~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Kanda
I was able to get some sleep, but I woke up too many times to get restful sleep. After hours of trying to fall asleep I decided to sit next to Mimiteh's bed and watch her. She seemed peaceful most of the time she spent asleep, but there were some times when she would stir or whimper. I was so worried for her, in just a few days she had been through so much pain and I couldn't do anything about it. She healed quickly but her healing was still slow compared to mine. Mimiteh had started to shiver, I had already covered her up with the blanket and closed the window but the room must still have been cold to her.
I knew my coat would be warm so I covered her with it. It didn't take long for her to stop shivering and I smiled at her. When she woke up the next morning I smiled at her again, hoping she it would help make her happy.
"Sleep well?" I asked. She slowly sat up and held her head.
"The head nurse can help you with that." I said.
"Did you get cold without your coat?" She asked me.
"I was more worried about you." I replied. She touched her shoulder and winced.
"It hurts more now than it did yesterday." She said.
"You're going to need new clothes to go back to headquarters." I said.
"Why is it that every time I go on a mission with you an akuma destroys my shirt?" She asked me. I shrugged and grabbed Mugen.
"You can use my coat." I told her. She blushed and looked at the floor, leaving me to smile. I stepped into the hallway and gave Mimiteh some privacy so she could change and didn't walk back in until Ko'lae meowed and pawed the door.
"I must really be frail if your coat drowns me." She said with a slight chuckle. I smiled and her and walked over to her.
"I found my shoes..." She began.
"Don't worry about putting them on, I'll carry you." I stopped her. She smiled and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her arm to her chest. I had left the door open and gently picked her up. I made sure that her right shoulder was gently tucked against my chest before walking to the door. A nurse tried to stop me until she saw the cross on my coat, which Mimiteh had on. She went silent and started to write something on a piece of paper. We received many stares as we walked to the train station and when I got there Ko'lae meowed.
"They won't let her on the train if she isn't being carried." Mimiteh said. I nodded and knelt down to pick her up. Before I could set Mimiteh on my knee so I could have a free hand Ko'lae jumped into Mimiteh's lap and laid down in the bend of her elbow.
"This shouldn't be a problem." I said, standing up. I got on the train and found a private car. Mimiteh was going to need some quiet so she could attempt to sleep, she needed it more than I did. I held her in my arms as we waited for the train to move and I looked at her.
"You looked at me murderously when we first met, what changed?" She asked me. The question caught me off guard so I thought about it for a moment.
"When I first saw you I thought you were going to be just another weak exorcist I was going to be forced to babysit." I answered.
"That's the answer to only half of the question." She replied.
"What changed, well as I started spending more time with you and getting to know you more, I started to like you more and more, then when you were asleep and recovering from your wounds on the second mission we had together something inside me wanted to protect you and I got even closer to you." I replied. She smiled and shifted to look at me better.
"When I first met you, I saw you as a person that saw himself above everyone else and I wanted nothing than to punch or obliterate you." She said.
"What changed?" I asked her.
"I don't know, as we spent more time together I just started to feel safe around you. Honestly I liked the attention you gave me." She said, blushing as she said the last part. I smiled and kissed her forehead. She smiled and leaned her head on my shoulder. I pulled my hand from under her knees and smiled more when she laced her fingers through mine.
"There's no need to be embarrassed." I said, looking at her. She smiled even more and kissed my cheek.
"You should sleep." I told her. "I can't." she replied.
"Why can't you sleep?" I asked her. She looked away and sighed.
"Mimiteh, if something is wrong please tell me." I said, concerned.
"I've been having a dream lately, it's only ever this dream, and when I wake up my head hurts enough to make me cry. Yesterday when I woke up my head was bleeding." She explained.
"Do you want to talk to me about it?" She asked me. She took a deep breath and looked back at me.
"It starts with a burning building." She began. I urged her on and listened intently.
"Then Ko'lae walks up beside me as a silver dragon. When I blink there are two people standing in the fire. As instructed by Ko'lae, I get on her back and we approach the people. I look at my reflection in Ko'lae's back I had these strange marks on my forehead. I think they are called stigmata." She continued. I rubbed her arm and held her closer to me.
"When I look back up at the people I can finally see who they are." She said. I waited for her to go on, but she didn't.
"Who were they?" I asked.
"The noah Road and my father, Tyki." She said. I held her close and lightly squeezed her hand.
"Road started laughing at me and Tyki looked sentimental, almost apologetically. My head started to ache so I held it and found myself on the ground. Ko'lae wraps herself around me, trying to protect me. When I wake up my head hurts and now bleeds." She finished.
"The head nurse might be able to help." I replied. She sighed and moved her head to my chest.
"You should sleep. If you have that dream again, i'll be here for you." I said, rubbing her arm gently. She tried to relax and winced when her burn pressed against my arm. I moved my arm and rubbed her back, avoiding the burn. She finally fell asleep and I held her, protecting her shoulder. She slept peacefully for a few hours before she started to stir and look in pain. I rubbed her back gently and tried to help her sleep.
If she was ever getting any sleep, it must not have been very restful. I couldn't sleep the entire trip back to Paris but Mimiteh did. She slept peacefully that entire tip after the first time she seemed to be in pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Mimiteh
I only had that dream once before it faded. I was confused about why I wasn't having that dream and the feeling melted when a new dream filled my head. A memory of my encounters with an exorcists of the black order that I could remember more than vague details of.
