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chlorhexidineSomething happened between the adults. Ulquiorra and his friends sensed it, but the details eluded them. Ulquiorra and Lawliet spent Lawliet's long summer sparring; Wammy's House gave longer summer holidays than normal Rozarrian schools, as well as an extra week at Warsend. Lawliet said it was balanced out by being a boarding school; lessons never really ended while the students were around. Every hour contained something to learn. It was becoming visible in Lawliet; he looked tired, his eyes growing dark, but at the same time, he seemed to thrive on it.
Ulquiorra enjoyed having him home. Sometimes, they went to the tree-house, and Neron joined in their sparring. He hit much harder than Ulquiorra, but never successfully landed a hit on Lawliet. Bonita joined in a couple of times, too; she was a natural at kicking, and could match Lawliet for dexterity.
Ulquiorra, he said, was too stiff. He stood too stiffly, and couldn't follow the flow of movement, although he had become adept at reading an opponent's movements and accounting for them.
One Friday, after school, Ulquiorra and his friends were holed up in their tree-house It had expanded slightly over the course of the months. Repairs and extensions had been made; a hatch in the roof let them clamber higher up the tree. Bonita was already up there, keeping lookout among the branches, while Ulquiorra and Neron prepared below.
“He's coming,” Bonita said, as she slipped down the tree limb and back into the tree-house “Are we ready?”
Ulquiorra and Neron both gave small nods, and they readied themselves.
“Quiorra-chan?” The voice came from below.
The answer came in the form of a pop, and then a large shower of white powder, which fell with surprising speed and then spread along the ground, with Lawliet at its centre, now dusted white. He shook his head, showering more flour into the air, but not doing much to remedy his situation.
Three faces appeared at the window, bright smiles painted on all three.
“Quiorra-chan.” Lawliet sounded flatly displeased.
“I refuse to apologise, aniki.” The smile remained on Ulquiorra's face, and Lawliet found it difficult to maintain any obvious displeasure in the face of it. Ulquiorra smiled in private, with friends, and with family, but the bright ones with mischief behind them were extremely rare; they left a sparkle in his eyes and his naturally serious looking expression left no trace.
“And the other two of you?” He asked, quietly, and like an older brother.
“We got Neron's older brother last week, so we thought it was only fair,” Bonita answered, in slightly shaky Rozarrian.
The corner of Lawliet's mouth twitched slightly. “I see. You've been practising your Rozarrian, too,” he commented.
“I've been teaching them. We knew you would come back today,” Ulquiorra said, his voice level.
“So I see.”
“You're not a real older brother until you play tricks on each other,” Neron said, his grasp of Rozarrian as shaky as Bonita's, and some of his pronunciation was off, along with his accent, but it was still understandable.
Ulquiorra was clearly the best among them, Lawliet thought, with a faint smile, but he also had more opportunity to practice than his two friends did. “In that case, I'm honoured,” he said, quietly, “but it is still time for Quiorra-chan to come home.”
Ulquiorra said his goodbyes, and slipped out of the tree-house with ease, waving goodbye to his two friends. Lawliet mussed up his hair with one, flour dusted, hand, transferring some of the dust to Ulquiorra's dark hair in the process. “Don't expect to get me with the same trick a second time,” he said, putting his hands back into his pockets, and walking besides Ulquiorra.
“I've already taken that into account, aniki.”
Lawliet looked at him critically. Ulquiorra was a little taller than the same time last year, but Lawliet estimated that he'd never be tall. He took his height from his mother, it seemed. He was growing up, although Bunbun still sat on his pillow during the day, suggesting he wasn't growing up too fast.
True to his word, Ulquiorra was prepared the next time, and instead of flour, Lawliet found himself bombarded with water bombs. He squelched home with Ulquiorra in tow, talking in Rozarrian. Elden smiled when Lawliet entered, and went upstairs to change, coming down some time later with a towel draped over his head.
“We're going to see your grandmother,” he told Ulquiorra, over tea that night.
Ulquiorra restrained the grimace. Grandmother Schiffer was traditional and stuck in her ways; the big old house smelled like cats and baking, and Ulquiorra always had to dress in his smartest clothes and be on his best behaviour, which he was good at, but it was boring. There was nothing to really do in the house; it wasn't very child friendly.
Lawliet seemed to relish the idea of going as much as Ulquiorra did. “For her birthday,” he added, quietly.
“Yes,” Elden said, catching the look from Delcine and sharing her frown for a moment. Delcine disliked visiting the Schiffers. It was a small family, though not particularly closely knit. Elden had been brought up in an environment in which parents were to be honoured, and children seen but not heard. They hadn't been especially young when they'd had Elden, and the arrival of Lawliet so many years later had been an unexpected surprise, and Lawliet....
Lawliet was a handful. He'd have been a challenging child for young parents; prone to questioning and testing of rules and boundaries. For the older Schiffers, he'd been too much, and when the Schiffers had been contacted by Wammy's House, and Lawliet had subsequently requested to go, she suspected it had come as a relief to them. She and Elden had taken him in for the holidays and weekends he got at home, but Elden didn't particularly like him, and even she had to admit that he could be deliberately trying.
Lawliet hadn't been back to his parent's house since he'd left for Wammy's House. He'd seen them over Warsend, but it had been a visit of a few hours at most, and even in that time Lawliet had been incapable of acting like a civilised being. Ulquiorra, fortunately, was better behaved, but he disliked visiting Elden's parents for reasons that Delcine shared.
When it came time to leave, the next morning, Delcine had made a concerted effort to tame Lawliet's hair. It hadn't worked particularly well, but did at least look like he hadn't just rolled out of his bed and then backwards through a hedge in order to deal with it. He was also in smart clothing, and still endeavoured to look scruffy and unkempt. It was something ingrained, she suspected; all the new clothes and hairbrushes in the world wouldn't tidy Lawliet up. His attitude eked out through his skin and affected his clothing. The shirt was already creased and he'd only had it on for fifteen minutes.
Ulquiorra looked rather better, although she knelt down and untied his tie before knotting it for him properly. It was an overnight stay, and Bunbun was held by one ear in a hand, ready for coming along; the black plush rabbit, fur wearing thin at one chewed ear, and a green eye having been sewn back on when it fell off, didn't get carried everywhere any more, but it lived on Ulquiorra's bed, and came with him when he stayed the night anywhere.
It was a lengthy taxi ride to the main Schiffer household. The family held lands dotted around Alexandria, and owned a couple of properties in Alexandria proper, as well as some further afield, including the lands that were now Alexandria's local chocobo stables, run by the moogles, which earned a tidy sum of rent, funding Elden's parents retirement at a relatively young age.
And ship their youngest son off to somewhere convenient, Delcine thought, a little bitterly.
Elden himself worked the family business, which was property rental, and kept the family very nicely, though it also meant some long days when there were issues with tenants and building repairs, but it also gave him the freedom to take half days to do things like build a tree-house with his son, or take him out blackberry picking at the right time of year. Even Lawliet had enjoyed that, last time, and they'd come back with stained fingers, stained mouths, and ruined appetites.
The main house was imposing, gated and looming, as they entered the grounds, and when you entered through the doors you could smell the cats, which roamed the house freely and were found sleeping on stairs and behind curtains. There was also the smell from the kitchens, of meals and baking cakes being prepared by the small staff the Schiffers kept.
Ulquiorra's nose wrinkled, and Delcine noticed Lawliet almost shrink in on himself when they entered the premises.
“Elden,” the voice came from a doorway before Irune Schiffer followed it. She was in her mid sixties now, and rake thin, her shape maintained with restricting underclothes, and her face showing the lines of her age, although sincere effort had been put into hiding them. “Delcine,” she added, just a shade too graciously, before her eyes fell on Ulquiorra, who looked up at her with his piercing green eyes which stood out so brightly in his face, and Lawliet, who didn't even look at her. “Lawliet,” she said, after a moment, “are you going to greet me?”
“Hello, mother,” Lawliet said, his tone flat.
“Better,” she said. “You could have at least tried to tidy him up,” she directed towards Delcine before moving away.
Elden's hand fell on his wife's arm, and he gave her a communicative look and a wan smile.
“Your father's waiting in the drawing room,” Irune continued, oblivious to any reactions, and obviously addressing Elden. Rodas Schiffer was white haired, now, and he didn't strive to maintain a more youthful figure the way his wife did. He was also a little better to talk to, though it was very clear that Irune wore the trousers.
Ulquiorra hovered behind his mother's legs, Bunbun's ear gripped tightly in one hand, although his face was placid. His grandmother hadn't even bothered to address him, and that riled both of his parents, although they had differing ways of showing it, but when Delcine took him over to his grandfather, he bowed politely, and had his hand clasped and his hair ruffled. He came away with the distinctive bright colours of a sweet wrapper badly concealed in his hand.
Tea was a formal affair, and Ulquiorra ate with perfect manners. Lawliet, however, perched on his toes on the chair and pushed the food around, picking at it. Delcine and Elden had grown accustomed to his habits; he preferred sweet foods, a trait he shared with Ulquiorra, and Elden too had a sweet tooth, but Lawliet was extremely fussy about eating other foods. Delcine had reached an agreement with him; sweet things would always be on hand in the house, but Lawliet still had to get his required dosages of fruit, and had to eat the vegetables at meals on the understanding that they wouldn't be bitter greens, and he still had to consume protein. A healthy diet that he still found palatable had been difficult, but Lawliet had been willing to compromise when his viewpoint had been heard, and Delcine had argued nutritional values with him.
The food provided here, however, didn't fall under Lawliet's rather picky compromises.
“So you still haven't made progress on a second child,” Irune was saying, as the plates were cleared away, Lawliet's practically full.
“No,” Elden answered, “we wouldn't be able to improve on Ulquiorra,” he explained, with a small smile and a look at his son, who closed his eyes shyly and bowed his head a little. “He's the best student in his class, at school.”
“Well,” Irune said, with an idly dismissive gesture, “I suppose it would be a shame if it happened again.”
“If what happened again?” Delcine asked, icily.
