Sorry for the delay. here's the next installment. origionally when i set out to write this story i had intended to end it with komui's reunion with his sister, but then i realized the world i've built up here has a lot more to it. i'm glad to have such wonderful readers and reviews to go through it all with me.

i hope you all enjoy.

“Um…. Excuse me…” the boy in glasses timidly mumbled to Komui. “Um, sorry…”

Komui lifted his head from his workstation in the main science room to glare at the boy. He didn’t remember falling asleep. For the past two days he had worked solidly in a fit of creativity. He didn’t remember the boy’s name either. Blinking sleepily he stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

The boy took a step back, ready to bolt should Komui decide to explode. It was probably a smart idea. Everyone else in the room had stopped to watch; most were already inching their way behind shelves and cabinets while the rest trusted their reflexes to dive away when the time came. If it wasn’t important then the boy wouldn’t have risked coming anywhere within the ten foot blast radius of Komui’s desk.

Komui hadn’t adjusted well to working in Central. After achieving the goal of getting here and finding his sister, he was plagued by an odd loss of purpose. It was like a loud resounding ‘now what?’ that followed him through the day.

He found that he completely lacked the social skills to get along with so many people at once. Individually they were quite nice and Komui felt they were pleasant enough to interact with. Years of working alone coupled with being around Petrova had seriously affected the way he dealt with others. He had lived so long with the single purpose of finding his sister that nothing else had mattered. Most of the time he was too trapped in the working of his damaged mind to even recognize those around him as human.

Carefully he had managed to alienate himself from everyone. There were rumors about him going around; half of them were true. In his quest to reach Central, he ended up doing things he was not proud of. This was a problem he had no way of foreseeing. He needed these people to like him, support him when he made the push for supervisor. He needed to become supervisor if he wanted to make the Order a better place for his sister, for everyone.

For now he just tended to blow up at everyone both verbally and physically. The second being when his projects snapped, cracked, broke and occasionally vaporized in a fireball just big enough to set off every alarm in the building.

“What?!” Komui snapped automatically, making the boy jump and his comically oversized glasses slide half off his nose. Komui reached up with a single finger marred with dark mechanical oil and pushed the escaping spectacles back into position. He didn’t mean to be so harsh, but something had set him on the defensive today. He always felt he needed to justify his projects and mannerisms. What is wrong with me…? He thought miserably and took a deep breath. “Sorry… yes, um?” he tried to pull the boy’s name from the air. He was sure he’d heard it before.

“Johnny.” The boy squeaked. “I’m Johnny.”

Komui smiled. The boy was trying. That was more than the other members of the science department were doing. The Australian at the other end of the room was actively glaring at him. “Yes, thank you Johnny.” He repeated the name mentally trying to imprint it on some corner of his mind. It would probably be gone by the end of the day. He picked up the small circuit he had been working on and his soldering iron. “What do you need?”

“The General is asking for you.”

The delicate wire in his hand snapped; he growled a foul word in Chinese and slammed the now useless part down on the desk top. Everyone flinched at the sound. Johnny’s glasses made another escape attempt from his face and clattered on to the no man’s land of Komui’s workspace. The boy made a slight whining sound; anything that touched that desk was as good as gone, Komui had made that very clear.

“Just leave ‘em…” whispered the round man in the hat. “They’re just glasses; you can get another pair…” Komui picked them up and pulled a set of pliers out. He had the room’s attention; everyone waited with baited breath to see what the crazy man would do next. How do I get them to like me… he wondered, faintly hating how childish it sounded. He bent the wire frames. They were expecting him to break them.

Without a word Komui stood and set the glasses back on Johnny’s face. They were crooked so he carefully took them back and adjusted them again. “Move your head a bit…” he mumbled. “I curved the arms a bit more… they should stay on better.”

“Hey… yeah!” Johnny exclaimed. “They feel fine… wow, I can’t believe you fixed em…” he grinned. “For a minute there… I thought you were gonna take them apart or throw them at me or something.” He turned and called back to one of his friends. “Told ya he’s not so bad…”

“Not so bad…” Komui echoed weakly.

“Nothing… nothing exploded? So you didn’t get blown up… Johnny’s still alive?” the man in the hat sniggered. “Can I still have your headphones?”

