Hey guys! So sorry this has taken so long to get out! I have had the worst mental block when it came to this story and I have had no luck writing this chapter out no matter how hard I tried to. It was horrible! But at least I finally managed to make this chapter this up to my standards and I am now hoping you all enjoy my endless suffering while I'm writing this story!
Hope you all are doing fine and as always I don't own DGRAYMAN and it's characters! ALSO! So many people are turning out to be super OOC so forgive me!
~DGRAYMAN~
Family Matters
Chapter 10
The Warrior Group and It's Problems
~DGRAYMAN~
Allen had no problems getting through to spots that gave others a hard time, so when him and Lavi found a locked door with what looked like some kind of testing room on the other side, Lavi looked at him and gave him that mischievous shit-eating grin. Allen sighed and got to work finding a few small pieces of broken metal around them and set to work picking the lock, knowing full well to say no or to argue would just result in the same thing.
Though he kinda wished he had argued because just as he stepped into the room the ground under him gave way. He quickly grabbed Lavi, who quickly grabbed the door frame and pulled him back to safer ground. To say this was the first time this happened would be lying. This was common for Allen, way too common actually. So common actually that it made Fair and Sankada suggest that Allen stayed behind with Fair looking over maps and just staying safe.
That idea was dropped after the first day, Allen just couldn't sit still, he also wasn't the best at making plans on paper, he had to actually see the area he would be fighting in to make a plan. Kanda had actually snorted and remarked that Allen never actually thought anything out before jumping into battle, which Lena and Lavi instantly started joking that Allen was literally planless and just went with the flow of battle and didn't plan. Allen had to agree with them, he didn't plan anything, not unless it was a battle against a force of enemies larger than fifty, and even then he had to physically be in the area he would be fighting in to plan, he just couldn't plan anything with just paper maps, even photos didn't help, and they had tried a lot of things to go into a battle with plans while they still worked for the Black Order.
Needless to say, Allen ditched every plan when he saw the area they were going to be fighting in and consulted with Lavi about the new plan, one that was more foolproof and easier to set into motion. Which made Allen the literal battle genius when given Lavi's knowledge.
"Any chance you're just cursed with bad luck?" Lavi asked, panting after they had run from a collapsing corridor.
"Since the day I was born," was Allen's instant but panted response. "But even you have to agree that a base this well made and old shouldn't be collapsing like this. Especially since we're on the floors you guys have already covered and cleaned out. We're just double-checking the area."
"Point made," Lavi groaned, standing straight again. "Come on, we're heading base to HQ."
Allen nodded, took a deep breath, and instantly gagged, his head whipping back over to the collapsed corridor. "What fucking smells like death?!"
Lavi was quick to grab Allen and run to the only way up to the base floor, not stopping even when Allen shouted out in pain and yelled at him to let go of him. He had almost made it to the only uncollapsed access point when the roars started from all around them.
Lavi and Allen quickly slid to a stop, Lavi pulling his hammer out, activating it, while Allen activated his innocence and stayed close to Lavi.
"Lavi," Allen began, his eye was starting to go crazy. "Weakness and strength."
"Weak bodies, one hit one kill," Lavi responded, inching closer to their only way up, they couldn't afford to get stuck fighting these things this close to it, but he had to get to a point that he knew they couldn't grab Allen. Allen was also all too aware of this, his head was starting to go fuzzy and his vision black again. He was feeling ill, much too ill to be able to fight. "They have deadly strong claws though, able to cut through just about everything but our innocence and Fair's damn greatsword. The best bet is to get to the way out and to just get the fuck out of here as fast as we can while taking down about as many of them as we can. They get harder to fight in confined spaces, especially since the lower we go the more toxic and acid-like their blood gets and I don't feel like getting out of commission for the time it takes to get the damn burn to go away again."
"Shit," Allen muttered. He wasn't looking forward to seeing these things, hell keeping his eye deactivated was taking a lot more effort then he remembered it taking. "Lavi I think the best thing to do is run to the escape point and get off the floor. Get Lena and then you both come back down here and clean them up."
Lavi made a sound of agreement and quickly grabbed Allen's hand and shot off towards the exit point, only to have to jump back as the first wave of the monsters shot out from around the corner-cutting off their exit.