“It's a hard world out there for mist mutants,” Irune said, either not caring or not noticing that Ulquiorra's mouth was pressed into a thin line. “They face so much prejudice, and so many disadvantages. It would be unfair to inflict that on two children if you know it's a risk.”
The atmosphere turned thick and Delcine placed both hands flat on the table as she began, “People like you--”
“Actually, mist mutations gift a number of advantages to their holders over plain born humes such as us. Even mutations that are merely cosmetic in nature also convey the ability to breathe in dense mist without respirators, a natural tendency towards high chakra levels, and increased reiatsu, as well as a higher likelihood of a long lifespan. People with mist mutations often do well in the Gotei Thirteen as a result, and that's before addressing the fact that kekkei genkai frequently begin as mist mutations, and that the more extreme mutations often give their holders unique abilities. Even slitted pupils such as Ulquiorra's, a very common form of mutation, provide him with an advantage over us, as it allows the bearer of the mutation to adjust to changing light levels very rapidly, as well as protecting them from light damage to the eyes. The fact of the matter is that the disadvantages brought to mist mutants are social constructs borne of the responses of those who are not as well equipped.”
Lawliet looked at his mother out of the corner of his eyes, his expression as dour and serious as Ulquiorra's had been before Lawliet had begun talking. Now, Ulquiorra was staring at Lawliet with wide eyes.
Elden recovered quickly, and after a false start he said, “As Lawliet said. We don't want another child because Ulquiorra is everything we could want from a son, and we don't see a need to try and improve on that.”
Delcine smiled softly, and Lawliet and Elden shared a look while an understanding passed between them.
“Thank you,” Elden said, on the way home the next day, while Ulquiorra dozed with his head on his mother's lap, “for saying that yesterday.”
Lawliet shook his head. He'd dressed in his preferred trousers and pullover top this morning, and nobody had tried to argue with him. “It's an unfortunate habit of our family to view those who are different as somehow disadvantaged or inferior. A correction was overdue.”
Elden was silent for a moment before he said, “I meant for stepping in before an argument broke out. They're too old to care for corrections, but you speaking up in the way you did meant they forgot that Delcine was about to create hell.” He smiled, softly. “Thank you.”
“You and Delcine have been more like parents to me in the past couple of years than they were in the ten prior. I know I am difficult, and our relationship has never been the best, but you have both persevered. You do not have to thank me. It was the least I could do.”
“Hey, freaks.”
Bonita's tail twitched in irritation, and Ulquiorra and Neron both turned towards the source of the insult. Neron's hands balled into fists, but Ulquiorra's stayed in his pockets as he fixed Ryuuzaki with a withering look.
Ryuuzaki had left them alone, for a short while, last year. They never had found out what had passed between the adults, exactly, but Ulquiorra's father asked if Ryuuzaki had given them any trouble from time to time, and aside from name-calling, the answer had always been no. Names and verbal insults were of no consequence to Ulquiorra. They upset Bonita from time to time, but even she had grown used to it and got angry instead of upset now.
Ryuuzaki wasn't alone. He tended to hang out with a small group of kids who were never as brazen as him, but who joined in the name-calling when it began. There were four of them with him now, Ryuuzaki making the group five, against Ulquiorra, Neron, and Bonita.
This had potential to end badly.
“What do you want?” Neron asked, in a sneering tone and stressing the 'you'. His entirely black eyes made him look strange and threatening anyway, but now it was aided by his body language as his shoulders went back and his chin jutted slightly. Ulquiorra recognised the signs.
“Nothing from you,” Ryuuzaki answered, “I wanna talk to pinky.”
“Yeah, well we're not gonna let you,” Neron answered, moving himself between his friends and Ryuuzaki.
“Why don't you just leave us alone, Ryuuzaki?” Bonita asked, sounding every one of her seven years.
“Does she need your permission to talk to everyone?” Ryuuzaki asked, with a grin. “She your little pet?”
“Don't rise to it,” Ulquiorra said, quietly.
“Oh, fuck off, Schiffer. You think you're so special just 'cause you can talk another language,” Ryuuzaki sneered with obvious malice.
“I don't need to be special to be better than you, Ryuuzaki,” Ulquiorra answered, “and it's 'speak', not 'talk another language'.”
“Whatever. You're a sad little geek, just like that weirdo that lives with you.”
“What do you want to talk to me for?” Bonita asked, angrily, folding her arms across her chest. Her tail swayed wildly.
“I wanna know something,” Ryuuzaki grinned.
“What?” She snapped.
“Do you have six nipples?”
Bonita's face flushed and her tail whipped angrily, but Ulquiorra didn't pay attention to that as he was too busy jumping forward to pull Neron back.
“Don't hit him, if you do that he has an excuse to hit us.”
“I'm gonna knock his block off!” Neron replied in a shout, struggling against Ulquiorra's grip on his arms.
“What, you wussies don't want a fight? Worried I'll beat you?” Ryuuzaki looked back at his assembled group, some of whom were sniggering at what was going on.
Ulquiorra saw it before anyone else did, the blur of pink and swish of a skirt as Bonita jumped forward and raised her leg, her foot landing squarely in Ryuuzaki's face, tail held out to keep her balance.
“They don't hit girls!” Bonita shouted, as Ryuuzaki hit the floor.
Ryuuzaki snarled angrily as he moved to kick Bonita in the knee, but Ulquiorra let Neron go and Ryuuzaki took a punch to the gut instead as Neron jumped on him. One of Ryuuzaki's group of friends moved to intervene, and was met with Ulquiorra's heel in his sternum, effectively winding him.
Someone grabbed Bonita's tail, but she whirled and punched them, catching them in the eye. Neron and Ryuuzaki brawled messily on the floor, while Ulquiorra swung another kick to deal with the remaining member of Ryuuzaki's friends.
A hand caught his foot, and Ulquiorra's eyes went wide. “Aniki...?”
Lawliet held Ulquiorra's foot by the ankle, and the person he'd been about to kick by the scruff of the neck, pulling the shirt up in the process. “Your style is still too stiff,” Lawliet said, quietly.
Lawliet's arrival seemed to put the rest of them off fighting, until only Neron and Ryuuzaki, both too busy scrapping on the floor, Neron's shirt torn and Ryuuzaki's face already swelling around the eye and jaw. Lawliet let go of the kid he was holding as he moved forward and picked Ryuuzaki off Neron by the hair.
“You three should go home,” he said to Ulquiorra and his friend, as Ryuuzaki squirmed in his grip. “I will deal with him.”
Ulquiorra looked at Bonita, and Neron, who was definitely the worse for wear, and nodded. “I'll see you at home, aniki.”
“So, what did your aniki do?” Neron asked, brandishing his wooden sword at Ulquiorra only to have it cleanly knocked away with Ulquiorra's own.
Ulquiorra wore a faint smirk; Neron was the better unarmed combatant, but Ulquiorra was much better with a sword than Neron, even though it was wooden. “He wouldn't tell me,” Ulquiorra answered, and then they both moved suddenly to avoid Bonita's sneak attack from above as she landed, almost entirely silently and with perfect balance, just where they'd both been stood, her black shinigami costume having been specially adjusted by her mother to allow space for her tail.
“No fair,” she said, “you two always move.”
“That's because we can see you coming,” Neron said with a grin, and then had to clumsily evade a swing from Ulquiorra's sword. “Hey come on, give me a chance!”
“You were open,” Ulquiorra answered, unemotionally, and then defended against a swing from Bonita.
“Think we will be shinigami when we grow up?” Bonita asked, with a smile.
“Ulquiorra might,” Neron answered, as he tried and failed to hit him with the sword again. “Just because your aniki trains you in everything,” he said, sticking his tongue out.
“Aniki can't use a sword,” Ulquiorra replied, blocking against Bonita and then successfully poking her in the stomach with the wooden tip, “he only uses bare hands and magic.”
“I bet he's really good at magic,” Bonita said, sounding a little distant, “with all that studying.”
“He says he is,” Ulquiorra answered, “but it feels strange and he doesn't like using it if he can help it.”
“Maybe he used magic to scare Ryuuzaki,” Neron said, making a valiant effort to stab Ulquiorra and failing miserably. Ryuuzaki had given all three of them a wide berth since their fight, and no one except Ryuuzaki and Lawliet seemed to had any real idea of what had happened when Lawliet took Ryuuzaki home, and neither of them seemed willing to discuss it.
Ryuuzaki's parents, too, had been noticeably taciturn. Bonita said she and her mother had passed them in the street and they'd crossed the road to avoid them.
“I don't think so,” Ulquiorra said. He'd asked Lawliet what he'd done, and Lawliet would only say he'd played to his strengths. As far as Ulquiorra could make sense of it, Lawliet had used intelligence rather than force, but what exactly he'd done still eluded Ulquiorra.
“Whatever he did,” Bonita said, “it worked.”
“Let's hope it keeps working,” Neron said, just before Ulquiorra caught him at the neck with the wooden sword.
“Quiorra-chan?” Ulquiorra looked up from his homework at the sound of his mother's voice. She was quiet, and her expression serious. “Come here a moment?” She sat down on his bed and patted the space next to her. Ulquiorra put his pen down and walked over, sitting next to her with mild concern. “We've had some bad news,” she said, “your father's talking to Lawliet now.”
“What is it?” Ulquiorra asked, quietly. Lawliet was at his own school, so whatever it was must be serious.
“Your grandpa Schiffer has taken ill,” she said, gently. “The doctors don't think he's going to recover.”
Ulquiorra blinked before his frown deepened. Grandpa Schiffer was the only thing slightly tolerable about visiting his grandparents, but Ulquiorra still saw him rarely.
“Your father is going to go there, and he wants Lawliet will go with him. We'll join them at the weekend, but we want you to know what's going on, all right?”
Ulquiorra nodded, faintly, and Delcine smiled sadly before pulling her son into a hug. “It's all right to cry, Quiorra-chan.”
“I'm not going to cry,” Ulquiorra said, quietly, but he hugged his mother regardless.
The funeral was a sombre affair. Ulquiorra saw members of the Schiffer family he'd never met, but the numbers were still few. Lawliet wore a suit, although his hair still refused to behave, and regardless of the nature of the occasion, he still wore his ratty trainers with the backs stamped down. He had, at least, agreed to the suit and tie, although something about him still looked untidy, especially when he stood, slightly hunched, with his hands in his pockets.
