!DISCLAIMER!
D. Gray-man belongs to Katsura Hoshino and I do not own any part of it. All rights reserved because I don't want Yuu to kill me.
= Mission 1: Boy, Girl and Innocence =
Time doesn't stop, doesn't wait, doesn't turn back. It only continues flowing like an endless river.
Nothing can change things that have already happened. The past cannot be changed and only the future can be changed by how one reacts to the present.
But to her, it was as though she had no such things as a future.
There was nothing happy about her past, nothing memorable, nothing outstanding, only painful, recurring memories, not changing even to the present, and probably even to the future she had.
She had wondered, all too many times, why she was forced to live such a life. Why was it her? Why was it not someone else? Why was it that she was the one picked to do something like this while others her age were living a happy, carefree life with their family? Why do they have things that she had never even felt before? Why? Why... her?
There was so many questions, and endless amount that constantly filled her head whenever the pain did not cloud her mind. She wanted answers, and answers were things that she could not get from the thick stone walls that kept her in this place. The heavy metal door, the dirty, rusty chains and the hard cold floor. Everything was blocked by them, and not even the slightest ray of light shone into the small enclosed area.
She had no right to think. All she needed was to live, survive and endure. As long as she was alive, as long as she still breathed, she would never be freed from this cage.
The huge lock of the heavy metal door rattled loudly as the key forced it open, and the door creaked open with a loud whine slowly. She didn't even need to look at the intruder to the room to know who it was.
"Get up. It's time."
Before even waiting for any form of reply, the tall, bulky male roughly grabbed her messy shock of black hair and pulled her to his waist level, dragging her coolly without a single change in expression.
To most of her age, the pain would have caused them to yell, scream or even cry, but this, in comparison to what she usually had to go through, was just like the bite of an ant. Her head ached from the stinging pain, and her legs, although bleeding from the scraps caused by the trip across the floor, felt like they were just tired.
A faint whimper escaped her lips as she was thrown harshly onto the cold metal table, the bright operation lights glaring angrily at her, as though she was unwanted there, and she was quickly bound by tough leather straps to the table.
"Shall we begin?"
As she looked deliriously up at the shadow of a pair of hands clad in white latex gloves, with the glint of metal reflected from the tips of one of them, she shut her eyes tiredly, bracing herself for the pain that would soon attack her from all sides.
The cycle begins once again.
"How many times do I have to tell you? I am not your freaking son!" The young, raven-haired boy practically screamed at the (seemingly) elderly male, all in the desperate attempt to get him to shut up about that embarrassing hobby of his that declared all his disciples his son. Kanda Yuu, physically of age nine, was not the type of person to be the slightest bit happy about this display of affection, and finds it positively revolting. There was a part of him that actually wondered why he was so unlucky to be put together with such an eccentric general.
"Yuu-kun!" Froi Tiedoll scolded, upset that his new disciple-slash-son was being so disrespectful, with one part of him thinking that it is just so adorable that Kanda was being shy, or so he thinks.
"Don't call me that!"
"But it is your name."
"Will it kill you to act like a normal human being?"
"But I am-"
"You-"
Feeling the comforting pat on his shoulder by the tall, dark-skinned male, Noise Marie, Kanda relaxed in the slightest bit and kept his mouth shut, reverting it to a slight pout as he stared sulkily at the rapidly moving background, choosing to focus on the trotting sounds of the horses to calm himself down. Marie, smiling awkwardly, reminded Kanda softly that this was just how their general was like, casually placing a hand on the young boy's head and ruffling up his hair in the slightest bit.
Said general was, perhaps not so surprisingly, doing the same thing as Kanda was doing, only for a completely different reason. Marie sighed, wondering whose bright idea it was to put one Kanda Yuu and one Froi Tiedoll together in one group. The boy should have already been famous in the Asian Branch for his bad temper.
Sighing once again as the two started bickering one more time for no good reason, Marie decided to just tune down the noise level in his head, even though it was probably going to be very hard, considering his extremely sensitive hearing.
She was thrown across the same cold, dark, silent room again, the door slamming shut the moment she hit the opposite wall with a thud. Sitting up slowly and grimacing at the pain that her legs, which were the target of the day's 'project', she raised a hand to her head, which had a sticky, wet substance at one spot. This, was probably what was known as blood, which meant that she was injured, although she could feel no pain. She knew nothing about the world, with only the occasional book snuck in by one of the friendlier guards giving her all the information that she knew.
Tilting her head up towards what she had learnt was supposed to be the endless, wide blue sky, she started to laugh bitterly... at her life till now, at her present state, at her own, pitiful future. Was it always just going to stay like that? Was she never going to know what real food tasted like? What being cared for felt like? What a family would be like?
Her whole life, in this enclosed area.
If that was really the case, she just wanted it all to end already.
"Shall I grant your wish?"
