damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 3 (Return Trip)

That had been a highly unproductive day. Falis never left the park because Yukari had never left the park. Her plan of observing the girl to see her reactions to various people went nowhere since the girl spent the entire time talking to someone she'd just met upon exiting the bus instead of moving around. This just meant Falis was going to need to use another tactic tomorrow since she had plans tonight.

And speaking of those plans, Falis grinned when she saw the nurses had forced her onto a bus the little exorcist had also chosen. She supposed this was acceptable since they weren't letting her stick around to get herself on the same bus as Yukari. The princess headed to the back of the bus and plopped herself down next to Allen. She gave him a toothy grin, wondering idly if the French braid they'd put her mane of hair into helped or hindered her intimidation ability.

"Have fun today?"

Of all the people Allen wanted to see, the crazy akuma girl wasn't one of them. She pounced on his empty seat and smiled that predatory smile of hers. Allen tried unsuccessfully to scoot further away in his seat.

"I..." he started, still a bit surprised by her entrance. "The weather was nice and I saw a couple of shops. What about you Miss..." he trailed off, hoping she'd take the hint and give him her name this time.

Aww... The boy was trying to get away from her. Falis was tempted to put her arm around the boys shoulders just to see if he'd squeak.

... what the hell. Why not?

With a grin, the bounty hunter slung her arm around Allen's shoulders and purposefully dodged the prompt for her name. "I stayed in the park and kept an eye out for anything interesting. It was boring. I'm looking forward to tonight instead," she said, giving him that grin again.

Once again, Allen was struck by how strange it was that someone who ought to be an Akuma was still so warm. That thought only lasted a moment before his cheeks began to flush red and he tried to squirm away, only to find there was nowhere to go!

"M-miss, that's- You really oughtn't- I-" he squeaked, almost falling out of the bus seat as he tried to move. Tonight? What was tonight?

Realization dawned on him after a moment. She was the one that wanted to go Akuma hunting. Allen could feel his spirits sinking even further. This was not going to be a very good night.

Success! Okay, maybe Falis was being mean, but this was just too much fun. She had always been a bit of a bully growing up after her family and village was destroyed and she'd never been ashamed of it. The bounty hunter grinned and moved her face a bit closer to Allen's when he blushed.

"What? I'm pretty, aren't I? Don't tell me you don't think so..."

Yeah, she was being mean.

Allen managed to keep from falling on the bus floor, only by hanging on to the seat in front of them and looking anywhere but at the woman who was now only a few inches from his face. It was like dealing with Rhode, only fully grown. At least she wasn't saying she was in love with him. He'd probably start running in the opposite direction.

"N-no, I mean- y-yes, you're pretty b-but um- I- that is-..."

Falis grinned and let go of Allen, patting him on the top of his head before leaning back into the seat.

"It's okay - you're cute in that wants-to-kill-me way, but I've got a girlfriend so it would never work out," she replied wistfully. She gave Allen that toothy grin again as she looked out of the corner of her eye at him. "Too bad... you'd be missing out."

Was she doing this all just to mess with him? He blinked a couple of times in surprise before moving slowly back to his seat. This girl didn't make any sense at all! Saying he was cute and that he wanted to kill her all in the same breath. Not to mention- did she just say girlfriend? Maybe he'd heard that wrong. This woman seemed to enjoy putting him at a loss for words.

"I... beg your pardon?" he managed, still trying to regain some semblance of composure. "I... you're very lovely Miss... I'm afraid I don't know your name, but um... I'm really not interested in that sort of relationship..."

"Ah... you seem to forget how intimate killing someone is," Falis replied. "The blood on your hands, holding the power of death in your hands... feeling the life seep out of someone - very intimate indeed. So you should think about that before you get around to trying to kill me since I'm apparently one of those akuma you're set on destroying."

The blonde pulled the long braid over her shoulder and stroked the tuft at the end. "And I told you, I've got a girlfriend, so there couldn't be that sort of relationship." Her lips turned up. "I think I'd break you anyways."

