D.Gray-man // Leftover Angels // 02. Wake
Characters/Pairings: Ensemble cast. Focus: Kanda/Alma, Allen, 14th/Hevlaska.
Rating: T
Warnings: Character death, violence, a dozen kinds of blasphemy.
Word Count: 26,239 (this chapter: 4459)
Summary: Allen's "death" during the fight with Alma sets off a chain of unexpected and deeply strange consequences which bring up questions about the nature of God himself. Hevlaska goes missing, Crown Clown returns without its owner, and angels and demons work together against a common enemy. While grieving for Alma, Kanda must figure out what's going on and which side he should be fighting for... if any.
Notes: Previous: 01. Innocence
02. Wake
Kanda emerged into a hushed landscape of death and ruin. Order members moved here and there, slow and clumsy with broken limbs and torn flesh and pain, helping each other to crawl to the Ark and safety.
There was no sign of the Earl, or the Noah, or the Level Four Akuma.
Or Allen.
During the long walk back through the Ark, he had felt almost restful. His path was clear, the only thing left to do was walk on it. Simple. Clear. Easy. But now his stomach twisted in on itself in unwelcome but familiar confusion, knotting itself up painfully and bringing him back into the harsh light of day from the calm place he had found for those few short minutes.
The Earl had left without slaughtering them. That was good, probably. But where was Allen? He recalled the warped smile he had seen on Allen's face after being wounded with Mugen, the dark shadows crawling across his skin, and suddenly wanted to double over and vomit. He knew what was wrong, where his comrade had gone and why, and it was all his fault. He inhaled carefully three times and steeled himself, flattened his face out to the expressionless monotone of a soldier, and took stock of the situation.
Like a tall, menacing sheepdog, Rouvelier was rounding up the survivors and gathering them beside the Ark with impressive speed. Almost everyone had to lean on somebody else just to walk. A great number had to be carried, one at a time, sobbing in agony as their splintered bones and torn flesh jostled each other. The Epstein woman was alive, as was Bak Chan. Old man Zhu had exhausted himself healing the traitor's leg and could not be woken, but his heart still beat. A good dozen others were irreversibly dead.
Lying half-submerged in one of the rubble-filled pools, he spotted Mugen's battered hilt. It looked even worse in his hand, held up to the light -- corrugated chunks were missing from the edge, and the entire blade was warped slightly to the left. It was a mess, but it would have to hold up. He wasn't finished yet.
"Kanda Yuu," Rouvelier snapped. "Are you fit for battle?"
Numbly, he assessed himself: seven broken ribs; broken clavicle; four internal organs on the left side lacerated beyond recognition and only halfway done knitting themselves back together; innumerable cuts and bruises; a loud, disorienting ring in his right ear. His face still felt a bit melted, too. His leg was at least firmly reattached and his innards had been in much worse shape half an hour ago. "No, sir," he replied honestly. "My functionality is at twenty percent of normal at best. I will need time to regenerate. About an hour."
Rouvelier's eyebrows drew together. "Unacceptable. We must pursue the Noah clan with all haste, and you are the only Exorcist here. We need you."
Kanda shrugged. "You should have had them build my body better, then. This is as fast as it goes."
Rouvelier stalked over to him and backhanded him viciously across the face. "If you hadn't lost control of yourself, you wouldn't be in this condition. It's shameful. We expect better from Exorcists. I certainly expected better from you, after your years of impressive service. Especially--"
For a moment, Kanda wondered why Rouvelier had gone silent. Then he realized that it was because he had raised Mugen's point and pressed it to the inspector's thick throat, one deep breath away from drawing blood. "If you want to give orders," he said wearily, "do it. Don't waste your time or mine lecturing me."
Rouvelier swallowed, hard, unable to stop himself. Mugen met his saggy skin and sank in an eighth of an inch, leaving a little red slit. A bead of blood slipped out and coursed down behind the inspector's dirty starched collar. Having made his point, Kanda withdrew his blade and considered standing up.
As if nothing had happened, Rouvelier cleared his throat and turned to the rest of the group. "We have insufficient firepower to pursue the Noah clan at this time. We will retreat to Headquarters and recover while we attempt to track their course and intended destination. We will also use that time to gather all Exorcists in from the field and debrief them on today's events. We will remain on high alert unless further information comes to light. Those of you who can walk, assist with the transportation of the dead. Though the Earl appears to have retreated for today, that does not mean he will not return before we are ready for him. We must maintain our usual precautions. Wenhamm."
"Present, sir," Reever croaked. He was half-carrying Johnny, who couldn't seem to lift his head.
"I'll leave debriefing Komui to you. Miss Epstein?"
"Unconscious, sir," said the scientist kneeling at her side. "Looks like something gave her a good ding round the noggin."
"Chan?"
"Incapacitated, sorry to say," Bak groaned ruefully from somewhere across the little knot of people.
Kanda remembered his legs, the way they had been bent in all the wrong places, the jagged protuberances of glistening bone, his wide-eyed green pallor as he struggled to stay conscious. There was not enough pain in his voice now to reflect that. Kanda wondered how and where he had learned to suppress pain like that, or if he had drugged himself out of it already. Maybe he was just dying and hadn't realized it yet, or he had realized and figured there was no point making a groany fuss about it. Kanda could respect that.
"Understood. All right, be on your guard. Double file through the Ark. Whoever is fittest, run ahead and alert the medical staff on arrival."
