Don't Watch Me Fall
Title: Don't Watch Me Fall
Pairing: Kanda/Lavi
Rating: M for safe.
Summary: Kanda is on the verge of death, and he goes through all his life from his childhood until the events which drove him dying on that floor.
Warnings: SPOILER, What if, boy/boy relationship, angst, violence, language.
Note: Beta is Jolee Finch (FF.net), thank you so much!
Disclaimer: I don't own DGM. If I did, Lavi now would have been by Kanda's side and not Hell-knows-where leaving him alone...
WARNING: ANGST. And implied YAOI - so, if you don't know what this word means, or if you don't like boy/boy relationship this story is not for you. You know the song, DON'T LIKE DON'T READ!
Another WARNING: Sorry, this is just half of the story, and I'm even more sorry to have chopped it like that. I'll try to have the final part ready as soon as possible! And... beware, final notes ranting! XD!
Now some explanations about the story:
Direct dialogues and what Kanda personally says are identified with - xyz. -
All dialogues Kanda hear in his memories are identified with "xyz."
All thoughs are italicized^^
DON'T WATCH ME FALL
It was dark.
His eyes were open, but around him there was only a void.
Yet, the world was still there. He heard voices around him... alarmed voices.
At him.
- Why doesn't he see me? - complained a voice he seemed to know very well, but at that moment, he couldn't relate it to a face. Its tone was... desperate?
Kanda felt something holding to him, and another equally worried voice asking for help.
For him?
- Someone do something! - Then the person seemed to turn to the one that owned the other voice, given the proximity of the sigh that he obtained in response. - Don't hold him that way, it's worse. You can't do anything for him, let the scientists see him... - No, perhaps it was not a sigh, it was a sob. Someone was crying.
For him?
- As if I'd allow them to touch 'im again!
Oh. The scientists. Yes, now he remembered something. Someone who wanted to defend him, but that was so long ago...
The voices became confused, he felt something wet under him, or perhaps, it was above, he couldn't tell. His chest ached terribly, right at the height of the--
A laboratory. Why was he there again? Why were these people so much taller than him? And that woman was looking at him in such a strange way...
"This is Kanda Yuu.", said a male scientist leading him in. The woman nodded to his colleague and addressed him with a pleased smirk. "But he's not a compatible. Why did you want him here?", the man asked, rather surprised.
"It's none of your business. You can go.", she replied coldly. The scientist gave him a pitiful look, and then saluted the woman, leaving him with her. The latter looked at him carefully, then held out her hand, smiling in a way so false, Kanda pulled back.
"Come with me, I want to introduce you someone who will take care of you.", she told him, grabbing him equally with strength and dragging him with her.
Why can't I oppose her? Why haven't I the strength to do it?
Kanda looked at his hand in horror: it was so small! Was he a child again? He felt another stab of pain, a new buzz of voices echoed around him, but he couldn't see the faces to whom they belonged.
It wasn't real. Only the pain was real. Was he dying? It's believed that before one's death, one would review their life flashing right before their eyes... Did that time finally come?
Kanda let himself go to the soft sound of those voices, allowing himself to be lulled by them, not fighting the numbness that was overcoming him.
The scene had changed. Now he was in a strange place, and someone was shouting, but he couldn't understand the words. The sound was somewhat muffled, and he felt... was he underwater? He tried to emerge. Next, he was sticking an arm out, and finally, his head.
The brat who reached out onto him had a puzzled look on the face, and continued to stare at him, as if unsure he really existed. He mumbled something useless that was along the lines of 'So I won't be alone anymore' and held out his hand at him.
He was been always alone, even after General Tiedoll found him, brought him to the Black Order, so now having a captivity companion was a significant change.
"I heard that your name is Yuu.", the nuisance spoke again. He wanted to shout at the brat to leave him the fuck alone, but the words wouldn't come out. So he resolved to point at him to go the hell away. However, the other seemed to not understand, but instead of getting out of the way, he thought he was asking him who the hell he was, and told him his name. That name... Kanda knew who he was, but why he was again back there?
He believed he had buried his childhood so deeply, he himself had forgotten all about it...
Confusion. Voices. Cries. The feeling of being moved, and, once more, nothing.
He was conscious again. He looked around. It still was a different place. That annoying kid again; he was his first human contact in that place, his companion during misfortune.
Not that he had had much to choose, to tell the truth, given the situation. He was reciting a nursery rhyme, one of those absurd little stories parents teach their children as a pastime, only... this was strange. Disturbing though silly.
