From Doomsday to Doomsday - Chapter 4: Double-Cross
DISCLAIMER: I don't own D .Gray-man, UNFORTUNATELY all is into the hands of that crazy woman whose name is hoshino... If it was otherwise... Lavi and Kanda should have been together from a VERY LONG TIME! And, more than a certain someone would be dead by now, before spitting out nonsenses.
WARNING: YAOI - if you don't know what this word means, or if you don't like boy/boy relationship this story is not for you, don't say I didn't tell you! You know the song, DON'T LIKE DON'T READ!
WARNING N.2! Mention of racism and violence (this is mainly in later chapters)! Please note that I in no way am encouraging or approving of racism. It's just that to keep the story as possibly close to its historical period, I must use terms, ways of thinking, and behaviors proper of the factions involved in WWII. So, if references to Nazism or to its ideology is offensive to you, please refrain from reading. I don't want flames about it. I want to make it clear that I don't approve in any way Nazi's actions and that I'm not a racist, I'm just using the historical setting as a background.
Yeah, finally it's done. Once again, sorry for the long wait.
I believe this is one of the most ambitious plots I ever worked on, to tell the truth, because it develops through a range of over 10 years, covering all the war, before, during and afterwards. So it was an hard work handling it.
And, I want to thank you all for your support ^_^ I really appreciate it. You patiently waited for my updates, even if between translating and having the chapter betaed always pass around a month^^" (when I don't have other business to take care of)
You all welcomed this story so thrilled, and I love it. Maybe it is because so many of you had their countries on the 'Ally' side, so most of the events in this story are quite unknown to you/didn't affect you, and you feel more inclined to express your point of view.
The Italian readers feel ashamed of what happened since we were part of the Axis alliance, and they're afraid to say that they actually appreciate something told from the Nazi's side point of view, two SS soldiers no less! So they rarely tell me what they think. But I see they all read.
I just wanted to tell you :)
Okay, I've babbled enough XD Well, enjoy the new chapter!
As always, a big THANKS to EM1&EM2, aka Saxon-Jesus who did the beta work for me, being so patient and helpful!
I love you!
FROM TO DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY
Chapter 4: Double-Cross
The next morning, Lavi completely reorganized Kanda's office, as the officer was finishing analyzing the documents he had left pending from the previous day.
Or at least, he was desperately trying to study them; havingsuch a hyperactive person - as Lavi was - around, Kanda soon realized that it was impossible to concentrate on anything for more than five consecutive minutes, before the redhead would call him to ask his opinion or would simply start talking about himself and his job before he knew him.
"Do I have t'leave them in the boxes?" The young man suddenly started, pointing at three large packages stacked in the farthest corner from the door, which contained the things collected in his former apartment. He had just finished placing all the books (which were actually very few) present in the room, creating an entire free space on the shelf he was cleaning.
"Choose whatever you want to fill the fucking hole, but do it in silence." Kanda exhaled loudly, shootinghis orderly an irritated look, as he rested his elbow on the desk's edge and placed his forehead on his opened hand's palm, trying to go back focusing on his job.
Lavi hastened to obey, yet smiling at his young superior with a hopeful glint in his eye.
"Yuu, can I also move these?" He then asked, showing Kanda a pile of files, stacked above and beside the numerous manuals of military regulations, the winning smile of which he was so generous about plastered again on his face.
"Is it possible that you can't keep your mouth shut for at least two consecutive minutes?" Kanda snapped with an angry gesture, sweeping the papers from his desk and sending them to spread on the floor under Lavi's mortified glance.
"But, Yuu..." The youth tried to justify himself, only to obtain that Kanda stood angrily from his chair and violently slammed both his fists down on the desk, making him wince at the brutality of such a reaction.
"I've already shown you what could happen if you continue on using my first name, am I wrong?" Kanda hissed in a deadly tone, piercing his orderly with a glare. Lavi swallowed hard, nodding repeatedly.
"O-OK... Got it..." He stammered, frozen, nervously rubbing his unruly hair. Yuu could really be scary at times.
The redhead stood stock-still staring at him as the young officer went back to seat like nothing had happened, as cold and unfriendly as a few moments before.
"Pick up those documents." Kanda then ordered to his subordinate with carelessness.
Lavi silently obeyed, handing them back and resuming to take care of the office's reorganization without speaking a word more, this time devoting himself to the Japanese officer's file cabinet.
The day after a new shelf appeared in Kanda's office, complete with doors and lock, and big enough to hold all the volumes once belonging to the old Bookman, now the only possessions Lavi had left from his grandfather and mentor.
