Kanda glanced through the document with a slight expression of disdain. It was menial and easy and much too trivial for him to take on, but Komui...
"Please please please please please - " Komui pleaded, on hands and knees at Kanda's feet. The Japanese Exorcist stared at him with a sneer towards the Chinese scientist's grovelling behavior. This mission wasn't worth his time! It was so simple that it was absurd! Komui's voice incessantly ran in his head like a plane flying circles around him waving a giant banner, and he shoved the man away with a boot.
"Fine. If it'll get you to shut up," he said vehemently. Komui cheered.
"I'm sorry. I know you don't take small fries like this, but seriously, we've only got so many people on task, and we've got absolutely no one who could navigate. It'll take you a day or two, nothing more than that, I'm sure," Komui promised, seating himself back at his desk with perfect composure once more. Kanda rubbed the bridge of his nose and asked, "What about Lavi? Bookman? Klaud, Lenalee, Chaoji? I can't be the only one off-duty." Komui steepled his fingers, his look suddenly serious.
"Lavi is stuck in Argentina at present. The mission he took turns out to be more complicated than we originally believed. He won't be back for quite a while. Bookman is in China searching for some obscure text from one of Beijing's libraries that may have something to do with the Noah and had escaped the Bookman Organization's attention. Klaud went to Australia, Lenalee broke her leg five days ago, and Chaoji is with Klaud. Timothy's too young to go anywhere without Klaud for supervision, Allen's been gone for months in America, Froi is nowhere to be found, Noise happens to be in China with Bookman as extra support, Miranda and Crowley are in Romania-"
"I get the point, Komui." Kanda's tone was less than pleased. He wouldn't ever say it aloud, but he was slightly worried by the sudden spike in activity. He'd never known the Order to be completely and utterly empty. Lenalee was only present due to injury, and no doubt the Vatican would issue an order for her the minute she was done healing and showed the slightest amount of capability. Still, such a low level mission didn't make sense to Kanda. Why was he the one sent to go and take care of something so... basic?
"You won't have to take care of him long. Just a few hours. He's only a couple of months old, and he's off his mother's breast milk, so you don't have to worry about that. Not to mention, he doesn't eat much and from what I've heard, he doesn't cry too much either," Komui said, flipping through his notes. Kanda also looked back over his dossier, frowning a little.
Basic Mission Overview: Escort Nthanda, eight months old, from East London to Johannesburg. Rendezvous at Johannesburg; take an Ark opening back to London.
"You want to be more specific?" Kanda asked, throwing the file carelessly onto Komui's desk. The Chinese man took the dossier and stated, "How much more do you need to know? Besides, I thought you didn't want this mission?"
"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Kanda asked. In truth, Kanda was incredibly bored. Most of the Finders were off somewhere else, doing their own thing, and the ones that were making port at the Order were boring and worn out, no challenge at all. Kanda had no one to spar with (though it wasn't like anyone would want to spar with him in the first place). He wasn't exactly an intellectual, and he didn't enjoy sitting in a dusty library reading old books written by dead men telling him about philosophy or some such useless information that wouldn't help him. Any other day, he'd have kicked this to the curb, but Kanda was actually, dare he say it, longing to go on a mission. Being cooped up did not suit well with him.
"Nthanda was orphaned nearly two weeks ago when his mother was crushed by a building. There are several warring factions in South America right now, and she was too close to a burning building. He contains an Innocence shard within his chest, but none of us are sure what it does just yet. We think it's what saved him from being crushed in that building along with his mother. He was completely untouched when the Finders found him. The nearest Black Order accessed church is in Johannesburg, so that's where you'll be headed first before taking a train to East London. It's very easy, I assure you. The only thing that makes us choose you over a Finder is the fact that the area is war torn at the moment, and you're, um, well, a little more resilient than the usual victim of circumstance." Kanda lifted an eyebrow sardonically at the mention of his 'resiliency', and he sighed. Perhaps he'd see some action. It'd relieve the monotony, if not anything else.
"So you'll take it?" Komui asked, half hopeful and half suspicious. Kanda was more flighty than most would think, vacillating over decisions for several minutes and changing his mind often. Kanda blinked, and Komui smiled.
