~~Third Person POV~~
Tanaka wrote in his log book as follows:
This is the second fire we've had since I began serving the Phantomhives. All I can do is document the story of this mansion. That is my role. However...
Tanaka closed the book.
"I suppose that is over now", Tanaka said allowed. He looked up at the room. It's ceiling was burnt to where only the main structure barely remained. It's walls were mostly burnt and very little of them remained. The door was half burnt and rubble littered the floor. He opened the door, walked out, and closed it again before he began making his way down the hallway as he usually would.
~~Claire's POV~~
"Strong wind today, eh?"
"Aye, and it ain't natural how warm it is either. We may see rough waters tonight."
"I hope we get to London soon..."
That was the conversation between two men as they walked past us. Ciel and I were hidden between crates as stowaways. Ciel relaxed after they had passed, but we both tensed when we heard something behind us and turned around to see Undertaker, smiling.
"Found you, my lord", he said.
"Undertaker?!", Ciel and I exclaimed. We looked around a bit before stepping out of our hiding spot. Undertaker offered a jar with what looked like dog biscuits in it. I heard Ciel's stomach rumble in hunger before he went to reach for a biscuit. However, Undertaker pulled the jar away and ate a biscuit himself, irritating Ciel.
After a bit, Undertaker gave Ciel and I the jar and we sat on a crate while Undertaker explained how he was on the ship we were on as we ate.
"See, that fussy bloke Will captured me...", he explained. Ciel ate biscuit after biscuit while I ate some, but not as fast. "Apparently he'll be shorthanded in the London area, so he roped me into this by promising to waive my library fines."
"The London area?", Ciel asked.
"Yes, we have to collect a great many souls in London tonight", Undertaker replied. Our eyes widened.
"Look at that!"
"What is it?!"
We looked towards the commotion.
"Ah, so it's begun", Undertaker said. We made our way to where a crowd was gathered at the front of the ship and maneuvered through the crowd to see. Our eyes widened and we gasped once we saw what they were talking about. London itself was a horizon of what seemed like fire. Undertaker whistled in awe from beside us. "They certainly put on quite the show! I must be on my way." Undertaker began to walk away before Ciel turned towards him. I stayed and looked at the scene before me. The burning horizon of London.
~~Ciel's POV~~
"Wait!", I called and went to catch up to him. "Why did you come here?"
"You and I have a lot of history together", Undertaker said. "So I thought I'd give you fair warning: My lord, in just a little while..." Undertaker turned his head to look back at me. "...you will die." My eyes widened and my thoughts immediately went to Claire.
We both knew this would happen sooner or later, but... it's too soon for her...
"What do you mean...?", I asked.
"No!"
I turned to see a woman crying and when I turned to face Undertaker again, he was gone. I looked around myself for him, but he was nowhere to be found.
"You will die." is what he had said.
Sebastian isn't with me anymore. Which means the death awaiting me will be...
I reached up and touched my eye patch.
"...in vain", I said to myself.
"What's in vain?", Claire asked as she approached me from where she stood. I faced her quickly.
"Oh, nothing. It's nothing", I assured her.
I... can't bring myself to tell her...
We looked back at the burning city.
The hatred and pain are burning out. Everything is burning away. Burning away...
~~Third Person POV~~
On the burning streets, a baby's cry could be heard as it lay in its blanket in its deceased mother's arms in an alley. Grell walked up and knelt down, rubbing its cheek.
"It hurts, doesn't it? You're suffering, aren't you?", he asked the child. "Sorry, but I can't finish you off." He stood up and walked away from the corpse and her child and back onto the burning streets. "Oh, how busy I am..." Grell frowned as he heard a roar amongst the screaming and he turned his head in its direction. "Oh, how revolting that is." He then turned away and walked down the deserted, dark, burned street as ashes drifted through the air.
In the castle, Ash was informing the Queen of what was going on in the city.
"Your Majesty, the salvation of the land through holy flame has begun", he said.
"I see...", she replied. She was laying in bed as Ash watched out the window before turning to her with a smile.
"Isn't it wonderful to finally greet the England of the next century, the proud and unpolluted country we aimed for?", Ash asked. The Queen groaned in discomfort and pain, turning Ash's expression from happy to serious. "What's the matter, Your Majesty? Ever since we returned from Paris, you've seemed to be in poor health." She removed the covers from herself and sat up.