“Tapp!” the boy shouted in mock outrage. The easy way they talked made Komui smile.

“I’m sure I can blow something up if that’s what everyone’s waiting for.” He offered and glanced around his desk for something readily combustible.

“No!” Johnny shouted. “We’re fine really, so yeah the General wants to see you. You know which room is his right?” Komui nodded and quickly hurried away from the odd stares of his coworkers.

He didn’t like the walk from the science department room to the living quarters; it took him past the coffins. Usually he tried to rush past without looking, but today he stopped. Amid the sea of dead there was a small coffin; a child was sleeping there today. Komui’s insides twisted into a sharp knot. A Finder had thrown himself over it in his grief. In his mind’s eye he could imagine the tiny coffin of Lenalee and himself in the same position. It was all too real of a possibility. He was tempted to go to the man; instead he clenched his fists and forced himself to move on. There had to be better methods, better technology, something that could cut the unbearably high human cost.

The door to the General’s suite was open. Komui liked that about the man; his door was always open when he was around and everyone whether Exorcist, Finder or random staff was welcome. He rapped on the frame to announce his presence.

Lenalee was giggling wildly. Komui smiled at the sound. The pleasant voice of Froi Tiedoll echoed from the bedroom. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find them both there. His sister was tucked snuggly into the blankets while the General sat to the side with one of his many drawing pads.

“And this…” he turned the paper to the girl with a flourish. “Is what my cute little Yu would look like with a banana growing out his nose.” She squealed with laughter. “See… I think it’s a very good likeness too. Yu didn’t… I needed ten stitches for this picture alone…” he chuckled and waved Komui in. “But that was nothing compared to what he did after he saw…” he paused dramatically and waited for Komui to sit on the big bed by his sister. “THIS.”

Komui burst out loud laughing as the General flipped the page. The man was really quite the artist; his drawing showed Kanda as a cat complete with ears, bell and a stuffed mouse dangling from the corner of his scowling mouth. Pulling his laughter under control, Komui asked him what he had called him for.

“Lenalee…” he raised an eyebrow. “Tell your big brother why I called him here.” Her giggling stopped instantly; she sunk down to hide under the covers. “You want me to tell him?” she shook her head. “Are you going to tell him?” she shook her head again and rolled over to face away from him. “Then I will.” Some of the humor left his eyes and Komui shifted nervously. “She put one of her trainers in the hospital today.” He swatted her backside through the blanket with his drawing pad. “This is supposed to be punishment remember?” she mumbled something. “Confined to her quarters… which somehow turned to hiding in mine.” He stood and motioned Komui to follow. “Young lady, you stay here and think about what you did…” there was no anger in his voice.

Tiedoll shut the door so he could continue to speak with Komui. “She was… distraught.” He explained. “Yu brought her to my room; she still goes to him first. She was near hysterical.” He sat on one of the many overstuffed chairs and rubbed his face. “Komui… son, have a seat.”

“Its more than just being in trouble isn’t it?” he asked, a sinking feeling was quickly replacing the bright flare of jealously that came with knowing Lenalee still went to others for comfort instead of always coming to him.

“Two things really… The Order has decided that she’s ready for the field.”

Komui crumbled. “Noo…” she’s too young… she’s too small. She can’t possible be expected to fight… they have child size coffins… “She’ll die out there…”

“Have a little more faith in her abilities. I think it’s too early too.” Tiedoll soothed. “I’m trying to get her placed in my unit… or at least with someone I know and trust to protect her. I’m not going to let any of my children go out there alone.”

“There’s a dead child in the hall… what about that one?” Komui hissed bitterly.

“He wasn’t alone. Sometimes these things happen… sometimes all the precautions in the world don’t help. I knew the boy… was his cousin still out there?”

“There was a Finder…”

“Ah…” the General sighed. “I told him to go get some rest. We have an Exorcist imbedded at Our Lady of Perpetual Grace and Innocence. I’ll get the lad sent out there… there’s not much going on out there and it will give him a chance to rest.”

“She’s still a child…” Komui moaned again. This couldn’t be real; he hoped his mind had drifted off and he was really still sitting at his desk in the science department.

“Sometimes all we can do is trust in God…” Tiedoll said gently.

