Innocent Rain, Chapter 12 Summary
Title: Innocent Rain
Pairings: Lavi/Kanda, Allen/Lenalee
Rating: R (yes, R is worse than M in our books)
Warnings: Language. Lots of it, innuendo, homo/heterosexual romance (that may get graphic--for which we will warn), violence, some tragic elements, etc.
Summary: One hundred and fourteen years after the supposed "final battle" with the Earl, a group of five Exorcists awake to discover that their enemies were not as vanquished as they thought...
Disclaimer: We own nothing. Except our original characters.
Warnings: Er, summarization of abuse
Innocent Rain, Chapter 12 Summary
“Who did this to you?” Lavi asked gently, repeating his earlier question as he rubbed the back of Yuu’s head in soft, up-and-down motions.
“My father,” Yuu murmured gravely into the other man’s chest. He knew he needed to give more of an explanation, and he began to recount the horrors of his life before the Dark Order.
---
Kanda proceeds to recount the first night of his abuse, during which he walked in on his father raping his mother. His father switched targets and raped him on the kitchen floor. He was five.
Years of physical and mental abuse follow although he was not raped again until he was seven. He took to guarding his mother’s door in order to protect her from the abuse. The worst of his memories include him being beaten in front of the door, his father forcing him to chug two bottles of sake, his father breaking his sake bottles over Kanda’s legs, having his hair/scalp cut with a kitchen knife, and Kanda being cut/disfigured with a tomato knife.
Kanda fears Lavi’s rejection and is relieved when there is none (though Lavi is disgusted by what Yuu’s father did to him). We discover that Kanda’s mother only stayed with his father because she has a very low immune system, rendering her sick most of her life. She gets tetanus, and when the last day of Kanda’s abuse takes place, she is dying of malaria. We also discover that Kanda had friends! His mother forbade him to see them, as she didn’t want them getting hurt, too.
On the final day of his abuse, Kanda discovers that his mother was being abused during the day, during the time when she always insisted he stay outside. He screams until the neighbors get worried. Kanda’s mother’s best friend and next door neighbor, Emiko (yes, we know she has the same name as our latest Japanese Exorcist), barges in, telling Yasuo (Kanda’s father) that she has called the police. Yasuo is angry and ends up choking her to death. He leaves, and Fumiko (Kanda’s mother) decides that she and Yuu will leave that night, despite how sick she is.
That night, when his father returns, Fumiko tells him that she and Kanda are leaving. He gets angry and begins to beat/rape her. She begs him not to do it in front of Kanda, and so his father knocks him out by throwing his head into the corner of their kitchen table.
When Kanda wakes up, his mother is having trouble breathing. He father beats and rapes him until he is on the verge of death and then leaves again, probably to go out whoring (a favorite pastime of his). Kanda’s mother asks him to get a lotus flower from their kitchen table’s centerpiece, and she tells him of a spell that will keep him alive.
---
“Yuu,” she breathed. She coughed for a while, and Yuu saw blood come from her mouth, too.
“Okaa-san,” he choked back. His words were thick with the blood that suffocated him. His rib throbbed in agony.
“Yuu, you have to live on. Can you promise me you’ll do that?” She asked weakly.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“There is a spell that my family learned of, and it can heal you, keep you alive for a full life cycle. It will keep you from getting hurt and sick. It ties you to the petals of the lotus. It can only be invoked by someone who loves you deeply and wishes for you to live.”
“I still don’t understand, Okaa-san.”
“I am dying. I was dying before this happened. The spell will take my life to invoke it, but I only have minutes left, so Yuu, please promise me you’ll agree to let me do it,” his mother pleaded, her voice fading.
Yuu nodded and dragged himself next to his mother.
“Will you get a lotus flower from the pot on the table?” His mother asked weakly. He nodded and stood, despite the pain. His left leg crumpled beneath him, but he managed to grab the pot, knocking it over as he pulled the bouquet down. Gently, he put one of the light pink flowers in his mother’s hand. She smiled gently at him.
“It is invoked with a promise. Yuu, I want you to find the one person in this world who is special to you. The one who can protect you and whom you can protect. The one person with whom you can share a mutual love, like I was never able to. At that point, the Lotus will keep you alive, and your life expectancy will change to match that of your partner. Will you allow the Lotus to do that for you, Yuu?”
“I promise, Okaa-san,” he responded through sobs that brought up an alarming amount of blood.
“With this promise, I hereby tie you to the lotus flower. May you live in good health and happiness, Yuu.” The lotus began to glow slightly, and something strange happened.
Their two separate pools of blood mingled, and a thin line of dark red liquid rose up to face Yuu. It stabbed at him, ripping his shirt to shreds as it came near. It hit his chest with a pain far worse than the knife through his leg, and Yuu screamed until his voice was gone. Even then, he continued to let out air, even though it made no noise. His tears increased exponentially, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His left breast was burning, and it wasn’t stopping. He wanted to die-but no, his mother had just told him to live. He needed to live, but the pain was so awful. He wanted to lay down and give up, but-
The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and when Yuu looked down on his chest to inspect the damage, he saw a dark red mark on his scarred chest, just over his left breast. The mark steadily darkened until it was ink black. The pain in his body began to recede, as if the mark was pulling it in. He felt the rib his lung snap back into place with the others. He felt the hole in his lung close. Wooden splinters fell from his thigh to the floor as that wound closed, scarring with alarming speed. Blood stopped flowing from the wounds on his back and scalp, and one by one, the rest of his injuries, old and new, began to heal.
His mother smiled peacefully as death stole the light from her eyes.
He clutched the lotus flower and ripped his eyes away from his dead mother. He ran over to the small cabinet where they kept mementos of his grandparents. Dumping his grandmother’s ashes into his grandfather’s urn, he took the deceased lady’s urn and carefully placed the lotus flower inside.
He put on a new jinbei, wincing as each movement he made hurt his barely-healed broken ribs and battered body. Pausing only to say good-bye once more to his mother’s body, he left. He never once turned back.
---
Kanda then goes on to explain how Tiedoll ended up finding him. Since these are fine to read and contain no actual abuse, we will put the last few pages of the chapter here.