"The Ark's already opened in the Ark room. I'm telling you, it'll be easy." Kanda could see Komui resisting the urge to knock on his desk. He had, no doubt, just jinxed his trip, but Kanda wasn't superstitious. Kanda looked off with a disgruntled expression and huffed.
The train's whistle blared out into the dark, night air of East London as Kanda got off the train. He was dressed in European attire with his hair tied back to the nape of his neck. Komui had suggested stealth among all other things for this mission - attracting the Akuma was a dangerous idea given the fact Kanda would be guarding a baby, and it'd be difficult for him to shield something that small and squirmy while battling what were basically demonic, walking Gatling guns. Still, Kanda was an intimidating figure in his suit with his suitcase in hand. His sword was strapped to his back, sheathed in such a way that it resembled an instrument case rather than a sheath in order to limit panic and tension from civilians and keep him inconspicuos as a target for Akuma.
Kanda had been ordered to rendezvous with a local Finder, one of the few stationed in South America, before continuing on. Kanda scratched at his ear idly, fingering the small communicator attached to the shell of his ear. He hated the things, but they were a lot handier than using a golem. He was using a new long-range device that had just come out, and Komui had said he was 'lucky' to get one on such short notice, though Kanda couldn't have cared less if they'd attached a continent-long string to two cups and stretched them over the entire country of Africa.
The Japanese Exorcist eyed a black man with a wide grin wearing a variant of the tan Finder uniform, cut off at the sleeves to keep off the heat. Kanda was already sweating, despite the night air being unseasonably cool. It was humid, and the jump from temperate to tropical had shocked Kanda's system. The black man walked up to Kanda with a bounce in his step, and he said in heavily accented English, "Welcohme to East Lohndun, suh. I take yoah begs for ya." The black man immediately scooped up both bags with a strange grace, and Kanda frowned as he watched the man begin to head out of the station. Kanda followed behind stoically, barely even glancing at the very, very European train stop.
They walked down several streets before reaching an automobile. It was a bit old with a fleck of rust or two, but it looked serviceable. The black man was already loading Kanda's cases into the trunk, and he said, "M'nem is Dingane, boht you ken call me Din. Do not care if you want or not." He shrugged, and Din climbed into the driver's seat. All this time, Kanda had said nary a word to him, but he climbed inside the car regardless with a slight feeling of trepidation.
As they trundled down the road, Kanda noticed something that unnerved him. He was used to going to other countries and learning to adapt, to learn bits and pieces of language as only necessary, to navigate by a mental map and memorize strange alphabets, if not understand them. This place... it was so European, he would not have guessed he'd have left England other than the fact there was a significant portion of blacks walking the streets along with drunkard whites in the horrid humidity.
"What your name, suh?" Din asked, and Kanda taciturnly answered, "Kanda." The man nodded vigorously, and he stated, "You not from Breetayn, ah you, Mistuh Kanda?" Kanda looked at Din through the rear view mirror, and he minutely shook his head. Din nodded his again with the same enthusiasm.
"You tink different, then." That was the extent of their conversation until they reached the orphanage, and that was perfectly fine with Kanda. As they got out, he inspected the front of the building with scrutiny in the dim streetlights. It was a sad, almost ramshackle place with a slightly charred, perhaps even moldy, front and a wooden sign stating orphanage along with the word in French and German. No Afrikaan translation was put on the front, more evidence of European influence. Din shook his head, and he said, "It a sad, sad weruld, Mistuh Kanda. Them children, I dunno 'bout. It not seem so good heuh for them. But ain' nowhere for them. No one wan' em." Kanda's eyebrows drew together just slightly, and a memory assailed him, one that he knew was not his yet was his at the same time.
Yes, it was an orphanage, but he didn't live there. Other people lived there, other unfortunates. His mother said not to look at them - it was bad luck. Then again, she also said to pay money to the orphanage because some were not as lucky as them, but how could you pay someone you could not look at?
Kanda disregarded the memory. They came and went, activated by random stimuli. They only happened every day or so, and sometimes they were as sparse as a few weeks apart. He no longer minded them. At one time, they would've had him killed, but now he knew they were nothing more than a piece of a life he no longer had a connection to. He grunted in response to Din's comment and began walking towards the orphanage.