"FUCK!" Both Lavi and Allen yelled out, splitting up to avoid the large claws aimed at where they just were.
"Stay at a distance and kill them!" Lavi shouted out, making his hammer larger and swinging it at the monsters before them, their bloody and rotting bodies bursting into a rotting smelly mess. Allen was using everything in his arsenal to cut and kill the monsters, hiding behind walls and piles of rubble as they exploded. He didn't see anything wrong with the monster's blood, but when he moved too slowly to get behind a jutting door, he screamed in agony. His bottom pant leg was soaked in the monster's blood, burning away and starting to drip onto his bare flesh. Allen quickly used his own claws to cut the blood-soaked fabric off and throw it into a corner, where the fabric was soon eaten away into nothingness. His leg was raw and burning brutally from the few drops that had touched his skin, and he found he couldn't stand to actually stand on his burning leg.
If he was anyone else, but the highly trained circus worker turned exorcist, the monster bursting through the wall next to him with his claws ready to rip him to shreds would have done just that. But Allen didn't have to stand on his leg to fight, just had to use innocence to drag him away from the attack and keep pressure off his leg until the battle was done. But because he was Allen Walker, something bad had to happen. It wasn't another collapse in the building, it wasn't getting blasted with blood again, no it was worse. The pain from his leg had taken his attention away from keeping his eye unactivated, and Allen was caught off guard by the twisted and mangled soul he found attached to the monster.
Allen's breath caught in his throat, his body trying to force the bar he had before he left down here with Lavi back up, and his body twitched with the force of the pain and hate and sorrow and the pleas for help, for someone to save them, for someone to put them out of their misery for good. Allen felt it all, all the emotions from all the monsters, no from all the Akuma forced into living bodies, and he realized this is what hit him so hard on the mountain, the pain and suffering from thousands of these things had washed over him and their pain became his.
Allen forced himself to steady, grateful that his innocence didn't really need him awake or aware while activated to keep him safe and to fight the Akuma, and quickly tried to count the number of the Akuma surrounding him and Lavi, then put all his focus into keeping his eye deactivated, he had to keep fighting. And fight he did, until every last one was destroyed.
"Allen?" Lavi called out, and Allen opened his eyes long enough to fall into Lavi's arms before the pain caught up to him and darkness took over. He couldn't even get out his warning to Lavi before he was out like a light.
~DGRAYMAN~
Kanda was out the door before Fair had even finished standing. He didn't care about whatever shit Fair was saying, a group he was going to send out to find Allen and Lavi, he honestly couldn't bring himself to. He had felt it earlier like fire through his veins, the pain in his head, his vision getting fuzzy and going dark around the edges, and then he couldn't stand and put pressure on his right leg, let like he had dipped it in acid even. He knew as soon as the first symptom came what was happening. The growling from the one he shared his head with was also enough confirmation that something bad had happened to Allen, and when everything disappeared so suddenly, Kanda was already heading to the door to go down to Allen.
Only Lena, Fair, and Sankada stopped him. Amber had clung to his leg and looked up at him with those stubborn eyes he figured all Walkers had, her eyes screaming she was coming with him to find her brother. It was only because of Lenalee's trust in Lavi that he had agreed to wait till the given time to let them come back on their own before he left, Amber trailing him dutifully behind him, keeping up with his strides easily.
Kanda would see heads roll if Allen was missing, dead, or injured beyond what they could heal.
When he got to the elevator shaft they were using to go up and down, the other three had caught up with them, not one said a word, only followed him silently and seriously down to the floor Lavi and Allen were supposed to be on. If the Baka Usagi had let anything bad happen to his Moyashi, he wouldn't be leaving this place alive.
Though his thoughts shifted dramatically when the group turned the corner and saw the carnage surrounding the red-headed warrior, whose only response to the gasps, was to shift his body to cover something, his hammer shaking as he lifted it off the floor again.
"Lavi!" Lena cried out, quickly using her boots to pass over all the dead rotting bodies and the bloody mess to land lightly behind him, her stance showing she was ready to jump and evade Lavi's hammer if he attacked her.