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October 27, 1878-Japan
Yuu ran from the household of his ruined childhood. He had no money, but dinner lasted him until he reached the next town around dawn. He collapsed to the ground, panting. His battered body had begun to feel better the longer he’d run, and now, he could barely feel any of the pain from the previous evening. He allowed himself to rest in a nearby alley, and a few hours later, he started to run again, pausing only to get a long drink from the town’s well. He grimaced at the bitter taste but was glad for the water anyway.
He continued on his way, always keeping to the road so he could find the next town. He knew from the maps he had sometimes studied in the afternoons that he would not reach another village for a few days, and he hoped he’d be able to make it. He was determined to live for his mother.
A raindrop hit his face, and he put a hand to it. When was the last time he had felt rain? His mother had never allowed him outside during a storm, saying he’d catch a cold, and whenever the sky began to even hint at it, she would go inside. Yuu would invariably follow her. Now he wanted to feel the rain. Maybe it could wash away the dirt that he felt was inside him. The drops became more and more frequent, and when it finally started to drizzle lightly, Yuu stopped running and turned his face to the sky.
Hours later, when the rain had stopped, Yuu stood up, and he continued on his journey. His feet sunk slightly into the muddy ground, and the wet leaves made him slip several times. He was covered in mud and sludge by the next time he chose to break. He did not sleep that night-he couldn’t. He knew that bad things could happen in the night.
He walked onward, never looking back, even though he was exhausted, starving, and thirsty. By the middle of the twenty-eighth of October, Yuu fell face-first into the soft ground and passed out.
---
October 28, 1878-Japan
Something was nudging his shoulder, pulling him from unconsciousness. He cracked an eye open and yelled, scrambling back a meter or so.
There was an old foreigner with frizzy, light brown hair leaning too close to him.
“Are you okay?” The mustached man asked in highly accented Japanese. Yuu could barely understand him.
A sturdy teenager came up behind the man and placed his hand on the foreigner’s shoulder.
“His heart is beating like a bird’s. He is scared,” the teen said, also in Japanese. The foreigner raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?” He looked at Yuu, smiling pleasantly. “I won’t hurt you. Can you tell me your name?”
Yuu backed up further and shook his head.
A green light pulsed from the man’s strange gold and black coat. Surprise lit the man’s features.
“Intéressant,” the man muttered to himself in a language Yuu had never heard before. He reached into his coat, and Yuu readied himself to jump up and run past these two crazy people. The man produced a shiny, red apple and held it out to Yuu.
“You look famished. Would you like something to eat?” He said, placing the apple in the grass next to the road. Yuu’s stomach let out a hungry growl, and he couldn’t resist the offer of food. He slowly crawled forward, ready to back up if they struck him, and snatched the apple. He retreated back to his earlier position and tore into it, the juice running down his face in his haste.
“I am an Exorcist,” the man said as Yuu ate ravenously. “I am in an organization called the Dark Order, and we are fighting an enemy called the Millennium Earl.”
Yuu didn’t particularly care, but he listened anyway, as the man seemed to think this was important knowledge to impart on him.
“We fight with weapons made from something called Innocence. Innocence chooses people to accommodate with, and one of the pieces in my coat is reacting to you.”
Yuu looked up, genuinely surprised. “So?” He said through a large chunk of apple. He despised himself for his horrifying lack of manners.
“I would like you to come with us and train to be an Exorcist,” the man said, looking relieved that Yuu had finally said something.
“No,” he said, backing further away.
“I’m really sorry, but you have to come with me. The Order doesn’t give people choices in the matter.” His voice was heavy, almost regretful.
Yuu dropped what was left of the apple and ran, hoping that he was heading in the correct direction. He didn’t care, though, if it got him away from the strange foreigner and the teenager. Something caught the back of his muddy jinbei, and he went flying up.
“I’m so sorry about this,” the foreigner said, sounding sincere, and Yuu felt something hit the side of his head.
---
He awoke a few minutes later, his throbbing head already feeling much better. He looked up and saw up the foreigner’s large nose. He was held tightly in the man’s arms, and he resigned himself to the fact that he was being abducted. He decided to look at his surroundings, to see where they were headed. As he looked out, they passed by the spot where his discarded apple was-so he had been going in the wrong direction-and Yuu cried out when he saw his grandmother’s urn.
“My urn!” He shouted, struggling to free himself from the arms that carried him.
The bouncing of the man’s walk stopped, and Yuu felt the man’s chest reverberate as he hmmm’d to himself.
“Noise,” he said softly, “would you grab the urn on the ground?”
A moment later, the urn was placed into his hands by the large teenager. Yuu grasped it tightly, holding it to his chest.
“How are you awake so quickly?” The man asked, and Yuu realized he was being talked to.
“Magic,” he said. It wasn’t a lie.
“If you say so,” the man replied.
The man carried him to the next town, and they arrived long after the sun had set. Yuu tried to remain as alert as possible but soon found himself drifting off, and he hated himself for it. He couldn’t even protect himself.
When he awoke, he was on a soft bed. Looking around, he flinched when he noticed the teenager sitting next to him. His eyes were vacant though, as if he couldn’t see. Yuu attempted to get off the bed, but a large hand reached out and pushed him back down. He shuddered from the touch.
The teenager said something in a language Yuu couldn’t understand.
“Ego o hanashimasu ka?” He asked. Yuu shook his head, and even though the teenager seemed blind, his face lit up in understanding. “I don’t speak Japanese very well,” he added in stilted Japanese. “My master does, though.”
The hand left Yuu’s shoulder, and he bolted to the door. Before he could even open it, tiny strings pulled him back. He didn’t yell out-that wasn’t allowed-but he did start pounding his fists on the door. After a moment, the door opened, and Yuu yelped and allowed the strings to heave him back to the bed.
“Please don’t try to escape,” the foreigner said. He looked at the teenager. “Noise, deactivate your Innocence. We don’t want to scare him anymore than he is.”
Yuu felt the strings go slack, and then they were gone. The foreigner pulled a strange, glowing crystal from his jacket, and he placed it at the end of the bed.
“I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself yet,” he said, looking Yuu in the eye. “My name is General Froi Tiedoll. That green crystal in front of you is your Innocence. Will you pick it up for me?”