The youth approached the furniture with reverence, touching it as if he didn't believe his one eye, almost expecting it wasn't real; he then suddenly turned at Kanda, spreading his arms.
"Thanks, Yuu!" The redhead said trying to hug him, and getting a hook in his stomach as a response.
Lavi clung to his Japanese superior laughing heartily, almost as if the fist he just took hadn't reached him at all.
"TCH! You're a hopeless case," Kanda stated, trying to wriggle free. "Let go of me, now, or I'll hurt you a lot, it's a promise!"
Lavi pulled away from him slowly, leaning on his shoulders for a moment, as he staggered a step backwards, his right arm pressed against his offended stomach.
But the winning smile was still there, Kanda noticed with incredulous astonishment. This youth was a lost cause, teaching him a modicum of discipline seemed to be a truly impossible task.
These movements continued for the whole week, arousing everybody's curiosity. Each one of the recruits was anxious to meet their Japanese Commander's new orderly, sure that he wouldn't last more than two days, and being extremely disappointed to discover in spite of himself that he was wrong when the Commander's previous orderly, a recruit everyone knew just as Michael, went to collect the bets' money...
Although he didn't stop a moment to speak, Kanda found that the young redhead had the required qualities to succeed in his job, even though totally lacking in discipline: methodical, precise, fast, educated. Intelligent, too, although he behaved like an idiot all the time, something to which the Japanese officer had resigned himself by now, as Lavi went along also with the sergeant who sometimes had acted as his interpreter, Toma Sucher.
"Perfect couple of idiots," He thought, shaking his head.
"Yuu, where do I put this?" Came at that moment from the one present of said two idiots.
Kanda lifted his face and simultaneously an eyebrow, shooting his orderly a murderous glare, but the other instead of shaking in fear gave him one of those disarming smiles of his.
Another thing he had to surrender to: Lavi would have never stopped calling him by his first name.
At that very moment Toma came in bearing the news that the Gestapo Police had seized several tons of books about Marxism, which were also destined to be burned.
It was May 22, 1933.
Lavi had perfectly adapted to his new lifestyle, and after the first traumatic impact with the recruits' dormitory to which he had been assigned, living promiscuously with all those people now no longer seemed to be so terrible for him; on the contrary, he also made some friends among those soldiers.
He was often spending his free time with two of them in particular, a German man always wearing a shy look whom he played chess with, and a rather naive young Romanian whom he won half the pay almost every time they played poker together, and then promptly gave him back a good part of it out of pity by the youth's whining.
Lavi found himself particularly at ease with the latter, perhaps because the man didn't care at all who he was or under whose orders he was serving, so he didn't ever ask questions about Kanda or any of the tasks his Commander entrusted to him.
In addition, he found the young Romanian was a very nice person despite his odd appearance, reminding him of the classic Transylvanian vampire, reason why Lavi at some point saddled him with the nickname 'Herr Vampir'.
However he couldn't help but wonder until when immigrants from countries adjacent to Germany would be well-accepted within the system, if as everyone seemed to believe Nazism was tending to absolute intolerance toward all non-German people.
Unfortunately things didn't go entirely as Lavi hoped, and since the day on which he had enlisted, he hadn't succeeded in obtaining a single piece of news on his adoptive grandfather; the old Bookman appeared to have vanished, swallowed by the Reich's bureaucracy, according to General Tiedoll.
But Yuu had been very direct with him, revealing without beating around the bush that the difficulty on tracing his grandfather was - no doubt about it - due to the hostility between him and another SS Commander, Howard Link, who, in Kanda's opinion, did his very best so every trace of the elderly historian would be lost; and he really had done a great job.
Even General Tiedoll wasn't able to have someone tell him where Bookman had been detained. It really looked like this Commander Link had powerful friends among the upper spheres.
"Yuu?" Lavi's voice roused Kanda, breaking his concentration, and the young man raised his head from the documents he was examining, his expression annoyed and an eyebrow raised as always on hearing his first name pronounced.
"What is it now?" He replied in an irritated tone, turning to his orderly a grim look, expecting once again some absurd request or that the redhead started to tell him things he didn't want to hear.
"Do you think my grandfather is dead?" Lavi asked instead in a sad tone, leaving Kanda bewildered, and above all without any response to give him.
"It's possible." The officer admitted calmly, as if he was speaking of the weather. Lavi's face showed no reaction, but the corners of his mouth curved into a bitter grimace.
"O'course..." The youth nodded and turned around, going back to rummage among the books on the shelf, pretending he was looking for something. Kanda sighed, standing up, thereby attracting the young Bookman's attention again toward himself.
