AOI (Art Of Innocence)

Chapter 3

"You're an idiot, Chloe! Seriously? You thought it would be a good idea to sneak into the Gurei establishment? Do you even hear yourself?"

The red haired girl, Chloe, shook her head. "I don't care, Mari. I do what I want. That bastard hadn't returned the book."

Mari, Chloe's red haired sister, sighed deeply. "what are we going to do about Aoi Kagami? Aiden wants to kill him tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?"

"I dunno, ask the genius. Probably has some plan to make his death flamboyant or something."

Chloe let out a sigh, leaning on her elbow on the wooden table. "where's he keeping him then?"

"Down in the basement."

"Classy"

Cedric stood, invisible, by the bookshelf of the gigantic library. He sneaked up to the doors and knocked three times, before Victoria, Raphael and Ryuu barged inside, falling on top of each other at the entrance. There were a few others at the library, but everyone had their eyes set on the trio. Ryuu lifted up his head a bit, and put his thumb up with a smile "hehe..."

~

"The hell are you idiots doing here?" Mari glared at them as they stood in front of her.

Victoria smiled "well... we just came here to find a book... yes."

Raphael nodded "you don't have the collection of Levitan Chronicles by any chance?"

Mari sighed, "yeah. Follow me"

Cedric wandered across the isles. This guy was looking through a book, and Cedric thought it would be a good idea to snatch his hat and put it on. To his surprise, he didn't even realize, so he kept moving on.

He wondered where this basement could be. There would surely be a back door. He spotted it behind a bookshelf. It was locked.

Cedric pulled out two hair grips from his own hair, and fiddled them into the lock, eventually unlocking it and letting the door swing forward. There was a set of stairs leading down to what he guessed was the basement.

turning visible again, he idly shut the door behind him and allowed his flame to show him the way down. Soon he saw Aoi. He was facing away from him, but he was standing.

"Oh, there you are. Let's get you out of here!" Cedric smiled.

Aoi turned around, looking at him, but he didn't look surprised. "what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to get you out, of course."

"Why?" Aoi looked at him, a small smile appearing on his face, "I deserve to be killed." His smile seemed so genuine, but his eyes showed nothing but sorrow, and it was suddenly clear to Cedric how hard it was for this boy. This boy who wasn't able to touch anyone because of his disastrous power that he wasn't able to control.

"Right. You're coming with me, like it or not," Cedric suddenly picked him up by his waist, holding him with one arm as the other struggled. "Don't touch me!" he tried to pull away.

"Stop being so paranoid," Cedric smiled and hummed a bit, as he walked upstairs and shut the door behind him, then hid behind a bookshelf when seeing Chloe walk past. "now we gotta concentrate on not getting caught. So shush for a minute whilst I think of a plan."

Aoi sunk a bit, letting out a small sigh of submission.

"But that's volume three. I wanted volume one." Raphael crossed his arms a bit as Mari rolled her eyes at him. "volume one hasn't been brought back yet."

Victoria looked behind her, trying to locate Cedric, or... some sort of trouble that would indicate it's him. Cedric took a chance at running past the clueless customers, whilst Mari wasn't looking, before he crashed straight into Aiden, who looked at him with calm serenity, and yet he knew that he was fucked.

That's when Victoria wrapped her arms around Aiden from behind, and leaned into his ear seductively, her fingers playing with his shirt, "let them go, and I'll give you a small reward" she smirked a bit, as Aiden turned his head, gazing into her brilliant eyes, before nodding a little.

Cedric ran out of the library, kicking his legs up with each step and gripping onto his new hat.

"You fool!" Mari growled, as she walked up to Aiden. Victoria slipped out unnoticed with Raphael and Ryuu. "You complete ass. How could you have fallen for that whore?" she slapped him. "Now we lost him again." she sighed. "If we attack Kuroi again we might not be able to come out alive."

Aiden looked away. "I promise you, next time we will kill him on the spot."