I was standing in an old abandoned church waiting for something, Ko'lae at my side. There were demons here, I knew it. People were going missing and as always I had the instinct to kill them. I just had to wait. Finally the akuma came, there was four of them. One looked like a giant baby, another looked like a block of ice crashed into a weight lifter from a circus, another looked like a very very thin clown, and the last one looked like a large half dead dog had been crossed with a spider.
"Which one first?" Ko'lae asked me. I looked at each of the monsters and noticed the clown was the weakest.
"The clown, a blue bird will do fine." I told her. She took the form of the small bird and attacked the clown. It started to throw punches at her and miss terribly. Now I was left to keep the other three busy. One of them started to punch the statue of a woman near the door. The stone shattered and a small green object flew towards the center of the room. The monster went after it and I knew that was what those things were killing for. I ran for it and barely got it when the monster picked me up. Ko'lae landed on it and I looked at it.
I was being held by the dog-spider and I struggled.
"Ko'lae a bat." I said. I closed my eyes and fought for breath. The monster started to move and dropped me. I must have let out a scream, because I heard a scream and felt pain. I sat up and something sped past my ear. I heard an explosion and looked in it's direction. There was only two akuma left. I looked around and saw a person standing in one of the broken windows. I could tell they were a boy. His face was obscured by a hood, he was wearing a long coat that was black, had streaks of white on it, and a strange cross on the left side of the chest, there was a quiver of arrows on his waist and he had an arrow ready to fire in the bow.
One of the monsters started screaming and it was cut short. I watched as the monster went rigid and became a pile of dust a moment later. Ko'lae returned to me as a cat and I picked her up, dropping the green object on the floor.
"Get out of here! This is no place for an eight year old girl!" the boy yelled at me. I stood up and my foot touched the green object. I saw the last akuma watching me and I bent down to pick the green object up. I was stopped when an arrow protruded from the ground beside it. I looked up and saw the boy aiming an arrow at me.
"Don't touch the innocence akuma!" He yelled at me. I looked at him confused and he shot the arrow. I got scared and moved as fast as I could, but felt something cut my arm.
"Stay still monster!" He yelled at me. Tears started to fill the brim of my eyes and I felt them streak my cheeks, leaving a salty trail, to wet my face, behind. Another arrow was shot at me and I felt another cut on my arm.
"Come on!" Ko'lae yelled to me. She had pulled me out of the way and had started to run to the door. I followed her in tears.
"He called us a monster and tried to kill us." I cried to her.
"You don't know that, he could have been talking to the real monster." She told me. I sniffled and wiped my face on the sleeves of my coat. The scene changed from being blurred by tears to a clear brick wall. I could hear myself breathing and tried to make it quiet.
"This is a wonderful way to spend our fourteenth birthday." I told Ko'lae.
"Ha! I found you!" Someone yelled. A sword hit the wall next to my head and I quickly pushed myself to my feet and started running. Ko'lae ran beside me and the man chased after us. I pushed myself harder to find someplace to hide. Finally I found the forest and ran for the thickest point of the trees. I climbed into a tree and pressed myself to the tree trunk, blending to the shadows and leaves.
He stopped under the tree I was in and I finally got my first look at him. He was tall with a strong build, had a metal helmet on; hiding his face; a sword taller than him, two blades held together by a thin hand grip, and as thick as he was from shoulder to shoulder, he had the same coat I had seen on the person with the bow seven years ago, black with white streaks and the strange cross on the left side of the chest.
"He has the same coat as that person all those years ago." Ko'lae said.
"And he is trying to kill us. Why is it always on our birthday that these guys show up?" I asked her, freezing in place when his head turned in my direction.
"Found you!" He yelled as he swung his sword at the tree. I jumped and rolled into the bushes.
"Get back here!" He yelled, cutting at the bushes I was just in. I started running through the forest and pushed myself faster even when I couldn't hear him anymore. I broke through the edge of the forest and saw a train depot. A cargo train was just starting to leave the station and I knew that that would be my last chance to escape from the man that was trying to kill me. I ran as fast as I could and pushed myself faster as I ran beside the train. There was an open car next to me and I was going to jump into it. I looked ahead of me and realized I was running out of deck to run on.
"KO'LAE!" I yelled. I threw myself to the side and rolled on the floor of the train car until I hit the wall. I didn't know if she knew what I meant but I looked around. I saw a hawk sitting on some crates and looked at all of the other crates. The hawk flew to the ground and took the form of Ko'lae's cat.
"You pull us into even more insane things every day." Ko'lae told me.
"Where's the adventure if I don't?" I asked her laughing.
"Out in the open." She told me.
"Exactly, it calls out our names and I intend to follow it." I continued, standing up. I picked her up and carefully walked to a place hidden behind the crates.
"We should get some rest while we can." I told her leaning against the wall. She yawned and curled up in my lap, falling asleep. I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, smiling.
I heard a whistle coming from somewhere and opened my eyes. I was still in Kanda's arms, Ko'lae was still curled up on my chest, and Unmei was curled up next to Ko'lae.
"We're in Paris." Ko'lae said.
"Almost home." I whispered.
"How did you sleep?" Kanda asked me.
"Better this time." I replied.
"Good." Was his only reply. I was still slightly tired and fighting the pain in my shoulder and head was sapping away at my consciousness. I saw the order and saw Unmei fly off, most likely to my parents, but was so weak that I had to rest my head on Kanda's shoulder. I slipped back into sleep when I saw the doors of headquarters, but didn't dream.