~Hey! I finally got around to starting my Man fanfic. I hope you like it! Also, sorry if the characters are a little OOC. I tried to do my best to keep them in character, but I don't really know how well I did. Oh and sorry for the epic fail fight scene :( This story is told in first person by Allen (for now)~
Disclaimer: I do not own D-Gray Man
I trudged through the dense forest with Lenalee, and Lavi. We were sent to the middle of China because we had heard that recently people in a nearby village say that there is a god of death who curses anyone who goes near the forest. We walked on in silence. We were all tired after wandering aimlessly in this forest for almost seven hours.
"Hey, Allen?" Lenalee asked.
"What is it?" I replied.
"We aren't lost, are we?" Lenalee asked.
I stopped walking and shrugged. "I don't know," I replied.
Lavi looked at me puzzled, "How can you not know if we're lost?"
"Well, I don't know," I said, as I intently stared at the map and brought it up to my face. "because I don't know where we are on the map."
"I think that is qualified as lost Allen," Lavi grabbed the map from my hand, "Here let me see…..Allen?"
"Yeah? What is it?"
"This map is upside-down." We all silently stood there.
"So," Lenalee broke the silence, "We have been walking around for seven hours following an upside-down map read by Allen?" Again the silence came and overwhelmed me.
"I told you that I shouldn't have the map!" I was panicked.
"Well, I didn't think you could be this directionally challenged!" Lavi yelled back equally panicked. He calmed down and sighed, "We'll never find the innocence at this rate." Lavi's shoulders hunched over and his head hung in a depressed manner.
"Now don't say that Lavi, I'm sure we'll find it eventually," Lenalee patted him on the back, "For now, lets just set up a camp. It's getting dark."
Lavi let out a groan and he kept his head down as we began to gather wood for a fire. As I worked, I reviewed our mission. There have been strange phenomena recently where people say that people have been disappearing around the forest lately. Komui believed it had something to do with innocence by the fact that there are akuma beginning to show up around the woods. The forest is situated on a tall mountain that overlooks a small harbor town and the villagers stayed away because even in the past this mountain and forest were considered cursed. At first only Lenalee and I were assigned to this case, but when Komui found out it was cursed, he decided to make Lavi tag along just in case. After we had gathered up the fire wood, Lavi lit the fire and we all sat around it with our backs resting on a tree. We were all a little nervous that this area was haunted so we didn't talk and were lost deep in our thought when my left eye began to react.
"Lavi, Lenalee," I whispered to them and they looked up to notice my left eye, "Its coming."
Just then an explosion came from behind me and trees went flying. I quickly dodged the projectiles and all three of us jumped away from the blast and turned to see our attackers. Our weapons were drawn and we waited for the dust to clear. There, standing before us was a level four akuma accompanied by two level three akuma.
"Hey exorcists, lets play," the level four came closer to us
"Hey, Allen, think we can handle all of them?" A bead of sweat trickled down Lavi's cheek as he spoke.
"Well, we won't know until we try, will we?" I replied. All three of us rushed the akuma. We each relentlessly attacked them, but after a barrage of attacks they were hardly even scratched. Lavi and Lenalee each got knocked back into trees and shrubs behind them. I turned to see if they were alright but as I looked away from them, the level four pulled closer and with the mere flick of its arm, it also sent me flying backwards. It was bad. We ran through the forest until we reached an opening near a cliff. All three of us quickly spun around to face our enemies again and just as they came out from the trees and were about to attack, a black object suddenly came flying out from the trees and curved to impale all three of them and then stuck into a tree trunk. The bodies of the akuma crumbled away to reveal a large scythe.
We were all breathing heavily. "A scythe?" Lavi went up to it to inspect it and we followed behind. It had a black and white pattern on it, almost like Kanda's sword. "You don't think its that god-" Just then, a large black shadow dropped behind us and we turned around to see what it was, but a blanket of darkness fell over me.
"Allen, Allen," I opened my eyes to see Lenalee kneeling over me gently shaking my shoulders.
"Lenalee," I sat up, "What happened?"
"I don't know, something came and knocked us out," She was talking as I looked around the room until I saw something that made me cringe. "Oh," she noticed my reaction, "Tim went to the finders outside of the forest and Kanda came as backup." I had to admit it waking up to Kanda's scowling face wasn't the nicest way to get up.