"Believe me, I'm doing everything in my power to track him down, but your grandfather seems to have disappeared without a trace." Kanda paused, meeting Lavi's sad gaze; he then raised a balled fist with an angry gesture, as if to violently strike a certain someone well known to him with it. "Even the soldiers who escorted him to the SS command can't say whatever happened to him after. Or at least swear they don't know."
"And you... are persuaded it's the work of that Link?" Lavi dared to ask, though fearful of the possible reaction of his Commander to such a question.
"He's challenging me, that damn guy!" Kanda snapped angrily, slamming his hands on the desk, once again with the only result of throwing on the floor half the documents he was studying. "But he can't hide your grandfather forever, sooner or later someone will talk!"
Lavi smiled, picking up the sheets from the floor and handling them to Kanda, who stared for a moment in surprise, realizing he had just admitted that he took the whole thing very seriously.
"Thank you." Lavi said quietly. "If you don't need anything else I'll go back to work on the translations due for tomorrow's meeting."
The Japanese officer gave a nod of assent, following Lavi with his eyes as the youth left the room afterwards.
That evening in the dormitory Lavi set about to undress, getting ready to go to sleep, his normally cheerful expression replaced by a frown.
He had just sat on the bed, completely absorbed in his thoughts, when two of the soldiers with whom he had gotten to know better, apparently about to leave judging from the baggage they were carrying, approached him.
"Any news about Bookman?" The shorter of the two asked, a slender young man with sharp features and a prominent nose. He was of Turkish origin according to what he said, but his family lived in Germany since before his birth, so he had willingly accepted his enrollment. "I see you rather downcast, my friend!" The soldier laid a hand on his shoulder, and Lavi gave him a pained look.
"No." He sighed and shrugged, as with a sad smile upon his face addressed his two friends. "Yuu says he could be dead." Lavi then revealed with a hint of bitterness in his voice.
"If you insist on calling Herr Kanda by his first name one of these days he'll have you flogged until you bleed." Said the thin youth, tittering as he made a suggestive gesture.
"Daysha!" Exclaimed the other soldier, this latter of Austrian origin, a tall and burly man but with a gentle expression in the eyes, tugging at his companion with a reproaching look. "Do you think it's the case to say such a thing at a time like this?" The soldier who answered to the name of Daysha turned to him, raising his hands in a surrender gesture and showing an innocent expression.
"I was just trying to keep his spirit up." He defended himself, returning his attention to Lavi. "Hey, cheer up, my friend! Herr Kanda always exaggerates, don't immediately think the worst." Daysha landed a pat on his friend's back, trying to shake him from the state of prostration he has fallen in. "He will find him, you'll see."
Lavi nodded slowly and stood, waiting to know where the two soldiers were heading and how long they would be away.
"Will try." He promised, trying to sound convincing, and half failing at it. "It's hard for me t'live in this environment, I'm not cut out for military life." The redhead smiled again, this time with greater conviction, and Daysha smiled back, pleased with his work.
"Unfortunately we must part, but I'm sure we can still see each other from time to time, and maybe we'll be able to organize some good games of poker." The thin soldier said, embracing his friend.
Lavi stared at him in surprise, confusion that led its way on his tired face.
"We wanted to say goodbye before moving on." Daysha explained, touching Lavi's chin with a balled fist, in a playful gesture. "And recommend you to take care of yourself."
"We have been promoted. We're Corporals now." revealed the other soldier, nodding as in response to Lavi's unspoken question. "We're moving in the sub-officers' room. But we'll stay in touch, it's a promise. If you need us, you can always count on our help." The taller youth embraced his friend as the three said goodbye to each other, and then Lavi sat on his bed again, looking at the two soldiers going away.
As they were out of earshot, Daysha addressed to his comrade the question that was dancing inside his head since the moment Lavi had told them about Bookman.
"Marie. You too think that Bookman is dead, right?" The other youth gave a nod with his head, his expression serious. "I would have bet on it, you're a big liar, y'know?" Daysha looked at his friend, raising an eyebrow with clear accusation in his expression.
"I'm not the one who gave him a false hope." Marie protested quietly. "Poor Lavi, we should mention this matter to General Tiedoll, maybe he could lend a hand to Commander Kanda." The two non-commissioned officers exchanged an eloquent look, and Daysha fully agreed, albeit with some concern more than his friend.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out who is the one behind Lavi's grandfather disappearance." He said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and swinging the small bag containing his few possessions he held in his other hand, as both men continued to walk toward their new dormitory. "Herr Link is a dangerous man, it is common saying that he has very high friends among the Reich's leaders. Herr Kanda had better be cautious."