Ulquiorra's father didn't cry at the funeral, but Ulquiorra found him after it was all over, crumpled in a chair and grateful for the intrusion of his son. He pulled Ulquiorra onto his lap, and held him tight, and Ulquiorra allowed it, without squirming.
Without her husband, Irune Schiffer seemed to deflate. She fell quiet, and lost her spark. Within a year, Elden and Lawliet were forced to arrange a home for her. She was wasting away on her own, failing to look after herself, and the staff at the house weren't equipped to care for a mistress who had given up.
The home didn't help. Within two years of Rodas' funeral, Elden was organising one for his mother, too.
“What are you going to do when you leave school?” Ulquiorra asked, without looking up from his homework. They were both at the dining table, and had both been provided with a slice of cake by Ulquiorra's mother, although Lawliet had already eaten his. It was becoming a part of the evening routine when Lawliet was home.
Lawliet looked up from his own book, towards Ulquiorra, and then up at the ceiling. He was silent for a few long moments before he admitted, “Actually, I'm going to freelance.”
“Really?” This made Ulquiorra stop, and look over at Lawliet. It was the first time he'd ever heard Lawliet suggest that possibility.
“The fact is, there is no one I would be willing to work for,” he said, still looking up at the ceiling. “Governments are corrupt, police forces are restricted in their investigation methods, neither of them suit me. I'd have to work for myself.” He paused, and put his thumb to his lips as he murmured, “Which would at least allow me to choose my own cases. It would be terrible to have to work boring ones.”
He already worked as an investigator while he was with Wammy's House. It was his preferred field, though a broad one, and his education at Wammy's had been centred around honing those abilities, but the thought of working under someone else's control didn't sit well with him.
“You don't seem like a private detective, aniki.” The truth was, it was hard to picture Lawliet lasting ten minutes away from a steady supply of sweets, and he'd come across as frankly strange to anyone considering hiring him. Too strange to hire, perhaps; why pay a weirdo who doesn't act as though he understands the basics of civilised behaviour to offer insight on the behaviour of people?
“Then perhaps Quiorra-chan can tell me what I do seem like?” Lawliet asked, looking at Ulquiorra. The use of the nickname always made his mouth twitch into a small frown. He was, in his opinion, much too old now to be called -chan by anyone any more, and that included his mother. Both his mother and Lawliet rampantly ignored this point of view.
Ulquiorra looked back down at his book before he answered, “Like a freak.”
Lawliet looked up, and then reached across the table, saying “For that, I'm taking your cake.”
“What?” Ulquiorra began, looking up again, and moving quickly to try and rescue his cake, missing Lawliet by millimetres, and then getting up to move around the table. “You can't take my cake for that, aniki.”
“Watch me.” He held the cake away from Ulquiorra and planted a foot against Ulquiorra's shoulder as he approached, keeping him at bay.
“I'm sorry, aniki. You're not a freak.”
“You can call me what you like; I'm still taking your cake.”
Ulquiorra responded by grabbing Lawliet's ankle and dragging him closer, causing Lawliet to lose his balance, and hold the cake up to save it from falling to the floor. He landed on his backside, and promptly pushed his other bare foot against Ulquiorra's face, trying to push him off. It wasn't violent, but more of a scrap, and they reached a stalemate when Ulquiorra gripped Lawliet's other ankle, and then swung himself around to plant his foot against Lawliet's throat.
“Now what?” Lawliet asked, with mild interest.
“Relinquish my cake.”
“To choke me, you would have to move a little closer, but if you do that you weaken your grip on my legs and are at risk of retaliation. Similarly, I still have a free hand,” he made his point by taking hold of Ulquiorra's ankle in his own spindly fingers, with a grip that was deceptively strong, “but nowhere to move. We are at an impasse.”
Ulquiorra looked at him flatly for a moment before he said, “You're forgetting one important factor.”
Lawliet tilted his head slightly, “I am?”
“Mom, Lawliet's trying to steal my cake!” Ulquiorra shouted, and then flashed Lawliet a smirk.
“Ah,” Lawliet said, to himself, “snitching.”
“You're outmaneuvered, aniki.”
“Lawliet Schiffer, don't be greedy!” Delcine called from the other room.
“Merely a test,” Lawliet said, when she appeared at the doorway and stared at the two boys, sprawled on the floor and in a position to try and kill each other. He let go of Ulquiorra's ankle, and Ulquiorra moved his leg away before letting go of Lawliet's ankles, and retrieving his cake.
“Honestly, you two,” she said, shaking her head, and trying to hide the smile. “If you want more cake, there's plenty in the kitchen.”
Lawliet dusted himself off as he stood, “Then I will go and help myself,” he said, with as much dignity as he could muster.
Lawliet finished his education at Wammy's House young, but without much ceremony. There was no celebration, or presentation from the school, Lawliet simply came home, and stayed there for a while. Ulquiorra made the most of having him around, although Lawliet remained banned from the tree-house on the grounds that older siblings and their analogues weren't permitted. If Lawliet was permitted, then Neron couldn't stop his own older brother from coming in, and then it would just be ruined.
Which meant that Lawliet faced a barrage of water-bombs, or flour-bombs, and in one memorable case the trio had found some stinking stagnant water that was green in colour and left a slimy feeling residue on fingers that had been in contact with it, and succeeded in dropping a bucket full of the stuff on top of Lawliet's head, any time he came near the tree-house He'd had to shower after the sliming, and Ulquiorra had looked amused all night, doubly so when his mother had ordered Lawliet back into the shower an hour later because he still smelled like a stagnant pond.
Revenge was taken in the form of cake stealing, and the evenings became a battleground between the two, and to the victor went the spoils, which was usually the last slice of cake. They sparred when Ulquiorra didn't have homework, but they both knew it couldn't last for too long.
Lawliet worked from the house most of the time, spending hours at a time on the computer, and usually still being sat up working in the mornings when Ulquiorra left for school. Lawliet insisted he slept, but he didn't seem to, and dark circles formed under his eyes as time went on. He never let anyone else, even Ulquiorra, see what he was working on, insisting that if he was lax about security, he wouldn't make for a very good investigator.
Then, one day, Lawliet announced he was moving out. He was cagey about details, but as far as Ulquiorra could gather from him, he'd taken on some role that he couldn't fulfil from his brother's house any longer. Ulquiorra's father didn't seem upset to see him go, but when he left the house for the last time, Ulquiorra lingered to wave him off.
“Promise you'll come and visit still, aniki.”
“I will be busy, Quiorra-chan,” Lawliet told him, and frowned at the severe and saddened look on Ulquiorra's face. “I will visit you when I have time,” he conceded, after a moment.
Ulquiorra nodded at that, and Lawliet hefted his small case into the coach. “You may have the books I've left behind,” Lawliet said, turning back towards Ulquiorra. That earned him a smile, and then Lawliet moved to climb in, before pausing one last time, “Also, if anyone asks, tell them my name is Ryuuzaki.”
Ulquiorra's eyes went wide as Lawliet climbed into the coach. “Why that name?” He asked.
“My main pseudonym is 'L',” he answered, “but I have a couple of others, that I've taken from those I have beaten.”
Ulquiorra stared at his uncle before he asked, “What did you do to Ryuuzaki?”
Lawliet looked at Ulquiorra before he answered, “I uncovered information that would ruin the family, and presented them with it. They agreed to keep their son in line, in exchange for my keeping this from getting out. If they don't keep to their side of our arrangement, Quiorra-chan, be sure to tell me.”
Ulquiorra remained in silence as he watched Lawliet leave.
Ulquiorra's eleventh birthday seemed quieter without Lawliet around, and Ulquiorra spent the day with his two best friends. The weather was turning already, a chill nip in the air that lingered inside the tree-house as the three picnicked on birthday cake.
“Have you ever been to Gongaga before?” Neron asked, as Ulquiorra carefully picked the marzipan off his cake and swapped it for Neron's icing.
Ulquiorra shook his head. “Someone different hosts the reunion every year,” he explained, “it should be our turn but Aunt Raina is getting married, so it will be in Gongaga instead.” Ulquiorra liked his mom's side of the family; the Moreno family was large, and spread wide across Lionel and Rozarria, but Ulquiorra's mom had been born in Gongaga, along with her sisters and brothers. Most of them had moved away as they married, but Raina was the youngest of the family and the last one to marry.
It was a big deal for the family, and the annual family gathering had been centred around the wedding. There wouldn't be any more, Ulquiorra's mother had said, until Ulquiorra and his cousins were grown up, and Ulquiorra's oldest cousin was still only fifteen. Ulquiorra's father had commented that the family was essentially going to overrun Gongaga for the week.
Ulquiorra didn't mind. He enjoyed the gatherings; more than half his cousins also had some form of mist mutation, and while he wasn't as comfortable around them as he was with Bonita and Neron, he did have cousins he got along with well.
“Is your aniki going?” Bonita asked, cheerfully making her way through her own cake without any fussiness.
“Mother said she was going to ask him when she speaks to him next,” Ulquiorra answered. Lawliet had been invited before but had usually turned the invitations down, but the family wedding was the sort of big deal that is normally capitalised, and Ulquiorra's mother had said she was going to try and get Lawliet to join them this time. He was practically an adopted son anyway, she'd said, and he wasn't going to be avoid the family forever; one way or another, he was a part of it.
Lawliet, in the end, relented after some badgering. Delcine had a will of mythril when she needed it, and eventually even Lawliet had to concede defeat. She never got out of him who he was working for now; he insisted that he was freelance, and it involved some travelling, but the truth was, he had a number of places set up so that he could work from any one of them as required, and shut them down entirely when he wasn't there. He didn't need to travel at all, but he preferred to move around a little if only so he was harder to locate.
He wasn't fond of the clan he'd joined, and he didn't trust any of them, but that was exactly why he'd joined them. It would be easier to keep an eye on their activities from a position inside the clan. There were also... other benefits.