Obediently, the ragtag bundle of broken people shuffled into the Ark and vanished. Kanda still had not stood up. The pool beside him -- where Alma had slept through nine years, torn up and kept from healing -- was full of splintered concrete boulders that had once been part of the ceiling. The reflection of the thin grey sky glimmered in its clear waters like mercury. Had Alma dreamed? Had he felt anything? When they cut him open and stirred eggshells into his guts, had he felt it? Had he known what they were making him into, as if he hadn't already done more than enough, gone so far above and beyond--
Enough, he thought. Enough. There was nothing more he could do for Alma until he found the Noah clan and made them talk. Dwelling on Alma's past would do him no good in the present.
"Exorcist! March!" Rouvelier snapped.
The sterile white city inside the Ark had until today been oddly comforting to him. He had come here several times without reason in the past few weeks, just to listen to the quiet and catch his breath. Today, it gave him no solace at all. The white streets were stained with the blood of the Order, bits of Alma's black glassy flesh crunched underfoot, and he could almost smell the Noah in the air. He walked straight through without hesitation, catching up to Rouvelier just in time to walk through the door to Headquarters with him.
The sound hit them like a physical blow. The place was in an uproar. Medics and those healthy enough to run bolted sloppily through the halls with their arms full of bandages and bottles, avoiding each other mostly by sheer luck. There was something strange, though. There were too many of them, too much haste, for the paltry two dozen wounded they had brought back. Headquarters had a medical staff equipped and prepared to deal with nearly a hundred casualties at once without breaking a sweat, but here they were, milling about like panicked sheep.
"What is going on here?" Rouvelier snapped, grabbing the arm of a harried young man with dark hair and yanking him out of the flow. "Explain."
"Attack," panted the orderly, "one hundred and twenty-four staff wounded, fifteen dead, hospital wing collapsed. Have to go, sorry--" And he was gone, tearing down the hallway on staggering feet.
Rouvelier stared after him. "Attack...?" he echoed. "Here? They dared?" He sounded almost surprised, as if he had expected the enemy to wait for them to properly regroup and put up a fight. The Earl had spoiled them. He had sprung surprise attacks on them, of course, but had generally retreated for a while after each one, as if acting in the spirit of fair play. The Fourteenth, it seemed, had no such sense of sportsmanship.
Snagging another orderly, Kanda leaned in close enough to hear without shouting. "What was their objective?" he asked, though he was afraid he already knew. Confirmation was needed before any action could be decided on.
The orderly stared at him like he was an idiot. "Basement," he said, "see for yourself."
Rouvelier didn't need to be told twice. He strode at a near-run, plowing a path through the busy hallways like a train. Kanda followed close behind him, in the empty pocket created by his sweeping presence. The elevators, mercifully, still worked. They plummeted down into the heart of the London base like dropped stones, slowing only when they reached the subterranean cavern they had reinstalled Hevlaska in after the move.
Hevlaska was not there. Her great stone platform sat empty, and her massive iron shackles lay in heavy coils on the floor.
Rouvelier ground his teeth and clenched his fists, face reddening, rage building through every line of his body, but something was strange, something was off, they were missing something--
Kanda squinted, then ran out of the elevator and hoisted himself up onto the platform. His eyes hadn't lied. The platform was not empty after all. "Inspector, I think you had better come see this," he said.
After helping Rouvelier up onto the platform, they stood together and stared at what sat at the center of the great stone circle: an enormous white sword with a steel cross emblazoned across its breadth, driven into the rock with inhuman strength. Allen's sword. The Order's pale Excalibur. He couldn't use it anymore, Kanda realized. The Fourteenth was a Noah. The sword was Innocent, forged to destroy his kind. It would not turn on its maker's soldiers. Remembering what Allen had told him of Suman Dark's fate, Kanda couldn't blame the Noah for abandoning it before it turned on him.
The sword, remarkable as it was, was easily explained. The white, glassy cubes piled in five neat stacks around it were not.
"I don't understand," Rouvelier whispered.
Neither did Kanda. Nearly two dozen cubes of Innocence, priceless weapons in the war against the Noah, left lying on the floor like children's playing blocks. Why take the guardian, but not the guarded treasure? What use was Hevlaska to the Noah if they were no longer interested in the Innocence? It would only have taken them moments to destroy them all, reduce them to useless dust. It didn't make any sense. Nothing made sense anymore. Kanda stared, and stared, but no answers were immediately obvious.
"Perhaps they believe they would reconstitute themselves, as Walker's did, and Lenalee Lee's," Rouvelier postulated uncertainly.
Kanda shook his head. "No. If they thought that, they'd have taken it with them. Maybe they thought it would self-activate and attack them?"
Now it was Rouvelier's turn to shake his head. "They would only need to continue destroying it. It could not attack them while it reconstituted itself. At least one of them is versed in various magicks, as well. I am certain they could find a way to hold it dormant, given time and safety. It would have been a heavy blow to us. We no longer have the luxury of searching for lost Innocence. We must make do with what we have, and we could not make more Exorcists if we were to lose the Innocence yet umatched with a user."
Doing a quick mental count, Kanda came up horrifyingly short: only twelve Exorcists remained active. Of those, two were untrained, one had no offensive capabilities, one was too gravely injured to fight, and most of the rest were exhausted. The Finder ranks had been severely depleted in the hunt for the Generals, and were not very useful in combat situations anyway.