Yuu narrowed his eyes calculatingly. This man was obviously crazy, but at the same time, he had nothing to lose. It was not like he really wanted to live anyway. If he accidentally broke his promise to his mother, she would understand, she would forgive him. Carefully, he reached out a hand and touched the gently glowing crystal. It flashed and changed form. It lengthened out until it was nearly as long as he was tall. The glow dissipated, and in its place was a straight, black blade that ended with a long, sturdy hilt. Yuu recognized it instantly as a chokuto. He blinked as he heard a whisper in his ear: Mugen. That was this chokuto’s name, he knew immediately.
Turning the blade in his hands, he was surprised by how light it was, as if it was crafted out of rice paper rather than metal. He wished it was a bit heavier, and suddenly, it was. It was a comforting weight, neither too light nor too heavy, and it felt good in his hands. Yuu felt grateful for the foreigner for giving him such a beautiful, elegant weapon. He brought the edge of the blade near the hilt to his wrist and pulled it until he couldn’t drag anymore across. He didn’t scream as his wrist began to bleed profusely. He barely felt the pain.
“Putain!” Tiedoll grabbed his right arm and pulled Yuu’s new weapon from him. Dropping it to the floor unceremoniously, he reached over and seized Yuu’s left wrist. He spoke to himself rapidly, and Yuu thought that perhaps it was good that he couldn’t understand the man. He gazed up at the foreigner, but the man was already applying pressure to his wrist.
The man froze. “Quoi?” He said blankly. He twisted Yuu’s arm around, and Yuu let it move, already meditating his mind beyond the present reality. “Où est la blessure?” He looked at Yuu again.
“How did you do that?” He asked.
“Magic,” Yuu replied in a monotone.
“Pardon?” The man asked, and Yuu figured he was asking for some type of repetition.
“Magic,” he said again.
“Did you really cut yourself?” Tiedoll asked in wonder.
“Can’t you see the blood?” Yuu asked rhetorically.
“Ah, yes. Well, you’ll be needing a bath. You’re horribly muddy, and now you’re covered in blood,” the General said.
Yuu came crashing down into the present, and he pushed himself against the headboard. He would not get in the bath with this man. Baths were his own private affair. Even if the man didn’t do anything to him, he still didn’t want anyone to see all his scars. His mother had told him once that it was bad for people to see him, and he agreed. He didn’t want anyone knowing what had happened to him. He screamed out as the teenager’s arms heaved him over his shoulder. He squirmed, trying to hit and kick anything that would make the teenager drop him, but the other kid’s grip remained firm and steady, like a rock.
“Would you kindly do it, Noise?” The General asked, and the teenager nodded.
Yuu screamed and flailed wildly as Noise-Yuu assumed that was his name-grimly peeled off his disgusting clothing and unceremoniously dumped him in the bath.
“Can you clean yourself?” He asked bluntly in a soft voice.
“Yes,” Yuu replied hurriedly.
“Good, because I don’t want to do it. Damn Tiedoll.”
“You hate him?” Yuu asked in wonder.
“He dumped you on me when it’s obvious you’re old enough to be capable of at least washing yourself,” he replied grumpily. Yuu decided this teenager wasn’t the worst person he’d ever met.
“Could you… not stare?” Yuu asked, pulling his legs to his chest, hiding his scars and Lotus Mark.
“You’re not going to do anything stupid if I leave, right?”
Yuu looked away. He couldn’t respond, though.
“I thought so,” Noise said and dropped himself to the floor. “Besides, I can’t see anything anyway, so you don’t have to worry.”
“How can you move around so well?” Yuu asked as he scrubbed away all the muck that had caked on his skin.
“You must have noticed the objects on my ears?”
Yuu nodded, and the teenager continued, as if he had seen the action.
“They magnify my hearing far beyond normal capacity. I see through sound waves, if that makes any sense. They’re part of my Innocence.” He sounded almost proud, just like Yuu had felt when he’d first seen his chokuto.
As Yuu slowly washed himself, Noise explained as best he could about Innocence and the Dark Order. Half an hour later, Yuu finished scraping away the dried blood, and as he lifted himself from the bath to grab a towel, the door burst open.
“I’m sorry! I forgot that I really had to pee!” Tiedoll shouted, rushing in. “I can’t hold it in any longer!” He paused, staring at Yuu.
“Merde, mon dieu!” He breathed as he took in each of Yuu’s scars. Yuu blushed heavily and lunged for the towel, wrapping it tightly around his chest like-as his father had once said-a woman. “Je comprends… merde.” He turned to his apprentice. “Noise, take him to the room. I still have to pee.”
Yuu was whisked away and promptly dropped roughly on the bed. He saw Noise covering his face with a hand and sighing in annoyance.
“That idiot,” he muttered. Yuu couldn’t help but agree and found himself nodding. “Do you have anything else to wear?” He added to Yuu. Yuu shook his head.
“I suppose that means I’ll be washing your clothes. Sit tight.” The teenager left the room with an aggrieved expression on his face as Tiedoll left the bathroom, looking relieved.
He sat on the bed. Yuu scrambled back, careful to keep the towel covering him. “You poor child,” the foreigner said. There was something about the pity in the man’s voice that annoyed Yuu.
They sat in silence. Noise returned with Yuu’s washed clothes and an overlarge shirt, which Yuu put on hurriedly as Noise hung up his clothes to dry.
“Would you kindly tell me your name?” Tiedoll asked softly.
“Kanda Yuu,” he said sullenly, picking at the baggy shirt absently.
“Yuu-kun, will you tell me what happened?” The man asked kindly.
“No.”
“Will you explain the magic to me, then?”
“It’s just magic.”
He grabbed the bloody chokuto from the ground and ran the blade down his forearm, slicing it open. He waited as the wound closed itself and healed steadily until even the scar was gone. Tiedoll stared, transfixed.
“How..?” He asked, probably to himself. Yuu stood up and walked to the pitcher of water on the bedside table. He rinsed his arm off before looking back at his abductor.
“Where is my urn?” He demanded. He needed to see the lotus, needed to see that it was undamaged.
“It fell from your grip and broke during the night, I’m sorry,” the man said, looking away.
Yuu’s heart skipped a beat. “What about the flower inside it? Where is that?” He asked urgently, grabbing the man before he realized what he was doing. He came to his senses and backed up until he was against the headboard of the bed again.
The man reached into his pocket and produced the lotus flower. Yuu leaned forward and snatched it carefully from the man’s hand. He inspected it and noted one of the petals was a bit rumpled, though the rest of it seemed undamaged.
