Tragic Song

…

"Never forget. Never forget that moment. The tragedy you caused, the curse you cast upon yourself, the endless screams of the fallen. Never forget them, Allen."

"I know! I know! Just… just make it stop. Please…"

"I'm not the one hurting you. I can't do anything."

"...so it… won't end…? It'll never end?"

"When you die."

"But… you said… I can't die."

"That's right. This is the price of your sin. Can you bear it? Without breaking?"

…

The first, faint notes of the melody made Kanda stop in his tracks. It was a heartbreakingly beautiful song. Without thinking, his feet brought him closer to the haunting music as he strained to follow it, forgetting all about the reason he had come.

The melody drifted slowly upwards with painful sweetness, lingering on the clear, high notes in regretful hesitation before wandering through an eerie minor scale as if lost in the dark woods. It held such deep sorrow that Kanda's breath caught in his throat, and his hand faltered as it hovered near the wooden door. To interrupt seemed…

He…l…p…

A memory of a silent plea. His hand flew forward involuntarily to push at the heavy door, which slowly swung open, for all the world like the elegant velvet drapes that rose to reveal the performers' stage. Abruptly, the music stopped at the sound of the door. Fingers trembling slightly, Allen slowly lifted his hands and placed them on the bench. He didn't turn around.

"Kanda…?"

"You know my name," Kanda said unthinkingly before he frowned. Somehow, that seemed important. On a whim, he added, "bean sprout."

At that, Allen glanced at him in surprise, but he caught himself quickly and rearranged his features into his normal, irritating smile. Kanda frowned again. Normal? He had only seen the boy once before, but that smile irked him nonetheless. Quickly, he caught himself. Don't get involved with other people's affairs. He spoke to break the silence.

"I have to go on a mission, so you're supposed to go with me," he said, not forgetting to add an accompanying scowl.

"I heard." Allen didn't speak further.

"So hurry up, then. I'm not a patient person."

"I noticed." A half-smile. After a long pause, Allen reluctantly stood up, grabbing a snowy white cloak with a large hood. For a second, Kanda couldn't help thinking that it was the same beautifully soft color as his hair.

"Let's go." Another simple, abrupt comment. Almost as if he was afraid of saying too much. Kanda sighed in irritation and walked out wordlessly.

They traveled briskly to a tall, dark building near the castle, and as soon as Kanda swung the door open, he was assaulted by an eccentric dark-haired man with glasses. The swordsman sidestepped quickly, and the man ended up falling on top of Allen instead.

"Kan…da…" The man groaned. "You could at least have caught me instead of letting me fall…"

"Hmph," Kanda snorted as he dragged the man upright by the collar of his shirt.

With a sigh, the glasses man turned to Allen. "So you're the weird pianist or something? I heard you were going on the mission, but since you can't fight, we'll have to get you proper protection. By the way, I'm Komui, the supervisor of the science department here. Anyways, you know that this is the special sector of the military, right? Sector X." Komui adjusted his glasses. "Under the direct supervision of Duke Leverrier." At the name, Allen's mouth tightened. "We fight—"

"I know," Allen cut him short, his voice tense for once. Surprised, Kanda glanced at him, but despite his voice, a smile was still pasted on his face. Komui was surprised, too, for different reasons.

"You know already? Outsiders aren't supposed to know, but I guess… Anyways, Reever is getting your stuff ready."

Allen gave him a curt nod before following the other scientist.

Komui watched him leave with curiosity. In a short moment, though, he appeared to remember something and turned to Kanda with a childishly delighted face as he pulled something out of his lab coat. "Hey, Kanda, I just finished my latest product! Meet—"

Without hesitation, Kanda quickly knocked the weird thing, some sort of mutant wooden duck, out of his hand. It was probably dangerous. Sure enough, it emitted a vile-looking green gas as soon as it hit the ground.

"My baby—!" Komui wailed in horror, his hands flying to his head and tearing at his hat. "Kanda! How could you?"

Kanda snorted. "Why do you even make such weird things?"

"They're not weird! They're—"

"Your children, I know. They're useless."

Komui's hands paused. He was strangely still for a few moments until he finally signed and bent to pick up the deformed duck-thing. "You're right. They're pointless inventions."

"Right. So why make them?"

"What else could I make?"

Kanda scowled. "Whatever it is you usually make that's not pointless."

"Weapons, right?" Komui smiled sadly, fingering his creation absently. "Weapons to kill monsters, weapons to kill people." Stunned at the sudden seriousness, Kanda didn't respond. "I used to be a genius once, you know."

"…once? And now?" Kanda finally found his voice.

Komui looked up at him with an expression deep in thought. "Now...? I guess I'd be a murderer."