Eight. Eight Exorcists to fight twelve well-rested, well-organized Noahs and their army of Akuma. Even if the Earl was too busy to make more -- which Kanda severely doubted, the man seemed capable of being in more than one place at a time -- Japan was probably still full of them, and the Noahs had brought at least four Level Fours to the fight in America, none of which had died. He had been too busy killing Alma and Allen to bother with the real threat. His throat clenched with bitter self-hatred, but he had no time for it. Not yet.
A strange thought occurred to Kanda. "Maybe they're poisoned somehow."
Rouvelier turned his narrow black eyes on Kanda. "Poisoned?"
Uncomfortable with the entire line of thought, Kanda shrugged. "Like you said, some of them are magicians. They could have... tainted them, or laid traps, or something. Or maybe they're fakes."
"I will have the area quarantined until the science division has a chance to investigate," Rouvelier said decisively after a moment's cold pause. "We cannot afford to trust in gifts from the hands of demons. There is no hurry -- we have not found any compatibles to use these, so they are effectively useless at the moment in any case."
Rouvelier liked to state the obvious when he was unsettled, Kanda noted. He had always seemed a taciturn man, not given to words unless he had something to say, but for the last half hour he had spoken almost constantly, like the sound of his own voice drowned out the terrors in his head.
Cutting a neat salute, Kanda turned to leave.
"Where are you going, Exorcist?"
"To pursue the Earl of Millennium and his company," he said flatly.
The inspector evaluated him with a cold look. "Are you fit?" he asked at last.
Kanda shrugged. "Fit enough."
Struggle flickered on Rouvelier's face. It was clear to Kanda that he wanted nothing more than to give the go-ahead, but there was something holding him back. Perhaps the Head Generals had other plans for him. "No," he said at last, though it obviously pained him to do so. "You will wait one night. We will regroup the remaining Exorcists, attempt to repair your weapon, and deploy you as a group tomorrow morning."
Kanda gritted his teeth. "Their trail will be cold by then."
"Commendable as your enthusiasm is, I am forced to admit that sending you alone while you are damaged would be tantamount to throwing your valuable life away. There are too few of you left. If we are to win, we must be more conservative with our remaining resources. Also--" and here the inspector paused to visibly calm himself-- "I do not think we will find the Earl unless and until he wishes to be found." The words seemed to leave a sour taste in his mouth. His lips twisted around it.
"I understand," Kanda answered stiffly. "In that case, I am going to bed. I will heal more quickly if I rest."
Rouvelier nodded back, his face slowly reddening with the effort of standing by his decision.
The elevator door clicked shut between them, leaving Kanda alone with his thoughts.
Rouvelier was not an evil man, Kanda decided. Cruel, ruthless, entirely lacking in empathy, yes, but there was little actual malevolence in him. He used people like chess pieces, moved them about in little ordered plastic regiments in his mind, and paid no heed to the price in flesh because their hearts and souls were not important to victory. The war was his life, his passion, the winning of it his only dreaming wish. He would watch cities burn without remorse for a chance at taking down even one of the enemy for good.
Kanda almost liked him. He was honest, he never bothered with blame, and he never hesitated. Predictable. Easy to follow. But there was the matter of the Third Exorcists. Kanda did not make a habit of empathy for others, or for himself, but after what he had watched Alma suffer through, and suffered himself, and everything they had inflicted on each other... watching the Third in the room with them bloat and warp and scream, unable to fight off the assault from within, had made him a little sick. At least they had been volunteers, unlike he and Alma. That made it a little better. They had come to the battlefield willingly, ready to die.
They should not have been made. Hopefully this failure would ensure no one ever tried anything like them again. But at least they had been willing.
Alma's faces flashed across the corner of his left eye, their identical smiles curving away into the mist. How had he not seen it? Looking back, knowing the truth, it seemed obvious. Their irrepressible optimism in the heart of darkness, their playful humour and pranks, the core of shining strength which lay at the root of their soul, the way their smile made Kanda yearn for something, something he couldn't put a name to, something warm and close and wonderful -- putting Alma into the young artificial body they had made for her had changed nothing of her. Alma as he was now was broken, but the pieces were all still recognizable.
Whatever kind of person Kanda had been in his first life, he was quite sure of one thing now -- he had not come willing. There had been a life for him, one he had made for himself, with rainwashed gardens and blue skies and a woman with red, red lips who loved him, a life with a long, gentle future. They had torn him from it, brought him to their forges, beat him and quenched him until he became a hard blade and his flattened heart forgot how to bleed. They had taken an ordinary man with an ordinary life and made him a soldier, and when he died they had brought him back and made him a soldier again, this time taking out his heart entirely and replacing it with a reeking black lotus blossom.
And they had done the same to that man's lover. Those people were gone now, he knew, leaving whatever Kanda and Alma were now in their place. Perhaps if they had been left alone they could have lived four, five years in peace and joy before the end of the world. That it had taken this long was in part thanks to what the scientists had done to them, Kanda admitted, so they probably would not have gotten the full nine years. But they would have had some time. Maybe enough. Maybe...
He was fooling himself, he realized then. No amount of time would ever have been enough.
Cold metal touched and soothed his feverishly healing skin. Kanda realized he had slumped against the wall of the elevator and was shaking, barely managing to keep on his feet.
Two minutes later, the door clicked open and deposited him in the residential wing. His room here still smelled wrong, and the ceiling fan clicked and kept him awake many nights, but tonight he was too tired to be homesick for the tower by the sea.