Intimate? Killing? He didn't see how the two were related. There was a strange feeling that was associated with it, that craving in his blood, pulsing faster and faster when he started fighting. It wanted to destroy the akuma, as though it had life of its own outside his will. "I... I don't kill anyone," he insisted, brows knit together. "I'm saving them. Human souls are imprisoned by Akuma. They're in pain..."

And there it was again. Girlfriend. Unless this girl wasn't a girl at all... but either way it seemed kind of strange. But it didn't seem like the sort of thing he ought to bring up in polite conversation. Neither did breaking him. Allen frowned, though it looked more like a pout. "What's that supposed to mean?" he couldn't help but ask in a slight huff.

And that smirk found its way back onto Falis' face. "Oh, that means that if you and I were to be... intimate," she said, trailing her nails lightly across Allen's thigh, "that you wouldn't be able to handle me. But it doesn't matter since your balls don't seem to have dropped all the way."

She took her hand back and returned her attention to the previous train of conversation. "So, how do you save them, dear exorcist? What happens to the body when you 'save' the soul?"

This woman had absolutely no concept of personal space! Despite the fact that she said she was seeing someone else, she was still being far too personal with him. And why? As soon as he felt her fingers on his leg, he tried again to scoot away. His heart sped up a few beats and it had nothing at all to do with her being an akuma. For a long moment Allen had absolutely nothing to say in reply. He could only sit there, face red as a beet and mouth hanging open in embarrassment. She talked as dirty as Cross did!

When he finally did gain the control necessary to form words, he decided it was best to follow her example and go with the change in subject. His face was slightly less red, but he was still recovering as he spoke with her. "I... we... we have to set the soul free. The only... way to do that is to destroy the body."

Ah... Maybe Allen had reached puberty but was as repressed as a royal stable boy. It was almost worth it to press that further but she figured that, if anything, would only end up causing her more problems than the fun was worth given the girlfriend hanging around somewhere. Instead, she opted to poke holes in his whole saving the soul theory.

Turning sideways toward the boy, Falis played with her braid again, crimson eyes latched onto Allen. "So... tell me then, how is destroying the body not killing?"

It was a great relief to Allen when she seemed to drop the flirtatious teasing, if that's really what it was. As long as it meant she would keep her distance, he could try talking to her like a civilized person. Even if she was from a different world, it was difficult to trust an Akuma. However, the things she asked about were things an Akuma would know easily.

"They're already dead," he said quietly, not meeting the intensity of her red eyes. "I can't kill someone who's already died."

Dead. Hmm. To Falis there was dead and dead-dead. Not too much of a difference, but a difference altogether. If someone was just dead, they had still been killed. And Allen wouldn't meet her eyes. Either he didn't believe what he was saying and knew she was right, or he really was that scared of her. She wondered how scared he'd be if he knew her name given that everyone in the place pretty much knew that Princess Alita Forland had killed that alien creature.

"Really now? Already dead..." She hmmed a moment. "Before the soul is set free do they breathe? Do they bleed? Does the body react to things around them?" She paused and her voice lowered a little. "So they feel pain?"

He'd wondered that himself for a while. How could he destroy something that looked human? Even if it was just a shell, it was still awful to think about.

"They don't bleed," he told her, slowly looking up to meet her eyes. This was a point he'd come to learn after many hard-won battles. "They don't have to breathe or eat or sleep. They're not alive," he said firmly, convinced of that fact. "They're cold and empty, just like dolls."

He hesitated, drawing a slow breath. "The ones here though... some of them are different. You look like one of them, but you're not cold like they are."

That was interesting. When he finally met her eyes she could see that he'd seen real battle before. That was something one could never hide in the eyes. The eyes told you whether a person was a soldier, a killer, or not. This boy... he was a killer, whether he believed it or not.

Falis smiled dangerously. "Alive or dead... what do you believe I am?"

It was difficult to tell what this girl's reasoning was for asking, though the question was hard enough to answer on its own.

"I don't know," he answered her honestly. And really, he didn't. He still had his suspicions and it was impossible to overcome the strange longing inside him that wished to destroy akuma, warm or cold. "My eye says you're an Akuma. But... you don't seem like one." Then again, Eliade hadn't seemed like one at first either. Things were far too complicated.