"Who killed the robin?", so began the unbearable chant. The more he asked him to stop, the more the other insisted, laughing at him.
"If you're bothered by something so silly, you will never endure what we're forced to bear."
Maybe not, or he was bearing it too well, seeing how his body reacted to their treatments.
General Tiedoll had told him that hopefully he would become an Exorcist when he agreed to follow him, that he would have fought evil. From what he saw, evil was in that place where they kept him prisoner, and he couldn't understand why they had to do things like that to him. To have him become an Exorcist. He didn't understand why they tortured him in such a way.
He understood only much later. Much later. When he realized he was just a weapon for them, something so useful but expendable at any time for the Order's needs. They burned down his life in the name of a war which did not even belong to him, and they had forced him to fight it.
Again another place. Or another time?
He was on a gurney, around him were voices of people examining him, talking about him. His captivity companion, his inmate, had tried to make him flee, saying that otherwise he would be "put to sleep again." However, Kanda thought his escape was a little short-lived. They had recaptured and returned him to his torturers; the scientists who now were discussing his fate. They were determined more than ever to put him back into stasis.
"He has demonstrated to be a strong boy.", said one of the researchers. "We could go ahead, I'm sure he can do it."
But again that dark-haired woman, who seemed to be the leader, interjected abruptly shutting her colleague up. "You won't do anything like that.", she warned them all. "You heard the orders. What would happen if he suddenly went berserk? We'll freeze him as it was decided."
So they just wanted to get rid of him as you do with a broken doll, after all that to which he had been subjected to, after being the object of all that torture. Only because he had strange dreams. Rather than trying to understand and aid him, they were about to dispose of him labeling him as a 'failure'. And he was absolutely powerless against them. Oh, no. The truth was that they knew exactly what was happening, because they were the ones who manipulated his brain. He had memories which didn't belong to him... or maybe they did, and he was... dead?
He then burst out into a loud, insane laugh, bringing back the attention of the scientists present there to himself. But tied up to that gurney as he was, he could only wait for his destiny to come to an end. Ah, if he could defend himself, if he only had the strength to oppose the decision that condemned him! But he couldn't. They immobilized him by force and injected something into his body, which in a few moments, stifled and blurred in him any perception of the world.
Kanda slowly opened his eyes again. It seemed to him that someone was calling his name. Was he still... alive? He believed that they put him 'to sleep' with the other experiment failures. Surprised, he looked around: he was still on the gurney. The laboratory was now dark, and excited voices could be heard in the outside corridor. Then, he saw her. The apparition was there again, vivid in front of his eyes.
"I'll wait for you forever.", she said extending her hand. "I love you."
Kanda's eyes widened, it was the first time she spoke to him while he was awake.
- Who are you? - he asked trying to pull back, but the straps that tied him to the gurney prevent it.
"Mugen."
Kanda stared at the woman without words. Suddenly, he understood, and he knew what she was asking him, and what he had to do. The straps shattered and he could raise his hand to meet the vision's hand.
- Inno... cence... - he murmured while a bright light closed in upon him and the woman vanished, leaving... a sword. He was holding in his hand an oddly shaped sword made of a material that he didn't know. The Innocence which kept talking to him in dreams, and which perhaps had once belonged to another Exorcist, now had chosen him and it was his only chance for salvation.
He sat down, uncertain on what to do. He didn't want to have anything to do with those people now that he knew what they were really doing, and yet he had accepted the bond with the Innocence. He would in any case become an Exorcist, right at the service of those people who had played with his life, and he couldn't draw back. Die or fight for them, two options which were equivalent. It would have been just a different kind of death.
"He's armed!", shouted one of the scientists who were outside the laboratory, and Kanda thought he'd been discovered and that he had no choice but trying to escape. But once slipped out of the room he realized that something completely different was happening. There was smoke everywhere, and blood, and many scientists were groaning slumped to the ground, gravely wounded. Had they been attacked by Akuma?
One of the scientists saw him and screamed, pointing at him with horror written all over his bruised face. Kanda stared at the survivors with a confused look; what they said made no sense to him.
"He's become mad too, he'll kill us all!"
"How did he wake up?"
"Where had he get that weapon?"
Then from inside the group emerged the dark-haired woman who had 'put him to sleep', and Kanda shuddered. "Don't you want to give me that weapon, Yuu?", she asked in a persuasive tone, with a fake smile plastered on her pretty face. He stubbornly refused, shaking his head and clutching more to Mugen's hilt.