Shucking his stiff, torn clothes, he briefly considered going straight to bed and sleeping with Alma's blood still crusted in his hair. Shuddering, he thought better of it and pulled a towel out of his bare closet. It would only take ten minutes, and would maybe save him a nightmare or two. This time of night, the showers would even probably be empty. It would be quiet and warm and peaceful and he wouldn't have to talk to anybody--
They weren't empty. Through the dim light and the steam, Kanda picked out a shock of red hair against the black tiles. He sighed. There was little chance Lavi would ignore him. Not with Allen... gone.
"Yuu?"
Sometimes, Kanda hated how often he was right. Hoping Lavi would get the hint, he stayed coldly silent and stepped under the furthest tap, cranking it up to maximum heat. The water started out cold, as always. He shuddered slightly under the icy rain, but it felt good. Numbing. Then the heat came, and scalded away whatever wouldn't freeze.
"Yuu," Lavi said again. "I heard what happened today at the North American Branch."
Grinding his teeth a little, Kanda kept his mouth shut and scrubbed himself as fast as he could manage. The hair was a problem. It would take ages to get all the muck out of it, but the thought of staying here was almost as awful as the thought of going to bed with a mop of hair full of battle detritus. He couldn't help taking work home with him, but he tried to keep it away from his sleep when he could.
"I'm sorry about Alma."
None of your business! Kanda almost yelled, stopping himself at the last moment.
Lavi was just trying to be supportive, a good friend... something anyone else in the building could have used more than Kanda in that moment. He didn't want to make an enemy of Lavi. He was good in a fight, could be trusted to have Kanda's back. But Kanda didn't want to be friends with him. The last time he'd stopped guarding and let someone else get near him, they'd gone mad and tried to kill him and ended up buried in a grave of shadows under unfamiliar city streets and it just wasn't something he did anymore. For good reason.
He was glad he'd managed to keep Allen at some kind of distance. Not far, not nearly as far as he should have, but just far enough to keep him from falling apart like a house of straw when what had happened with Allen today had... happened. So close. It had been so close. He had felt himself caving in the weeks and months before today, thawing a little, letting a little warmth creep into that stupid nickname. He had almost ruined himself all over again.
Then Lavi had to go and say "And as for Allen... we'll get him back. You know we will. He might even come back on his own, knowing him."
Knowing Allen, he was right. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if Allen walked right back through the Ark two days hence, alone in his body and completely intact, leaving a trail of Noah bodies behind him. Knowing Allen, he would smile like an idiot and apologize for causing trouble. Knowing Allen, he wouldn't hold the grudge he really ought to hold. Kanda had no idea how we would face him, if it came to that. At least Alma had come at him with a sword. Kanda understood swords. Allen wouldn't. Kanda would have to find a way to navigate their relationship that didn't involve killing him again, and he wasn't sure where he'd even begin. Normal people would probably start with an apology, he thought, but he didn't know any.
Lavi paused for a moment, clearly listening for tears. That would have been ridiculous if Kanda hadn't been too damn tired to tell if he was crying or not. Probably not. His tear ducts had probably atrophied years ago from disuse, but still, he didn't want Lavi to look at his face and read anything meaningful there.
"Fuck off," he said wearily, without bite. Just enough of a warning sign for anyone with half a brain to read.
Lavi had a brain so powerful it was sometimes considered a national treasure, full of exactingly perfect memories in a hundred subjects, more knowledge than any person could reasonably use in a lifetime. That wasn't what Bookmen were for, of course -- they were meant to store knowledge, find it and save it to their vast internal banks, not use it. But one would think that all that book learning would have afforded Lavi at least a few social graces. Not so. He blundered over like a naked grasping vine, limbs reaching out to curl around Kanda and imprison him in a damp prison of sympathy.
Kanda recoiled in horror and put out one hand to push him away. Lavi stopped, raising his hands in the universal sign of surrender. "I'm not going to hug you, Yuu," he said patiently.
"Then what are you doing?" Kanda growled.
Lavi shrugged. "You have a big snag in your hair. Back of your head. Figured I'd help you untangle it, since you can't see it." Without asking further permission, he reached up and set to work, humming a little under his breath as he carefully drew each strand out from the tangle and laid it straight against Kanda's back. His fingers were gentle and respectfully unobtrusive.
Though his throat closed painfully and his eyes burned and he began to develop a headache, Kanda did not cry. He acknowledged, briefly, that he wanted to. Here, alone in the dark with a silent companion who wasn't asking him to talk, wasn't asking him for anything at all, only offering, he could feel the cold steel shell he'd clamped down around the entire afternoon begin to thin and crack; but that didn't mean he had to give in. It was still his choice, and he chose against tears. Over and over again, he chose and chose, and over and over again the choice came back to ask again.
"There you go," Lavi said at last, smoothing a hand down his now-polished slick of hair before thumping him gently on the shoulder. "Wash your back?"
"No, thank you," Kanda replied stiffly, stomping out of the shower and retrieving his towel with unnecessary force.
He saw Lavi wave out of the corner of his eye as he headed for the door, and heard a quiet "Good night, Yuu," drift out after him just before it shut behind him.
His room welcomed him, with its austere stone floor and white plaster walls and clacky fan. He let it close around him with great relief, sinking down into his sheets and turning his face into his pillow to shut out the sliver of light creeping in from the hallway under the door.
He felt like hell, and tomorrow would probably be worse. The least he could hope for was dreamless sleep, but he probably wouldn't get it.
He always hoped.