He'd known that Khamja must be further reaching than it admitted, or appeared on the surface. He'd been a little surprised to realise that the clan's fingers were in not only politics on both sides of the empire, and weapons development on both sides of the empire, but the Gotei 13, and some powerful influences in Jylland too.
Finding that out had made him feel inexperienced, and he hated it, but it also gave him access to better resources than he could ever hope to have outside of the clan.
It had taken L a couple of months to uncover the full list of shadow members, even from the inside. He was new, and not especially trusted as a result. The majority of his direct contact was with Kuja, who as an open member of the clan was easier in every respect for L to deal with, and Illua herself, whom L was always very careful around.
He'd grown accustomed to being called 'L' too. The only people who still called him Lawliet were Elden and Delcine.
From within Khamja, L's work was relatively simple. He quietly, and systematically, investigated the clan's enemies, crippling their finances, souring deals, on occasion allowing Kuja or another member to step in and profit from a deal instead, and, where possible, arranging matters so that the more irritating enemies were removed from the scene without being killed. If a person died, then another replaced them, but if they were merely incapacitated for a time, incarcerated or otherwise, then you knew exactly where to find them when you had to, just in case you needed them for something.
He'd recently made Kuja very happy when he'd uncovered a huge trade in armaments at the Nabradia border, and had managed to not only have the original person selling the weapons captured and disgraced, but also been able to inform Kuja of it all with enough time for Kuja to step in and catch some very desperate customers who suddenly found themselves without a vendor, and who would pay extra for discretion.
That whole continent was on the move, of late, and L liked to keep a close eye on things. Bancour and Archadia were dancing around each other in a situation that would either lead to war, or an alliance, and Lionel and Rozarria were getting nervy as a result, trying to strengthen their own links with Bancour, and wary of any potential alliance between the two nations.
He'd been in the clan for only a few months when word crossed his desk that Khamja were considering some politically motivated shenanigans of their own in that part of the world, just to stir the cauldron. L read the communiqué with a frown.
Lionel had allowed Bancour to install one of their mako reactors in Gongaga, which had all been part of the chess game the countries had been playing lately. Meanwhile, now, Bancour and Archadia were moving closer to a potential alliance, which was putting the wind up the other countries, and especially Dalmasca.
An alliance would potentially lead to a very brief, very brutal war, with two of the three greater political powers joining forces. Galbadia and Dalmasca would both be destroyed, and with them out of the way, the remaining countries would quickly follow.
L disliked that possibility for his own reasons, but the political opponents of the talks quietly going on in offices across Spira disliked the potential gains for Bancour. Archadia's empire would grow, and quickly, but Bancour would then be richer, would inevitably want Mako Reactors within the Empire's borders, and that would put Shinra in a position to, potentially, step in at the first sign of any weakness within the Empire's ruling family. Shinra were good at playing the waiting game, and they were very, very good at weapons development that was kept quiet.
That was where Khamja dislike of the situation came in. There'd be a quick war against the straggling countries, and then peace would settle. Khamja didn't stand to profit from peace, or from a war that was over as soon as it began and that was easily fought with the combined resources of two superpowers. A lot of where Khamja currently made its fortune would no longer be fertile grounds for them to work.
So they planned an attack on the reactor in Gongaga, 'protesting' the moves towards an alliance. In reality it would be less of a simple protest and more of a complicated political gambit. Attacking Gongaga would send a message to Midgar, and to Bancour at large that they had exploitable vulnerabilities, and there were people who would be very willing to exploit them. The devastation such an attack would create would also make the Empire extremely wary of allowing such things on its home continent, and that would sour the talks faster than attacking Midgar itself ever could.
L approved of the aims, although the methods left a lot to be desired. He preferred pinpoint precision to wholesale destruction. Gongaga would essentially be wiped off the map.
The wedding was going to be there.
L stopped, and chewed his thumb. The likelihood of the attack taking place during the week of the wedding was only 1.92% at a baseline, but that figure rose when the window was narrowed to within the next six months, to 3.84%.
They wouldn't be happy to leave it any longer than that, L knew, because by then it could be too late.
L kept an unhappy eye on the situation, revising his estimates of the percentages until a time was planned.
His heart sank when the proposal was put the clan for a vote, and he stood with his hands in his pockets, stooped with his shoulders hunched as he listened to the details they were being given. The Moreno family's luck had run short, it seemed, and with it ran the remnants of the direct Schiffer line.
“Those in favour?”
A pause as the votes were cast and L remained mute. “L?” Someone asked, Kuja, whose baby this whole idea had become whether the original plot had been his or not.
“This will cost a lot of unnecessary lives,” L said, quietly.
“A small price to pay, for the goal,” Kuja answered, in a tone that suggested he was losing patience with L's unwillingness to vote one way or another.
“The question is not the size of the price, but the acceptability.”
“Do elaborate,” Kuja said, icily.
“I have no real care for the politics of either side,” L answered, “and it's certain that this will effectively pause the alliance talks, but there is no way to guarantee that it will be effective in the long term. The attack will be on Bancouri technology, but not on Bancouri soil, and so aside from the financial implications for Shinra, it may pose little more than a temporary inconvenience.”
For best effect, the clan, and Kuja, needed the alliance talks to not only halt, but break down entirely. Doing that would push the two sides apart, and fuel the cold war between them. Khamja stood to make a lot of money and gain a lot of influence with a number of its members in the right places, and such an action was certainly in the interests of the clan, but while L had no qualms with the deaths of people who understood that death was a risk, such as soldiers, supporting an act of terrorism that would impact innocent people made him uncomfortable.
But the wedding was in Gongaga. Was he being influenced by this knowledge, and what it might mean, for Ulquiorra, Elden, and Delcine? They were his family, and he would potentially, lose them, unless he could come up with a way to achieve the same ends without such wide-scale destruction, or a way to get them out of there....
He glanced around the room. Of the voters left, of the votes already in favour, the motion would pass regardless of his decision, and if it passed, there was no way he would be able to keep his family away from Gongaga without arousing suspicion. They were supposed to be there. Everyone knew they were supposed to be there. Was a future in which they were captured, questioned, linked to Khamja, and punished better than one in which they stood to lose their lives? The Schiffer name, and estate, would be seized and left in tatters. There would be nothing left for them if they were linked to the attacks and the governments in question were corrupt, and would show no mercy or restraint to a small family that had inexplicably escaped such a disaster.
“I vote in favour, but your methods must be precise if you are to best utilise the fallout.”
Forgive me, Quiorra-chan. L thought, as he closed his eyes and drowned out the sound of the other votes being cast. Better to die quickly than have to be eliminated as a potential risk to this clan, assuming the Bancouri government don't get at you first. No matter what the outcome, your life was over the moment this idea was put to these people. I hoped I'd be able to protect you better. This is the best I can offer you.
“Something on your mind?” Kuja asked, as the room emptied. L had been stood with his hands in his pockets for a while, seemingly oblivious to the other members filing out.
“No,” he answered, “I'm simply considering what difference it would have made had I voted against.” Kuja raised an eyebrow, and L elaborated, softly. “It could only be a token gesture, as it was with the Captains. Such gestures are worthless except to the consciences of those who make them. Despite voting against it, they will be as complicit as all of those who voted in favour, since none of them will do anything to stop it.”
“You dislike the idea?”
“I think the price is too high for the risk of failure, but my chances of convincing everyone else who was not already opposed stand at two percent.”
“Then you should have voted against it.”
“I don't go in for empty gestures,” L said, quietly, before turning to leave.
He made his way up to the tree-house with wary slowness. Every time he'd approached it, in the last couple of years, he'd been met with a barrage of unpleasantness. Pond scum, brackish water, flour, and on one particularly memorable occasion, a flour and water mixture that had taken two hours under the shower to successfully wash away.
The wedding was in three weeks. That knowledge played on the edges of his mind constantly, but didn't distract him enough to prevent him evading the missile when it came, deftly sidestepping as the balloon, streaming glitter, sailed for his head.
He looked up towards the tree-house, and the window the missile had come from, and then there was a noise above him, and he didn't even bother to look up as a pall of fine glitter washed over him. He stood, hunched, with his hands in his pockets, before shaking his head vigorously and dislodging as much from his hair as he could before he finally did look up. A bucket and pulley had been rigged, and carefully hidden and disguised in the branches of the tree. He followed the path of the string that had been used to activate it, back to the tree-house
Ulquiorra appeared at the window, a smile on his face as he leaned on the frame. It looked like he was wearing the shinigami uniform he'd been bought last Warsend, which meant the other two were probably in theirs, too.
“Hello, aniki.”
“Hello, Quiorra-chan,” he replied, “I presume Bonita and Neron are there too?”
Bonita popped up and waved to him, cheerfully, her pink tail curled in the air behind her through the shinigami uniform, and one pink furred ear twitching.
“The glitter was her idea,” he heard Neron say, from within the tree-house “I wanted to hit you with minced Nanna,” he added, as if this forgave him participating in a plan that involved dousing somebody in glitter.
“That smelled bad,” Bonita said, looking back into the tree-house
“That's the point!”
“Quiet,” Ulquiorra told both of them, before he opened the door and clambered down from the tree-house He'd grown, L realised, a couple of inches maybe, and there'd be more to come.
Would have been more to come.
“Is something wrong?” Ulquiorra asked, when he got closer, and L watched him for a moment before shaking his head in response.
“I'm tired,” he answered, with a convenient half truth. “I can't stay, tonight, but I wanted to see you before I leave.”
“When are you going to stay?” Ulquiorra asked, probing as ever.
“Not before the wedding,” L answered, with a faint smile, “so this is goodbye until then.”
Ulquiorra nodded, and L reached out, and ruffled his hair in much the same way as Elden always did. “You've grown since I last saw you,” he said, as he moved his hand away. “But I will always call you Quiorra-chan.”
Ulquiorra scowled slightly. “I'd rather you didn't,” he said, “I'm too old for that nickname now.”
L smiled, faintly. “Tell that to your mother,” he said.
“I've tried.”
L looked up at the tree-house again, and the two faces watching him and Ulquiorra talk, before he nodded to his young nephew. “I have to go,” he said, “your mother wants you home for tea, remember.” Ulquiorra very slightly rolled his eyes, and Lawliet twitched a smile. “Goodbye, Quiorra-chan.”