"Ash, look. It hurts", she said as she unbuttoned the outer layer of her nightgown and Ash stepped closer. She removed the outer layer to reveal rotting flesh the middle of her upper arms to her neck and over her chest, the stitches still visible from where she and her beloved husband had been joined. Ash glared. "It hurts."
"Forgive this intrusion", Ash said before he touched at the neck of the rotting flesh, moved his finger down, and pulled it away. The flesh came with his finger for a bit almost like a goo. "It's begun to fester and rot." He removed his glove from his right hand and, when he released the glove, it disappeared in blue flames. "I shall perform a cleansing for you." The Queen looked up at him before covering the rotting skin with her hands.
"No!", she said. "Leave his body as it is. Leave it as it was that day."
"But Your Majesty...", Ash began as he reached out to her. She looked back at him.
"He doesn't need cleansing. He's magnificent just as he is", she insisted. She grabbed the cuff of his sleeve with one hand. "Do something for him, Ash. Help my–"
"I smell it", Ash interrupted darkly. She looked up at him and saw a dark, glare-like expression on his face as he looked down at her. "You... are unclean." The Queen looked at him in question.
<Time Skip>
Ash stood straight and spread his wings on the balcony outside the Queen's room before flying off.
"She may be the Queen, but in the end she is only human", he said to himself. "How foolish... And how sad. All the tears of this corrupt land stem from the moment humans were divided into male and female. No matter how much mercy we show, in the end humans can never be good enough." A tears fell from Ash's eyes as he spoke and headed towards London. "Humans can never..."
However, at the castle, the Queen was sitting up in her bed still, her hands over the rotting flesh as if it were something precious. And, to her, it was.
"Albert is falling down, falling down, falling down", she sang as tears of blood fell from her eyes and the skin began to fall apart in places with sickening squishes. "Albert is falling down, my dear darling." She took the piece that had fallen off in her hand and brought it to her cheek lovingly, smiling softly while she cried, her eyes remaining closed.
~~Claire's POV~~
Ciel was standing with wide eyes and it worried me. He was obviously thinking about something important, but he wouldn't tell me. Suddenly, the ship took a sharp turn away from London and Ciel grabbed my hand before running to a man that I assumed worked aboard the ship.
"What are you doing?!", Ciel asked.
"We can't go back to London like this", he replied. "We'll have to hang about these waters for a while and–"
"What?! We're almost there!", Ciel interrupted. He looked back towards the waters and I followed his gaze to see another ship heading straight for London. "Fine. We'll go on that ship. Get us a rowboat!"
"For one boy and girl? Now, if you had money, that would be another story...", the man trailed off as he turned away and crossed his arms with a smug look.
"Don't play games with me!", Ciel yelled. "We have to get back to London or–" Ciel cut himself off and relaxed a bit in thought. After a moment, he spoke again. "Who am I now?"
I gave him a confused look. "What do you mean, Ciel?", I asked.
"Look, kids, I'm busy, so how about you get– Huh?", the man said, cutting himself off as Ciel began to chuckle. His chuckle grew into open laughter. The man stepped back a bit. "Wh-What's wrong with you?!"
Without a second thought, Ciel slipped his ring off his thumb and held it out to the man, who jumped back a little when Ciel held it out.
"Take this", he said.
"Ciel?", I questioned.
But... that ring is so precious to him... Why give it up now?
The man carefully took a closer look at the ring. "W-Wow! Look at that shine!", he exclaimed as the gem sparkled in the moonlight.
"It's a blue diamond. You don't see one of these every day", Ciel explained. The man looked at Ciel with wide eyes.
"Hey, what's a kid like you doing with something like this?!", he asked. Ciel glared at him.
"Just give us a rowboat!", he demanded. I watched Ciel's expressions and actions worriedly by his side.
Ciel... I'm starting to worry...
<Time Skip>
We arrived in London shortly after and got off the ship along with its original passengers.
"Look, here they come!", a man in a group of angry people said as they approached.
"Are you a Frenchman and woman?!", another asked. A man grabbed Ciel's shoulder while another grabbed mine.
"Take off your clothes!", he demanded. Ciel pulled away from the man and pulled me away from the other man quickly.
"Let go! What are you doing?!", he asked them.
"You bloody French started this fire!", one man answered. Our eyes widened. "You're trying to start a war with England!" Ciel's eyes widened further and I wondered if Lau's words came back to him, too.
"Hold on, that's–", Ciel began, but was cut off by what sounded like an older man's scream.
"It's another frog!", one of the men yelled before they all ran at the man and tackled him to the ground before proceeding to beat him while a woman stood nearby, horrified.