Another scientist, the one who wanted to convince them not to put him back into stasis, suddenly opened his eyes wide, stepping forward. "The Innocence has chosen him!", he exclaimed pointing at Mugen's hilt. "Yuu is wielding it, he's not possessed by it!"
The woman seemed to seriously consider that possibility, carefully scanning him. She then nodded. "It seems he's conscious." They heard a very close explosion and other cries of agony. "Yuu, will you help us? Your companion became crazy. He joined with an Innocence and has lost control, and now he's destroying everything." Kanda looked at her scornfully.
- Why should I? It's all your fault. - he stated in a harsh tone.
"But if we don't stop him, he'll kill us all, including you.", the woman explained with the tone of someone who's talking to an idiot.
- What's the difference? You wanted to do it too. - Kanda angrily accused her. The woman was about to reply when something fell on them, throwing everyone to the ground, and a well-known voice, distorted by anger, called out his name.
"Yuu, I must save Yuu...", the boy was repeating it like a refrain. He got rid of the scientist's body whom he had just stabbed with his arm deformed by the Innocence.
- I have no need to be saved, you idiot! Stop it now! - Kanda snarled, trying to stand up with difficulty, extremely annoyed by the other kid's stupid behavior. But when he lifted his face to look at him he realized that this time it wasn't a game. The Innocence was winding the other boy's arm penetrating the flesh, and also the boy's features were distorted. That's why his voice had that strange sound...
"The Innocence owns him, he's become crazy, he doesn't recognize you anymore!", repeated the brunette scientist. "Defend yourself or he'll kill you!"
"You now urge me to live, you who wanted to erase me...", Kanda thought with irony.
"You want to hurt Yuu...", said again the thing that once had been his companion, piercing the scientists under his disbelieving eyes with the weapon that had become his hand.
Is friendship stronger than any desire for revenge? Sometimes, it's not. Blind rage knows no friends or companions.
He declared he was his friend even if he didn't want it and didn't consider him that. He had proclaimed that he wanted to save him at any cost, and now what?
Kanda faced his opponent's violent onslaught only trying to defend himself. He, in spite of everything, would have never really hurt the other boy. Anyhow the brat was his captivity companion, he didn't want him to die after all they had been through together. But he soon realized that he was destined to succumb if he didn't fight. The truth was that he didn't care: living as a dead man was the same as dying. He prepared himself to the fatal blow, but it never came. His so-called 'friend' had finally recognized him, he had managed to get out of the Innocence's control enough to partially recover his mind. He knew that the other kid didn't intend to react, and the boy let himself go as well, transforming Kanda's weak defense in a fatal blow.
His body was pierced, so was the one of his companion. "You killed the robin, Yuu... With your sword." Those words struck him deeper than the blow that had just stabbed him. He stared at the boy in astonishment, waiting for him to open his eyes, now again in his senses after the Innocence had separated itself from him. But nothing happened. Kanda didn't understand. The boy should have recovered as quickly as he did, but he was lying on the ground, his eyes glassy and a lake of blood spreading out from under his numb body. The livid complexion that the other's skin was taking made him understand that something was wrong, and when the certainty that he had killed his only companion in that place - the only person still alive aside from him - hit him, walking in a maze of dead bodies and blood, Kanda lost his wits, blindly lashing out against everything that arose before him.
"The experiments must end. I will make them stop." He didn't know if those thoughts were entirely his own, or if the Innocence influenced them, but he shared them, and he let himself go into the whirl of destruction, demolishing all of the equipment located in that place, bringing down even the underground alcoves, which now contained only the dead bodies of his ex-companions in misfortune.
He never knew how much time they took to stop him. He just remembered that he suddenly was outside, with Marie, Bak and the old Zhu, covered in blood and torn, Mugen in his hand, and the laboratory rubbles behind.
There was an investigation. Then he was immediately entrusted to Tiedoll, being blamed for the incident. But they couldn't touch him, no, not anymore. He was an 'Apostle' now, they couldn't give him up. They needed him.
The reason I was born, and the reason why I live, it's only to fight to protect this world.
And so it was taught to him. So he had always lived. As a weapon. Against the Millennium Earl and his Akuma creatures.
No one knew the weight he carried in his heart, no one knew how Yuu Kanda was created. But he had wanted to know. No. He had to know what he was, why he remembered that he had died. So he asked the old Zhu, the only person he trusted, the one who had forged his Innocence after the massacre.
They had implanted in him brain cells taken from a mortally wounded Exorcist in an attempt to make him compatible with the Innocence.
Oh, that's the reason for those memories...