“See you at the wedding,” Ulquiorra replied, as he turned around, and clambered back up the tree to the tree-house.
Part Three
Ulquiorra enjoyed having him home. Sometimes, they went to the tree-house, and Neron joined in their sparring. He hit much harder than Ulquiorra, but never successfully landed a hit on Lawliet. Bonita joined in a couple of times, too; she was a natural at kicking, and could match Lawliet for dexterity.
Ulquiorra, he said, was too stiff. He stood too stiffly, and couldn't follow the flow of movement, although he had become adept at reading an opponent's movements and accounting for them.
One Friday, after school, Ulquiorra and his friends were holed up in their tree-house It had expanded slightly over the course of the months. Repairs and extensions had been made; a hatch in the roof let them clamber higher up the tree. Bonita was already up there, keeping lookout among the branches, while Ulquiorra and Neron prepared below.
“He's coming,” Bonita said, as she slipped down the tree limb and back into the tree-house “Are we ready?”
Ulquiorra and Neron both gave small nods, and they readied themselves.
“Quiorra-chan?” The voice came from below.
The answer came in the form of a pop, and then a large shower of white powder, which fell with surprising speed and then spread along the ground, with Lawliet at its centre, now dusted white. He shook his head, showering more flour into the air, but not doing much to remedy his situation.
Three faces appeared at the window, bright smiles painted on all three.
“Quiorra-chan.” Lawliet sounded flatly displeased.
“I refuse to apologise, aniki.” The smile remained on Ulquiorra's face, and Lawliet found it difficult to maintain any obvious displeasure in the face of it. Ulquiorra smiled in private, with friends, and with family, but the bright ones with mischief behind them were extremely rare; they left a sparkle in his eyes and his naturally serious looking expression left no trace.
“And the other two of you?” He asked, quietly, and like an older brother.
“We got Neron's older brother last week, so we thought it was only fair,” Bonita answered, in slightly shaky Rozarrian.
The corner of Lawliet's mouth twitched slightly. “I see. You've been practising your Rozarrian, too,” he commented.
“I've been teaching them. We knew you would come back today,” Ulquiorra said, his voice level.
“So I see.”
“You're not a real older brother until you play tricks on each other,” Neron said, his grasp of Rozarrian as shaky as Bonita's, and some of his pronunciation was off, along with his accent, but it was still understandable.
Ulquiorra was clearly the best among them, Lawliet thought, with a faint smile, but he also had more opportunity to practice than his two friends did. “In that case, I'm honoured,” he said, quietly, “but it is still time for Quiorra-chan to come home.”
Ulquiorra said his goodbyes, and slipped out of the tree-house with ease, waving goodbye to his two friends. Lawliet mussed up his hair with one, flour dusted, hand, transferring some of the dust to Ulquiorra's dark hair in the process. “Don't expect to get me with the same trick a second time,” he said, putting his hands back into his pockets, and walking besides Ulquiorra.
“I've already taken that into account, aniki.”
Lawliet looked at him critically. Ulquiorra was a little taller than the same time last year, but Lawliet estimated that he'd never be tall. He took his height from his mother, it seemed. He was growing up, although Bunbun still sat on his pillow during the day, suggesting he wasn't growing up too fast.
True to his word, Ulquiorra was prepared the next time, and instead of flour, Lawliet found himself bombarded with water bombs. He squelched home with Ulquiorra in tow, talking in Rozarrian. Elden smiled when Lawliet entered, and went upstairs to change, coming down some time later with a towel draped over his head.
“We're going to see your grandmother,” he told Ulquiorra, over tea that night.
Ulquiorra restrained the grimace. Grandmother Schiffer was traditional and stuck in her ways; the big old house smelled like cats and baking, and Ulquiorra always had to dress in his smartest clothes and be on his best behaviour, which he was good at, but it was boring. There was nothing to really do in the house; it wasn't very child friendly.
Lawliet seemed to relish the idea of going as much as Ulquiorra did. “For her birthday,” he added, quietly.
“Yes,” Elden said, catching the look from Delcine and sharing her frown for a moment. Delcine disliked visiting the Schiffers. It was a small family, though not particularly closely knit. Elden had been brought up in an environment in which parents were to be honoured, and children seen but not heard. They hadn't been especially young when they'd had Elden, and the arrival of Lawliet so many years later had been an unexpected surprise, and Lawliet....
Lawliet was a handful. He'd have been a challenging child for young parents; prone to questioning and testing of rules and boundaries. For the older Schiffers, he'd been too much, and when the Schiffers had been contacted by Wammy's House, and Lawliet had subsequently requested to go, she suspected it had come as a relief to them. She and Elden had taken him in for the holidays and weekends he got at home, but Elden didn't particularly like him, and even she had to admit that he could be deliberately trying.
Lawliet hadn't been back to his parent's house since he'd left for Wammy's House. He'd seen them over Warsend, but it had been a visit of a few hours at most, and even in that time Lawliet had been incapable of acting like a civilised being. Ulquiorra, fortunately, was better behaved, but he disliked visiting Elden's parents for reasons that Delcine shared.
When it came time to leave, the next morning, Delcine had made a concerted effort to tame Lawliet's hair. It hadn't worked particularly well, but did at least look like he hadn't just rolled out of his bed and then backwards through a hedge in order to deal with it. He was also in smart clothing, and still endeavoured to look scruffy and unkempt. It was something ingrained, she suspected; all the new clothes and hairbrushes in the world wouldn't tidy Lawliet up. His attitude eked out through his skin and affected his clothing. The shirt was already creased and he'd only had it on for fifteen minutes.
Ulquiorra looked rather better, although she knelt down and untied his tie before knotting it for him properly. It was an overnight stay, and Bunbun was held by one ear in a hand, ready for coming along; the black plush rabbit, fur wearing thin at one chewed ear, and a green eye having been sewn back on when it fell off, didn't get carried everywhere any more, but it lived on Ulquiorra's bed, and came with him when he stayed the night anywhere.
It was a lengthy taxi ride to the main Schiffer household. The family held lands dotted around Alexandria, and owned a couple of properties in Alexandria proper, as well as some further afield, including the lands that were now Alexandria's local chocobo stables, run by the moogles, which earned a tidy sum of rent, funding Elden's parents retirement at a relatively young age.
And ship their youngest son off to somewhere convenient, Delcine thought, a little bitterly.
Elden himself worked the family business, which was property rental, and kept the family very nicely, though it also meant some long days when there were issues with tenants and building repairs, but it also gave him the freedom to take half days to do things like build a tree-house with his son, or take him out blackberry picking at the right time of year. Even Lawliet had enjoyed that, last time, and they'd come back with stained fingers, stained mouths, and ruined appetites.
The main house was imposing, gated and looming, as they entered the grounds, and when you entered through the doors you could smell the cats, which roamed the house freely and were found sleeping on stairs and behind curtains. There was also the smell from the kitchens, of meals and baking cakes being prepared by the small staff the Schiffers kept.
Ulquiorra's nose wrinkled, and Delcine noticed Lawliet almost shrink in on himself when they entered the premises.
“Elden,” the voice came from a doorway before Irune Schiffer followed it. She was in her mid sixties now, and rake thin, her shape maintained with restricting underclothes, and her face showing the lines of her age, although sincere effort had been put into hiding them. “Delcine,” she added, just a shade too graciously, before her eyes fell on Ulquiorra, who looked up at her with his piercing green eyes which stood out so brightly in his face, and Lawliet, who didn't even look at her. “Lawliet,” she said, after a moment, “are you going to greet me?”
“Hello, mother,” Lawliet said, his tone flat.
“Better,” she said. “You could have at least tried to tidy him up,” she directed towards Delcine before moving away.
Elden's hand fell on his wife's arm, and he gave her a communicative look and a wan smile.
“Your father's waiting in the drawing room,” Irune continued, oblivious to any reactions, and obviously addressing Elden. Rodas Schiffer was white haired, now, and he didn't strive to maintain a more youthful figure the way his wife did. He was also a little better to talk to, though it was very clear that Irune wore the trousers.
Ulquiorra hovered behind his mother's legs, Bunbun's ear gripped tightly in one hand, although his face was placid. His grandmother hadn't even bothered to address him, and that riled both of his parents, although they had differing ways of showing it, but when Delcine took him over to his grandfather, he bowed politely, and had his hand clasped and his hair ruffled. He came away with the distinctive bright colours of a sweet wrapper badly concealed in his hand.
Tea was a formal affair, and Ulquiorra ate with perfect manners. Lawliet, however, perched on his toes on the chair and pushed the food around, picking at it. Delcine and Elden had grown accustomed to his habits; he preferred sweet foods, a trait he shared with Ulquiorra, and Elden too had a sweet tooth, but Lawliet was extremely fussy about eating other foods. Delcine had reached an agreement with him; sweet things would always be on hand in the house, but Lawliet still had to get his required dosages of fruit, and had to eat the vegetables at meals on the understanding that they wouldn't be bitter greens, and he still had to consume protein. A healthy diet that he still found palatable had been difficult, but Lawliet had been willing to compromise when his viewpoint had been heard, and Delcine had argued nutritional values with him.
The food provided here, however, didn't fall under Lawliet's rather picky compromises.
“So you still haven't made progress on a second child,” Irune was saying, as the plates were cleared away, Lawliet's practically full.
“No,” Elden answered, “we wouldn't be able to improve on Ulquiorra,” he explained, with a small smile and a look at his son, who closed his eyes shyly and bowed his head a little. “He's the best student in his class, at school.”
“Well,” Irune said, with an idly dismissive gesture, “I suppose it would be a shame if it happened again.”
“If what happened again?” Delcine asked, icily.
“It's a hard world out there for mist mutants,” Irune said, either not caring or not noticing that Ulquiorra's mouth was pressed into a thin line. “They face so much prejudice, and so many disadvantages. It would be unfair to inflict that on two children if you know it's a risk.”