"All of us had better be." Marie pointed out in a worried tone. "Very cautious".
Left alone again with his thoughts, Lavi took casually in his hand one of the few books he could bring with him in the dormitory, intending to read until they was ordered the 'turn off the lights'.
He opened it carefully, turning over the first pages and immersing himself with interest into the reading; the volume was about Greek myths, a subject that Lavi particularly loved, and the young man lingered long over facts and legends regarding the constellations.
The Zodiac signs birth had always fascinated Lavi. He reread these topics each time with pleasure, dreaming of the heroes who took part in the events, imagining every detail with extreme accuracy.
Tired, he grabbed the thin strip of cloth that served as a bookmark, moving it to the page which he had arrived and then putting the volume back, intending to sleep, when a sheet of paper fell from its inside.
Lavi watched it with curiosity, wondering what kind of notes he could have left inside the book, and being baffled by the discovery he made: the sheet of paper was a message from Allen.
"Search for the Sagittarius," was written in capital letters on it, and an image of the celestial Centaur, in the act to stretch his bow toward the stars surrounding him, was very skilfully drawn in its center.
It looked like it was the leaflet of some place, maybe a nightspot, but there were no references to any address; it was certain that Allen was trying to show him the place where they could meet without risking that anyone had opened the book could find out.
However, for the moment he too groped in the dark. The second sentence that stood around the drawing, besides, was even more cryptic: "The fire of the stars indicates your destiny".
What was Allen trying to suggest with those words? Right at that moment it was ordered the 'turn off the lights', and the analysis of whatever thing was agitating itself now in Lavi's mind had necessarily to be postponed until the following day.
The young man closed the book leaving the leaflet inside it, and cuddled up under the blankets to enjoy a well-deserved rest.
Strange dreams took possession of Lavi's subconscious that night, and the youth found himself transfixed by the Sagittarius arrow whose myth he had read in his book; the creature had come up with a friendly attitude as if it knew him, and suddenly it hadn't four legs anymore but two, covered with short fur, like it was rather a satyr, and brandished its bow against him.
The archer's face was suddenly illuminated by light and Lavi recognized the figure as Allen, who was smiling reassuringly at him. And with that smile he aimed his bow, shooting an arrow that stuck into Lavi's heart; then the whitish mass of the youth's hair turned to a mane, and his body-shape became completely horse-like, a white stallion, with... with a horn on its forehead... and trampled on him.
Lavi awoke with a start, bathed in sweat but happy that it had been just a bad nightmare; he brushed a hand on his forehead, slowly laying back down on the bed, his breathing irregular and his heart beating wildly.
Allen's message was a trap, he was sure of it, and the dream suggested the same conclusion; nevertheless, the redhead was determined to decipher that riddle and then meet his ex-friend. Maybe someone in the boy's acting sphere might have heard something about the detention's place in which his grandfather was held.
The day passed between the endless meeting of SS leaders, in which it was decided the security measures to adopt in order to prevent public demonstrations against the Reich, given the recent disorders due to the dissolution order against all political parties being part of the now late Weimar Republic's electoral system, and the organization of the forces that would put into action these measures.
This leaving Lavi not having had a single moment to reflect on the mysterious leaflet and its invitation to look for the Sagittarius. So when at evening he came back to the dormitory, the redhead was quite impatient to study again the images and phrases on the mysterious paper. 'The fire of the stars', what could it be referring to?
"Hey, Lavi! Serving under Commander Kanda made you reduce yourself to reading the horoscope?" Another recruit mocked him, seeing he was staring enraptured at the image on the leaflet. "Burn that stuff, it's better, they just worm money out of you!"
Burn... The word echoed in Lavi's mind as the response from an oracle, and the young man instantly roused himself, his only eye exaggeratedly open because of the revelation that had just hit him.
"Oh, it was exactly what I was goin' t'do!" He said chuckling, rubbing his head with an embarrassed gesture; immediately after, he was rummaging through his stuff under the dorm's bed looking for a candle.
He should have thought about this at once, someone like Allen could only resort to that kind of protection for any message! Simple, yet unexpected, because too stupid as a way to let coded information filter in...
Having found the candle, Lavi lit it without caring if anyone was watching him, and positioned the sheet of paper over the flame, taking care that it was lapped but not burned by it, and soon some blue writing appeared among the stars around the Sagittarius figure. Invisible ink, just as he suspected!
