Mai: So welcome to chapter 1of my brand new -man fic! I hope all of you enjoy this. I make no promises about speedy updates but I'll try my best. I've been trying to plan this out and get started for a while. For those of you who liked The Replacement that is a side story for this and there might be some more KomuixMiranda fluff later on.

Disclaimer: I don't own -man. I only own my characters and my plot. So sit back read and remember nothing says appreciation like reviews.

Yu Kanda had never been what one would call a generally happy person. However at that particular moment, standing outside the main headquarters of the Black Order with a strong cold wind blowing his dark hair around violently, made him feel (if at all possible) even angrier than usual.

He kept grumbling things to the effect of, "Since when is it my job to wait for new recruits?" Only with a much nastier set of vocabulary and in Japanese.

Of course he knew that since Lenalee was sick someone had to fill in for her, he just thought that maybe her idiot brother should get off is ass and do something useful for once. Or at the very least Komui should've delegated this task to someone more suited for it. Considering that he had almost killed Allen Walker when he had first arrived, Kanda had assumed that everyone (Komui, the lazy-ass moron included) would agree that a horde of akuma would make a better welcoming committee. Apparently he had been wrong.

Then again he also had the sinking suspicion that his mentor, General Tiedol, had something to do with this. It would be just like the old man to request Komui's help in his never ending quest to teach Kanda what he thought of as adequate social skills.

Kanda's hand was twitching with irritation inside his pocket. If the new exorcist didn't show up soon someone (most likely Komui) was going to have a very unpleasant encounter with Mugen.

Just as he started to visualize exactly how he would hurt the brainless supervisor (one of the few things that made him a little less miserable) a figure appeared in the distance. It was hard to see the person approaching in the dark but at least Kanda's impatient need to hurt someone subsided slightly.

As the newcomer got closer Kanda was surprised to see that the new exorcist was a girl around his age possibly a year or two younger. It looked like she had been through a long rough journey. Dust completely covered her clothes and there was so much of it in her tangled hair that it was impossible to tell what color it was underneath. As she got within a few feet of where he was standing Kanda noticed that she was about five inches shorter than him and had light brown eyes.

It took her a few minutes to catch her breath and notice him glaring at her.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly mistaking her impoliteness as the source of his anger. "I am Claire Gerard." She spoke with a slight French accent.

Kanda grunted and immediately headed towards the gate ignoring Claire's outstretched hand.

"You'll need to be scanned," he informed the confused girl.

"Aren't you supposed to introduce yourself after someone tells you their name?" Claire demanded as soon as the gate declared her clean.

"Kanda," he answered as quickly as possible.

"What?" she asked not knowing what to make of the short grunt of a word he had just thrown at her.

"You asked for name, baka onna," he grumbled impatiently. "It's Kanda."

"Oh. Douzo yoroshiku , Kanda-san," she said slowly making sure she had the phrasing right. He raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise. So she spoke a little Japanese although not too well judging by the cautious hesitant way she pronounced things. Still it was interesting.

He remained silent as he turned around and gestured at her to follow him. He really was quite odd, she thought as they stepped on the elevator platform. If this was his normal attitude she really couldn't understand why anyone would ask him to greet new recruits.

"Lounge. Cafeteria," he said in a monotone as he pointed out each place they passed. "Training rooms are on the 3rd floor. Living quarters are above us."

He didn't ask her if she had any questions. He just walked over the stairs and started down them. As she started to follow him she noticed a hallway her guide had ignored. The walls were cracked and had several large oddly colored stains and burn marks. All the lights were smashed or hanging from the ceiling by a wire or two.

"Um. Wha-?" she started to ask before he cut her off.

"Just never go down there," he told her.

"Wh-?"

"If you like the way you body looks and functions now don't even think about going down that hall, baka onna," he said his voice becoming increasingly hostile with every word.

"I'll take your word for it then," she answered uneasily.

"Hn," he grunted as he continued to lead her down the stairs.

She followed him through a room full of impressive looking machines. Since it was late there were only a few men in white coats still awake and working. A sad thought flickered through her mind for a moment as Claire stared at what she assumed was the science division. However she pushed it aside wishing to focus on her meeting with the supervisor.

After heading through a big wooden door to at the edge of the chamber they walked through a room full of several more exhausted looking men in lab coats asleep on their desks next two mountains of paper.

Walking past the sleeping workers Kanda pounded on the door at the end of the office. When no one answered he roughly shoved it open and barged in muttering something foul about moronic good for nothing supervisors.

Claire could tell that underneath the extreme hurricane like mess this was a nice office. The chairs looked invitingly comfy. The books and maps around the room gave it a nice practical feel. However the effect was completely ruined by the coffee stains on the carpet and endless amounts of paper leaking from the desk. A tall blue haired man in a white coat and hat lay back in the chair behind the desk fast asleep.

"Oi! Wake up!" Kanda yelled as he shook his supervisor violently. This seemed to have no effect however. It only served to make the Japanese exorcist angrier by the second. He increased the volume of his wake up call and the force of his shoves but it didn't work.

He rolled his eyes disgusted at what he realized was the only way to wake the idiot up. "Lenalee's getting married," he growled.

Claire had never seen such someone wake up so quickly in her entire life. The man sprung up immediately with a crazed look in his eye turning to interrogate whoever had woken him up with such disturbing news. Then he saw Kanda was glaring at him clearly not pleased with having to wait outside in the cold for the exorcist.

"Hello, you must be Claire Gerard," he said focusing on the new girl and silently praying Kanda wouldn't kill him. "I am the Supervisor here at the main branch, Komui Lee. Welcome."

"Thank you, Supervisor Lee," Claire said smiling and walking over to shake his hand.

They started making small talk and Kanda just turned to leave without saying anything. He was too tired and angry to deal with the moron and the new girl anymore.

"Good night, Kanda-san," Claire called as he reached the door. Once again he didn't even pause to acknowledge she had said something to him and just continued on his way to bed.