"You really are useless aren't you bean sprout," Kanda had his arms crossed as he glared down at me.
I was just about to reply when Lavi jumped up and put his arm around Kanda, "Now, now, Kanda," he said, "You can't blame Allen, there were a lot of strong akumas."
"Che," Kanda quickly pushed off Lavi's hand, "I could have handled it."
Everything Kanda said irritated me and I was about to explode at him when Lenalee stood up and posed a question, "Hey, where are we anyway?" She was right. Where on earth were we? It looked like we were in a tiny cave. There was a small fire next to me in the center of the 'room'. There was a blanket over me and there were two others on the floor where I assumed Lavi and Lenalee were. There was a large rock at the back and you could see out of the mouth of the cave a lake and a waterfall glittering in the morning sun, but the thing that caught my attention was the large scythe that was hanging on the wall behind Kanda.
"Is this the innocence?" I asked as I stood up and went up to it.
"I guess so," Lavi replied and followed me up to it, "It destroyed all of those akuma."
"But then wouldn't it need to have someone who is compatible with it?" Lenalee asked as she came up behind us, "Oh look, it has a cute sun keychain attached to the hilt," she walked up to it and held it in her hand. She turned it over in her hands inspecting it.
"All, we have to do is take it," Kanda reached his hand up to grab it when we heard a noise from behind the large stone at the back of the cave. We all turned around to face it and jumped back to the mouth of the cave with our weapons drawn. "Who's there?" Kanda demanded. There was silence for a moment before we heard a reply.
"Meow," a voice came from behind the rock and it was perhaps the worst impression of a cat that I have ever heard.
"If you are going to try and pass off as a cat," Lavi told the voice, "You should at least try to sound like one." Lavi shrunk his hammer down and began to walk toward the boulder. "Come on out," He reached it and was about to peer over it to see what was there when a large gust of wind blew towards the exit and sent Lavi flying out of there. "Whoa!" he yelled as he flew out of the mouth of the cave. We all turned around to watch him soar into the lake when another gush of wind came and this time it was accompanied by a dark shadow that grabbed the scythe on the wall and headed out of the cave and into the forest. Kanda tried to grab who or whatever it was, but when everything had settled down, he was left with only a green scarf in his hand.
I ran out to the edge of the lake and called out to Lavi, "Lavi! Are you alright?"
His head came rushing out of the water with lily pads stuck to his face, "yeah," He said as he pulled them off of him. "That didn't hurt at all."
I sighed and held out my hand. He waded over to me and I helped pull him out. Lavi sat down, dripping wet and Kanda and Lenalee walked over to us from the cave.
"Kanda is that…" I began to ask.
"Yeah, it's from that shadow," he replied, "I only managed to grab this. What ever it was, it was really fast."
"Well, at least we know its most likely human," Lenalee said.
"Yeah, what else wears a scarf and can speak?" Lavi said as he tried to wring out his clothes.
"Now the question is," I said, "why did they run away from us?"
"I don't know," Lenalee said, "but I think that was the person compatible with the innocence."
"Then why on Earth would they run away?" Lavi asked.
"Maybe Kanda's face scared them off," I added.
"Excuse me?" Kanda glared at me.
"Also, when I was looking at that keychain, the name Hinako was carved on the back." Lenalee said.
"So it's probably a girl," Lavi deduced.
"It could be a guy," I said, "Maybe it was a gift from his girlfriend."
"No, it was most likely a girl," Kanda said, "The shadow was too small to be a guy unless he was like bean sprout over here."
"What," I got in his face and we were glaring at each other, I could almost see the sparks flying.
"Umm, guys" Lavi tried to break us up, "Could we focus on finding her first?"
"Che," Kanda turned away from me, "She went this way," He walked off in the opposite direction of me.
"Oh wait, Kanda," Lavi ran over to him, "if you're just going to walk around with that scarf, at least wear it," Lavi took the green scarf from out of Kanda's hands and wrapped it around his neck, "See, all better," Lavi had a ridiculously big and bright smile on his face. Kanda glared at him and turned around but he didn't try to remove the scarf.
"Okay, let's split into groups," Lenalee suggested, "I'll go with Allen and Lavi, you go with Kanda," Kanda whipped his head over to Lenalee and shot her a really nasty look.