Holding the small piece of scrap paper which seemed more like just what it was, a mere piece of scrap paper, the grumpy boy looked about carefully for the crudely drawn motel from the Finder. Tiedoll, thinking that Kanda was unable to read a normal map because he was too young, smiled and took the paper from him, resulting in a scowl and glares sent in his direction by the boy. Paying no attention to the boy and the male who was trying to calm him down, Tiedoll shoved the paper into his pocket and turned to one of the locals for help.
By the time they found the place where the Finders heard their information from, it was already nighttime, and they – mainly Kanda and Tiedoll – were exhausted to the core, not because it took them so long to find the correct place, but because they were arguing throughout the whole trip, with Tiedoll trying to keep himself from teasing Kanda too much, and Kanda snapping at the elder male for treating him like a freaking child. Marie had given up on trying to stop the duo's childish banter, given how stubborn one was and how much fun the other was having.
"Welcome."
An old, shriveled lady greeted them with a hoarse, dry voice, coughing slightly as another native female rushed out from the neighboring room and gently patted the elderly woman's back, hoping to easing the spasms.
The girl was dressed neatly, her long black hair braided, falling to her waist, her face clean and free of dirt. The only one thing that stood out from her was that long, thin scar that ran around her neck. Noticing the attention that was paid to the mark on her neck, the girl bowed awkwardly and left the room in a hurry, not saying a single word.
"She-"
"She lost her voice. Or rather, it was literally torn out of her throat."
The old woman slowly hobbled to the doorway, nodding slightly in the direction of the next room, signaling for the trio to follow her.
"She barely survived one week in there. She overheard that there was one girl who had been there for perhaps even more than eight years from the guards, and she as probably the reason why those people wearing the same insignia came and visited our humble little town, am I not wrong?"
Noticing the stupefied look on mainly Kanda, she tried to laugh, which came out as a wheeze.
"I am not an old fool, but my talking does not mean that you are welcome here. I just want to to save the few people that remain there after that incident. Please."
While the old lady was saying this, there was a pained look on her face, and her voice sounded as though she was trying to force herself from crying. The dark-skinned girl from before peeked cautiously out from the next room, her eyes filled with hope that these strangers would be able to do something for those who suffered like her, and possibly worse.
"We will do our best."
That was all Tiedoll was willing to say, and that was all that was necessary to bring a relieved smile to the woman's wrinkled face and a bright smile from the girl who was still in hiding.
"Thank you."
The scene that they saw at the location at which the unnatural phenomena was supposed to be was much more shocking that they had ever imagine. While they had been told that the area – an old, desolate building in the middle of a small clearing – had been frozen solid, they did not expect it to mean the whole area, literally. The three exorcists had no trouble at all finding the place, for the area stood out, with the trees frozen into cold, crystalline structures, even the grass surrounding it turning into freezing sharp blades. The building, in Tiedoll's opinion, looked much like a beautiful ice sculpture rather than just an average abandoned block of stone. The whole place seemed like a picture out of a fairy tale, a scene that was most certainly, even to the dumbest of people, one thing that can never be explained without the presence of Innocence.
Marching into the area calmly after their initial shock had settled down, with Marie still muttering something about how special this place sounded, and Kanda trying his hardest to rearrange his face into its usual cool and calm expression. Tiedoll, being the veteran at this, merely sighed as they looked about for the main source, Marie having absolutely no luck at using his sharp sense of hearing to pick up any sort of leads.
The frozen blades of grass were crushed underfoot as they slowly walked towards the building, the air seemingly getting colder and colder with every step they took, and yet, the real shock lay ahead.
Within the crumbling, rundown place, were a few members of the group of doctors hired to complete an experiment to create the perfect killing machine, clad in white lab coats, the expressions on their faces completely lacking of fear and terror, as though they had never seen, nor felt it coming.
The air that they breathed out quickly condensed to small water droplets as they went in closer to inspect the humans, the temperature in the room dropping another notch. A soft comment was made by Marie, saying that he could hear no heartbeat, yet it still seemed as though they were not dead. It was just like these people were still alive, behind that layer of ice...
"Yuu-kun, Ma-kun, we should separate into groups to search this place." Turning with an elaborate, cheery smile, in deep contrast with the serious words that flowed out of his mouth, even if it was still in that carefree tone that he often uses. As he patted the two affectionately on their heads, earning a kick in the shin from Kanda, he turned and left the area once both Marie and Kanda had headed towards the different locations, decided mainly by the younger boy himself, a solemn expression enveloping his face almost instantly.
There was something more to the background of this place than just human experimentation. Were they involved in this?
This was something that he had to find out himself, and one thing that he absolutely could not allow his two disciples to know about.
[Edit 8/5/2013]: HOLY FREAK I DID NOT NOTICE THAT THE FORMATTING WAS GONE LIKE HOMFG I FEEL HORRIFIED AT MYSELF. I APOLOGISE FOR MY INCOMPETENCY -RUNS AND CRIES IN A SMALL CORNER-