"Stop it! Stop it!", she pleaded in a yell while she cried. But the men didn't stop. Ciel and I watched and I was sure we were both wondering what was happening before us. But Ciel was quick to recover from the confusion and he grabbed my hand before running towards the streets of London. We stopped once the fire was visible.
"What is this...?", Ciel asked. Buildings were burning like they were nothing, fire on both sides of the streets as people ran away desperately. Two men fighting for a briefcase on the streets.
"Hey!"
"Give me that!"
The man who was standing hit the other in the head and ran off with the briefcase. On another part of the street, a girl sat beside her mother's corpse and cried, a suitcase in front of the two. Ciel and I watched the total chaos before Ciel was bumped into roughly and fell over, knocking me down with him since I was beside him. Once on the ground, we could see the corpse of a man, people trampling it as if it weren't there at all. I found myself wondering if we had somehow wound up in Hell instead of London. Ciel stood up slowly and then helped me up.
"Are you all right?", he asked me. I nodded slowly, the situation around me horrific to the point that it nearly made me feel physically sick. Once Ciel had made sure I was fine, he gripped my hand tightly before sluggishly leading me into the hellish fiery streets of London.
~~Third Person POV~~
While walking through the streets, Ciel himself accidentally stepped on the arm of a dead man. On top of a building, was a man watching the two.
"There they are", Ash said as he observed. "So the boy and girl are back in London. Most impressive! Well, what do you think of the view?" Ash looked back at the person he was speaking to, who was clad in all black.
~~Claire's POV~~
Ciel and I continued down the streets in a daze before we noticed pebbles falling from above us. We looked up just in time to see a stone line jutting out crumble and part of it start to fall down towards us.
"Look out!", two voices called before Ciel and I were tackled out of the way. I looked up and saw Mey-Rin and Furenzu. They were the first to sit up.
"What's the matter with you, yes?!", Mey-Rin asked before she stopped and adjusted her glasses before she realized who we were. "Y-Young master! Claire!" Ciel's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the two.
"What are you two doing here?!", Ciel asked.
"Are the others here, too?!", I asked. Mey-Rin quickly stood and took a step back before lowering her head.
"I apologize, my lord, yes!", she said. She bowed repeatedly. "It's my job to protect the mansion, yes, but... but... I..." Furenzu nodded.
"Hogo and the others are here and so are Finny and Bard", he said. "Tanaka might be somewhere around here, too." Ciel stood up before he held out a hand to help me up and then lifted a hand to tell Mey-Rin to calm down.
"Calm down. I'm not criticizing you. Please, tell me why you're here", he said. Mey-Rin had tears in her eyes.
"It's Plu-Plu!", she said.
"Pluto?", Ciel asked.
Furenzu looked at me as the two spoke to each other. "Is something wrong? Something seems off", he said. I nodded.
"Yes, I'm fine. This chaos is just making me feel a little sick", I confessed. Furenzu furrowed his brows.
"Have you noticed anything while you were in Paris?", he asked. I thought for a moment and then shook my head.
"No, I haven't", I said.
~~Third Person POV~~
"Any comments?", Ash asked the person again. Sebastian looked at him blankly, his expression leaning more towards a glare.
"Compared to the Great Fire of London in 1666, this blaze seems very slow-spreading", he replied.
"You're right", Ash agreed. "Once uncleanliness and vice take hold, it's extremely difficult to do away with them. However, when this fire burns everything away, the long-awaited door will appear on the clean land!" Ash lifted his arms to be nearly perpendicular to his body, causing the flames behind him to rise. "I shall open the door to the new century." Sebastian did not respond and simply looked down at the scene unfolding.
'Checkmate is fast approaching', he thought. 'What will you do, young master?'
~~Claire's POV~~
Soon, Ciel had grabbed my hand and we were running through the streets with Mey-Rin and Furenzu.
"We've been trying to do what we can to stop the fire, but... this fire doesn't seem normal", Furenzu said as we ran. "Nothing we do effects it."
"Not even Hana's powers or yours?", I asked. He shook his head.
"Water hasn't worked so far and when I try to put it out with my powers nothing happens as if I hadn't done a thing", he replied.
What kind of fire is this?
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A/N
What's up guys!! So, I did decide to update today (Wednesday)/early. The next chapter will be up Sunday as usual (United States time), but I'm not sure if I will update on Wednesday again or not. We will have to find out!
Don't forget to vote, comment, share, ask questions, etc!