“Would you like something to put that in?” Tiedoll asked kindly, and Yuu nodded. If this man was going to offer him things, who was he to refuse it?
“Tiedoll and Noise took me out the next day and bought me clothes. We passed a glassware shop, and I saw a large hourglass inside. Tiedoll bought it for me, and the lotus flower has been in it ever since. We traveled through several towns before we found Mugen’s scabbard, though. We never stayed in one place for very long, so I didn’t have to worry about my father ever finding me. I still didn’t trust them, especially Tiedoll.”
“Did they teach you to fight at that time?” Lavi asked.
“No-they were afraid to let me near Mugen. They knew I’d try to do myself in.”
“How many times did you try?”
“Any time I found a way, I tried it. By the middle of November, they knew better than to leave me on my own. Tiedoll wouldn’t even let me bathe alone. He was convinced I would have tried to drown myself.”
“Would you have?”
“Probably.” He snorted. “Not that it would have done any good,” he added sarcastically.
January 19, 1879-Port in Egypt
They had left Japan a bit over a month and a half ago, and Yuu was thoroughly sick of the sea. Tiedoll had said that they were heading toward the Dark Order’s Headquarters, its main branch outside of London. Reluctantly, they had allowed him to carry Mugen around with him, as they had noticed his decreased suicide attempts. Not that he hadn’t tried to throw himself off the side of the ship a few times. One time, he had almost succeeded, but a crew member had caught him as he jumped up on the rail.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” The man barked rhetorically.
“Yes,” Yuu replied matter-of-factly.
“Where’re your parents?” The seaman groaned, looking irritated.
“Dead,” he said flatly.
Tiedoll ran up. “Oh good,” he panted, putting a relieved hand to his heart. “Someone caught him before he jumped. I’m terribly sorry, sir, but Yuu-kun’s a bit…” He trailed off. He quickly grabbed Yuu and threw him over his large shoulder, walking swiftly away.
“I’m just a bit what?” Yuu mumbled angrily.
“I was going to say ‘suicidal,’ but I thought that was self-explanatory,” the man replied, sitting Yuu down next to Noise.
“Don’t let him out of your sight, Noise-or, well, your range of hearing, anyway.” Tiedoll walked off.
Yuu sighed as he stepped onto the beautiful, yellow sand. He was glad to be back on land. Vaguely, he wondered if there was any way for him to die from sand. He wracked his brain but could think of nothing, so he resigned himself to another day of life.
There was a huge explosion, and Yuu turned in its direction. Some of the ship’s new cargo was up in flames, and Tiedoll stood on the rail holding a large, shining cross in his hand. Noise stood on the deck behind him, his arms outstretched. Something glinted in the midday sun, and Yuu noted that the strings of the man’s Innocence were extended. They had encountered many Akuma in their travels, and each time, Yuu had had to hide. They killed people by turning them to ash.
It clicked.
If he was ash, there was no way he could return from that, right?
He went to turn around, to run toward the foreigner and his apprentice, but the only remaining Akuma was right there. He didn’t move to get out of the way. It would shoot him, right?
“YUU-KUN!” Tiedoll shouted, and the Akuma seemed to realize that Yuu was important to the General. It cackled, and its guns primed. Maker of Eden shot out, whiplike, but it was a fraction of a second too late.
Yuu was thrown back several meters as the bullet struck his left side. Agony seared through him, but he could handle it-it was nothing compared to what he had suffered at the hands of his father. It was nothing like the tomato knife or the glass in his legs or the wine bottle or the belt whip or the…
The pain was receding. Tiedoll was at his side, holding him in his large arms, crying over the death of his new pupil.
The pain was gone, and Yuu groaned at its loss. Not even the Akuma could kill him? He screamed in fury at the brightly lit sky.
“Why can’t I die!?”
Tiedoll gasped and stared down at him, tears hitting Yuu’s forehead. He squinted back up at the man.
“How are you…?”
“Magic,” Yuu spat out, furious that the Lotus Spell had saved him from completely certain death.
“You will never explain that spell on your lotus to me?” Tiedoll asked resignedly.
Yuu shook his head. Even though he wanted to die, Tiedoll had saved him repeatedly. He felt a small sliver of trust attach itself to the man, and he hated himself for it. Trusting always got him hurt, just as caring had. He had loved his father, trusted him beyond measure, and his father had destroyed all that. He had hurt Yuu so much…
He wanted to die, but one certainty became clear from the Akuma attack. No matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to die. He sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to live a long life.
As they sailed up to Italy, Yuu took out his lotus, gazing at it. To his surprise, a petal was on the bottom of the hourglass. A thin hope swirled its way up his stomach and to his heart. Perhaps, if he wounded himself enough… But his mother wouldn’t like that, and Yuu was tired of pain. He was so tired of it. Perhaps, if he could just seal it all away, it wouldn’t hurt so much…
He sighed again. He could meditate on that later. He lay back on his bed in the small, cramped room and gave up the idea of finding ways to kill himself. It would never happen, no matter how much he wanted to die.
August 22, 2013, 1:37 AM-The Dark Order, Kanda’s Room
“Yuu,” Lavi whispered, sounding heartbroken as he pulled him back into his chest. Again.
“Hmm?” He asked, too drained from relating everything to open his mouth.
“You said you wanted to die?” He asked, though it was more a statement.
“Yes,” Yuu replied, his arms sliding once more around Lavi’s waist.
Lavi pulled back just enough to look Yuu in the eyes. Yuu was startled by how green the other man’s solitary eye was. “Do you still want to die?”
“Yes.” He tried to say it flatly, without emotion, but his voice shook with his long-repressed grief. He saw nothing but sad understanding in Lavi’s eye.
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A/N: Holy shit. Not only did that take nearly a week to write, it took nearly three hours to edit. Today.
*Ego o hanashimasu ka? = do you speak English?, Gaki = brat
*The French: Intéressant=interesting, Putain = whore, but in this case, it is used to mean “fuck,” Où est la blessure? = where is the wound?, Merde, mon dieu = shit, my God, Je comprends… merde = I understand… shit. :D
Anyway… now you know! Sorry for the long Kanda-torture. But this is his turning point-from here, everything will eventually be a-ok! :D
For those who want to read the actual thing, here's the link to the first part, which is on our LJ page!