He always dreamed.
X.x.x.x.X
A/N: Next: 03. Covenant
Rating: T
Warnings: Character death, violence, a dozen kinds of blasphemy.
Word Count: 26,239 (this chapter: 4459)
Summary: Allen's "death" during the fight with Alma sets off a chain of unexpected and deeply strange consequences which bring up questions about the nature of God himself. Hevlaska goes missing, Crown Clown returns without its owner, and angels and demons work together against a common enemy. While grieving for Alma, Kanda must figure out what's going on and which side he should be fighting for... if any.
Notes: Previous: 01. Innocence
02. Wake
Kanda emerged into a hushed landscape of death and ruin. Order members moved here and there, slow and clumsy with broken limbs and torn flesh and pain, helping each other to crawl to the Ark and safety.
There was no sign of the Earl, or the Noah, or the Level Four Akuma.
Or Allen.
During the long walk back through the Ark, he had felt almost restful. His path was clear, the only thing left to do was walk on it. Simple. Clear. Easy. But now his stomach twisted in on itself in unwelcome but familiar confusion, knotting itself up painfully and bringing him back into the harsh light of day from the calm place he had found for those few short minutes.
The Earl had left without slaughtering them. That was good, probably. But where was Allen? He recalled the warped smile he had seen on Allen's face after being wounded with Mugen, the dark shadows crawling across his skin, and suddenly wanted to double over and vomit. He knew what was wrong, where his comrade had gone and why, and it was all his fault. He inhaled carefully three times and steeled himself, flattened his face out to the expressionless monotone of a soldier, and took stock of the situation.
Like a tall, menacing sheepdog, Rouvelier was rounding up the survivors and gathering them beside the Ark with impressive speed. Almost everyone had to lean on somebody else just to walk. A great number had to be carried, one at a time, sobbing in agony as their splintered bones and torn flesh jostled each other. The Epstein woman was alive, as was Bak Chan. Old man Zhu had exhausted himself healing the traitor's leg and could not be woken, but his heart still beat. A good dozen others were irreversibly dead.
Lying half-submerged in one of the rubble-filled pools, he spotted Mugen's battered hilt. It looked even worse in his hand, held up to the light -- corrugated chunks were missing from the edge, and the entire blade was warped slightly to the left. It was a mess, but it would have to hold up. He wasn't finished yet.
"Kanda Yuu," Rouvelier snapped. "Are you fit for battle?"
Numbly, he assessed himself: seven broken ribs; broken clavicle; four internal organs on the left side lacerated beyond recognition and only halfway done knitting themselves back together; innumerable cuts and bruises; a loud, disorienting ring in his right ear. His face still felt a bit melted, too. His leg was at least firmly reattached and his innards had been in much worse shape half an hour ago. "No, sir," he replied honestly. "My functionality is at twenty percent of normal at best. I will need time to regenerate. About an hour."
Rouvelier's eyebrows drew together. "Unacceptable. We must pursue the Noah clan with all haste, and you are the only Exorcist here. We need you."
Kanda shrugged. "You should have had them build my body better, then. This is as fast as it goes."
Rouvelier stalked over to him and backhanded him viciously across the face. "If you hadn't lost control of yourself, you wouldn't be in this condition. It's shameful. We expect better from Exorcists. I certainly expected better from you, after your years of impressive service. Especially--"
For a moment, Kanda wondered why Rouvelier had gone silent. Then he realized that it was because he had raised Mugen's point and pressed it to the inspector's thick throat, one deep breath away from drawing blood. "If you want to give orders," he said wearily, "do it. Don't waste your time or mine lecturing me."
Rouvelier swallowed, hard, unable to stop himself. Mugen met his saggy skin and sank in an eighth of an inch, leaving a little red slit. A bead of blood slipped out and coursed down behind the inspector's dirty starched collar. Having made his point, Kanda withdrew his blade and considered standing up.
As if nothing had happened, Rouvelier cleared his throat and turned to the rest of the group. "We have insufficient firepower to pursue the Noah clan at this time. We will retreat to Headquarters and recover while we attempt to track their course and intended destination. We will also use that time to gather all Exorcists in from the field and debrief them on today's events. We will remain on high alert unless further information comes to light. Those of you who can walk, assist with the transportation of the dead. Though the Earl appears to have retreated for today, that does not mean he will not return before we are ready for him. We must maintain our usual precautions. Wenhamm."
"Present, sir," Reever croaked. He was half-carrying Johnny, who couldn't seem to lift his head.
"I'll leave debriefing Komui to you. Miss Epstein?"
"Unconscious, sir," said the scientist kneeling at her side. "Looks like something gave her a good ding round the noggin."
"Chan?"
"Incapacitated, sorry to say," Bak groaned ruefully from somewhere across the little knot of people.
Kanda remembered his legs, the way they had been bent in all the wrong places, the jagged protuberances of glistening bone, his wide-eyed green pallor as he struggled to stay conscious. There was not enough pain in his voice now to reflect that. Kanda wondered how and where he had learned to suppress pain like that, or if he had drugged himself out of it already. Maybe he was just dying and hadn't realized it yet, or he had realized and figured there was no point making a groany fuss about it. Kanda could respect that.
"Understood. All right, be on your guard. Double file through the Ark. Whoever is fittest, run ahead and alert the medical staff on arrival."