But nobody knew anymore who that man was, because all the scientists who participated in the project were dead, and the experiment's records were gone, destroyed. He didn't know if that Exorcist survived, but if it was so, he would have found him. He had to find that person. Before his life ended, before...
Again, the world around him faded, becoming a muffled fog, and he was swallowed by it.
Now he was outdoors, in a camp, and someone was speaking to him lovingly, which flew him into a rage. His teacher and mentor, General Tiedoll, tried to pierce his wall of ice, hoping to awake some interest in him, but it was in vain. Kanda Yuu was not interested in the world, nor he was interested to forge bonds with the rest of the people who populated it.
He knew it was all useless. His life was destined to end at any moment during one of the battles, having bonds would only cause pain. Yes, even to himself.
When it was explained to him how his connection with the Innocence worked, he had been surprised, but he had merely taken notice of it. An unexpected twist, the scientists had called it. Bullshit. They just played with his life to get a stronger warrior. Who cared for the price to pay if they hadn't had done it themselves? Every time he used his ability to regenerate, his life was consumed proportionally to the severity of the injury. And the lotus in the hourglass, that no one knew from where it came from, marked its time. When the last petal fell down, he would die.
Still, he didn't care. In fact, he desired it. Because he now fully understood what they made out of him. Because in a way he felt guilty for the death of his captivity companion. Because he looked at the world of which he couldn't be a part of like an onlooker, an outsider. Mugen, his Innocence, was all he had... And Tiedoll keep smiling at him.
Why did he remember the times of training? Then those images were quickly overshadowed and he found himself in another place.
Someone was shouting: it was himself.
A young man with red hair had approached him and had dared to call him by his first name.
Who was he? Oh, sure, Lavi. Now he remembered...
The first time he saw Lavi he really wanted to kill him. They were both sixteen, but the idiot behaved as if he was five. Too many things about this fool reminded him of the fucking dead brat, and he didn't want to think about it.
But the red-headed idiot insisted in being stuck around him, just like the other one. Except that this idiot was different, Kanda realized almost immediately. Lavi was not a coward. Lavi did not cry like a fucking fountain. Lavi was pretending to be stupid. He pretended it for him, Kanda decided at some point. To try making him laugh, which was absolutely impossible. Yet, the idiot had to try it anyway, each fucking time.
Kanda then secretly began to appreciate the presence of the redhead by his side, letting go unpunished (or almost so) some liberties he took with him, such as the ongoing call by his first name, which he hated deeply.
After managing to escape from the scientists' clutches he didn't want to ever hear a living soul calling him by name. Yet Lavi did it, despite his threats of death if the idiot hadn't stopped it immediately. But in the end he would never hurt him and, even if he wouldn't ever admit it to himself either, he loved to hear the voice of the red-haired youth pronouncing his name.
As hard as he tried to keep the distance with Lavi as well, despite all of his rude, cold and sharp answers, the young man remained beside him. He worried about him, every time he was hit because of his excess of self confidence... no it wasn't at all excess of self confidence, it was rather carelessness. Simply, he didn't care getting wounded nor about how much of his life was lost in the process. The sooner it was entirely consumed, the sooner all the rest would end as well. Because with no past and no future, for what purpose had he to live the present as an object in his persecutors' hands?
How possible was it that Lavi didn't understand it? No, that was not the point. Lavi understood, but he didn't care, he had only to record the events, as the good Bookman apprentice he was. Lavi's life revolved around that, and he knew that even the name the young Bookman wore was a sham, a mask expressly created to easily move among the Exorcists. It was the thing that made him angrier, being the object of those fake feelings, smiles, attentions, everything. He didn't want friends, let alone of false friends.
Nevertheless, having Lavi around him made him feel strange; made him desire that the other man could be real, that the smile that lit up his days could be just as real. And he couldn't understand why it was.
What had changed in Lavi at some point he had no idea. Only, the Bookman apprentice with him had stopped pretending anymore. He had watched him for so long that he could tell the difference. Yet it really didn't have that much relevance now. It was already too late, because even though he knew that 'Lavi' was not real, he realized that the sensation he felt when the redhead was with him was something he couldn't fight: feelings.
It was uncharted territory to him, since he grew up suppressing each and all individual expressions of emotion that he had happened to feel. So he was not too sure how deep those feelings were. He only knew that he would never say a word about it.
Suddenly every time Lavi took care of his wounds, death didn't seem so inviting anymore, and his fate no longer seemed to be that dark.