Pairings: Lavi/Kanda, Allen/Lenalee
Rating: R (yes, R is worse than M in our books)
Warnings: Language. Lots of it, innuendo, homo/heterosexual romance (that may get graphic--for which we will warn), violence, some tragic elements, etc.
Summary: One hundred and fourteen years after the supposed "final battle" with the Earl, a group of five Exorcists awake to discover that their enemies were not as vanquished as they thought...
Disclaimer: We own nothing. Except our original characters.
Warnings: Er, summarization of abuse
Innocent Rain, Chapter 12 Summary
“Who did this to you?” Lavi asked gently, repeating his earlier question as he rubbed the back of Yuu’s head in soft, up-and-down motions.
“My father,” Yuu murmured gravely into the other man’s chest. He knew he needed to give more of an explanation, and he began to recount the horrors of his life before the Dark Order.
---
Kanda proceeds to recount the first night of his abuse, during which he walked in on his father raping his mother. His father switched targets and raped him on the kitchen floor. He was five.
Years of physical and mental abuse follow although he was not raped again until he was seven. He took to guarding his mother’s door in order to protect her from the abuse. The worst of his memories include him being beaten in front of the door, his father forcing him to chug two bottles of sake, his father breaking his sake bottles over Kanda’s legs, having his hair/scalp cut with a kitchen knife, and Kanda being cut/disfigured with a tomato knife.
Kanda fears Lavi’s rejection and is relieved when there is none (though Lavi is disgusted by what Yuu’s father did to him). We discover that Kanda’s mother only stayed with his father because she has a very low immune system, rendering her sick most of her life. She gets tetanus, and when the last day of Kanda’s abuse takes place, she is dying of malaria. We also discover that Kanda had friends! His mother forbade him to see them, as she didn’t want them getting hurt, too.
On the final day of his abuse, Kanda discovers that his mother was being abused during the day, during the time when she always insisted he stay outside. He screams until the neighbors get worried. Kanda’s mother’s best friend and next door neighbor, Emiko (yes, we know she has the same name as our latest Japanese Exorcist), barges in, telling Yasuo (Kanda’s father) that she has called the police. Yasuo is angry and ends up choking her to death. He leaves, and Fumiko (Kanda’s mother) decides that she and Yuu will leave that night, despite how sick she is.
That night, when his father returns, Fumiko tells him that she and Kanda are leaving. He gets angry and begins to beat/rape her. She begs him not to do it in front of Kanda, and so his father knocks him out by throwing his head into the corner of their kitchen table.
When Kanda wakes up, his mother is having trouble breathing. He father beats and rapes him until he is on the verge of death and then leaves again, probably to go out whoring (a favorite pastime of his). Kanda’s mother asks him to get a lotus flower from their kitchen table’s centerpiece, and she tells him of a spell that will keep him alive.
---
“Yuu,” she breathed. She coughed for a while, and Yuu saw blood come from her mouth, too.
“Okaa-san,” he choked back. His words were thick with the blood that suffocated him. His rib throbbed in agony.
“Yuu, you have to live on. Can you promise me you’ll do that?” She asked weakly.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“There is a spell that my family learned of, and it can heal you, keep you alive for a full life cycle. It will keep you from getting hurt and sick. It ties you to the petals of the lotus. It can only be invoked by someone who loves you deeply and wishes for you to live.”
“I still don’t understand, Okaa-san.”
“I am dying. I was dying before this happened. The spell will take my life to invoke it, but I only have minutes left, so Yuu, please promise me you’ll agree to let me do it,” his mother pleaded, her voice fading.
Yuu nodded and dragged himself next to his mother.
“Will you get a lotus flower from the pot on the table?” His mother asked weakly. He nodded and stood, despite the pain. His left leg crumpled beneath him, but he managed to grab the pot, knocking it over as he pulled the bouquet down. Gently, he put one of the light pink flowers in his mother’s hand. She smiled gently at him.
“It is invoked with a promise. Yuu, I want you to find the one person in this world who is special to you. The one who can protect you and whom you can protect. The one person with whom you can share a mutual love, like I was never able to. At that point, the Lotus will keep you alive, and your life expectancy will change to match that of your partner. Will you allow the Lotus to do that for you, Yuu?”
“I promise, Okaa-san,” he responded through sobs that brought up an alarming amount of blood.
“With this promise, I hereby tie you to the lotus flower. May you live in good health and happiness, Yuu.” The lotus began to glow slightly, and something strange happened.
Their two separate pools of blood mingled, and a thin line of dark red liquid rose up to face Yuu. It stabbed at him, ripping his shirt to shreds as it came near. It hit his chest with a pain far worse than the knife through his leg, and Yuu screamed until his voice was gone. Even then, he continued to let out air, even though it made no noise. His tears increased exponentially, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His left breast was burning, and it wasn’t stopping. He wanted to die-but no, his mother had just told him to live. He needed to live, but the pain was so awful. He wanted to lay down and give up, but-
The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and when Yuu looked down on his chest to inspect the damage, he saw a dark red mark on his scarred chest, just over his left breast. The mark steadily darkened until it was ink black. The pain in his body began to recede, as if the mark was pulling it in. He felt the rib his lung snap back into place with the others. He felt the hole in his lung close. Wooden splinters fell from his thigh to the floor as that wound closed, scarring with alarming speed. Blood stopped flowing from the wounds on his back and scalp, and one by one, the rest of his injuries, old and new, began to heal.
His mother smiled peacefully as death stole the light from her eyes.
He clutched the lotus flower and ripped his eyes away from his dead mother. He ran over to the small cabinet where they kept mementos of his grandparents. Dumping his grandmother’s ashes into his grandfather’s urn, he took the deceased lady’s urn and carefully placed the lotus flower inside.
He put on a new jinbei, wincing as each movement he made hurt his barely-healed broken ribs and battered body. Pausing only to say good-bye once more to his mother’s body, he left. He never once turned back.
---
Kanda then goes on to explain how Tiedoll ended up finding him. Since these are fine to read and contain no actual abuse, we will put the last few pages of the chapter here.