He knocked on the door loudly. There was no answer. He waited another few minutes before pounding again, and yet again there was no answer. He pounded again-
and a voice shouted, in a thick British accent, "WAIT A MINUTE, OHLROIGHT? DAMN, CAN'T GI' A WINK A' SLEEP DOWN 'ERE, WOT WIF PEOPLE BANGIN' ON TH'DOOR AT BLOOMIN' MIDNIGHT!" There was the sound of heavy footsteps down the stairs before the door was suddenly yanked open by a dour-faced woman with puffy eyes. She might've been pretty. She was skinny-waisted and petite with a red, full mouth and large liquid eyes, but the awful expression of disdain she had ruined all of her features worse than a scar across the face. Kanda glared her down, and he stated, "Nthanda here? I'm from the Order." The woman frowned at him, pouting. She leaned up against the doorjamb, exposing the leonine curves of her body - something that Kanda didn't at all appreciate. He intended to go home this very night at best, and this woman was making it awfully difficult. Behind him, he could hear Din begin snickering.
"Wot? Ya nigguh, whatchu laughin' at? You ain't got no right to be snarkin' at a dame loike me; your kind like me enough," the woman said handily, and Din's happy, mirthful expression slowly dulled to one of chagrin.
"Uh, sohrry, mum, didn' mean nohthin' by it," Din said, and Kanda felt a pang of annoyance at both how easily Din was giving up and how rude this woman happened to be.
He shoved his way in, pushing the woman aside as she complained.
"Tha's trespassin'! I'll have the bobbies on you-"
"Just show me where the damn baby is, and I'll leave," Kanda grumbled, giving her a harsh stare. The woman stood there, hiking her flimsy night robe higher on her shoulders over her nightie before pouting and saying, "Ya could've just asked. No need to fuss." She started up the rickety stairs, and Kanda finally took a look at his surroundings. He was in an eight by eight foot room that was packed full of beds save for a single aisle that led to a hallway. All the walls were peeling paint, and the floors looked like they'd been half-eaten by water damage and termites. He was almost afraid he'd fall through the floor. The beds were all full to the brim with children aged sixteen and under. Most were asleep, though a few managed to sit up and stare at Kanda in confusion and wariness.
"Packed in, all like sardines. I knew it," Din muttered under his breath. He brushed a hand over his shaven head, his usually serene face slightly distorted by discontent at the plight of the children in the orphanage. Kanda was of a less sympathetic mind, though he did feel a twinge of compassion for the children within the orphanage. His own childhood had been hell, so he could only say to these kids to suck it up and get a move on. Keep moving, and eventually whatever happened to you would be behind you... The sound of pitter-patter feet met his ears, and he looked down to see a small girl in a long t-shirt. It hung off one shoulder, and it drifted around her ankles like a massive dress. Her wide, dark eyes stared up at him, and she fingered her hair as she stared. Kanda looked down at her with mild puzzlement.
"What?"
The girl finally pointed up at him and touched her hair, saying a word in a language he didn't understand. Din chuckled as Kanda lifted his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't expected her to answer.
"Suh, she wants to touch yoah hair," Din stated. Kanda stared at him in disgruntled disbelief, and Din shrugged.
"Why would I do that?" Kanda asked, and Din said, "Curiosity - good to feed. Let her, ain't hurt nohthin'." Kanda looked down at the girl. She was still standing there, overshadowed by Kanda's height and yet she still stared at him expectantly. If anything, he could admit she was a brave little girl. Several children were staring at the girl and Kanda, waiting for some sort of response. Kanda sighed out his nose, pulling out the hair tie that held his hair back. He threw it over his shoulder and bent down, rolling his eyes as the girl gleefully laughed as she softly felt the long strands. She pulled her fingers through it, yanking, and Kanda muttered, "Ouch! Easy!" The other children gave titters-
"OI! Why do I hear laughin'? Ain'chu s'posed to be asleep, ya li'l whelps?" The woman's annoying, ear-pinching voice was like an gunshot. All the children flew under covers, hustled under pillows, and pretended to be asleep. Even the little girl who'd asked to touch Kanda's hair was gone, conditioned to respond to that woman's voice like a greyhound to a starting bell after a hare. Kanda found himself feeling as if he'd missed something important when the little girl had left, as if some answer to a question he didn't know he'd had was about to be answered up until that moment. Now she was gone, and Kanda wasn't about to expend the effort to find her.