"Because with you, this doesn't feel as if I'm dying, when I'm in your arms the world loses its meaning, death loses its meaning, and I surrender to you, even if I'll never admit it. You are what keeps me alive. Even if I threaten and insult you, even if I push you away abruptly, you are what urges me to come back to what all the Exorcists call home..."
Since that very moment he was no longer able to separate their lives. He worried about Lavi as much as the latter did for him, and he let the redhead follow him anywhere he wanted, even if he continued to treat him as if he didn't want him to at all. But Lavi seemed to understand, although he continued to wonder how much he had understood.
Especially when one day the redhead gave him a kiss on the cheek in front of everyone inside the cafeteria, after he had just finished eating. Doing it like that, with thoughtlessness, smiling as usual, as if the gesture had no meaning to Lavi. But beyond the kiss, were the words the Bookman apprentice had whispered to him what shook him the most; so much in contrast with the playful attitude that the idiot kept in public.
"When are you going to understand, Yuu?", Lavi murmured in a persuasive tone into his ear. He didn't move away from him, instead he moved his hand to his face, gently touching the area where Lavi's lips had rested with his fingers, speechless, wondering what the meaning of that gesture could be.
Shortly after, with a moment of delay, compared to his standards, he had reacted furiously wiping his face with his sleeve, as if he was infected, shouting at him. Lavi had stopped dead in the middle of the greeting he was addressing him as he was leaving the cafeteria. He turned back towards him, his expression suddenly serious while their glances met again.
No, Kanda didn't understand. He couldn't accept what Lavi wanted him to understand.
He tried not to think about it, but it was too difficult, and he was so tired, so...
Yet another place.
Now he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall behind him and his head was bend back, meeting the stone blocks, a desperate look on his face. He wore his Exorcist uniform, although it was half unbuttoned.
Final Notes: I'd really like Kanda being chosen by Mugen that way, it's so sweet and poetic... But I know there are less than 5% chances for it to be true. Sadly, I must say.
Also, about my way of viewing things. I don't think Kanda's body is artificial, the bodies used to store the dead Exorcists brains are. You know, scientists don't do useless things, and create so many DIFFERENT artificial bodies is just a BIG waste of time and energy. If they had really done it, all the experiments subjects would have been all IDENTICAL. Thing that is not.
So, I prefer to believe all the children were took in other ways, such as kidnapping them among Exorcists relatives as usual.Also, about the brains. You know a body can't live without a brain, so it's impossible that the Order was implanting the whole brains, and that for many reasons (yes, Road said they were, but it's just half true, and even if the Noah knows so many things they can't be always right. The brains were implanted into the artificial bodies to preserve them, yes, but not into the test subjects.); first, given the low number of brains they had available they couldn't possibly have SO MANY sleeping children, were them failures or not. Second, when you have a failure you must recover the brain to implant it into another body, and that means KILL the poor child. Since they just talked about “freeze” and “put back to sleep”, and about how many children are sleeping, that means they just implanted brain cells, and not the whole brain, because all the children are alive. That also because, and that's the third reason, implanting and explanting a brain continuously would damage it for sure.
This applies to Kanda too, because they did not say “We have to take back Yuu's brain” but again they said he would be put back to sleep and never wake up again.
Now, that are all LOGIC reasons, and we all know Hoshino doesn't follow logic. So I expect to be disappointed on this one too... Damn.
Another interesting thing that must be noticed is that Marie is already injured when Kanda met him, that means he couldn't possibly be sent on the battlefield while he's yet to fully recover. We all know how hard is for one who's just became blind to adjust himself to the situation. So Marie in no way could be out to fight in the present time. Hence, what we see in the latest pages of chapter 192 is the past, when Marie get wounded and lost his vision. That lead to only one conclusion, he is the alive donor for Kanda's brain cells (and that could be an interesting plot twist, because of the implications of it) or he is a close friend of the dead donor, and in this case the donor should be lying somewhere near Marie. The timing is also good, to recover from such an injury maybe 4-6 months are passed... I prefer to think he is the only alive donor, and that right because of this difference Kanda is the only one survived and chosen by the Innocence.
I also want to point a finger on the mysterious woman. Memories don't think, nor talk, let alone hear your discussion and actually answer. More, they don't materialize; and it couldn't be Kanda hallucinating, because when you hallucinate you are fully aware of the vision you're seeing, and not having it somewhere behind you without you noticing, speaking at you while you are not listening... The only logic explanation is that she's dead, and she's actually a ghost. Even if I like to believe that she could be Mugen's essence.
OK, I'll stop ranting now XD.