---
October 27, 1878-Japan
Yuu ran from the household of his ruined childhood. He had no money, but dinner lasted him until he reached the next town around dawn. He collapsed to the ground, panting. His battered body had begun to feel better the longer he’d run, and now, he could barely feel any of the pain from the previous evening. He allowed himself to rest in a nearby alley, and a few hours later, he started to run again, pausing only to get a long drink from the town’s well. He grimaced at the bitter taste but was glad for the water anyway.
He continued on his way, always keeping to the road so he could find the next town. He knew from the maps he had sometimes studied in the afternoons that he would not reach another village for a few days, and he hoped he’d be able to make it. He was determined to live for his mother.
A raindrop hit his face, and he put a hand to it. When was the last time he had felt rain? His mother had never allowed him outside during a storm, saying he’d catch a cold, and whenever the sky began to even hint at it, she would go inside. Yuu would invariably follow her. Now he wanted to feel the rain. Maybe it could wash away the dirt that he felt was inside him. The drops became more and more frequent, and when it finally started to drizzle lightly, Yuu stopped running and turned his face to the sky.
Hours later, when the rain had stopped, Yuu stood up, and he continued on his journey. His feet sunk slightly into the muddy ground, and the wet leaves made him slip several times. He was covered in mud and sludge by the next time he chose to break. He did not sleep that night-he couldn’t. He knew that bad things could happen in the night.
He walked onward, never looking back, even though he was exhausted, starving, and thirsty. By the middle of the twenty-eighth of October, Yuu fell face-first into the soft ground and passed out.
---
October 28, 1878-Japan
Something was nudging his shoulder, pulling him from unconsciousness. He cracked an eye open and yelled, scrambling back a meter or so.
There was an old foreigner with frizzy, light brown hair leaning too close to him.
“Are you okay?” The mustached man asked in highly accented Japanese. Yuu could barely understand him.
A sturdy teenager came up behind the man and placed his hand on the foreigner’s shoulder.
“His heart is beating like a bird’s. He is scared,” the teen said, also in Japanese. The foreigner raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?” He looked at Yuu, smiling pleasantly. “I won’t hurt you. Can you tell me your name?”
Yuu backed up further and shook his head.
A green light pulsed from the man’s strange gold and black coat. Surprise lit the man’s features.
“Intéressant,” the man muttered to himself in a language Yuu had never heard before. He reached into his coat, and Yuu readied himself to jump up and run past these two crazy people. The man produced a shiny, red apple and held it out to Yuu.
“You look famished. Would you like something to eat?” He said, placing the apple in the grass next to the road. Yuu’s stomach let out a hungry growl, and he couldn’t resist the offer of food. He slowly crawled forward, ready to back up if they struck him, and snatched the apple. He retreated back to his earlier position and tore into it, the juice running down his face in his haste.
“I am an Exorcist,” the man said as Yuu ate ravenously. “I am in an organization called the Dark Order, and we are fighting an enemy called the Millennium Earl.”
Yuu didn’t particularly care, but he listened anyway, as the man seemed to think this was important knowledge to impart on him.
“We fight with weapons made from something called Innocence. Innocence chooses people to accommodate with, and one of the pieces in my coat is reacting to you.”
Yuu looked up, genuinely surprised. “So?” He said through a large chunk of apple. He despised himself for his horrifying lack of manners.
“I would like you to come with us and train to be an Exorcist,” the man said, looking relieved that Yuu had finally said something.
“No,” he said, backing further away.
“I’m really sorry, but you have to come with me. The Order doesn’t give people choices in the matter.” His voice was heavy, almost regretful.
Yuu dropped what was left of the apple and ran, hoping that he was heading in the correct direction. He didn’t care, though, if it got him away from the strange foreigner and the teenager. Something caught the back of his muddy jinbei, and he went flying up.
“I’m so sorry about this,” the foreigner said, sounding sincere, and Yuu felt something hit the side of his head.
---
He awoke a few minutes later, his throbbing head already feeling much better. He looked up and saw up the foreigner’s large nose. He was held tightly in the man’s arms, and he resigned himself to the fact that he was being abducted. He decided to look at his surroundings, to see where they were headed. As he looked out, they passed by the spot where his discarded apple was-so he had been going in the wrong direction-and Yuu cried out when he saw his grandmother’s urn.
“My urn!” He shouted, struggling to free himself from the arms that carried him.
The bouncing of the man’s walk stopped, and Yuu felt the man’s chest reverberate as he hmmm’d to himself.
“Noise,” he said softly, “would you grab the urn on the ground?”
A moment later, the urn was placed into his hands by the large teenager. Yuu grasped it tightly, holding it to his chest.
“How are you awake so quickly?” The man asked, and Yuu realized he was being talked to.
“Magic,” he said. It wasn’t a lie.
“If you say so,” the man replied.
The man carried him to the next town, and they arrived long after the sun had set. Yuu tried to remain as alert as possible but soon found himself drifting off, and he hated himself for it. He couldn’t even protect himself.
When he awoke, he was on a soft bed. Looking around, he flinched when he noticed the teenager sitting next to him. His eyes were vacant though, as if he couldn’t see. Yuu attempted to get off the bed, but a large hand reached out and pushed him back down. He shuddered from the touch.
The teenager said something in a language Yuu couldn’t understand.
“Ego o hanashimasu ka?” He asked. Yuu shook his head, and even though the teenager seemed blind, his face lit up in understanding. “I don’t speak Japanese very well,” he added in stilted Japanese. “My master does, though.”
The hand left Yuu’s shoulder, and he bolted to the door. Before he could even open it, tiny strings pulled him back. He didn’t yell out-that wasn’t allowed-but he did start pounding his fists on the door. After a moment, the door opened, and Yuu yelped and allowed the strings to heave him back to the bed.
“Please don’t try to escape,” the foreigner said. He looked at the teenager. “Noise, deactivate your Innocence. We don’t want to scare him anymore than he is.”
Yuu felt the strings go slack, and then they were gone. The foreigner pulled a strange, glowing crystal from his jacket, and he placed it at the end of the bed.
“I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself yet,” he said, looking Yuu in the eye. “My name is General Froi Tiedoll. That green crystal in front of you is your Innocence. Will you pick it up for me?”