The stairs creaked as the woman came down, her hair piled high on her head and make-up carelessly splotched on her face. In her arms was a squirming, crying bundle of humanity that Kanda would be stuck with for only the next hour or so, hopefully. The orphanage caretaker thoughtlessly handed Nthanda to Kanda without another word. Kanda tentatively took the baby, its crying and wailing immediately grating on him. Apparently, Nthanda didn't appreciate being woken up at midnight either, and he was just that much more vocal about it. The woman leaned on one leg as she crossed her arms over an ample chest, and she stated, "You know, you don't have to leave right away if you ain't got yeself a noice room. I kin give ya one for a proice." Her emphasis on him and him alone immediately repulsed Kanda. It wasn't just the total, blatant lack of respect - even Kanda had that beaten into him - but it was also just... did he really look like the type? That was just insulting. Not to mention she didn't even bother to look at Din, as if he were subhuman, but then again Kanda was used to people giving others bad treatment for race or other reasons.
"I've got no money. No thank you." This, of course, was a blatant lie. Of course he had money. However, this woman was really beginning to chafe his nerves. Din looked away with a telling expression that said "I know where this is going". The woman bit her lip in an offended manner, and she said, " 'Course. Cuz, yanno, I jus' run this place outta the koindness o' my own heart." The children were curiously peeping, but a single glance from the woman silenced them back to bed.
"Them woives that usually take care o' them got families 'n all, and poor li'l Bertha gets stuck here all lonely-loike at night," she said, attempting sympathy and only incurring a coquettish air. Kanda growled, "No. Thank you." Din covered up a snicker with a cough, and he said, "Madam Bertha, we be needin' go now. Got sohme places t'be soon, gotta ketch the train, right?" Kanda turned heel and followed Din, leaving behind a rather offended Bertha and several curious children.
"What kids were they?" Kanda asked, trying to speak over the wailing Nthanda imposed on the both of them. The shorter black man stated, "War victohms. Parents die in bomb blast, kids left alone. Orph'nages like that all over the place. Black people ain't happy and white people ain't happy - make war wid each other over stupid things. Leave both white and black kids by themselves, not even look at 'em." Dingane shrugged. "Sohme try very, very hard, keep them fed, happy, in clothes wid smiles. Others... not try so hard, y'know?" Kanda nodded, cradling Nthanda awkwardly as they walked back to the car. He looked down at the bundle, the dark face scrunched with displeasure. Kanda held back a sniff of disgust. Babies... not his strong suit.
"You sho that the right bebie, suh?" Din asked, pointing to the small child. Kanda undid a few of the swaddling clothes to reveal the infant's chest, which was branded with a gold circle over his breastbone. Kanda nodded.
"Right kid," Kanda stated tersely as he got into the backseat. Din nodded to himself and clambered into the front seat. They drove down the road back towards the station... and then were stopped by a couple of men wearing uniforms. They were all white men with mustaches of varying volume carrying bobby clubs and wearing flat-topped hats. There was a barricade over the road, and Kanda frowned.
"Sorry, but this district is closed off," one of the men said, leaning down towards the window of the car. Din smiled and said, "Of course, suh, right, right. Why is closed down?" The man looked off into the distance nervously while the others gave anxious looks around, and he answered, "There was a bombing at the train station, and we are told to redirect all traffic, black and white alike, along a detour route. I'm afraid you'll have to find another train station, because this one's been blown to smithereens." Kanda suppressed a groan. He fingered the communicator on his ear, and he flipped it on as Din drove into the detour the men had outlined along the street.
"Komui, there's a problem," Kanda stated with a sigh. It took a moment or two before Komui answered, "Really? What's that?"