Lavi memorized the address showed and put out the candle, hiding again the leaflet in the book; the next day as he had a free morning, he would go there.
Lavi had been wandering for over an hour around the quarter indicated in the message, but of the elusive local with the Sagittarius insignias there was not even the shadow. Yet he was sure he wasn't mistaking it, the place was certainly this one, even if the address wasn't accurate, Allen and his friends' haunt had to be nearby; the question was only to find it, of course...
While those thoughts were crowding his mind, the redhead passed in front of a semi-opaque whitish glass wall, on which some flashes of blue caught his attention. He suddenly spun around to look better at it.
To his left, on that window, there were really painted some stars, even though he couldn't say whether or not they formed any constellation; yet the lines between them suggested something else, and Lavi backed away a few steps to have a full view of the panel.
Sometimes his blind eye was a very annoying limitation, when the surfaces to observe were so wide! The figure that could be distinguished, shaded, among the stars, was exactly the one on the leaflet: the Centaur who stretched his bow, the astral symbol of Sagittarius.
He had found it; that was the place. However, it didn't seem to be a placeto gather, it was a common shop. Lavi entered feigning indifference, and found himself inside a bakery.
Although he was very surprised about this discovery he didn't show it at all, pretending to observe the various specialties produced by the baker who ran the shop, and after several minutes he was in, Lavi approached the counter to cautiously ask for information.
The bizarre-looking man who welcomed him couldn't in any way be German, with a complexionso dark, his unusual hairstyle that separated his hair into two low ponytails, tightly bandaged for almost their entire length, and a red chakra he had painted on his forehead. Everything was completed by a pair of dark glasses with an unlikely shape, as if they were the result of Komui's warped mind; so maybe it was the right place after all, it was worth it to give it a try.
"Mornin'. I was sent here t'speak with a person, a certain Allen Walker." Lavi said as he was the only remaining customer in the shop.
The man, who presumably had Indian origins according to the young Bookman's knowledge, immediately changed his expression. He stopped smiling and looked at him from head to foot.
"I don't know anyone by that name, I'm sorry my boy." The baker answered, resting one elbow on top of the glass that protected the counter and bowing his face to meet his clenched fist, the sly smile he had just a while ago reappearing on his lips.
"You sure?" Lavi showed him the leaflet, and the man raised an eyebrow. "Allen sent me this together with directions to get here." He explained, still hoping to be recognized, in case his interlocutor's reluctance was due to a suspicion that he might be an officer of the Reich's police forces.
"I admit it looks like the design on my window, but I've never seen that leaflet before, my boy." The baker insisted without changing pose or expression. Lavi sighed, he wouldn't ever be able to get anything out of the man. He muttered a 'thank you', turning to leave the store, followed by the Asian's sinuous voice answering cheerfully. "But if you're passing by any other time, do drop in!"
The man followed Lavi going away from his shop 'till the youth was out of sight; he then closed the door and disappeared into the back-shop.
As soon as he was out, Lavi sighed again. It was a total failure, but the place could only be that one, he was absolutely certain of it. Perhaps different people were working in the shop and the man wasn't the right baker to address that particular question...
The youth paused, still looking at the Sagittarius on his rumpled sheet of paper and its enigmatic message, as suddenly the touch of a hand grabbing onto his shoulder made his heart nearly stop with fright.
"Lavi! How long!" A hardly breathless voice addressed him in a mellifluous tone.
Automatically Lavi clenched both fists to his chest, involuntarily crumpling the leaflet, and looked back at the owner of that voice sounding so familiar; his only eye met the ice-blue ones belonging to Allen Walker, who was staring at him smiling with an angelic air, as if none of the recent events had ever happened.
"Allen!" Exclaimed the young Bookman in surprise, shaking the albino-boy's hand off him with firmness. The latter bent on himself, placing each hand just above his knees, gasping: it looked like he run at breakneck speed to catch up with him. The English youth moved away from his face a lock of that white hair of his, nodding back as to say that, yes, it was really him. "The baker advised ya, it's so, right? The place was that one then."
"Who knows? I might have met you by chance." Allen answered straightening himself up, his breathing now almost regular. He shrugged his shoulders with studied carelessness, but his amenable smile said a lot about the fact that he was lying. "Why did you decide to come looking for me, anyway?" The boy asked casually, but with a light in his eyes that betrayed extreme interest in the whole thing.
"Could we talk somewhere more private?" Lavi proposed, which Allen's quite laboured German always gave the impression that the youth was hiding something; in private they could speak English, so he would be able to better identify truths and lies.
"Follow me." Allen beckoned him as he got underway.