"Umm, Lenalee, how about I go with Lavi and you go with Kanda," I suggested.
Lenalee gave it careful thought before replying, "Alright. We'll meet up here in one hour alright? Oh and Allen," she reached into the bag around her waist and pulled out a small plastic bag, "you can leave these breadcrumbs behind you so you don't get lost."
"What are we, Hansel and Gretel?" Lavi responded.
"We'll be fine," I said and I pushed the bag away, "Good luck."
"You too," she turned around and ran after Kanda.
~One hour later~
We both reached the lake again at the same time.
"Any luck?" I asked.
"Nope," Lenalee said, "We couldn't find her anywhere." There was a rustle in the bush behind me. We turned to look and saw a message scrawled onto the ground. I read it out loud.
"What do you want?" I read. We all gathered around to read the handwriting on the floor.
"So she's around here somewhere," Kanda began to eye the trees suspiciously. He was about to draw his sword when I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"Wait," I said, "Lets try to talk to her first," I took a deep breathe and looked up at the trees, "We are exorcists from the Black Priesthood and we are looking for innocence. It is something that can defeat those monsters that attacked us yesterday. They are called akuma and they are controlled by someone named the Millennium Earl," I didn't hear a response so I kept on talking, "Innocence can take the form of a weapon like your scythe but it can only be used by one person. So, will you show yourself to us?" Another rustle came from behind me so I turned around. This time, only a single word was written.
No.
"This isn't working," Kanda said in an irritated voice. He drew his sword, "We're doing this my way." He ran his fingertips along the edge of his blade, "Mugen unsheathe. Innocence, activate."
"Wait a minute Kanda," Lenalee tried to calm him down.
"She's around here right?"
"Wait, Kanda!" I tried to grab his shoulder but I was too late.
"Kaichu Ichigen!" He swung his sword and his underworld bugs came out of the sword and into the trees in front of him. In that moment I saw a flash of light and then a scythe. On its hilt were small hands trying to fend off the attack. "There you are," Kanda ran towards the scythe and the shadow behind it and shoved his hand at it. He grabbed the person by the neck and thrust the small body into a tree trunk so hard that they dropped the scythe and instead grabbed at Kanda's hands. We finally got a good look at what it was. It was a small girl around 16 who was no taller than five foot four and looked no heavier than one hundred pounds. Where Kanda held her feet dangled off of the ground and she was gasping for breath. She reached one of her hands at Kanda's face but it fell down to her side as she tied to fight off Kanda. Her fingertips couldn't even reach the end of her long, wavy, black hair but they were close. Her bangs were cut below her eyes, so we couldn't see her face, and I wondered how she could see past them. She wore a pair of black shorts and had a baggy white sweater over her which made her look even shorter than she was. Not to mention it looked very old and ratty. She also had tall black boots that went to the bottom of her knee.
"Kanda, let her go!" Lenalee yelled as she ran over to him to try and release his grip, but he refused to let go and she tried to speak.
"Hell," she gasped for air and her voice was raspy and trembling, "ch…ain…" suddenly chains came out of the blade of the scythe that was on the ground and wrapped around Kanda's chest.
"What," Kanda was shocked as the chains grew tighter and tighter around his chest. He lost his grip and the girl fell to her knees and coughed, trying to catch her breath. She then remembered the rest of us were here and she grabbed her scythe. The chains around Kanda released him and they disappeared back into the blade. Kanda too fell to his knees. She ran past us and back into the cave. She then dropped her scythe and grabbed onto the side of a large rock at the entrance of the cave.
"Don't let her get away!" Kanda ordered us as he grabbed his chest in pain. Lavi and I ran after her, but as we were about to reach her, she rolled the rock in front of the cave opening and sealed herself off from us. "Useless," Kanda scolded us as he approached from behind with Lenalee.
"Don't worry, Yuu," Lavi said. Kanda shot him a look, "If she can move this rock, then we should also be able to move it, right?" Lavi went to the side of the rock and pushed with all his might, but it didn't amount to much. "That's strange," he said, "How was she able to move it?" We all tried to move the rock together but it was to no avail. Lavi and Lenalee sat against the wall and sighed.
"We have to talk her out of there don't we," I sighed too, but before I could talk we heard a small voice from the other side.