A murderer…? Now that he thought about it, even the childish Komui had…

"That's how this world works." Komui sighed and patted the remains of his duck fondly before his voice suddenly filled with good cheer again. "So you might as well have fun while you can, right?" He grinned as he noticed the snowy-haired boy returning. "Oh, Allen, you're back! You look good in that!"

"Doesn't he?" Lenalee had come, and Marie, too. Kanda blinked, noticing that he had been standing motionless like a fool. He made an irritated noise.

"Where are we going this time?" Marie asked Komui, and the supervisor opened his mouth to answer before frowning and blinking. Unable to answer, he dashed off quickly in the direction of the office.

By the time he returned, he was panting. "Woods… East… of city…" He gasped, shoving a handful of papers at Marie. Somehow, he found enough energy to tackle-hug Lenalee one last time before collapsing. "Careful…"

Lenalee smiled. "Of course. I'll be back soon." With a last wave, she hopped down and caught up with the others, who had already started to leave.

She glanced at Allen curiously. "Your hair's quite pretty," she commented, and Allen shifted uncomfortably though his smile was still glued to his face like some sort of parasite. "So you already know what kind of mission we're going on?"

"Yeah…" his voice trailed off, offering no explanation.

"You're not scared? That's pretty impressive."

He laughed weakly. "I'm scared. Who wouldn't be?" Not really because of normal reasons, he murmured so softly that Kanda almost didn't catch the quiet words. He didn't think Lenalee had.

The rest of the way, Lenalee made casual talk, but Kanda couldn't quite focus on what she was saying. He occasionally made a small grunt when something was directed at him, but for most of the way, he simply shot glances at Allen's snowy hair. It tugged at his memory, but he couldn't figure out why. Just once, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the boy's silver eyes drifting towards him with a regretful sadness, but the look vanished as quickly as it had come. Irrelevant, he repeated to himself. Don't get involved with strangers' businesses.

"Hang on." The paved road had given way to dirt and fallen leaves, and a rustle in a patch of nearby bushes made Kanda jump in front of Allen and Lenalee in alarm. He waited.

Sure enough, two short, rugged men made their way out of the bushes. They looked like soldiers, but the black crosses on their skin marked them out as magic-users. Still, they didn't seem like they had had much power as humans. Involuntarily, Kanda glanced at Allen again, but the bean sprout's cross was concealed by a pair of white leather gloves.

Black miasma slowly started to seep out from the two men's skins and began to envelop them. Kanda didn't waste any time in allowing them to change form before cutting them down. There was sure to be more of them nearby. He glanced at Allen again, wondering if the stupid bean sprout really would be safe, and frowned at what he saw.

Allen's face was impassive, with not even a trace of the polite smile from before on his lips. A light sheen of sweat covered his face, and Kanda saw his throat convulse as he swallowed. He was afraid after all.

"Stay back, bean sprout," Kanda told him. "Those are failed necromancy experiments. Monsters brought back by the forbidden arts. Only cursed weapons can kill them, so you just should stay out of the way. Your stupid magic tricks won't work here." The last words slipped out of his mouth before he thought about them.

"Magic tricks?" Allen seemed to have forgotten his nervousness temporarily as he glanced at Kanda in surprise.

"I don't know. Sleep spells or whatever it is you kids do nowadays." Kanda frowned. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't actually ever seen the bean sprout use magic. Had he? But two more of the revived corpses had come out, and he had no time to dwell on little details.

"They're all magic-users," Allen murmured.

Lenalee had activated her own weapon as she answered. "Yeah, they always are. We don't know why." She shrugged. "There's been an increase in them in the past few years, so we've been getting busier." She quickly swung a kick at one of the monsters that had gotten too close.

Allen watched uncomfortably as the other two fought fiercely. The first few monsters had been relatively weak, but the waves kept getting stronger and stronger. His fingers moved to left hand without thinking, brushing against the velvet that covered his own black cross. The most recent monster to join the battlefield had once been an actual, registered sorcerer. He gritted his teeth. A human who had been powerful while alive would be even harder to defeat as a reanimated corpse. As he watched Kanda dodge several attacks, he gripped his left hand tightly, frustrated. His head hurt abominably, too; it was much worse than usual.

There was a suppressed grunt as Kanda narrowly dodged what could have been a fatal blow. The pressure in Allen's head seemed to increase, and he winced and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Painfully, he forced an eye open just in time to see the sorcerer lunge at Kanda, who was already off balance from the earlier attack.

He didn't have time to think. His body moved of its own accord, swiftly shielding Kanda against the blow. He noticed the bloom of red on white fabric before the sharp pain of the slash registered in his mind, but the pain was lost in the pain of his throbbing headache anyways. Allen quickly glanced around, ignoring Kanda's outraged cry. There were still four – no, five – of the monsters left. That was fine. He took a deep breath and lifted his hands.