"The train's been delayed. Probably permanently." Komui was silent... and then he said, "Let me guess. Rebels went and bombed the train station?" Kanda didn't bother to answer. Komui didn't bother to elaborate. After several moments, Kanda finally asked, "What do you want us to do now?" Komui paused hesitantly before saying, "Try to reach Johannesburg if you can. If not..." Kanda frowned.
"Komui, what happens if I can't get to Johannesburg?" Kanda asked. Din turned his head slightly to look at Kanda out of the corner of his eye.
"The only other Black Order accessible churches we have in Africa are in Johannesburg, Cairo, and Algiers. You'd have to travel from one end of the continent to the other in order to get to an accessible church," Komui said, and Kanda was suddenly thrown around as the car unexpectedly flipped. Kanda's hearing was knocked out of his head as an explosion seemed to catch up with the flipping motion of the car. The scream of metal against stone met deaf ears as the force of the blast threw the car into a building. Kanda felt his head smash into the side of the car, glass raining down as the window broke. He curled around Nthanda, instinct prompting him to protect the little, fragile life he'd been handed.
As the dust cleared and the voices hushed from their screaming, Kanda looked up blearily. He was bleeding from the side of his head, the child screaming in his arms. Din was screaming, his arm crushed by the car door and the weight of the car on top of it. Kanda unsheathed his sword, carefully cutting his way out of the car. He began to saw his way through the car, freeing Din in the process with a great heave. The Finder stood up in bleary pain, looking around at the chaos.
"What happened?" Kanda asked, his voice sounded muffled as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. Suddenly, a high-pitched cackling met his ears, and Kanda immediately grabbed Din and dragged him down to the ground behind a wall. The man shouted in loud protest and pain as he landed with a thump inside the hollow shell of the building. Kanda handed him Nthanda, who was wailing as if the world was coming to an end. Kanda activated his Innocence with a soft, almost lullaby-like invocation of its name. It glowed for a moment before reverting to the dull shine of metal. Kanda stayed stock still, watching outside, looking for something...
Finally, he ran out into the street, the sound of his feet echoing on the buildings over the wail of women, and his sword clashed with something almost unseen. He stared into the eyes of a massive, armored being with teeth like knives and eyes deeper than an ocean.
"Hello, Exorcist. Like my present?" it asked in a slithering, worming voice like cold, congealed oil over skin. Kanda disengaged, skidding backwards as the Level Three disappeared in a blur of speed. Kanda stood there listening in the street as everyone else remained transfixed by the sight they had just witnessed. He closed his eyes, calming his breathing until he came up with a distorted, sound-based map of his surroundings. Marie had taught him this trick. You can always hear them before you see them. Your hearing isn't as good as mine, but I think you're better than I think you are.
Kanda suddenly whirled around, extending his sword arm. The Akuma ran itself straight through over it, choking as it gripped the blade in what seemed like confusion. Din watched from his hiding place in the rubble with something akin to amazement as Kanda dispatched the Akuma with a quick flick of the wrist. His breathing was labored as he held Nthanda against his chest protectively. No man that fast could be human. No man that calm could be human. They should've died, and that thing should've killed him, and yet...
He stood, hardly ruffled. He walked, hardly faltering. Din was suddenly very glad that this scary, scary man was on his side.
"I guess this means I'm keeping him for now," Kanda said. He reached down, picking Nthanda up rather roughly. Din wanted to snatch the baby back of his hands, thinking such coarse digits shouldn't be able to handle something so fragile after the feat of strength they'd just displayed. Fear coursed through Din, but he suppressed it. He was an Exorcist - this was normal. He'd seen it before, but there was something different about this performance of strength and agility. It was too... uncanny.
"You're injured. We're going to a hospital," the Japanese man said in clipped tones, hauling Din up to his feet. The Exorcist immediately started walking down the street.
"You know where you goin', suh?" Din asked, finally gathering his mental faculties. Kanda looked over his shoulder carelessly and stated honestly, "No." Din felt his usual smile crawl onto his face, but it felt like it didn't fit right there. Too much going on in one night. Kanda looked forwards again, still walking down the decimated street. Women screamed over their dead children, and men walked around with glazed eyes. Both blacks and whites were shellshocked and absolutely jarred by the sudden explosion that was no doubt neither the first nor last the city would see. Kanda looked behind him, watching Din. The man seemed dazed as well, but not quite as much as the others around him. Good. He was already used to the sights of war.