"Umm," a quiet voice came from inside.
"Yes?" I was happy that we could finally talk.
"May I…" she stopped for a little while and when she started up again he voice was louder, "May I please have my scarf back?"
"This ratty old thing?" Kanda took it off of his neck and dangled it over the ground and turned it every once in a while to search it.
"It's very important to me," she pleaded, "Please give it back."
"I'll give it back if you come with us," Kanda threatened. For a while there was no reply, but then she answered in a very small voice.
"I…I…can't go with you."
"Why not?" Lavi jumped in.
"It's because….." she stopped once more, "It's because I haven't left this place in so long, I don't even remember what its like outside of this forest."
"Well, if you won't come with us then I'll just burn this piece of green trash," he held up the scarf and looked at it closer.
"No!" she yelled, "Please don't! It's very important to me!"
"Kanda!" I scolded, "Don't be so mean!" I snatched the scarf from out of his hand. "It's okay," I told the girl reassuringly, "I won't let him. Just open up so that we can talk." There wasn't a reply to that. I sighed, "Let me ask you something then, Hinako. That is your name right?"
"Yes, it is," she sounded a little surprised, "but how did you know that?"
"Well, it was written on your keychain, but that's not what I wanted to ask," I sat with my back to the stone and put my cheek to the side of the stone so I knew that she would hear me, "It was you who saved us from those akuma right? So why did you run away from us?" there was a slight pause before she answered.
"Well, after I defeated those umm, akuma, another one of them came up from behind you three and knocked you out. I got rid of that one and I couldn't just leave you there so I carried you back here. Then," she stopped.
"Then?" Lenalee asked.
"Umm, then that other guy came in and so I hid and then he started yelling at you to wake up," her voice began to shake a little, " and I was just a little curious to see who was yelling and then, his face was so scary, I just…."
"I told you so," I looked up at Kanda.
"Che," he crossed his arms and turned his head away from us.
"And," she continued, "I haven't talked to other humans for so long, I was a little…"
"Scared?" I finished her sentence.
"Yes," she paused for a little while, "I'm sorry."
"Oh, no," Lenalee said, "don't apologize to us. Now that we have gotten past this misunderstanding will you open up the door?" Nothing but silence came from the other side. "I promise that Kanda won't do anything to you." Again only silence.
"There's one thing I want to know though," Kanda approached the rock, "how did you know how to fight off those akuma?" There was a short moment of silence.
"It just those things," she began, "have started coming recently so I had no choice but to fight them off."
"But even so," Kanda said, "How were you able to fight off level threes and even a level four?" There was no reply from the other side. "What are you hiding from us?" he demanded.
"Kanda," I said, "It's true that it is a little odd, but maybe she can synchronize very well with her innocence."
"No," Kanda replied, "It's more than a little odd. Something is wrong here. She could defeat level threes and she is able to move this rock so easily. What are you not telling us?" his voice was stern.
"I….I…" her voice was starting to crack and I could faintly hear sniffles in between her words, "I am not hiding anything," she insisted.
"Then why won't you come out and talk to us face to face?" Kanda kept pushing.
"Kanda, stop," Lenalee said, "You're making her cry."
"Do you really know nothing about akuma?" there was only the sound of sniffling from the cave, "If you are so strong why won't you come with us and fight the akuma instead of hiding in your cave!" Kanda was yelling and Lavi, Lenalee, and I could only look on because we knew he was right.
"I don't want to fight anymore!" she was sobbing now, "I am tired of fighting! Why can't I just stay here? Why do I always have to fight?" she sounded bewildered. It hurt us all to hear that. After all, that was what we felt, but never said. It was an unspoken feeling that all of us shared. I stood up and walked over to the lake for some air. I didn't want to force her out of the cave, but what choice did we have? She was an exorcist and it was a rare chance, but I felt like taking her from here would only hurt her. I began to walk back, when suddenly the ground fell out from beneath me and I fell a long way until I landed abruptly on my butt. I got onto my feet and dusted myself off. I looked around to see where I was, but it was pitch black.
