NOTE: I have, for the sake of this story and with the help of the Earl, murdered history. Did events like the ones in this story happen? Some of them…maybe…if you tilt your head at a funny angle. My Asian history, well any history, is as weak as un-steeped tea and not near as hot. So forgive me for destroying the historical foundation for the modern political culture.
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The coach jolted and for the 21st time in the last 59 minutes Lavi, no he was Cain now, jolted forward and nearly lost his seating. His tinny master sat with unflappable poise, shifting and swaying as though he were affixed to the hard seat.
"This is why I like trains." He muttered as he flicked his hair back out his eyes. A new tick for a new persona. He was jolted forward again, not enough to unseat him again, but enough to knock his hair in front of his face again. This time he left it. Perhaps he'd let it grow out so he could tie it back with one of the those satin ribbons he could never get Yu to use.
Outwardly he remained unperturbed, but inwardly he had frozen. Yu was one of the things he wasn't allowed the luxury of thinking while under his master's watchful gaze. So he turned his thoughts from Yu only to run headlong into other memories he shouldn't have.
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The night was warm and light breeze tumbled through the open window and the boy could smell the clover the wind had been rolling in. He turned his head sharply as his door opened.
"Mac come here." The boy's eyes lit up.
"Máthair!" Her eyes edged themselves with panic and she held a finger sharply against her lips. He clasped his small hands over his smiling lips in response. She beckoned to the boy who came quickly to her side. She grabbed his tiny hand and silently they moved through the old building. Every time he followed her through the dark maze of this building he felt like a hero in one of those lullabies she wasn't suppose to sing him.
When they stepped out on the roof he immediately looked up to the stars. His masters had taught him the science of the stars, all the complex math and boring physics, but the woman that stood beside had taught him their stories.
"Look to Perseus." The boy watched and at first didn't see anything, but just when he opened his mouth to complain he saw a star fall. He gasped and the woman beside him smiled.
"The tears of Saint Lawrence." She said softly. He turned to look at her.
"Mac the stars were falling like this on your birthday." He turned to her confused as to why she was telling him this. "The stars don't fall for every boy. You weren't meant to record other people's history, you were meant to make your own. Remember that when you met your Bookman tomorrow."
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Though Kanda could hardly admit it to himself, he missed Moyashi. Well technically he missed the connivance of traveling across the world by strolling through a clean Mediterranean city, but at this point it was all the same. He was stuck waiting in some horrid city on the banks of the Red Sea for a ship headed East.
It was terribly boring, and he'd grown use to traveling with someone ever since Lavi had found away to glue himself to Kanda's side. He sighed, it didn't matter, he seriously doubted he would ever see the red head again. He wished he had a larger collection of memories to brood over. His memories of the Order were largely unpleasant, annoying, or containing Lavi and many times a combination of the three. His memories from the before the order were cut into little pieces, a result of the second exorcist project, and therefore he had only a handful of memories of his childhood. Not many of those where happy either. Most were about that person, only few where about other people, namely his father.
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The boy knelt before his father and tried not to shift under the man's prying grazing.
"Your hair is short. Are an Emperor's man?" The little boy's eyes widen his horror at the thought.
"No! I'm like you father, I'm going to be a Samurai!"
"Yet you cut your hair like a Westerner?" The man's voice was full of skepticism.
"Nao…Nao cut my hair while I was asleep and then mother made me even it out."Had the boy been looking at his father's face he would have seen the fleeting laughter there.
"A warrior does not allow people to sneak up on him. When you can remember that, grow you hair back out."
"Yes father!" The boy cried a little too exuberantly. The man smiled before replacing the soft look with something much more serious.
"I did not call you here to discuss the state of your hair." He paused for a moment and he could tell the boy was one step away from shaking with anticipation. "I called you here to see if you are ready to be a man." That gave the boy a pause.
"Why father?"
"Because there's going to be a battle. I won't be coming back." The boy's eyes widen and his face flew up instead of remaining respectfully downturned.
"What? You always come back! Nothing can kill you! You can heal from anything! What about that time that horse kicked your head? What about that time you got shot? What about—" The man held up a hand silencing his son.
"I am going to die." The boy was trembling now.
"Why father?"
"Because I am cursed, and so are you." The man could see fear in his son's pale face. "Do you remember when you feel from the tree? You the way you landed you broke back, but it's not broken. What have you seen anything since then?" The boy froze.
"Mother said not to talk about it."
"I am telling you to." The boy murmured something and his father looked unimpressed till he repeated himself louder.
"A lotus petal." The man nodded.
"Our family is cursed, or perhaps blessed, depending on how you view it. Every time you get hurt you'll see more flower petals, more flowers, until one day you see nothing but flowers."
"Is that all you see father?"
"No. I can't see any flowers at all. It's one last gift from the curse; it means the next death will be your last."
