That Butler, New Face

That Butler, Shadowing

"Soma and Agni stayed out so late last night... They must be looking really hard for Mina," Chêne said, sighing sympathetically, as she thought of how worried they must be for their missing friend, and she arranged everything they would need for Ciel's morning tea on the serving cart. Sebastian was currently ironing the newspaper, a little trick that helped not only make the paper nice and crisp, but it kept the ink from rubbing off on Ciel's hands, and getting smudged all over the place. She noticed that something seemed to have caught his attention. "What is it?" Chêne asked curiously as she walked over to his side.

"I think our guests were definitely out looking for something..." Sebastian said as he held up the newspaper for her to see.

"!" Chêne said, gasping in surprise. She sighed. "Trouble sure does have a way of finding us, doesn't it?" Chêne asked, sweat-dropping and smiling wryly, hoping things hadn't just taken a turn for the worse.

=†=†=†=†=

KACHAK.

"Pardon us, Sir..." Sebastian said as he opened the door to Ciel's bedroom. "Oh? Your being awake at this hour is quite unusual," he remarked, slightly surprised to see Ciel sitting up in bed, wide-awake.

"Whoa! Ciel woke up early!? This has to be one of the seven signs of the apocalypse!" Chêne said dramatically in mock horror.

"I don't want to hear that from the one responsible for it!" Ciel snapped back, chagrined.

"What? How am I to blame for your insomnia?" Chêne asked, tilting her head slightly in confusion.

"Tch! I couldn't sleep well because I was too damned irritated," Ciel said, vein mark throbbing on his forehead as Sebastian handed him that day's newspaper. "Those two didn't get back till late last night, after all." He said grumpily as he unfolded the newspaper and opened it up to read it. "I mean, what in the—!" Ciel's eyes widened slightly in surprise, and he furrowed his brow as he read the headline.

ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS ATTACK!
A Coffeehouse in Piccadilly Circus severely damaged!

It had happened again.

=†=†=†=†=

{Ciel's Study in the townhouse}

"—Well! Let's be frank, that duo has seemed terribly dodgy from the start~!" Lau said, smiling, as he read the newspaper and watched Ciel as he opened his mail. The stack of letters Sebastian was holding was thicker than a Webster's Dictionary.

"Quite," Ciel said, grimacing slightly, as he picked up yet another invitation. "Every time I come to London I can't go a day without one of these..." Ciel mumbled, chagrined, as he opened the unwanted invitation. "However, I can't fathom why they would cause those incidents."

"I'm usually a pretty good judge of character, and I didn't get the feeling either of them would do something like this... Soma might be annoying, but I think he and Agni are good people," Chêne said thoughtfully. "But it is possible that their search for 'Mina' is a lie... I mean, who would really travel halfway across the world to search for a person with only that... thing... to go by?" Chêne said, referring to Soma's drawing, and sweat-dropping. When she had shown it to people while she was Christmas shopping, all she had gotten for her trouble was a few strange looks, and absolutely no information.

"Indeed. Going by that behavior, the theory of a grudge against colonial rule seems weak at best," Ciel agreed, thinking back on Soma and Agni's annoying, but relatively harmless behavior since they met. "Even if they think ill of Anglo-Indians, attacking them indiscriminately entails too much risk."

"Also, Agni and Soma are very religious, and Hindus believe in the power of non-violence and peace. Hinduism promotes peace, love kindness, hospitality, humanity and love. If I were them, even if I was planning to attack someone, it would be the creep who took my friend, not innocent bystanders..." Chêne added.