"Hey guys!" I called out, but they couldn't hear me, "Lenalee, Lavi, Kanda!" I waited for a reply, but all I got was silence. I sighed and looked down at my hand where I still held the green scarf I had taken from Kanda. I felt it to make sure it wasn't covered with dirt. "Good," I said to myself after my inspection was complete, "it's still clean, but now I need to get out of here." I looked around the walls from where I had fallen. It was pretty deep maybe 20 feet and it was rather wide too, it was almost eight feet across. I stuffed the scarf into my pocket and began trying to climb back up to the top. However, it was made of stone and was covered with water and moss which made it impossible to climb. So after climbing about two feet, I just fell back to the bottom. "I'm not getting up that way," I began to grope the walls to find an opening and then I felt a crawl space at the bottom of the hole. It was on the floor and about three feet high and three feet wide. "Well, its better than trying to climb up," I got on my hands and knees and began to crawl through the damp, dark , tunnel when I began to faintly hear crying. "Oh, this must be under the cave then," just as I said that, I saw a faint light from above and a large opening that was very similar to the one I had fallen down. I could make out a couple of ladder steps and I climbed to the top and pushed up the lid covering it. Then I could hear the crying louder and I could see Hinako sitting in the corner with a small candle lamp and her scythe on the floor next to her. I pulled myself out from the passageway and stood up. "Hinako?" I called out. She looked up in alarm.
"Who is it?" she wiped her eyes and held up the lamp to see who it was.
"Allen?" I could hear Lavi's voice from outside, "How did you get in there?"
"What? Allen?" Lenalee sounded confused.
"Umm, I accidentally fell down a hole and wound up in here," I scratched the back of my head. It was kind of embarrassing. Hinako stood up abruptly upon seeing me and put her back up against the rock blocking the exit.
"Bean sprout, grab her and get her out here! Now!" Kanda yelled at me from outside. At his words Hinako flinched and tried to back further into the corner until she reached the other wall.
"Its okay Hinako, I wont force you out of the cave," I tried to reassure her, but she still braced herself against the wall, "I just wanted to return this," I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scarf. I held it out to her. At first she didn't know what it was, but when the light hit it, her face lit up and she ran over to me. She dropped the light and grabbed the scarf out of my hands. The candle went out which left us in complete darkness which at first startled me, but then I felt a small hand grab onto the front of my shirt.
"Thank you," her voice was so soft when she said it, I didn't think that anyone else outside heard it. I smiled, her voice sounded so relieved and it was soothing. I felt her tug my sleeve and I followed her over to where she was pulling me. Then there was a large noise and sunlight came flooding into the room and I saw Hinako opening the door with her green scarf wound carefully around her neck and her scythe in her other hand. When she saw the others outside, she grabbed onto my arm tightly.
"It's okay," I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "they won't bite you." I stepped out with her following closely behind. Lenalee was the first to come up to us.
"Hello Hinako," she held out her hand, "My name is Lenalee. It's nice to meet you," she had a sweet smile on her face and Hinako reached her hand out and shook hers, but quickly took it back.
Lavi walked up and put his arm over Lenalee, "My name is Lavi, nice to meet you Hinako."
"Its, nice to meet you too," she whispered as she looked to the ground.
"This is Yuu-chan, but you can just call him Yuu," Lavi said in a cheery voice as he pointed to Kanda.
"It's Kanda," he practically snarled and then glowered and Lavi and all of us. He was standing a few feet from us and scowling.
I smiled and turned my attention away from Kanda and onto Hinako. "It's nice to formally meet you," she looked up at me, "My name is Allen Walker."
"Allen….Walker?" her voice was barely above a whisper. She let go of my arm and clasped her scythe with both hands as she backed slowly away.
"What's wrong?" I asked. She was trembling. Suddenly, she turned away from me and bowed to the rest of them.
"I'm sorry about my behavior before," she kept speaking as she looked down to the ground, "I hope I didn't hurt any of you." Lavi smiled.
"Don't worry, we're tougher than you think," She looked up to see Lavi grinning widely.
"Oh, that's right!" Lenalee remembered, "We need to call brother! Kanda, do you remember the way out of here?" Kanda was silent.
"Umm, if you want to go to the village outside you just have to keep heading East and you'll be out of the forest soon," Hinako said.
Lenalee smiled too, "Thanks Hinako. Now let's go." As we started walking out of the forest, I thought of all the questions that came with our new exorcist and wondered if they would ever be answered.