Kanda watched silently, watched as Lena helped Lavi stand, wrap her arms around him and quickly and smoothly fly him over the dozens of bodies that blocked the path. He could barely make out the white of Allen's hair from this distance, and he honestly was surprised he could see his Moyashi at all over all the bodies.
"They kept coming," Lavi groaned out, being supported by Fair once Lena reached them. "They kept trying to drag Allen away. I did what I could to protect him. Don't touch his legs too much Lena."
Lenalee nodded and quickly flew back over to Allen, her face serious. Kanda watched as Lenalee slowly and carefully lifted his Moyashi into her arms and carefully got him back over to them, Kanda taking Allen as soon Lena got into reach. And Kanda could see what Lavi meant by being careful with his legs. Covered in blood and burns, his Moyashi looked like he had been wading through acid without a care that he was destroying his body.
"Let's get back to HQ," Fair said, helping Lavi onto his back. "We can tend to any wounds and get the story after you get some rest."
Lavi shook his head tiredly, his head limply falling to land on Fair's shoulder. "We have to move higher, they know Allen is here now, and they started caving in the ground under us trying to get Allen to fall into their clutches. We need to find a new base to operate out of before they make it to the floor beneath our current base."
Fair nodded and started moving, slowing down slightly as Sankada took point, her giant shuriken ready in her hand to cut anything down that approached. When they reached the access elevator, Sankada went to go up first, only to curse and pull back out.
"The ladder we were using was destroyed going up. The only way to go is down or to make a path up ourselves."
Fair cursed and Lena pushed herself into the opening, looking up then back to them. Kanda could see the gears turning in her head.
"Don't," Kanda warned her. "You could probably get Lavi and Allen up to HQ, but the rest of us are too heavy for you to carry. We have to find a new place to hole up until Allen and Lavi are better, so we go down or find a place on this floor."
"We need the medical equipment though," Lena looked back to the empty shaft and then back at Allen and Lavi. "I can go up and get what we need, just tell me what the really important items are and I'll make a bag or two up so we have them."
Kanda leaned against the wall, shifting so his Moyashi was resting more comfortably in his arms and against his chest. He watched Lena and Fair discuss what she needed to grab, content to let them do the planning and leave him out of it. He had more important things to worry about, mainly the passed out Beansprout in his arms.
Kanda shifted his attention to his Moyashi's soft breathing, the slow rise, and fall of his chest, the expression that still showed hints of pain even while out cold, and Kanda felt the urge to kiss his Moyashi until all his pain went away, until everything was better again. He also felt the death glare coming from Sankada again. He ignored her like usual, not bothering to even acknowledge her and her obvious hate towards him. Why she hated him, he couldn't tell you, even the voice in his head didn't have an answer towards that.
"Is he going to be okay?" Came the soft voice from beside his left leg. Kanda looked down at Amber, then crouched so he could sit on the ground next to her, always being mindful of his Moyashi's injured legs. She looked scared, her eyes kept glancing over at the wounds on her older brother's legs than to the dozens of bodies that they could see from a few holes in the walls at their height.
"Aren is going to be fine," Kanda said softly, giving her a gentle smile before pulling her closer to them. "He's stronger than you think he is and has suffered much worse than this while we were working for the Black Order."
"You guys say the Black Order is bad," Amber started softly, moving to hug Allen. "If it's as bad as you say it is, why would you work for them?"
Kanda paused and looked over at Lena and Lavi, he watched as Lavi breathed deeply and evenly on Fair's back, he watched as Lena finished planning with Fair and then leaped into the shaft to get the supplies needed, then looked down at his Moyashi. He sighed and looked Amber in the eyes, not caring if Fair and Sankada could hear him.
"Lena didn't have a choice," he began softly. "She stumbled upon her innocence by accident as a little girl while an exorcist was passing through her town. It recognized her as its master and they dragged her kicking and screaming away from her brother, her last family member left alive. She went through hell as she kept refusing her innocence, kept refusing to work for the people who chained her up and were going to use her as a weapon but had the gall to call themselves her family. She only accepted the innocence when her brother made it into the science department of the Black Order branch that she was at, and only then did she start to see the Black Order as family, because with her brother around, only those at Central treated them like weapons, but Lena didn't have to worry about them coming around because they were too busy in Central HQ to care about the individual branches. At that point it was too late for her to leave, her brother was in the Black Order and they wouldn't have let her leave them anyway."
