She seemed pleased by his acceptance as she held his arm lightly, and Mercury raised herself up on her toes to say something quietly in Kanda's ear that had nothing to do with Lavi at all, despite having been the one to bring him up. Nor was this the time and place at all when she pressed her lips to his in an eager, passionate kiss and slid her tongue inside his mouth to taste him first.

"I love you," she told him, and that's when the smile turned crafty and stretched as she added one word to chill the blood: "Exorcist."

This was not something Mercury would ever call him. In the same moment, her free hand gripped something sharp, and deadly: the sword she always carried. She stabbed Kanda in his side, as if to impale him, using her grip on his other arm for leverage. She clutched it tightly with an inhuman strength.