In response, Falis grabbed Allen's hand that didn't look like it's been chewed up and spit out, grasping it in a vice-like grip. Ignoring the resistance, as she knew she was stronger, the bounty hunter placed the hand directly over her heart and held it flush against her so he could feel her heart beat. She didn't say anything, but locked her eyes onto the exorcists.

For a flickering moment, her pupils changed to vertical slits before returning to normal, the change so fleeting it might have even been imagined. Falis was a monster, she knew this, but she wasn't the type of monster Allen was looking for.

At first Allen had thought she was trying another of those strange flirtatious gestures when she pulled at his hand and put it on her chest, but after a moment he realized she was trying to let him feel her heart beating. It wasn't a mechanical whirring or a clanking or cold at all. And the thought that Akuma could be warm and human-like was perhaps was chilled him the most.

Was his eye deceiving him? It'd never happened before. But then, no place like Landels had ever happened before. "L-let go," he said, though he didn't pull against her grip very hard. "I... what do you want me to do? Check every Akuma for a heartbeat before I try to save them?" What if it was all a trick? But then, what if he was hurting people he wanted to save? Neither one felt right.

"I don't want to hurt people. But being an exorcist is what I was born to do. I have no other purpose. I know I have to destroy them, but I also want to save them. I have to."

Falis released Allen's hand after stuffing her other side back deep down, unhappy it had decided to rear it's ugly head. She next took her nail and ran it sharply over the inside of her arm, drawing a thin line of blood for him to see.

"Regardless of whether an akuma is alive or not, destroying them, even to save the soul they supposedly devoured or whatever, is still killing. You may save the soul of the human, but you kill the akuma," Falis replied, wiping a finger across the light blood, smearing it on her arm.

"You are no different than me when you take away your naive righteousness. I am at least willing to admit that I am a monster, though I've become this way through survival, long before an accident forced my soul to switch into this body," she said, with a small snarl.

She might have human traits, but there was still something about her that didn't seem quite right. It was enough to make him doubt, even if he didn't have use of his eye. Her reasoning though, was not enough to change his mind. Akuma were not human. And destroying them was not killing. Akuma weren't alive. They were just the Earl's toys. Some of them might develop personalities if they evolved to a higher level, but they were still Akuma. Nothing could change that.

"You can think what you want," Allen turned away, not willing to listen to her speeches and justification. It would only make him doubt; make him wonder. It wouldn't be the first time someone had called him a monster. Even so, he couldn't change what he was.

"I always do," Falis replied, leaning back into the seat again, wiping the blood on her finger off onto her pants. "I am human despite what you may think. Try and destroy me if you feel the need to, just keep in mind, when you do that, you're going to be trying to kill a human."

"Someone who destroys monsters are still killers; the deaths are simply justified. It sounds as if your King God places bounties on the heads of these akuma in your world," Falis continued, nonchalantly. "If that's the case, we would have been on the same side in your world. Wrap your mind around that."

Allen looked at her skeptically, not liking the feeling of being lectured, especially from someone who was doing the same things he was. "Then why do you want to destroy your own kind? Why are you having me look for others like you just so you can try to destroy them too?" It didn't make sense.

"It's not killing if it isn't alive in the first place. Akuma are just puppets that the Earl uses. It's not my fault if people here look like them. I can't change what my eye sees." He fidgeted in his seat, baffled by her talk about King God. "They're not... bounties, that's not it at all. I don't get paid for destroying them, I have to destroy them before the Earl uses them to destroy all of humanity. It's a war, it's not just mindless destruction."

Falis shot a nasty look at Allen. "I am human. I am a human soul that happens to have been forced into a human body that's not my original one. I am not hunting my own kind," she stated. "I hunt the things that threaten people enough that others want them dead. Vampire, warwolf, goblin, dragon, demon, cyborg, witch... it doesn't matter to me. I'll even kill humans that threaten my kingdom and those I hold dear to me. I am not someone who shows mercy."

She flashed her teeth again. "Besides, I love a real challenge and there are so few around anymore."

"So here's a question... why are you killing the dolls instead of killing the source?" She leaned over toward Allen. "Or is this Earl human and you're too much of a pussy to try to kill him?"

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