Obediently, the ragtag bundle of broken people shuffled into the Ark and vanished. Kanda still had not stood up. The pool beside him -- where Alma had slept through nine years, torn up and kept from healing -- was full of splintered concrete boulders that had once been part of the ceiling. The reflection of the thin grey sky glimmered in its clear waters like mercury. Had Alma dreamed? Had he felt anything? When they cut him open and stirred eggshells into his guts, had he felt it? Had he known what they were making him into, as if he hadn't already done more than enough, gone so far above and beyond--
Enough, he thought. Enough. There was nothing more he could do for Alma until he found the Noah clan and made them talk. Dwelling on Alma's past would do him no good in the present.
"Exorcist! March!" Rouvelier snapped.
The sterile white city inside the Ark had until today been oddly comforting to him. He had come here several times without reason in the past few weeks, just to listen to the quiet and catch his breath. Today, it gave him no solace at all. The white streets were stained with the blood of the Order, bits of Alma's black glassy flesh crunched underfoot, and he could almost smell the Noah in the air. He walked straight through without hesitation, catching up to Rouvelier just in time to walk through the door to Headquarters with him.
The sound hit them like a physical blow. The place was in an uproar. Medics and those healthy enough to run bolted sloppily through the halls with their arms full of bandages and bottles, avoiding each other mostly by sheer luck. There was something strange, though. There were too many of them, too much haste, for the paltry two dozen wounded they had brought back. Headquarters had a medical staff equipped and prepared to deal with nearly a hundred casualties at once without breaking a sweat, but here they were, milling about like panicked sheep.
"What is going on here?" Rouvelier snapped, grabbing the arm of a harried young man with dark hair and yanking him out of the flow. "Explain."
"Attack," panted the orderly, "one hundred and twenty-four staff wounded, fifteen dead, hospital wing collapsed. Have to go, sorry--" And he was gone, tearing down the hallway on staggering feet.
Rouvelier stared after him. "Attack...?" he echoed. "Here? They dared?" He sounded almost surprised, as if he had expected the enemy to wait for them to properly regroup and put up a fight. The Earl had spoiled them. He had sprung surprise attacks on them, of course, but had generally retreated for a while after each one, as if acting in the spirit of fair play. The Fourteenth, it seemed, had no such sense of sportsmanship.
Snagging another orderly, Kanda leaned in close enough to hear without shouting. "What was their objective?" he asked, though he was afraid he already knew. Confirmation was needed before any action could be decided on.
The orderly stared at him like he was an idiot. "Basement," he said, "see for yourself."
Rouvelier didn't need to be told twice. He strode at a near-run, plowing a path through the busy hallways like a train. Kanda followed close behind him, in the empty pocket created by his sweeping presence. The elevators, mercifully, still worked. They plummeted down into the heart of the London base like dropped stones, slowing only when they reached the subterranean cavern they had reinstalled Hevlaska in after the move.
Hevlaska was not there. Her great stone platform sat empty, and her massive iron shackles lay in heavy coils on the floor.
Rouvelier ground his teeth and clenched his fists, face reddening, rage building through every line of his body, but something was strange, something was off, they were missing something--
Kanda squinted, then ran out of the elevator and hoisted himself up onto the platform. His eyes hadn't lied. The platform was not empty after all. "Inspector, I think you had better come see this," he said.
After helping Rouvelier up onto the platform, they stood together and stared at what sat at the center of the great stone circle: an enormous white sword with a steel cross emblazoned across its breadth, driven into the rock with inhuman strength. Allen's sword. The Order's pale Excalibur. He couldn't use it anymore, Kanda realized. The Fourteenth was a Noah. The sword was Innocent, forged to destroy his kind. It would not turn on its maker's soldiers. Remembering what Allen had told him of Suman Dark's fate, Kanda couldn't blame the Noah for abandoning it before it turned on him.
The sword, remarkable as it was, was easily explained. The white, glassy cubes piled in five neat stacks around it were not.
"I don't understand," Rouvelier whispered.
Neither did Kanda. Nearly two dozen cubes of Innocence, priceless weapons in the war against the Noah, left lying on the floor like children's playing blocks. Why take the guardian, but not the guarded treasure? What use was Hevlaska to the Noah if they were no longer interested in the Innocence? It would only have taken them moments to destroy them all, reduce them to useless dust. It didn't make any sense. Nothing made sense anymore. Kanda stared, and stared, but no answers were immediately obvious.
"Perhaps they believe they would reconstitute themselves, as Walker's did, and Lenalee Lee's," Rouvelier postulated uncertainly.
Kanda shook his head. "No. If they thought that, they'd have taken it with them. Maybe they thought it would self-activate and attack them?"
Now it was Rouvelier's turn to shake his head. "They would only need to continue destroying it. It could not attack them while it reconstituted itself. At least one of them is versed in various magicks, as well. I am certain they could find a way to hold it dormant, given time and safety. It would have been a heavy blow to us. We no longer have the luxury of searching for lost Innocence. We must make do with what we have, and we could not make more Exorcists if we were to lose the Innocence yet umatched with a user."
Doing a quick mental count, Kanda came up horrifyingly short: only twelve Exorcists remained active. Of those, two were untrained, one had no offensive capabilities, one was too gravely injured to fight, and most of the rest were exhausted. The Finder ranks had been severely depleted in the hunt for the Generals, and were not very useful in combat situations anyway.
