Persecution. Twenty-Five

He felt a hand attempt to catch him before his feet managed to bring him out into the hall where everything seemed to be turned up in chaos. He paused only long enough to catch his surroundings, taking in the devastated corridor—lined with long claw-like gashes in the brick. People littered to the opposite way from the form that was tearing across down the hall.

Another body shot passed him and a flicker of memory nearly left him reeling before he willed himself to take after the blond man that had some place in the lost echoes of his mind. The blond braid whirled effortless in the air behind this man was he looked back with a dazed expression at him. Those eyes widened in something of obvious recognition and a temporary flit of panic.

"Corner him and get him back to the main quarters. Do not let him come back this way!" This man's voice carried far passed Kanda's range of movement and it only served to make him want to chase down the elusive figure he saw screaming passed the open door.

He needed to see that man.

Something was screaming in him to follow him. Something told him this person could have the answers that he needed so desperately.

But his body felt like lead. In as much as he wanted to move, he realized that he could no longer keep any pace and stopped, struggling just to keep his body standing.

Seals.

CROW seals.

Of course. He had been surrounded by these men. They were littering the halls and they were all armed completely— this blond man as well, apparently.

"Kanda Yuu, I'm going to have to escort you back to your General. This is not business you are to be made part of," the regal young man's tone was painfully clipped and serious. But there was a tone in it and a strange look he cast toward Kanda that made the Asian man wonder. Did this man know him as well? And why did he appear to have some sort of guilty chip on his shoulder?

"Who is that man?" He asked; body desperate to take another step. Without realizing the intensity of his instincts, he pushed the binds with the force of his need to break them. Everything in him was welling up with a clamoring panic to catch up to that blur.

"That man is none of your concern," the Inspector turned, eyes steeled and broken off from the downcast expression he'd had before. He had realized, with some degree of concern, that Kanda Yuu could very well be someone capable of tearing through CROW seals, so he had no choice but to drop his pursuit and focus on returning the exorcist to his General. "Please stop and come with me before you get involved in unnecessary issues."

The dark–haired man wasn't convinced by that play though. Even the softer tone of the blonde's voice wasn't capable of deterring his mind from the look he'd caught before. "You're a lying sack of shit," he growled lowly. Somewhere deep in him he knew that he should shut his mouth and continue on like nothing happened. However, some part of him trembled to remember how he'd gotten to this point; it was the same points of him that were clawing—scratching at his bending spine until he caved, cracked under the pressure to the point where he had to pursue it. "Who is that man!" Insistence clawed at his throat and he turned his head to see another CROW man closing in on him. Eyes narrowed defensively and he couldn't repress the snarl that came up.

But the man was larger and not constricted by the binds like he was. Shit. Shit. He was going to be dragged away again with no answers and that feeling returned. The feeling that left his chest caving and breathing felt like a struggling effort.

If he let it go now, he may never see this person again. For whatever reason, he knew that for a fact. There was an emptiness hollowing a hole where his heart should be beating and even as the larger man's hands held him in place—trapping him between another man—and preventing him from moving, he felt a compulsion to try.

The world faded around him and all he could feel was the painful desperation that came out of no where. It was like he was drowning, burning, suffocating on the distance that had come between he and a complete fuckin stranger. Help him, he didn't understand it. Nothing made sense to his scattered memories.

If he didn't see that person again…

If he didn't reach them…

His life was over. He was over. What had he done before that had woven himself so deeply to this stranger? Body and soul screamed for him. Reaching his arm out, he clawed frantically at dead air—squirming against the grasp of two people who had him deadlocked.

He couldn't hear his own voice spilling out of his lungs, but he could feel the burn and he sucked in breath again as if he hadn't done so in hours—only to open his voice out across the halls again. The silence in his head nearly made him scream at himself. It was like he was trying to cry for someone, only to say nothing at all. The futility was killing him from the inside and he wasted his breath on sounds that never reached his ears.

But the only person who couldn't hear the name that flew harrowingly off his tongue was Kanda himself.

"ALLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"

To Be Continued...

A/N: So...can I have your feels yet?