“I don’t believe in your god!” Komui snapped back.

The man still smiled, not the least bit insulted. “That’s alright… He believes in you.” Something in the way the man spoke made Komui’s stomach knot. As always the General sounded so sure of himself. “God is a difficult subject here… I always thought that was odd since we are under the jurisdiction of Mother Church. Hardly anyone believes here, so there’s no pressure for faith. If you’re ever interested in knowing our Lord, ask away. I lead Mass on Sunday mornings whenever I’m here.” Komui looked at him without understanding. Tiedoll smiled pleasantly. “You didn’t know? I was a priest long before I became an Exorcist. I think I’m one of the only ones in the Order.”

“I know a little bit about your god…” Komui mumbled, not wanting to seem completely uninformed. A good supervisor should know something of everything he told himself. The General smiled encouragingly so he stumbled through the explanation of Christmas as Misha had given it and the first few words of the Lord’s Prayer.

“That’s wonderful.” The kind smile on the General’s face made Komui nervous. He couldn’t quite tell if the man was making fun of him or not. “Who was teaching you? They did a very good job.”

Komui didn’t answer. He kept his time with Misha secret; it didn’t feel like something he should share. “Wait… you said there were two things we needed to talk about. I don’t think religion was one of them.”

The General sighed. “It’s gotten around to the higher ups that you are indeed Lenalee’s brother. They want to test you for compatibility.” He leaned back in his chair. “This is just my advice now… go to Heb and get tested; don’t wait for them to order you. They will be less likely to make a big deal of it if you take the initiative and can say ‘I’m not compatible. I already checked.’ When they bring it up.”

Komui nodded numbly. It was just one more thing to do. He added it to his mental list just as his stomach growled loudly.

General Tiedoll chuckled. “Go have lunch, son. We need your brain working full steam.” Komui smiled weakly and left.

He didn’t go to the cafeteria, instead he ignored the gnawing in his stomach and went back to his work station. Everyone was gone. The silence of the room helped him relax and get something done. He fiddled with a set of gears and tried to make something vaguely spider-shaped walk across his desk for the fun of it. He was of half a mind to try and make a robot. The little set of spider legs gave out and he decided that maybe he did need food.

The dining hall was full, staff, Finders and the occasional black suited Exorcist all talking and eating at their tables. Komui looked around miserably for an empty place. He didn’t feel comfortable being around so many people; he just wanted to eat quickly and get out.

“Hey!” a voice called out over the general din of the massive room. “Komui! Over here!” it was the glasses boy, standing on his chair and waving. Komui looked around as if there could be anyone else with the same name, sure that the boy didn’t mean him. Weakly, he pointed to himself to make sure. “Yeah, I… we saved you a seat!”

Komui ignored the people looking at him as he walked over to the table. Setting his tray down, he tried again to remember the glasses boy’s name. “Thank you…” the boy smiled and straightened his shirt. He proudly showed a name tag with ‘JOHNNY’ printed on it in big letters, under was phonetic Chinese characters. “Johnny.” Komui said with relief. Johnny gestured to everyone else at the table. They all wore nametags written in Johnny’s bold print. Komui read each of them and thanked them personally for letting him sit with them.

As usual the Australian ignored him. He had obviously refused Johnny’s nametag efforts. Of the entire science department, he was the only one who seemed to directly take offence to Komui’s existence. For reasons unknown he hated him. Komui stayed out of his way.

“So…” Johnny started uncertainly. “Did you really make that custard farting robot in the kitchen?”

“Yeah.” Komui smiled nervously. An invisible dam burst amongst the table and he was suddenly flooded with questions of every topic.

“Did you come up with the new Talisman design?”

“Are you really Lenalee’s brother?”

“What was all that purple smoke from?”

“Did you really work with Petrova? Was she as scary as everyone says?”

Komui laughed and happily answered everything asked of him. It was something like a conversation and it made him smile. Despite all the bad news he’d heard today, his mood brightened considerably. At least they were talking to him.

“Here’s a question for you…” the Australian stood abruptly. “Did you get to Central by your talent as a scientist?” he glared at Komui. “Or by your talent sucking cock?”

The table fell silent. They had all heard the rumors. Komui didn’t answer, he couldn’t.