Yuu narrowed his eyes calculatingly. This man was obviously crazy, but at the same time, he had nothing to lose. It was not like he really wanted to live anyway. If he accidentally broke his promise to his mother, she would understand, she would forgive him. Carefully, he reached out a hand and touched the gently glowing crystal. It flashed and changed form. It lengthened out until it was nearly as long as he was tall. The glow dissipated, and in its place was a straight, black blade that ended with a long, sturdy hilt. Yuu recognized it instantly as a chokuto. He blinked as he heard a whisper in his ear: Mugen. That was this chokuto’s name, he knew immediately.
Turning the blade in his hands, he was surprised by how light it was, as if it was crafted out of rice paper rather than metal. He wished it was a bit heavier, and suddenly, it was. It was a comforting weight, neither too light nor too heavy, and it felt good in his hands. Yuu felt grateful for the foreigner for giving him such a beautiful, elegant weapon. He brought the edge of the blade near the hilt to his wrist and pulled it until he couldn’t drag anymore across. He didn’t scream as his wrist began to bleed profusely. He barely felt the pain.
“Putain!” Tiedoll grabbed his right arm and pulled Yuu’s new weapon from him. Dropping it to the floor unceremoniously, he reached over and seized Yuu’s left wrist. He spoke to himself rapidly, and Yuu thought that perhaps it was good that he couldn’t understand the man. He gazed up at the foreigner, but the man was already applying pressure to his wrist.
The man froze. “Quoi?” He said blankly. He twisted Yuu’s arm around, and Yuu let it move, already meditating his mind beyond the present reality. “Où est la blessure?” He looked at Yuu again.
“How did you do that?” He asked.
“Magic,” Yuu replied in a monotone.
“Pardon?” The man asked, and Yuu figured he was asking for some type of repetition.
“Magic,” he said again.
“Did you really cut yourself?” Tiedoll asked in wonder.
“Can’t you see the blood?” Yuu asked rhetorically.
“Ah, yes. Well, you’ll be needing a bath. You’re horribly muddy, and now you’re covered in blood,” the General said.
Yuu came crashing down into the present, and he pushed himself against the headboard. He would not get in the bath with this man. Baths were his own private affair. Even if the man didn’t do anything to him, he still didn’t want anyone to see all his scars. His mother had told him once that it was bad for people to see him, and he agreed. He didn’t want anyone knowing what had happened to him. He screamed out as the teenager’s arms heaved him over his shoulder. He squirmed, trying to hit and kick anything that would make the teenager drop him, but the other kid’s grip remained firm and steady, like a rock.
“Would you kindly do it, Noise?” The General asked, and the teenager nodded.
Yuu screamed and flailed wildly as Noise-Yuu assumed that was his name-grimly peeled off his disgusting clothing and unceremoniously dumped him in the bath.
“Can you clean yourself?” He asked bluntly in a soft voice.
“Yes,” Yuu replied hurriedly.
“Good, because I don’t want to do it. Damn Tiedoll.”
“You hate him?” Yuu asked in wonder.
“He dumped you on me when it’s obvious you’re old enough to be capable of at least washing yourself,” he replied grumpily. Yuu decided this teenager wasn’t the worst person he’d ever met.
“Could you… not stare?” Yuu asked, pulling his legs to his chest, hiding his scars and Lotus Mark.
“You’re not going to do anything stupid if I leave, right?”
Yuu looked away. He couldn’t respond, though.
“I thought so,” Noise said and dropped himself to the floor. “Besides, I can’t see anything anyway, so you don’t have to worry.”
“How can you move around so well?” Yuu asked as he scrubbed away all the muck that had caked on his skin.
“You must have noticed the objects on my ears?”
Yuu nodded, and the teenager continued, as if he had seen the action.
“They magnify my hearing far beyond normal capacity. I see through sound waves, if that makes any sense. They’re part of my Innocence.” He sounded almost proud, just like Yuu had felt when he’d first seen his chokuto.
As Yuu slowly washed himself, Noise explained as best he could about Innocence and the Dark Order. Half an hour later, Yuu finished scraping away the dried blood, and as he lifted himself from the bath to grab a towel, the door burst open.
“I’m sorry! I forgot that I really had to pee!” Tiedoll shouted, rushing in. “I can’t hold it in any longer!” He paused, staring at Yuu.
“Merde, mon dieu!” He breathed as he took in each of Yuu’s scars. Yuu blushed heavily and lunged for the towel, wrapping it tightly around his chest like-as his father had once said-a woman. “Je comprends… merde.” He turned to his apprentice. “Noise, take him to the room. I still have to pee.”
Yuu was whisked away and promptly dropped roughly on the bed. He saw Noise covering his face with a hand and sighing in annoyance.
“That idiot,” he muttered. Yuu couldn’t help but agree and found himself nodding. “Do you have anything else to wear?” He added to Yuu. Yuu shook his head.
“I suppose that means I’ll be washing your clothes. Sit tight.” The teenager left the room with an aggrieved expression on his face as Tiedoll left the bathroom, looking relieved.
He sat on the bed. Yuu scrambled back, careful to keep the towel covering him. “You poor child,” the foreigner said. There was something about the pity in the man’s voice that annoyed Yuu.
They sat in silence. Noise returned with Yuu’s washed clothes and an overlarge shirt, which Yuu put on hurriedly as Noise hung up his clothes to dry.
“Would you kindly tell me your name?” Tiedoll asked softly.
“Kanda Yuu,” he said sullenly, picking at the baggy shirt absently.
“Yuu-kun, will you tell me what happened?” The man asked kindly.
“No.”
“Will you explain the magic to me, then?”
“It’s just magic.”
He grabbed the bloody chokuto from the ground and ran the blade down his forearm, slicing it open. He waited as the wound closed itself and healed steadily until even the scar was gone. Tiedoll stared, transfixed.
“How..?” He asked, probably to himself. Yuu stood up and walked to the pitcher of water on the bedside table. He rinsed his arm off before looking back at his abductor.
“Where is my urn?” He demanded. He needed to see the lotus, needed to see that it was undamaged.
“It fell from your grip and broke during the night, I’m sorry,” the man said, looking away.
Yuu’s heart skipped a beat. “What about the flower inside it? Where is that?” He asked urgently, grabbing the man before he realized what he was doing. He came to his senses and backed up until he was against the headboard of the bed again.
The man reached into his pocket and produced the lotus flower. Yuu leaned forward and snatched it carefully from the man’s hand. He inspected it and noted one of the petals was a bit rumpled, though the rest of it seemed undamaged.