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In all 50 Cain's aliases he had never believed in God. Not even in the last one when he'd worked for the Catholic Church. But now he certainly believed in a vengeful something. There was simply no other way to explain the figure that stood with their back to them on the edge of the dock, their hair long and dark.
Bookman must have noticed the slight lag in his step, but for once he remained blessedly silent. He wanted to run forward, to spin the person around, because it had to be Yu. No one else on earth could look so arrogantly beautiful, even from behind, without trying. Seeming of its own volition his hand lifted from his side and his step quickened. But abruptly he stopped, the feeling of Yu's hand stinging his ears along with the man's harsh reprimand coming to his mind. As much as he might wish it otherwise Bookman had not sent him away and he was still Cain not Lavi.
Coming fully under control he moved to stand silently and obediently behind the old man, exactly as Cain was expected to. Bookman seemed to pause and take him into consideration before nodding.
"Well done boy." With those words the figure turned, but it was not the face he'd been expecting. She was a haughty European beauty. As she swept past Cain caught the quick distinctive quirk of her wrist. So she was a member of the Bookman.
Then Lavi realized what had happened. It had been a test. He'd missed his chance to fail, his chance to be set free to find his Yu. For the second time in his life he'd love someone, and for the second time he'd chosen the Bookman over his precious person.
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When his new Bookman had asked him who it was that had been filling his head with emotions he hadn't wanted to betray Máthair, but he'd been so terrified that the creepy old man already knew. Now as he stood before her in the large hall he wished he'd lied to the Bookman. There were plenty of his teachers and caregivers that could have taught those old stories written in the stars or sang him forbidden lullabies about dead heroes of ancient wars. But he'd told the truth and now she stood restrained in front of him.
"Mac." She whispered, and he could see people across the hall avert their eyes so as not be dirtied by the raw emotion in the woman's voice. There was sorrow, pain, grief, but no matter how hard he tired the boy couldn't find blame or angry.
"Mac, my réalta, you were meant to live." She did not cry out as they jerked her back.
"Number 32" The boy looked up at the hooded man who had spoken, "This woman is accused of teaching you emotions and untrue histories. Is this the woman who taught you those things?" The boy looked at the woman in front of him. She was awash in emotions, pride and sorrow fought in the green eyes that matched his perfectly and her beautiful red hair was like wild red flames in its disorder.
"Máthair." He whispered. Her eyes widen momentarily in, and a side smile crossed her face, but she didn't answer.
"Answer the question, boy." His scary Bookman snapped.
"Yes she is the one." The woman fell slack and for a moment the men holding her loosened their hold on her. In that moment she broke free and placed her hands across the boy's brow.
"May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart, my star child, my son." With that she was seized and brought to kneel before the hooded man.
"You who gave up your name to become member of the Bookman are guiltily of working against our cause. You will be removed from the records. You are naught but ink."
---
Returning to the old capital city of Kyoto should have felt like a homecoming to Kanda, but it didn't. He didn't let himself dwell on the reason. Instead he focused only on his purpose for coming back to this city.
Kanda supposed a good son would try to find his family first after long years of absence, but then a good son would have written home at least once in eleven years. Surreptitiously he checked that Mugen was still hanging down his back, he'd need it when he found that person. In annoyance he glowered at the lotus flowers that obscured his sight, and wished he hadn't died so many times.
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Kanda Yu had been sent to bed two hours ago, but he hadn't gone. Instead he had gone to hide in the entry way and wait for his father. Now he wished to be back in his bed, even if Nao did kick. Anything would be better then standing here watching his mother embrace a man that wasn't his father.
He recognized the man; he was one of the men that supported the emperor, one of the men that should be out trying to kill his father. Anger burned his chest and he grabbed the little knife his father had given him once.
He lunged forward but his little knife didn't cut into the man, or even his traitorous mother, but rather the man who chose that moment to stagger through the door. The boy's eyes widened in horror as he recognized his father to be the wounded man.
His father turned to see who had stabbed him and suddenly he looked defeated in a way that all the wounds on his body had failed to make him.
"So you were an emperor's man." The boy's mouth began to form the word no, but before the sound left his lip a bloody sword protruded from his father chest.
"That's for the help Yu, your father would have been hard to kill if you hadn't distracted him." With a shriek of rage the boy lunged forward again only to have the sword that had been run through his father driven through his small body.
It hurt worse than anything he'd ever felt, but he could already feel his flesh knitting back together.
"It won't work." That was his mother's voice, surely she would save him, "He's a freak like his father, it was a small blessing from the gods that his brother didn't turn out that way." The man sneered down at you.
"Well he'll be useful; those Black Order men were in the city again looking for strong young children. I hear they pay a pretty price too."
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AN: Sorry for the delay. Moving to a different country is a rather time consuming enterprise and finding all of my things when lord only knows what city I've left them in is too.