Eight. Eight Exorcists to fight twelve well-rested, well-organized Noahs and their army of Akuma. Even if the Earl was too busy to make more -- which Kanda severely doubted, the man seemed capable of being in more than one place at a time -- Japan was probably still full of them, and the Noahs had brought at least four Level Fours to the fight in America, none of which had died. He had been too busy killing Alma and Allen to bother with the real threat. His throat clenched with bitter self-hatred, but he had no time for it. Not yet.
A strange thought occurred to Kanda. "Maybe they're poisoned somehow."
Rouvelier turned his narrow black eyes on Kanda. "Poisoned?"
Uncomfortable with the entire line of thought, Kanda shrugged. "Like you said, some of them are magicians. They could have... tainted them, or laid traps, or something. Or maybe they're fakes."
"I will have the area quarantined until the science division has a chance to investigate," Rouvelier said decisively after a moment's cold pause. "We cannot afford to trust in gifts from the hands of demons. There is no hurry -- we have not found any compatibles to use these, so they are effectively useless at the moment in any case."
Rouvelier liked to state the obvious when he was unsettled, Kanda noted. He had always seemed a taciturn man, not given to words unless he had something to say, but for the last half hour he had spoken almost constantly, like the sound of his own voice drowned out the terrors in his head.
Cutting a neat salute, Kanda turned to leave.
"Where are you going, Exorcist?"
"To pursue the Earl of Millennium and his company," he said flatly.
The inspector evaluated him with a cold look. "Are you fit?" he asked at last.
Kanda shrugged. "Fit enough."
Struggle flickered on Rouvelier's face. It was clear to Kanda that he wanted nothing more than to give the go-ahead, but there was something holding him back. Perhaps the Head Generals had other plans for him. "No," he said at last, though it obviously pained him to do so. "You will wait one night. We will regroup the remaining Exorcists, attempt to repair your weapon, and deploy you as a group tomorrow morning."
Kanda gritted his teeth. "Their trail will be cold by then."
"Commendable as your enthusiasm is, I am forced to admit that sending you alone while you are damaged would be tantamount to throwing your valuable life away. There are too few of you left. If we are to win, we must be more conservative with our remaining resources. Also--" and here the inspector paused to visibly calm himself-- "I do not think we will find the Earl unless and until he wishes to be found." The words seemed to leave a sour taste in his mouth. His lips twisted around it.
"I understand," Kanda answered stiffly. "In that case, I am going to bed. I will heal more quickly if I rest."
Rouvelier nodded back, his face slowly reddening with the effort of standing by his decision.
The elevator door clicked shut between them, leaving Kanda alone with his thoughts.
Rouvelier was not an evil man, Kanda decided. Cruel, ruthless, entirely lacking in empathy, yes, but there was little actual malevolence in him. He used people like chess pieces, moved them about in little ordered plastic regiments in his mind, and paid no heed to the price in flesh because their hearts and souls were not important to victory. The war was his life, his passion, the winning of it his only dreaming wish. He would watch cities burn without remorse for a chance at taking down even one of the enemy for good.
Kanda almost liked him. He was honest, he never bothered with blame, and he never hesitated. Predictable. Easy to follow. But there was the matter of the Third Exorcists. Kanda did not make a habit of empathy for others, or for himself, but after what he had watched Alma suffer through, and suffered himself, and everything they had inflicted on each other... watching the Third in the room with them bloat and warp and scream, unable to fight off the assault from within, had made him a little sick. At least they had been volunteers, unlike he and Alma. That made it a little better. They had come to the battlefield willingly, ready to die.
They should not have been made. Hopefully this failure would ensure no one ever tried anything like them again. But at least they had been willing.
Alma's faces flashed across the corner of his left eye, their identical smiles curving away into the mist. How had he not seen it? Looking back, knowing the truth, it seemed obvious. Their irrepressible optimism in the heart of darkness, their playful humour and pranks, the core of shining strength which lay at the root of their soul, the way their smile made Kanda yearn for something, something he couldn't put a name to, something warm and close and wonderful -- putting Alma into the young artificial body they had made for her had changed nothing of her. Alma as he was now was broken, but the pieces were all still recognizable.
Whatever kind of person Kanda had been in his first life, he was quite sure of one thing now -- he had not come willing. There had been a life for him, one he had made for himself, with rainwashed gardens and blue skies and a woman with red, red lips who loved him, a life with a long, gentle future. They had torn him from it, brought him to their forges, beat him and quenched him until he became a hard blade and his flattened heart forgot how to bleed. They had taken an ordinary man with an ordinary life and made him a soldier, and when he died they had brought him back and made him a soldier again, this time taking out his heart entirely and replacing it with a reeking black lotus blossom.
And they had done the same to that man's lover. Those people were gone now, he knew, leaving whatever Kanda and Alma were now in their place. Perhaps if they had been left alone they could have lived four, five years in peace and joy before the end of the world. That it had taken this long was in part thanks to what the scientists had done to them, Kanda admitted, so they probably would not have gotten the full nine years. But they would have had some time. Maybe enough. Maybe...
He was fooling himself, he realized then. No amount of time would ever have been enough.
Cold metal touched and soothed his feverishly healing skin. Kanda realized he had slumped against the wall of the elevator and was shaking, barely managing to keep on his feet.
Two minutes later, the door clicked open and deposited him in the residential wing. His room here still smelled wrong, and the ceiling fan clicked and kept him awake many nights, but tonight he was too tired to be homesick for the tower by the sea.