“Would you like something to put that in?” Tiedoll asked kindly, and Yuu nodded. If this man was going to offer him things, who was he to refuse it?
“Tiedoll and Noise took me out the next day and bought me clothes. We passed a glassware shop, and I saw a large hourglass inside. Tiedoll bought it for me, and the lotus flower has been in it ever since. We traveled through several towns before we found Mugen’s scabbard, though. We never stayed in one place for very long, so I didn’t have to worry about my father ever finding me. I still didn’t trust them, especially Tiedoll.”
“Did they teach you to fight at that time?” Lavi asked.
“No-they were afraid to let me near Mugen. They knew I’d try to do myself in.”
“How many times did you try?”
“Any time I found a way, I tried it. By the middle of November, they knew better than to leave me on my own. Tiedoll wouldn’t even let me bathe alone. He was convinced I would have tried to drown myself.”
“Would you have?”
“Probably.” He snorted. “Not that it would have done any good,” he added sarcastically.
January 19, 1879-Port in Egypt
They had left Japan a bit over a month and a half ago, and Yuu was thoroughly sick of the sea. Tiedoll had said that they were heading toward the Dark Order’s Headquarters, its main branch outside of London. Reluctantly, they had allowed him to carry Mugen around with him, as they had noticed his decreased suicide attempts. Not that he hadn’t tried to throw himself off the side of the ship a few times. One time, he had almost succeeded, but a crew member had caught him as he jumped up on the rail.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” The man barked rhetorically.
“Yes,” Yuu replied matter-of-factly.
“Where’re your parents?” The seaman groaned, looking irritated.
“Dead,” he said flatly.
Tiedoll ran up. “Oh good,” he panted, putting a relieved hand to his heart. “Someone caught him before he jumped. I’m terribly sorry, sir, but Yuu-kun’s a bit…” He trailed off. He quickly grabbed Yuu and threw him over his large shoulder, walking swiftly away.
“I’m just a bit what?” Yuu mumbled angrily.
“I was going to say ‘suicidal,’ but I thought that was self-explanatory,” the man replied, sitting Yuu down next to Noise.
“Don’t let him out of your sight, Noise-or, well, your range of hearing, anyway.” Tiedoll walked off.
Yuu sighed as he stepped onto the beautiful, yellow sand. He was glad to be back on land. Vaguely, he wondered if there was any way for him to die from sand. He wracked his brain but could think of nothing, so he resigned himself to another day of life.
There was a huge explosion, and Yuu turned in its direction. Some of the ship’s new cargo was up in flames, and Tiedoll stood on the rail holding a large, shining cross in his hand. Noise stood on the deck behind him, his arms outstretched. Something glinted in the midday sun, and Yuu noted that the strings of the man’s Innocence were extended. They had encountered many Akuma in their travels, and each time, Yuu had had to hide. They killed people by turning them to ash.
It clicked.
If he was ash, there was no way he could return from that, right?
He went to turn around, to run toward the foreigner and his apprentice, but the only remaining Akuma was right there. He didn’t move to get out of the way. It would shoot him, right?
“YUU-KUN!” Tiedoll shouted, and the Akuma seemed to realize that Yuu was important to the General. It cackled, and its guns primed. Maker of Eden shot out, whiplike, but it was a fraction of a second too late.
Yuu was thrown back several meters as the bullet struck his left side. Agony seared through him, but he could handle it-it was nothing compared to what he had suffered at the hands of his father. It was nothing like the tomato knife or the glass in his legs or the wine bottle or the belt whip or the…
The pain was receding. Tiedoll was at his side, holding him in his large arms, crying over the death of his new pupil.
The pain was gone, and Yuu groaned at its loss. Not even the Akuma could kill him? He screamed in fury at the brightly lit sky.
“Why can’t I die!?”
Tiedoll gasped and stared down at him, tears hitting Yuu’s forehead. He squinted back up at the man.
“How are you…?”
“Magic,” Yuu spat out, furious that the Lotus Spell had saved him from completely certain death.
“You will never explain that spell on your lotus to me?” Tiedoll asked resignedly.
Yuu shook his head. Even though he wanted to die, Tiedoll had saved him repeatedly. He felt a small sliver of trust attach itself to the man, and he hated himself for it. Trusting always got him hurt, just as caring had. He had loved his father, trusted him beyond measure, and his father had destroyed all that. He had hurt Yuu so much…
He wanted to die, but one certainty became clear from the Akuma attack. No matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to die. He sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to live a long life.
As they sailed up to Italy, Yuu took out his lotus, gazing at it. To his surprise, a petal was on the bottom of the hourglass. A thin hope swirled its way up his stomach and to his heart. Perhaps, if he wounded himself enough… But his mother wouldn’t like that, and Yuu was tired of pain. He was so tired of it. Perhaps, if he could just seal it all away, it wouldn’t hurt so much…
He sighed again. He could meditate on that later. He lay back on his bed in the small, cramped room and gave up the idea of finding ways to kill himself. It would never happen, no matter how much he wanted to die.
August 22, 2013, 1:37 AM-The Dark Order, Kanda’s Room
“Yuu,” Lavi whispered, sounding heartbroken as he pulled him back into his chest. Again.
“Hmm?” He asked, too drained from relating everything to open his mouth.
“You said you wanted to die?” He asked, though it was more a statement.
“Yes,” Yuu replied, his arms sliding once more around Lavi’s waist.
Lavi pulled back just enough to look Yuu in the eyes. Yuu was startled by how green the other man’s solitary eye was. “Do you still want to die?”
“Yes.” He tried to say it flatly, without emotion, but his voice shook with his long-repressed grief. He saw nothing but sad understanding in Lavi’s eye.
---
A/N: Holy shit. Not only did that take nearly a week to write, it took nearly three hours to edit. Today.
*Ego o hanashimasu ka? = do you speak English?, Gaki = brat
*The French: Intéressant=interesting, Putain = whore, but in this case, it is used to mean “fuck,” Où est la blessure? = where is the wound?, Merde, mon dieu = shit, my God, Je comprends… merde = I understand… shit. :D
Anyway… now you know! Sorry for the long Kanda-torture. But this is his turning point-from here, everything will eventually be a-ok! :D
For those who want to read the actual thing, here's the link to the first part, which is on our LJ page!