields; now she was wearing something that looked like it was straight from the pages of some sort of fantasy novel. She was now in a light blue dress with a white cloak jacket that had gold trim. The ends of her jacket ended in a swallow tail cape fashion. Actually, her costume was similar to the one Anise from Tales of the Abyss wore. Underneath the dress, she wore black leggings that were accompanied by beige knee high boots.
"Hmm... the costume probably came from the Angel of Trials you were sent to. As for your age reversal, it must be because your charge is probably around that age; most Guardian Angels tend to either be the same age or at least close to the age of the person they were assigned to."
"Wait, what? But the Tsuna I saw on the huge crystal was clearly in Middle School!" And there went her head wanting to implode on itself again.
"Ah," Heather winked at her. "But YOU need to learn and train for your assignment. This isn't like on television where you just hang around with your charge and give him good advice. And you aren't automatically granted awesome god-mode powers either; you have to earn your strength like the rest of the normal people around us."
"So I've been told." Noelle huffed. "Basically the reason why I've been sent here about eight years before my assignment starts is to train and learn stuff?"
"Yup! The older members of the Serafin will be the ones to teach you what you need to know!"
"Serafin?"
"We're a sort of family or famiglia as they say in Italy. We're part of the mafia, but at the same time we're in a completely different class of our own. Since things tend to revolve around the mafia in this world it makes sense to be involved with them, right?"
Noelle nodded slowly; that did make sense in a strange sort of way, but did anyone else see the irony of soon-to-be-angels working as mafia members to be ironic?
"Uh... how big is the Serafin family?"
"Not that big; so far, there's only seventy-eight of us, including you. We don't accept outsiders, since, you know...?"
Well, it would probably be hard to explain that you're actually from another world. Also, that you died in that world and were now in this one because you were completing a trial to see if you were worthy to go to Heaven.
"But size does not matter. We maybe one of the smallest famiglias in this world but we're also one of the most influential." Something glimmered in Heather's emerald green eyes as she said this. "Others tend to suck up to us a lot in hopes that we'll do special favours for them."
"Do we have any allies?" Noelle asked. "Or do we treat everyone as equals and aren't aligned with anyone in particular?"
"We're well acquainted with the Vongola and the Giglio Nero." Heather mused. "But those are the only famiglias I can think of. There's a Russian famiglia name that escapes me, though."
"Somehow, that's not very surprising considering that they're both some of the most influential families in Italy."
"It's not that." Heather shook her head before looking at Noelle seriously. "It's because one of us happened to be the Guardian Angel of the first Vongola boss, though she had her hands full with his right hand man as well."
"The Serafin have been around that long?" Noelle asked.
"Probably longer. We didn't become a 'famiglia' till after one of them had to start watching the Vongola Primo."
The younger girl opened her mouth, but Heather shook her head again effectively cutting her off. "But that's a story for another day. C'mon, you must be tired... and trust me on this one, you'll have quite a week ahead of you." Heather grinned at her. "Or month. Depends on how well you'll adapt to your training."
Noelle had a feeling that it was going to be a very long eight years if that slasher smile on the older girl's face was anything to go by.