The atmosphere turned thick and Delcine placed both hands flat on the table as she began, “People like you--”
“Actually, mist mutations gift a number of advantages to their holders over plain born humes such as us. Even mutations that are merely cosmetic in nature also convey the ability to breathe in dense mist without respirators, a natural tendency towards high chakra levels, and increased reiatsu, as well as a higher likelihood of a long lifespan. People with mist mutations often do well in the Gotei Thirteen as a result, and that's before addressing the fact that kekkei genkai frequently begin as mist mutations, and that the more extreme mutations often give their holders unique abilities. Even slitted pupils such as Ulquiorra's, a very common form of mutation, provide him with an advantage over us, as it allows the bearer of the mutation to adjust to changing light levels very rapidly, as well as protecting them from light damage to the eyes. The fact of the matter is that the disadvantages brought to mist mutants are social constructs borne of the responses of those who are not as well equipped.”
Lawliet looked at his mother out of the corner of his eyes, his expression as dour and serious as Ulquiorra's had been before Lawliet had begun talking. Now, Ulquiorra was staring at Lawliet with wide eyes.
Elden recovered quickly, and after a false start he said, “As Lawliet said. We don't want another child because Ulquiorra is everything we could want from a son, and we don't see a need to try and improve on that.”
Delcine smiled softly, and Lawliet and Elden shared a look while an understanding passed between them.
“Thank you,” Elden said, on the way home the next day, while Ulquiorra dozed with his head on his mother's lap, “for saying that yesterday.”
Lawliet shook his head. He'd dressed in his preferred trousers and pullover top this morning, and nobody had tried to argue with him. “It's an unfortunate habit of our family to view those who are different as somehow disadvantaged or inferior. A correction was overdue.”
Elden was silent for a moment before he said, “I meant for stepping in before an argument broke out. They're too old to care for corrections, but you speaking up in the way you did meant they forgot that Delcine was about to create hell.” He smiled, softly. “Thank you.”
“You and Delcine have been more like parents to me in the past couple of years than they were in the ten prior. I know I am difficult, and our relationship has never been the best, but you have both persevered. You do not have to thank me. It was the least I could do.”
“Hey, freaks.”
Bonita's tail twitched in irritation, and Ulquiorra and Neron both turned towards the source of the insult. Neron's hands balled into fists, but Ulquiorra's stayed in his pockets as he fixed Ryuuzaki with a withering look.
Ryuuzaki had left them alone, for a short while, last year. They never had found out what had passed between the adults, exactly, but Ulquiorra's father asked if Ryuuzaki had given them any trouble from time to time, and aside from name-calling, the answer had always been no. Names and verbal insults were of no consequence to Ulquiorra. They upset Bonita from time to time, but even she had grown used to it and got angry instead of upset now.
Ryuuzaki wasn't alone. He tended to hang out with a small group of kids who were never as brazen as him, but who joined in the name-calling when it began. There were four of them with him now, Ryuuzaki making the group five, against Ulquiorra, Neron, and Bonita.
This had potential to end badly.
“What do you want?” Neron asked, in a sneering tone and stressing the 'you'. His entirely black eyes made him look strange and threatening anyway, but now it was aided by his body language as his shoulders went back and his chin jutted slightly. Ulquiorra recognised the signs.
“Nothing from you,” Ryuuzaki answered, “I wanna talk to pinky.”
“Yeah, well we're not gonna let you,” Neron answered, moving himself between his friends and Ryuuzaki.
“Why don't you just leave us alone, Ryuuzaki?” Bonita asked, sounding every one of her seven years.
“Does she need your permission to talk to everyone?” Ryuuzaki asked, with a grin. “She your little pet?”
“Don't rise to it,” Ulquiorra said, quietly.
“Oh, fuck off, Schiffer. You think you're so special just 'cause you can talk another language,” Ryuuzaki sneered with obvious malice.
“I don't need to be special to be better than you, Ryuuzaki,” Ulquiorra answered, “and it's 'speak', not 'talk another language'.”
“Whatever. You're a sad little geek, just like that weirdo that lives with you.”
“What do you want to talk to me for?” Bonita asked, angrily, folding her arms across her chest. Her tail swayed wildly.
“I wanna know something,” Ryuuzaki grinned.
“What?” She snapped.
“Do you have six nipples?”
Bonita's face flushed and her tail whipped angrily, but Ulquiorra didn't pay attention to that as he was too busy jumping forward to pull Neron back.
“Don't hit him, if you do that he has an excuse to hit us.”
“I'm gonna knock his block off!” Neron replied in a shout, struggling against Ulquiorra's grip on his arms.
“What, you wussies don't want a fight? Worried I'll beat you?” Ryuuzaki looked back at his assembled group, some of whom were sniggering at what was going on.
Ulquiorra saw it before anyone else did, the blur of pink and swish of a skirt as Bonita jumped forward and raised her leg, her foot landing squarely in Ryuuzaki's face, tail held out to keep her balance.
“They don't hit girls!” Bonita shouted, as Ryuuzaki hit the floor.
Ryuuzaki snarled angrily as he moved to kick Bonita in the knee, but Ulquiorra let Neron go and Ryuuzaki took a punch to the gut instead as Neron jumped on him. One of Ryuuzaki's group of friends moved to intervene, and was met with Ulquiorra's heel in his sternum, effectively winding him.
Someone grabbed Bonita's tail, but she whirled and punched them, catching them in the eye. Neron and Ryuuzaki brawled messily on the floor, while Ulquiorra swung another kick to deal with the remaining member of Ryuuzaki's friends.
A hand caught his foot, and Ulquiorra's eyes went wide. “Aniki...?”
Lawliet held Ulquiorra's foot by the ankle, and the person he'd been about to kick by the scruff of the neck, pulling the shirt up in the process. “Your style is still too stiff,” Lawliet said, quietly.
Lawliet's arrival seemed to put the rest of them off fighting, until only Neron and Ryuuzaki, both too busy scrapping on the floor, Neron's shirt torn and Ryuuzaki's face already swelling around the eye and jaw. Lawliet let go of the kid he was holding as he moved forward and picked Ryuuzaki off Neron by the hair.
“You three should go home,” he said to Ulquiorra and his friend, as Ryuuzaki squirmed in his grip. “I will deal with him.”
Ulquiorra looked at Bonita, and Neron, who was definitely the worse for wear, and nodded. “I'll see you at home, aniki.”
“So, what did your aniki do?” Neron asked, brandishing his wooden sword at Ulquiorra only to have it cleanly knocked away with Ulquiorra's own.
Ulquiorra wore a faint smirk; Neron was the better unarmed combatant, but Ulquiorra was much better with a sword than Neron, even though it was wooden. “He wouldn't tell me,” Ulquiorra answered, and then they both moved suddenly to avoid Bonita's sneak attack from above as she landed, almost entirely silently and with perfect balance, just where they'd both been stood, her black shinigami costume having been specially adjusted by her mother to allow space for her tail.
“No fair,” she said, “you two always move.”
“That's because we can see you coming,” Neron said with a grin, and then had to clumsily evade a swing from Ulquiorra's sword. “Hey come on, give me a chance!”
“You were open,” Ulquiorra answered, unemotionally, and then defended against a swing from Bonita.
“Think we will be shinigami when we grow up?” Bonita asked, with a smile.
“Ulquiorra might,” Neron answered, as he tried and failed to hit him with the sword again. “Just because your aniki trains you in everything,” he said, sticking his tongue out.
“Aniki can't use a sword,” Ulquiorra replied, blocking against Bonita and then successfully poking her in the stomach with the wooden tip, “he only uses bare hands and magic.”
“I bet he's really good at magic,” Bonita said, sounding a little distant, “with all that studying.”
“He says he is,” Ulquiorra answered, “but it feels strange and he doesn't like using it if he can help it.”
“Maybe he used magic to scare Ryuuzaki,” Neron said, making a valiant effort to stab Ulquiorra and failing miserably. Ryuuzaki had given all three of them a wide berth since their fight, and no one except Ryuuzaki and Lawliet seemed to had any real idea of what had happened when Lawliet took Ryuuzaki home, and neither of them seemed willing to discuss it.
Ryuuzaki's parents, too, had been noticeably taciturn. Bonita said she and her mother had passed them in the street and they'd crossed the road to avoid them.
“I don't think so,” Ulquiorra said. He'd asked Lawliet what he'd done, and Lawliet would only say he'd played to his strengths. As far as Ulquiorra could make sense of it, Lawliet had used intelligence rather than force, but what exactly he'd done still eluded Ulquiorra.
“Whatever he did,” Bonita said, “it worked.”
“Let's hope it keeps working,” Neron said, just before Ulquiorra caught him at the neck with the wooden sword.
“Quiorra-chan?” Ulquiorra looked up from his homework at the sound of his mother's voice. She was quiet, and her expression serious. “Come here a moment?” She sat down on his bed and patted the space next to her. Ulquiorra put his pen down and walked over, sitting next to her with mild concern. “We've had some bad news,” she said, “your father's talking to Lawliet now.”
“What is it?” Ulquiorra asked, quietly. Lawliet was at his own school, so whatever it was must be serious.
“Your grandpa Schiffer has taken ill,” she said, gently. “The doctors don't think he's going to recover.”
Ulquiorra blinked before his frown deepened. Grandpa Schiffer was the only thing slightly tolerable about visiting his grandparents, but Ulquiorra still saw him rarely.
“Your father is going to go there, and he wants Lawliet will go with him. We'll join them at the weekend, but we want you to know what's going on, all right?”
Ulquiorra nodded, faintly, and Delcine smiled sadly before pulling her son into a hug. “It's all right to cry, Quiorra-chan.”
“I'm not going to cry,” Ulquiorra said, quietly, but he hugged his mother regardless.
The funeral was a sombre affair. Ulquiorra saw members of the Schiffer family he'd never met, but the numbers were still few. Lawliet wore a suit, although his hair still refused to behave, and regardless of the nature of the occasion, he still wore his ratty trainers with the backs stamped down. He had, at least, agreed to the suit and tie, although something about him still looked untidy, especially when he stood, slightly hunched, with his hands in his pockets.
Ulquiorra's father didn't cry at the funeral, but Ulquiorra found him after it was all over, crumpled in a chair and grateful for the intrusion of his son. He pulled Ulquiorra onto his lap, and held him tight, and Ulquiorra allowed it, without squirming.