Shucking his stiff, torn clothes, he briefly considered going straight to bed and sleeping with Alma's blood still crusted in his hair. Shuddering, he thought better of it and pulled a towel out of his bare closet. It would only take ten minutes, and would maybe save him a nightmare or two. This time of night, the showers would even probably be empty. It would be quiet and warm and peaceful and he wouldn't have to talk to anybody--
They weren't empty. Through the dim light and the steam, Kanda picked out a shock of red hair against the black tiles. He sighed. There was little chance Lavi would ignore him. Not with Allen... gone.
"Yuu?"
Sometimes, Kanda hated how often he was right. Hoping Lavi would get the hint, he stayed coldly silent and stepped under the furthest tap, cranking it up to maximum heat. The water started out cold, as always. He shuddered slightly under the icy rain, but it felt good. Numbing. Then the heat came, and scalded away whatever wouldn't freeze.
"Yuu," Lavi said again. "I heard what happened today at the North American Branch."
Grinding his teeth a little, Kanda kept his mouth shut and scrubbed himself as fast as he could manage. The hair was a problem. It would take ages to get all the muck out of it, but the thought of staying here was almost as awful as the thought of going to bed with a mop of hair full of battle detritus. He couldn't help taking work home with him, but he tried to keep it away from his sleep when he could.
"I'm sorry about Alma."
None of your business! Kanda almost yelled, stopping himself at the last moment.
Lavi was just trying to be supportive, a good friend... something anyone else in the building could have used more than Kanda in that moment. He didn't want to make an enemy of Lavi. He was good in a fight, could be trusted to have Kanda's back. But Kanda didn't want to be friends with him. The last time he'd stopped guarding and let someone else get near him, they'd gone mad and tried to kill him and ended up buried in a grave of shadows under unfamiliar city streets and it just wasn't something he did anymore. For good reason.
He was glad he'd managed to keep Allen at some kind of distance. Not far, not nearly as far as he should have, but just far enough to keep him from falling apart like a house of straw when what had happened with Allen today had... happened. So close. It had been so close. He had felt himself caving in the weeks and months before today, thawing a little, letting a little warmth creep into that stupid nickname. He had almost ruined himself all over again.
Then Lavi had to go and say "And as for Allen... we'll get him back. You know we will. He might even come back on his own, knowing him."
Knowing Allen, he was right. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if Allen walked right back through the Ark two days hence, alone in his body and completely intact, leaving a trail of Noah bodies behind him. Knowing Allen, he would smile like an idiot and apologize for causing trouble. Knowing Allen, he wouldn't hold the grudge he really ought to hold. Kanda had no idea how we would face him, if it came to that. At least Alma had come at him with a sword. Kanda understood swords. Allen wouldn't. Kanda would have to find a way to navigate their relationship that didn't involve killing him again, and he wasn't sure where he'd even begin. Normal people would probably start with an apology, he thought, but he didn't know any.
Lavi paused for a moment, clearly listening for tears. That would have been ridiculous if Kanda hadn't been too damn tired to tell if he was crying or not. Probably not. His tear ducts had probably atrophied years ago from disuse, but still, he didn't want Lavi to look at his face and read anything meaningful there.
"Fuck off," he said wearily, without bite. Just enough of a warning sign for anyone with half a brain to read.
Lavi had a brain so powerful it was sometimes considered a national treasure, full of exactingly perfect memories in a hundred subjects, more knowledge than any person could reasonably use in a lifetime. That wasn't what Bookmen were for, of course -- they were meant to store knowledge, find it and save it to their vast internal banks, not use it. But one would think that all that book learning would have afforded Lavi at least a few social graces. Not so. He blundered over like a naked grasping vine, limbs reaching out to curl around Kanda and imprison him in a damp prison of sympathy.
Kanda recoiled in horror and put out one hand to push him away. Lavi stopped, raising his hands in the universal sign of surrender. "I'm not going to hug you, Yuu," he said patiently.
"Then what are you doing?" Kanda growled.
Lavi shrugged. "You have a big snag in your hair. Back of your head. Figured I'd help you untangle it, since you can't see it." Without asking further permission, he reached up and set to work, humming a little under his breath as he carefully drew each strand out from the tangle and laid it straight against Kanda's back. His fingers were gentle and respectfully unobtrusive.
Though his throat closed painfully and his eyes burned and he began to develop a headache, Kanda did not cry. He acknowledged, briefly, that he wanted to. Here, alone in the dark with a silent companion who wasn't asking him to talk, wasn't asking him for anything at all, only offering, he could feel the cold steel shell he'd clamped down around the entire afternoon begin to thin and crack; but that didn't mean he had to give in. It was still his choice, and he chose against tears. Over and over again, he chose and chose, and over and over again the choice came back to ask again.
"There you go," Lavi said at last, smoothing a hand down his now-polished slick of hair before thumping him gently on the shoulder. "Wash your back?"
"No, thank you," Kanda replied stiffly, stomping out of the shower and retrieving his towel with unnecessary force.
He saw Lavi wave out of the corner of his eye as he headed for the door, and heard a quiet "Good night, Yuu," drift out after him just before it shut behind him.
His room welcomed him, with its austere stone floor and white plaster walls and clacky fan. He let it close around him with great relief, sinking down into his sheets and turning his face into his pillow to shut out the sliver of light creeping in from the hallway under the door.
He felt like hell, and tomorrow would probably be worse. The least he could hope for was dreamless sleep, but he probably wouldn't get it.
He always hoped.
He always dreamed.
X.x.x.x.X
A/N: Next: 03. Covenant