"Lavi is the next in line to be a Bookman," Kanda continued, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. "Not sure how he came across his innocence, but his duties as a Bookman brought him to the Order to record our side of the war raging outside your kingdom's lands. He broke the rules of being a Bookman of course by becoming friends with Lena, Aren, Johnny, and others back at the Order, but he doesn't regret it, not even a little bit."
"Allen was born with innocence in his arm and was picked up by Cross to become an exorcist, so he also had no choice in the matter. But unlike the others, I have never known anything but the Order and what they are capable of, what they will do to win the war against the Earl. Because unlike the others, as the Moyashi so bluntly said when we first arrived, I was created in a lab in one of the branches of the Black Order, an artificial body to hold the soul of a deceased exorcist. Central had the brilliant idea to try to bring the dead back to life, give them bodies and put their innocence near them and see if any of them came back to life. They only had two successes out of the entire time they put time and research into it. Me and one other boy. I kept relapsing into the memories of the past life so they called me a failure and attempted to kill me, only for the one they called a success to turn on them and kill almost everyone in those labs."
"I thought he was dead for so long, I locked myself away behind a mask, one that keeps falling apart around you damn people, and lived my life trying not to get close to anyone ever again. But he wasn't dead, just comatose and motionless locked away in a tank to rot. The earl set him free, turned him into an Akuma and set him on me. I would have killed him if this damn Beansprout didn't get in the way. But I also wouldn't have woken Nea fully by stabbing him with Mugen if he didn't get in the way. Even after all of that, the damn brat still sent me and him off to a quiet place to die together in peace, except I didn't die, I just healed and came back for this idiot. Only to find out he was on the run from the Order for treason and being a Noah while also trying to avoid the Noah and Akuma because apparently, the Earl had gotten too touchy-feely with him once he had sent me away with my dying friend, and it freaked him out so much he punted the Earl back into the Noah and used the ark to send them all to somewhere else."
"You all really are forced child soldiers," Fair whispered from somewhere close to his left, and the soft shifting of feet from farther in front of him let him know exactly where Sankada was.
"I don't really count as a child though," Kanda sighed, then opened his eyes to look at Sankada, he was watching her. "I don't know how old the soul that was used to make me was, but I have only been around for ten years while my body is probably nineteen by now. I don't keep track of my age."
"You're still a child," Fair stated firmly. "Okay maybe you're a young adult now, but your soul doesn't determine your age. My soul is hundreds of years old, maybe even thousands because unlike other races, fairies are reborn to live on, to have memories of their past lives and learn from the mistakes that we have made, to better our people and ourselves. As a fairy, I could claim that I was the oldest member of the advisors to the Kings of our lands, but we don't count how old the soul is, we count how old the body is, and you are not even twenty yet. But you have been fighting for who knows how long so you are a child soldier. You all are."
"Dragons," Sankada began, paused, then took a deep breath and looked straight at Kanda, her gaze clear of malice. "Dragons live long lives. We can live centuries, millennia even before we die of old age. We can also bring our lost kin back from the dead using a ritual in the place they died on the day they died, no matter how long we wait. Because of the actions of my ancestors, I will always be the last full-blooded dragon alive. I had made the decision to raise my half-kin unaware of the grounds where everyone but myself were slaughtered and doomed to rest for all eternity, all because of the actions of one dragon who wouldn't take no for an answer and the ignorance the other dragons had as the mate of the strongest dragon was murdered and her eggs broken, even though her screams for help could be heard all the way down the mountain they all nested on."
"I was young and stupid," Sankada sighed, leaning against the wall behind her. "I thought when the warrior had come back, he had killed the dragon out of spite for being in his cave with his mate and eggs. I wish I could take it back now. The words that I spit out at him that night as I killed the injured and exhausted warrior, I want to take them all back. I want to take back what I did to his body. How I dragged it out of our lands and left it to rot in a place no dragon would dare to go. Every year on the anniversary of the almost extinction of the dragon race, I go back and stand guard at his cave. I stand there and drive away the young dragon who murdered the female inside the cave because she wouldn't destroy her eggs and mate with him. And I listen to her cries as she comes to terms over and over again that her mate died outside the bounds of the mountains, that he would never return to her. I thought it was a suitable punishment for a man who murdered the entire dragon population, but I shouldn't have punished him. I didn't know until it was too late to change anything I had done."