"Hurry. You'll bleed to death," Kanda said tersely, and they continued on.
The hotel room was just beginning to lighten with the first rays of the day. Kanda had sat up all night long, turning over a broken communicator in his hands. He had no way of contacting the Order, which mean he had two options. He could stay and wait for another contingent of Exorcists to come and help him, but he'd die before that happen. That was just disgraceful, as if he was saying he couldn't complete this mission, an easy mission no less, by himself. His second option was to find a way up to Johannesburg by any means necessary. However, with both options, there was a single, perplexing, and, dare he say it, scary problem.
Nthanda was swaddled in new blankets, face scrunched up in a dream. He gave a small whimper before turning over on his side. Kanda carefully turned him back over onto his back. Kanda hadn't ever thought that something could scare him quite as much as a small, innocent, completely helpless baby could. He hadn't gotten any sleep because the loud noises would wake the kid up, and then he'd get hungry (that posed another unique problem, seeing as Kanda didn't know how to feed him), and then he'd just get cranky. What scared him more than anything else, though, was that the child would turn over and suffocate to death. Kanda's one task was to keep him alive, and there was something terrifying about it all of a sudden. It had started out as a simple 'escort mission.' Now, it was entailing actual care on his part, and he wasn't sure if he was cut out for it.
Still, he was careful to mask this sudden, new found terror. He looked outside, where the streets were just beginning to wake. The vendors were wheeling out carts, and men and women shouted to one another in greeting. Their smiles were happy and bright, despite the horrors of last night and the bombings that had occurred. Several had been near enough to rock the building, but Kanda couldn't see where they had originated; his side of the hotel was facing the wrong way, away from the bombings.
Kanda walked into the bathroom, feeling fuzzy headed and disgruntled. He stared into the mirror at his frazzled self. His hair was a complete and utter mess. He hadn't even bothered to fix it when he'd come in last night. It was too much hassle, and the kid was already screaming his head off anyways. His eyes had bags under them, no doubt from his sleepless night. He stretched out his cheeks, the pale skin not even bothering to flush under the pressure of his fingers. He let go, and his face reverted back to its normal shape. He looked unhealthy, all in all, which was a first.
And for a moment, his reflection changed ever so slightly, and it was as if some other person was staring back at him. His reflection was the same... but there was something fundamentally off, changing Kanda into someone else entirely. Kanda frowned in vexation, and his reflection was his once more. He drummed his fingers on the counter underneath the mirror, and he dismissed this strange occurrence. He hadn't slept, and perhaps he was more prone to strange imaginings under such conditions.
He walked back towards the doorway, staring into his room. The kid was still lying on the bed, fingers in his mouth as he breathed loudly. Kanda felt that same unsettling feeling clothe and choke him. It seemed he was about to have parenthood thrust upon him.
He would take it as a challenge.
A/N: Okay, for those of you who've read 'Chasing After The Wind', this is in the same timeline and universe. Of course, this story won't have quite the same theme and plot line, but I definitely hope that you all end up liking it as much as you've liked CATW.
As with every story, I will recognize those who review, subscribe, and favorite this story. I will gladly answer questions - that does not mean I will be giving away plot points or key twists in the story. I don't give out freebies. :) However, do feel free to discuss your opinions and presumptions on plot, character, etc. in the reviews, as it is greatly appreciated - I love to see what you guys are all thinking.
Also, for those who want a real challenge, do look at Ella Unlimited's reviews for the story Chasing After The Wind. Those reviews are top notch, and I love to see those sorts of responses. However, I will take any sort of feedback (even the type that says I suck and I need to quit). Even if it's a three page rant on how badly I've written, I will nevertheless post acknowledgement of your feedback in the recognition section of the story. I will say it again - any sort of feedback is welcome. Go ahead and troll me, for all I care. Or Rick Roll me. Those are always fun.
Now that I've eaten up enough of your time...
-Dr. Yok