Without her husband, Irune Schiffer seemed to deflate. She fell quiet, and lost her spark. Within a year, Elden and Lawliet were forced to arrange a home for her. She was wasting away on her own, failing to look after herself, and the staff at the house weren't equipped to care for a mistress who had given up.
The home didn't help. Within two years of Rodas' funeral, Elden was organising one for his mother, too.
“What are you going to do when you leave school?” Ulquiorra asked, without looking up from his homework. They were both at the dining table, and had both been provided with a slice of cake by Ulquiorra's mother, although Lawliet had already eaten his. It was becoming a part of the evening routine when Lawliet was home.
Lawliet looked up from his own book, towards Ulquiorra, and then up at the ceiling. He was silent for a few long moments before he admitted, “Actually, I'm going to freelance.”
“Really?” This made Ulquiorra stop, and look over at Lawliet. It was the first time he'd ever heard Lawliet suggest that possibility.
“The fact is, there is no one I would be willing to work for,” he said, still looking up at the ceiling. “Governments are corrupt, police forces are restricted in their investigation methods, neither of them suit me. I'd have to work for myself.” He paused, and put his thumb to his lips as he murmured, “Which would at least allow me to choose my own cases. It would be terrible to have to work boring ones.”
He already worked as an investigator while he was with Wammy's House. It was his preferred field, though a broad one, and his education at Wammy's had been centred around honing those abilities, but the thought of working under someone else's control didn't sit well with him.
“You don't seem like a private detective, aniki.” The truth was, it was hard to picture Lawliet lasting ten minutes away from a steady supply of sweets, and he'd come across as frankly strange to anyone considering hiring him. Too strange to hire, perhaps; why pay a weirdo who doesn't act as though he understands the basics of civilised behaviour to offer insight on the behaviour of people?
“Then perhaps Quiorra-chan can tell me what I do seem like?” Lawliet asked, looking at Ulquiorra. The use of the nickname always made his mouth twitch into a small frown. He was, in his opinion, much too old now to be called -chan by anyone any more, and that included his mother. Both his mother and Lawliet rampantly ignored this point of view.
Ulquiorra looked back down at his book before he answered, “Like a freak.”
Lawliet looked up, and then reached across the table, saying “For that, I'm taking your cake.”
“What?” Ulquiorra began, looking up again, and moving quickly to try and rescue his cake, missing Lawliet by millimetres, and then getting up to move around the table. “You can't take my cake for that, aniki.”
“Watch me.” He held the cake away from Ulquiorra and planted a foot against Ulquiorra's shoulder as he approached, keeping him at bay.
“I'm sorry, aniki. You're not a freak.”
“You can call me what you like; I'm still taking your cake.”
Ulquiorra responded by grabbing Lawliet's ankle and dragging him closer, causing Lawliet to lose his balance, and hold the cake up to save it from falling to the floor. He landed on his backside, and promptly pushed his other bare foot against Ulquiorra's face, trying to push him off. It wasn't violent, but more of a scrap, and they reached a stalemate when Ulquiorra gripped Lawliet's other ankle, and then swung himself around to plant his foot against Lawliet's throat.
“Now what?” Lawliet asked, with mild interest.
“Relinquish my cake.”
“To choke me, you would have to move a little closer, but if you do that you weaken your grip on my legs and are at risk of retaliation. Similarly, I still have a free hand,” he made his point by taking hold of Ulquiorra's ankle in his own spindly fingers, with a grip that was deceptively strong, “but nowhere to move. We are at an impasse.”
Ulquiorra looked at him flatly for a moment before he said, “You're forgetting one important factor.”
Lawliet tilted his head slightly, “I am?”
“Mom, Lawliet's trying to steal my cake!” Ulquiorra shouted, and then flashed Lawliet a smirk.
“Ah,” Lawliet said, to himself, “snitching.”
“You're outmaneuvered, aniki.”
“Lawliet Schiffer, don't be greedy!” Delcine called from the other room.
“Merely a test,” Lawliet said, when she appeared at the doorway and stared at the two boys, sprawled on the floor and in a position to try and kill each other. He let go of Ulquiorra's ankle, and Ulquiorra moved his leg away before letting go of Lawliet's ankles, and retrieving his cake.
“Honestly, you two,” she said, shaking her head, and trying to hide the smile. “If you want more cake, there's plenty in the kitchen.”
Lawliet dusted himself off as he stood, “Then I will go and help myself,” he said, with as much dignity as he could muster.
Lawliet finished his education at Wammy's House young, but without much ceremony. There was no celebration, or presentation from the school, Lawliet simply came home, and stayed there for a while. Ulquiorra made the most of having him around, although Lawliet remained banned from the tree-house on the grounds that older siblings and their analogues weren't permitted. If Lawliet was permitted, then Neron couldn't stop his own older brother from coming in, and then it would just be ruined.
Which meant that Lawliet faced a barrage of water-bombs, or flour-bombs, and in one memorable case the trio had found some stinking stagnant water that was green in colour and left a slimy feeling residue on fingers that had been in contact with it, and succeeded in dropping a bucket full of the stuff on top of Lawliet's head, any time he came near the tree-house He'd had to shower after the sliming, and Ulquiorra had looked amused all night, doubly so when his mother had ordered Lawliet back into the shower an hour later because he still smelled like a stagnant pond.
Revenge was taken in the form of cake stealing, and the evenings became a battleground between the two, and to the victor went the spoils, which was usually the last slice of cake. They sparred when Ulquiorra didn't have homework, but they both knew it couldn't last for too long.
Lawliet worked from the house most of the time, spending hours at a time on the computer, and usually still being sat up working in the mornings when Ulquiorra left for school. Lawliet insisted he slept, but he didn't seem to, and dark circles formed under his eyes as time went on. He never let anyone else, even Ulquiorra, see what he was working on, insisting that if he was lax about security, he wouldn't make for a very good investigator.
Then, one day, Lawliet announced he was moving out. He was cagey about details, but as far as Ulquiorra could gather from him, he'd taken on some role that he couldn't fulfil from his brother's house any longer. Ulquiorra's father didn't seem upset to see him go, but when he left the house for the last time, Ulquiorra lingered to wave him off.
“Promise you'll come and visit still, aniki.”
“I will be busy, Quiorra-chan,” Lawliet told him, and frowned at the severe and saddened look on Ulquiorra's face. “I will visit you when I have time,” he conceded, after a moment.
Ulquiorra nodded at that, and Lawliet hefted his small case into the coach. “You may have the books I've left behind,” Lawliet said, turning back towards Ulquiorra. That earned him a smile, and then Lawliet moved to climb in, before pausing one last time, “Also, if anyone asks, tell them my name is Ryuuzaki.”
Ulquiorra's eyes went wide as Lawliet climbed into the coach. “Why that name?” He asked.
“My main pseudonym is 'L',” he answered, “but I have a couple of others, that I've taken from those I have beaten.”
Ulquiorra stared at his uncle before he asked, “What did you do to Ryuuzaki?”
Lawliet looked at Ulquiorra before he answered, “I uncovered information that would ruin the family, and presented them with it. They agreed to keep their son in line, in exchange for my keeping this from getting out. If they don't keep to their side of our arrangement, Quiorra-chan, be sure to tell me.”
Ulquiorra remained in silence as he watched Lawliet leave.
Ulquiorra's eleventh birthday seemed quieter without Lawliet around, and Ulquiorra spent the day with his two best friends. The weather was turning already, a chill nip in the air that lingered inside the tree-house as the three picnicked on birthday cake.
“Have you ever been to Gongaga before?” Neron asked, as Ulquiorra carefully picked the marzipan off his cake and swapped it for Neron's icing.
Ulquiorra shook his head. “Someone different hosts the reunion every year,” he explained, “it should be our turn but Aunt Raina is getting married, so it will be in Gongaga instead.” Ulquiorra liked his mom's side of the family; the Moreno family was large, and spread wide across Lionel and Rozarria, but Ulquiorra's mom had been born in Gongaga, along with her sisters and brothers. Most of them had moved away as they married, but Raina was the youngest of the family and the last one to marry.
It was a big deal for the family, and the annual family gathering had been centred around the wedding. There wouldn't be any more, Ulquiorra's mother had said, until Ulquiorra and his cousins were grown up, and Ulquiorra's oldest cousin was still only fifteen. Ulquiorra's father had commented that the family was essentially going to overrun Gongaga for the week.
Ulquiorra didn't mind. He enjoyed the gatherings; more than half his cousins also had some form of mist mutation, and while he wasn't as comfortable around them as he was with Bonita and Neron, he did have cousins he got along with well.
“Is your aniki going?” Bonita asked, cheerfully making her way through her own cake without any fussiness.
“Mother said she was going to ask him when she speaks to him next,” Ulquiorra answered. Lawliet had been invited before but had usually turned the invitations down, but the family wedding was the sort of big deal that is normally capitalised, and Ulquiorra's mother had said she was going to try and get Lawliet to join them this time. He was practically an adopted son anyway, she'd said, and he wasn't going to be avoid the family forever; one way or another, he was a part of it.
Lawliet, in the end, relented after some badgering. Delcine had a will of mythril when she needed it, and eventually even Lawliet had to concede defeat. She never got out of him who he was working for now; he insisted that he was freelance, and it involved some travelling, but the truth was, he had a number of places set up so that he could work from any one of them as required, and shut them down entirely when he wasn't there. He didn't need to travel at all, but he preferred to move around a little if only so he was harder to locate.
He wasn't fond of the clan he'd joined, and he didn't trust any of them, but that was exactly why he'd joined them. It would be easier to keep an eye on their activities from a position inside the clan. There were also... other benefits.
He'd known that Khamja must be further reaching than it admitted, or appeared on the surface. He'd been a little surprised to realise that the clan's fingers were in not only politics on both sides of the empire, and weapons development on both sides of the empire, but the Gotei 13, and some powerful influences in Jylland too.
Finding that out had made him feel inexperienced, and he hated it, but it also gave him access to better resources than he could ever hope to have outside of the clan.