"We can live forever with the ability full-blooded dragons have. But because I am the last full-blooded dragon, I cannot with good consciousness bring back everyone but the one who didn't deserve to be killed that night. Our souls are eternal, but we only determine age based on the size of our bodies and wings when we take on our dragon form, the larger you and your wings are, the older you are, while the smaller you and your wings are means you are younger."
Fair smiled lightly and placed his hand gently on Kanda's arm. "You can open up to us about anything. We are your comrades and now your friends. You are also in line to take the throne with Allen when we return and get you two married so that makes you our soon-to-be king as well. I wonder how old I'd be in dragon years based on my wings?"
Kanda snorted and found himself shifting to make room for Amber to climb onto his lap and rest closer to her brother as he watched Fair and Sankada discuss the wings Fair had sudden grown out of nowhere. He watched as the wings fluttered, a deep purple color with hints of blue and red thrown into the mix, all glowing slightly. The wings were quite big and when Fair turned to pout at something Sankada had muttered they almost disappeared from sight as thin as they were. How something so small and fragile-looking could belong to a man who carried a sword the size of him, with the muscle mass to use it and the grace of experience and skill that he had, he had no clue. Though it did make him wonder about Sankada's wings. Did she have to go dragon to show them, or could she just summon them like Fair had done and stay looking human?
'She could bring them out whenever she wants to,' came the deep throaty voice in his head.
Kanda hummed slightly, reached his arm out and pulled the Baka Usagi's sleeping body closer to him. Fair and Sankada, even Lena could see this side of him, the side that cared, but the second the damn rabbit was awake, he was going to try to skewer him.
'You are a dragon,' Kanda stated, lifting his head to resume watching what had turned into a wing measuring contest. 'Are you the one Sankada killed?'
The voice chuckled, and Kanda swore he felt pride swell from the thing in his head. 'Yes. I am a dragon and she did kill me. In all honesty, I can't blame her, she did what any good knight would have done in her situation. She saw the dead bodies of her fellow dragons and she saw me covered in blood and in the center of it all. I attacked her first, didn't even try to explain what had happened, what I had returned to. Not after everyone told me to shut up, how dare I kill a young Holy Dragon Knight, he couldn't do any harm to any dragons because of his oath to protect us all.'
'You can't come back can you?' Kanda asked, then gasped as Sankada let her wings pop free, two beautiful lotus pink wings, the thinner parts of her wings showing thin dark green strands curling all over them, both wings finished with a single spike at the end. They were larger than Fair's wings, and Kanda could even reach out and touch the edge of the one closest to him, and they were on the other side of the room they were rooming in until Lena came back, and suddenly Kanda's unasked question was answered. The elevator shaft was too small for either of them to use their wings to even open when inside.
'You are a smart one,' the said again, praising him. 'You also have wings, my boy. We just haven't had a breakthrough with summoning them yet. You were close to it when your mate had gotten hurt. But it wasn't enough to activate your dragon blood completely.'
'My mate?' Kanda asked confused, starting to rub Allen's arm unconsciously. 'You said he was our mate when I claimed him with you in my head.'
'Hahaha,' he responded, his mirth and amusement flowing through to Kanda. 'It was a heat of the moment thing, had to make you believe we were one so you didn't lose momentum and get your dragon blood fully dormant again. I mean, I don't know about you but if I knew I had an audience I couldn't get rid of because they were in my head, I wouldn't have continued mating my beautiful Alecia.'
Kanda snorted, louder than he meant to, and found himself staring at both Fair and Sankada who had put their wings away and were now standing before him. He cleared his throat and looked them right in the eyes.
"Can I help you?" Kanda asked, his voice softer then he meant it to be.
'No mean words from you, boy,' came the response to the unspoken question.
