"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

DISLCAIMER: D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

Warnings: Violence, language, etc.
Characters: Various
Pairings: None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

Yu Kanda is, without a doubt, my favourite character in the series. However, he's also the hardest character to write! This being said, I've done worse, I guess... Sorry it's so short.

SOLITARY

Down, down, down into the blackness he plunged. The depths were cool and strangely inviting, as if a mother's arms were beckoning to her wayward children that had long since run off. Surrounded by the dark atmosphere, it wasn't hard to forget that there was a war raging still - the peaceful cavern was his private refuge, and his only place to find solace. As of late, he had felt his days drawing closer and closer to the end - the lotus flower he was forever forced to treasure only had three more petals now, but it was not entirely his fault, despite what he would think.

He could have blamed the akuma, or the Millennium Earl, or even the Black Order for enlisting him in a war that no one wanted to fight, but instead he blamed himself, based on shortcomings that were mostly in his head, or things that had happened that weren't his fault at all. He would never believe that, though.

He blamed himself for not being stronger, and even as his blade whistled through the air and his blindfolded eyes sought out a target only his mind could see, he cursed his own existence. He was pitiful to his own eyes, it seemed - something that he would never forgive.

He was always a second too late, a hair's breadth too weak, or a centimetre too far away. Always he was usually praised with empty words for an imaginary prowess - he wished that all his comrades would reward him with just a few moments of silence; that was all he would ever ask for, mostly in regards to Komui, Lavi - whom he held a grudging respect for, and the moyashi, Allen; the boy of the prophecy, the destroyer of time itself. All three had a way of bothering his very soul, especially the latter two; if they said that they would do something, they did it without fail, regardless of the odds stacked against them. The strength he felt he lacked lay in those two's abilities to trust and be trusted by others...

Oh, he hated it. The way others looked at them was always with some degree of respect, however grudging, was almost something worth mentioning in and of itself. He didn't care, he tried to tell himself, but the fact that he had noticed at all was testimony to the opposite.

Perhaps what he did lack could be made up for with friendship, but in the small time he had left to live, he would live it the same way he always had - alone.

Drawing Mugen once again, Kanda leapt off of his foothold, ready to face the next opponent, whether in his mind or in his soul.