It had taken L a couple of months to uncover the full list of shadow members, even from the inside. He was new, and not especially trusted as a result. The majority of his direct contact was with Kuja, who as an open member of the clan was easier in every respect for L to deal with, and Illua herself, whom L was always very careful around.
He'd grown accustomed to being called 'L' too. The only people who still called him Lawliet were Elden and Delcine.
From within Khamja, L's work was relatively simple. He quietly, and systematically, investigated the clan's enemies, crippling their finances, souring deals, on occasion allowing Kuja or another member to step in and profit from a deal instead, and, where possible, arranging matters so that the more irritating enemies were removed from the scene without being killed. If a person died, then another replaced them, but if they were merely incapacitated for a time, incarcerated or otherwise, then you knew exactly where to find them when you had to, just in case you needed them for something.
He'd recently made Kuja very happy when he'd uncovered a huge trade in armaments at the Nabradia border, and had managed to not only have the original person selling the weapons captured and disgraced, but also been able to inform Kuja of it all with enough time for Kuja to step in and catch some very desperate customers who suddenly found themselves without a vendor, and who would pay extra for discretion.
That whole continent was on the move, of late, and L liked to keep a close eye on things. Bancour and Archadia were dancing around each other in a situation that would either lead to war, or an alliance, and Lionel and Rozarria were getting nervy as a result, trying to strengthen their own links with Bancour, and wary of any potential alliance between the two nations.
He'd been in the clan for only a few months when word crossed his desk that Khamja were considering some politically motivated shenanigans of their own in that part of the world, just to stir the cauldron. L read the communiqué with a frown.
Lionel had allowed Bancour to install one of their mako reactors in Gongaga, which had all been part of the chess game the countries had been playing lately. Meanwhile, now, Bancour and Archadia were moving closer to a potential alliance, which was putting the wind up the other countries, and especially Dalmasca.
An alliance would potentially lead to a very brief, very brutal war, with two of the three greater political powers joining forces. Galbadia and Dalmasca would both be destroyed, and with them out of the way, the remaining countries would quickly follow.
L disliked that possibility for his own reasons, but the political opponents of the talks quietly going on in offices across Spira disliked the potential gains for Bancour. Archadia's empire would grow, and quickly, but Bancour would then be richer, would inevitably want Mako Reactors within the Empire's borders, and that would put Shinra in a position to, potentially, step in at the first sign of any weakness within the Empire's ruling family. Shinra were good at playing the waiting game, and they were very, very good at weapons development that was kept quiet.
That was where Khamja dislike of the situation came in. There'd be a quick war against the straggling countries, and then peace would settle. Khamja didn't stand to profit from peace, or from a war that was over as soon as it began and that was easily fought with the combined resources of two superpowers. A lot of where Khamja currently made its fortune would no longer be fertile grounds for them to work.
So they planned an attack on the reactor in Gongaga, 'protesting' the moves towards an alliance. In reality it would be less of a simple protest and more of a complicated political gambit. Attacking Gongaga would send a message to Midgar, and to Bancour at large that they had exploitable vulnerabilities, and there were people who would be very willing to exploit them. The devastation such an attack would create would also make the Empire extremely wary of allowing such things on its home continent, and that would sour the talks faster than attacking Midgar itself ever could.
L approved of the aims, although the methods left a lot to be desired. He preferred pinpoint precision to wholesale destruction. Gongaga would essentially be wiped off the map.
The wedding was going to be there.
L stopped, and chewed his thumb. The likelihood of the attack taking place during the week of the wedding was only 1.92% at a baseline, but that figure rose when the window was narrowed to within the next six months, to 3.84%.
They wouldn't be happy to leave it any longer than that, L knew, because by then it could be too late.
L kept an unhappy eye on the situation, revising his estimates of the percentages until a time was planned.
His heart sank when the proposal was put the clan for a vote, and he stood with his hands in his pockets, stooped with his shoulders hunched as he listened to the details they were being given. The Moreno family's luck had run short, it seemed, and with it ran the remnants of the direct Schiffer line.
“Those in favour?”
A pause as the votes were cast and L remained mute. “L?” Someone asked, Kuja, whose baby this whole idea had become whether the original plot had been his or not.
“This will cost a lot of unnecessary lives,” L said, quietly.
“A small price to pay, for the goal,” Kuja answered, in a tone that suggested he was losing patience with L's unwillingness to vote one way or another.
“The question is not the size of the price, but the acceptability.”
“Do elaborate,” Kuja said, icily.
“I have no real care for the politics of either side,” L answered, “and it's certain that this will effectively pause the alliance talks, but there is no way to guarantee that it will be effective in the long term. The attack will be on Bancouri technology, but not on Bancouri soil, and so aside from the financial implications for Shinra, it may pose little more than a temporary inconvenience.”
For best effect, the clan, and Kuja, needed the alliance talks to not only halt, but break down entirely. Doing that would push the two sides apart, and fuel the cold war between them. Khamja stood to make a lot of money and gain a lot of influence with a number of its members in the right places, and such an action was certainly in the interests of the clan, but while L had no qualms with the deaths of people who understood that death was a risk, such as soldiers, supporting an act of terrorism that would impact innocent people made him uncomfortable.
But the wedding was in Gongaga. Was he being influenced by this knowledge, and what it might mean, for Ulquiorra, Elden, and Delcine? They were his family, and he would potentially, lose them, unless he could come up with a way to achieve the same ends without such wide-scale destruction, or a way to get them out of there....
He glanced around the room. Of the voters left, of the votes already in favour, the motion would pass regardless of his decision, and if it passed, there was no way he would be able to keep his family away from Gongaga without arousing suspicion. They were supposed to be there. Everyone knew they were supposed to be there. Was a future in which they were captured, questioned, linked to Khamja, and punished better than one in which they stood to lose their lives? The Schiffer name, and estate, would be seized and left in tatters. There would be nothing left for them if they were linked to the attacks and the governments in question were corrupt, and would show no mercy or restraint to a small family that had inexplicably escaped such a disaster.
“I vote in favour, but your methods must be precise if you are to best utilise the fallout.”
Forgive me, Quiorra-chan. L thought, as he closed his eyes and drowned out the sound of the other votes being cast. Better to die quickly than have to be eliminated as a potential risk to this clan, assuming the Bancouri government don't get at you first. No matter what the outcome, your life was over the moment this idea was put to these people. I hoped I'd be able to protect you better. This is the best I can offer you.
“Something on your mind?” Kuja asked, as the room emptied. L had been stood with his hands in his pockets for a while, seemingly oblivious to the other members filing out.
“No,” he answered, “I'm simply considering what difference it would have made had I voted against.” Kuja raised an eyebrow, and L elaborated, softly. “It could only be a token gesture, as it was with the Captains. Such gestures are worthless except to the consciences of those who make them. Despite voting against it, they will be as complicit as all of those who voted in favour, since none of them will do anything to stop it.”
“You dislike the idea?”
“I think the price is too high for the risk of failure, but my chances of convincing everyone else who was not already opposed stand at two percent.”
“Then you should have voted against it.”
“I don't go in for empty gestures,” L said, quietly, before turning to leave.
He made his way up to the tree-house with wary slowness. Every time he'd approached it, in the last couple of years, he'd been met with a barrage of unpleasantness. Pond scum, brackish water, flour, and on one particularly memorable occasion, a flour and water mixture that had taken two hours under the shower to successfully wash away.
The wedding was in three weeks. That knowledge played on the edges of his mind constantly, but didn't distract him enough to prevent him evading the missile when it came, deftly sidestepping as the balloon, streaming glitter, sailed for his head.
He looked up towards the tree-house, and the window the missile had come from, and then there was a noise above him, and he didn't even bother to look up as a pall of fine glitter washed over him. He stood, hunched, with his hands in his pockets, before shaking his head vigorously and dislodging as much from his hair as he could before he finally did look up. A bucket and pulley had been rigged, and carefully hidden and disguised in the branches of the tree. He followed the path of the string that had been used to activate it, back to the tree-house
Ulquiorra appeared at the window, a smile on his face as he leaned on the frame. It looked like he was wearing the shinigami uniform he'd been bought last Warsend, which meant the other two were probably in theirs, too.
“Hello, aniki.”
“Hello, Quiorra-chan,” he replied, “I presume Bonita and Neron are there too?”
Bonita popped up and waved to him, cheerfully, her pink tail curled in the air behind her through the shinigami uniform, and one pink furred ear twitching.
“The glitter was her idea,” he heard Neron say, from within the tree-house “I wanted to hit you with minced Nanna,” he added, as if this forgave him participating in a plan that involved dousing somebody in glitter.
“That smelled bad,” Bonita said, looking back into the tree-house
“That's the point!”
“Quiet,” Ulquiorra told both of them, before he opened the door and clambered down from the tree-house He'd grown, L realised, a couple of inches maybe, and there'd be more to come.
Would have been more to come.
“Is something wrong?” Ulquiorra asked, when he got closer, and L watched him for a moment before shaking his head in response.
“I'm tired,” he answered, with a convenient half truth. “I can't stay, tonight, but I wanted to see you before I leave.”
“When are you going to stay?” Ulquiorra asked, probing as ever.
“Not before the wedding,” L answered, with a faint smile, “so this is goodbye until then.”
Ulquiorra nodded, and L reached out, and ruffled his hair in much the same way as Elden always did. “You've grown since I last saw you,” he said, as he moved his hand away. “But I will always call you Quiorra-chan.”
Ulquiorra scowled slightly. “I'd rather you didn't,” he said, “I'm too old for that nickname now.”
L smiled, faintly. “Tell that to your mother,” he said.
“I've tried.”
L looked up at the tree-house again, and the two faces watching him and Ulquiorra talk, before he nodded to his young nephew. “I have to go,” he said, “your mother wants you home for tea, remember.” Ulquiorra very slightly rolled his eyes, and Lawliet twitched a smile. “Goodbye, Quiorra-chan.”
“See you at the wedding,” Ulquiorra replied, as he turned around, and clambered back up the tree to the tree-house.
Part Three
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 12:36 am (UTC)Everyone is not especially bright. L and Light are average intelligence with a hint of psychic at best, but they are geniuses for shounen characters!