"Who are you talking to, Kanda?" Fair asked, his head tilted to the side watching him. "You were watching us, but your eyes were kinda far away, you had the look that our king gets when Castela calls out to him and they talk mentally." Sankada's gaze had gone hard and dangerous again.
'Truthfully my boy,' came the calm voice in his head. 'Sankada has already exposed her true feelings to us, as has the young man named Fair. They deserve the truth, though I don't know if your exorcist friends are ready to learn the truth yet. HAHHAHA! Just think! The very creature those stupid fools were trying to capture because they believed it increased the chance to have reincarnation had a perfect pure-blood in their filthy hands and never knew!'
Kanda froze, his eyes going wide, his gaze going past both Fair and Sankada. He usually had better control, but something was wrong with him today, as words he meant to think silently spilled quietly from his lips, only loud enough for both Fair and Sankada to hear.
"I'm a pure-blooded dragon?"
And then the world exploded and Kanda found his world turning black, something in him snapping to fold and hold Allen and Amber closer to him.
The last thing he heard was a shouted curse from Fair and something picking him up, Allen and Amber included, before he was out cold.
~DGRAYMAN~
When Lena returned almost an hour later she found Fair and Sankada huddled over Lavi, who was groaning in pain while stuck under a chunk of the wall.
"What happened?!" She asked, skidding to a stop beside them and looking over them all.
"Monsters stronger than the ones we have been facing until now attacked," Fair grunted, then heaved the slab off Lavi enough for Sankada to drag him out. "They came through the walls like bombs, slamming into us and knocking us off balance. By the time we drove them off one of them had already grabbed Kanda, Allen, and Amber and had long since been gone."
"They were prepared," Sankada added, taking the medical bag from Lena and instantly started to tend to Lavi's wounds. "They had grabbed them right after the walls exploded, right in a way that we had to jump back from them and not see them until the fight was over. Come on Lavi, you need to get better faster so we can get our Princes and Princess back got it?"
Lavi groaned but nodded, shifting so he could sit and check his injuries. "It hurts, but not as much as the stupid shit in Japan did. I can still fight and walk."
"I don't know how to respond to that."
Lena looked at the two that had spoken at the same time and smiled, but it wasn't friendly and open, it was guarded and steel.
"We were beaten to hell and back on a boat that lost all its passengers on the way to Japan during an Akuma attack. When we reached Japan we were covered in bandages and I couldn't walk, Lavi had fractured ribs and injuries he really shouldn't have been fighting with, as did the rest of the group we were with that survived. Even after all of that, we still fought against hordes of stronger Akuma then we had ever faced. We fought some of the Noah. And Allen, beaten bruised and barely able to move, had faced the Earl until General Cross showed up and intimidated the Earl into leaving with the Noah we had defeated."
Fair and Sankada looked at the two young figures before them, so much younger then they had even trained to be fighters, but they still had more experience facing challenges and enemies in less than ideal, even horrible conditions, and to have made it out aliveā¦
Fair watched Lavi and Lena move through the blown-out wall with ease as if they did this every day of their lives. As if they had been fighting for so long, they were ready to walk back into the fray no matter what condition they were in.
"Just how much have those kids been through?" Fair asked to the backs of the two already turning the corner to where the monsters must have come from.
"I don't know," Sankada answered, her voice dead and emotionless, but Fair knew her better. Sankada was pissed beyond pissed at the thought of these kids facing death head-on every day. And he had to admit it pissed him off as well, that these kids could shut off all emotion, could master their pain and suffering to go save their friends, even if they were in life-threatening condition.
Just before they caught up to them, Fair and Sankada heard something that made their blood freeze in their veins.
"If that pissed them off, just wait till they hear how Allen had his arm ripped off and a hole eaten into his heart. Explaining that Allen would have been dead, maybe even dead but brought back to life by his innocence being able to work on its own is going to tip the scales and make them feel murderous."
"The fact that even without his innocence he still tried to join the battle to save us still blows my mind like he literally couldn't do anything to stop the Earl, Noah, or Akuma from killing us, but he still fought to get out and join us, even when he was harnessing his innocence to bring it back into his body, his only thoughts were to save us as far as we know."