A harsh, eerie chord rang through the forest with an almost physical force, tearing viciously at the remaining monsters. His fingers flew along the keys of an invisible piano, but the faint outlines of each note he struck seemed to shimmer in the air momentarily before he moved on to the next. The music was bleak and jarring, carrying none of the gentleness of the song Kanda had heard in the mansion. It ripped, it shredded, it thrashed at the monsters without mercy, but underneath it all, there was still an inexplicable despair. Kanda glanced at Allen; a tear had run down the younger boy's face, but he didn't seem to notice as he kept playing frantically, desperately, as if possessed.

Snap. The last corpse writhed with a piercing howl before collapsing, and Allen's fingers were released, hovering shakily in the air for one last moment before falling as the boy closed his eyes. Kanda quickly caught him before he also collapsed, unconscious. Briskly, and still cursing his own carelessness, he unbuttoned the white shirt that was now stained red in order to get a better look at the wound. His mouth tightened as he stared at the gash, which started right below the ribs and trailed over the stomach. It was bleeding profusely, and in anyone else, it would have been fatal. It should have been fatal.

Without another moment's pause, Kanda gathered the slender boy in his arms and quickly walked in the direction of Tiedoll's mansion, which was, thankfully, no more than ten minutes' walk. That was still far too long. His blood pounded in his ears as he counted the seconds, with Lenalee running after him not far behind. A sick feeling of déjà vu knotted his stomach, but he was too preoccupied to give it any attention.

As soon as he burst through the door, he quickly carried Allen to the infirmary in the east wing, ignoring Tiedoll's horrified exclamations and Lenalee's flustered stammering. One of the nurses took one look at the wound and nearly fainted, but luckily her more impassive partner had the sense to scurry off to find a doctor.

Kanda quickly found a clean towel and filled a bucket with water – they had indoor plumbing in the mansion, at least – and carefully wiped at the blood around the wound. Some of it was already beginning to harden, but he couldn't risk pressing too hard and agitating the wound. Occasionally, he would end up rushing, and a pained sigh would escape the unconscious Allen's lips. He had never made a sound when he was awake.

When as much of the blood was gone as possible, Kanda set the towel down and checked the wound again. He froze in disbelief. Now that the blood was gone, he could see the countless other wounds on Allen's pale skin – bruises and cuts and burn marks that were half-healed, old scars that looked as if they would never fade… He traced a finger along a slash wound that looked much more recent. And familiar.

"Kan…da…?" A weak croak. Kanda's eyes flew to meet Allen's hazy, half-open ones, but they soon closed again.

"Tch." Kanda caught himself worrying, and he shook his head quickly to dislodge such thoughts. He needed to take care of the boy for the mission, and he was obliged to save him because the bean sprout had protected him. That was it. Nothing more.

Eventually, the doctor did come, but by then the gash had already begun to knit together. Kanda wondered why he didn't feel surprised. Perhaps he was just too tired to feel surprised anymore. As the baffled physician left, he sighed irritably and sat back down on the bed, laying a warm hand on Allen's cold, stiff one. Almost like a corpse. Something tugged at his memory – something important. What was it? He sighed again and shook his head. Suddenly tired, he let his eyes close for a moment, promising himself to wake up within an hour as he let himself sink into the comforting darkness of sleep.

Something important. There was something important that he had to remember. That was his last conscious thought as he felt a cold hand brush against his hair.

...

... Lame ending. Sorry. xD And yeah, I pretty much forgot Lenalee and Marie at the end. /facepalms The whole thing felt sorta meh. But the setting up had to happen sometime, I guess. Sigh.

Well, anyways... zombie monster things that are actually dead people come back to life somewhat and an organization that fights them. Uh huh. What, what? This is totally a ripoff of DGM's plot, you say? Nahhhh... Impossible... And just wait, it gets even better later. But that's okay, because this is fanfic. Yeeaah. And besides, there's so much bloody parallelism in this fanfic that I could even say that I'm ripping off myself half the time. Oh, but in English-teacher-speak, they're "recurring themes." Beautiful.

Well, anyways. I promised violence in this fanfic. Here it is. There's even more in chapter 5, so that's something to look forward too. /laughs There's also Tyki in chapter 5, but that's besides the point. And Allen plays... a magical piano... I'm so creative. snort. but whatever. That'd be one sexy piano, that's for sure. Can't you just imagine it? All eerie and shimmery and rainbow-y. Sort of like SHAFT anime or the No.6 theme song or something... maybe. Right, now I'm going off on a tangent. Anyways.

Ask me if you have any questions, cuz that may mean that I need to edit shit. (or that the plot bunnies are coming out) Also, as always, thank you to everyone who reviewed! You're all awesome! I can never say that enough. People who read this but didn't review, you're all awesome, too. xD (But you should review anyways cuz it's kewl. /thumbsup)

Aaand look forward to the next chapter! The plot bunnies are starting to appear.