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It all started in the years before time existed, he knows that now. There might once have been an age of non-deceit, but perhaps that was before the world came along, some time before the moon was woven into the astronomical tapestry.
The moon knows it too, and she beams, lighting up the night sky with the silver cobwebs, stretching her bone-thin hand to him. He smells the bright radiance burning his pale skin, feels the moon chafing at his playing pretend, and then he nods. He turns over, the straw clutching at him with sharp, bloodied nails, and he studies the dimpled face of the full, satellite-bright moon. The history of deceit is there; decaying in the darkness spun about the world.
But he can read it, though he is no Bookman.
......
The sun rises like an all-conquering king, striding over the edges of the dark horizon with golden steps. He pushes the moon away, and he shines, shines, like the terrible star he is, straddling the entire sky with his chariot and four glaring horses. Kanda glares back, eyes shaded, looking out over the world from his perch.
Kanda sits up, ready to meditate, to chase away the gloomy shadows still clinging to his clothes. He picks the memories of things long past away from Mugen, and sits, frowning, as only Kanda can, in the warmth of day. In the light of day, he can remember even better. He fought akuma the last night. There was a level three, and they had danced together in the same place he was now. They were dancing under the soft light of the watching moon. It was unreal, in its faltering steps and ugly face; he was unreal, in his too-quick reflexes and swirling hair.
It was a moon-tide miracle, something not seen under the sun. It was a chapter woven under the illusion of night, fed with deceit, growing ever more bloated with the knowledge of things-that-might-be.
But now the age of the sun has come, and daylight conquers all, swallowing nightmares and dank daydreams in a never-ending cycle.
And he remains there, waiting, like the stubborn swordsman he is. He has a point he wants to make sure of, an idea he wants to think about. His mission is not yet over; there are more akuma to kill, to wipe off the gently-sloping face of the earth. Then the sun sinks again, for the second time since he reached. Its blood-red rays flicker along the corners of the land, like dancing silhouettes of the stars, steeped in blood. There is a time for deceit, and there is a time for the truth. But the twilight blends the two, and he sees himself there as he is, a child acting as a man.
He has reached his full stature, with muscled strength and the determination of a full-grown man, but he knows he is still a child. He can see himself, the terrible compromise he has become. He is searching for a certain someone, someone who has become veiled in the mists of longing and isolation, someone whose features he cannot quite remember. Kanda stares at Mugen, seeing in the depths of his blade his own weaknesses. He is a child pretending to be a man, pretending to fulfil his duty to the world when all he really wants is to put down his weapon and weep for the blood shed.
But whatever he is, Kanda is not a weakling, nor a pernicious coward. To cry is disastrous in an honour-bound samurai, and he is already on the cusp on manhood anyway.
......
Never believe the moonlight, someone had once told him. He was then still living in his native Japan, with his samurai kin and his parents and his sisters and brothers, and his friends.
The moonlight in Japan was different. It was pure; simple, even. It brought with it glad tidings and the trace of the fragrance of the cherry blossoms that bloomed throughout the country. The moon over Japan was once his friend, when he was young and inquisitive. There was once – and Kanda closes his eyes in reminiscence, there was once, when he fell down to his knees and asked the moon, quite innocently, if she was really a pretty young girl all wrapped up in a silver kimono.
It was then that someone approached him, someone with a scent of apple blossoms, and told him, never believe the moonlight. Never. The moon is a lady who loves deceit. She spins her web of lies around you, wanting you to believe in her, so that she can entrap you in her spidery fingers and hang you among the stars. Never believe the moonlight…
Never believe the moonlight, never, never, never, never, never…
......
It is night again, and the round silver disc again ascends the sky. She flits feebly above the dark clouds, twisting in and out in an entrancing game. When she sheds her silvery skirts on the dark grassy ground, Kanda sees an akuma emerge. They fight, much as he fought the one from yesterday, both too real under the dusty stare of the moon to be anything but a reality-tapped nightmare. He slices, flies at it, and Mugen does the rest.
He sinks down, momentarily tired, back onto his perch. The moon glimmers above him, and he sees the silvery notes twirling in the silvery sea.
The years recede in the strange night air. They flee from the dark hunger of the moon; they fly to another land where they are safe from her knife-tight embrace. Looking into a nearby stream, Kanda sees in his eyes a strange tear.
The moon winks, and suddenly, Alma is there, stepping across the plains in ghost-feathered shoes. Then he stops, and struggles. His translucent hands are caught in the web spun by the devious silver-clad lady, and another finger appearing out of the darkness binds him and takes him off to the land where no men are. The last thing Kanda sees is a pale face with fear sewn into the button-eyes and the dripping red-fettered mouth of the apparition, the colourless limbs writhing in agony.
The stream reflects back the same tear, with another in the other eye.
Kanda looks back at the moon, her fair, smiling face inches above his. He stabs the reflection of the silver lady in the stream, and tells himself again, skin-cold; never believe the moonlight… deceit filters from the timeless gaze of the gleaming moon, clothed as tears of adamant that fall from the night spring sky, falling around Kanda, falling, falling. Kanda falls, stunned by the deceit in the once-innocent moonlight. He remembers Alma as he last saw him in the Order, many years before. The Alma he just saw – was it merely a haunting memory? Or was it a foreshadowing of things to come?
Kanda glares upwards.
The moon always lies.
A/N: I've always wanted to write something like that. I love playing around with imagery and metaphors and the like, but it's hard to do that in a chaptered fic. So this is the result of my labours xD And i think Kanda might be a little ooc here, but i'm not sure. But anyway, thanks for reading, and review if you want to! :)