I've been meaning to edit chapter 22 but it's Christmas. Well, nearly Christmas. I'll edit it sometime, but in the meantime, a follow-up. Tiedoll is called different names based on point of view, Kanda is emotionally constipated, for all his being annoying Daisya bears a bit of a resemblance to someone else we know, and everyone's forgotten to tell Daisya something important. Not much new, but readings and reviews always enjoyed, so long as you liked the chapter. If not, well, hopefully the next one will be better.

Kanda staggered along towards the western road. Had he the energy or an audience, he would have given a litany of complaint.

He stopped momentarily, and adjusted his grip around Daisya's chest. The sight would have been worthy of laughter in another context. An eleven-year-old child, with a heavily-built adult over his shoulders in a fireman's lift, and an arm wrapped around the ribs of another child, walking slowly under the weight.

Whatever Marie and Daisya had pulled off, they'd knocked themselves out pretty good. Them and any akuma in a kilometer-wide radius. He was still a bit fuzzy on the language of sync rates and energy drain that Komui and the scientists liked, but it seemed like the two of them together had tapped into some hidden reserve. Like those stories about people lifting carts and boulders in fits of panic. Apparently it was impressive. From his perspective, there wasn't anything special about being able to do that. Bragging about it was just stupid. But Tiedoll kept saying that he had to remember that not everyone was like him. Most people didn't think it was possible.

He stopped for a moment, sucking a few breaths in and out. Yeah, he was strong, but it had been a long night. It was being a long night. Probably. The clouds around the horizon would have choked out any sign of light even if it was day.

Anyway, something about doing that made Marie and Daisya sleepy. He'd heard that sync rates meant that you and your Innocence were working as the same thing, as two wills in harmony, but that didn't make sense. He hated having some parasitic thing getting into his mind, making him a puppet of some bastard God, but his sync rates were as good as anyone's. He was strong.

But Lenalee was strong, too, and her sync rates swung up and down like her moods. Some days they didn't allow her to go train. Said she could fall and break something. Kanda knew better.

He knew Marie was pretty good. Wasn't too strong, but made up for it. And Daisya...he was a loud, annoying, sloppy brat, but he made it work. If they weren't strong, didn't have high sync rates, what did they do that made everything drop dead? Not any of that teamwork crap that the French girl kept spouting. Teamwork just slowed you down, got you killed. Something about the Innocences worked together. Something about the music. He didn't remember much, but it was like the strings and the bell were just little ripples that all of a sudden were one damn big wave heading right at you.

He'd heard about the ocean. He'd seen it. He'd watched the people swimming, bobbing in and out of the water with the waves. He couldn't imagine being able to do that, just floating there without feeling something dragging you down and trying to get back to the surface and not—

He hated water. It was like he was watching all over again, as he got dragged down and down and down. That's what it felt like. A wave of Innocence that knocked down and engulfed everything. He'd felt it in his lungs, pouring in through every orifice, throbbing as the waves ebbed and flowed.

The water...he remembered some of the kids would wait until the waves came in, and ride them. They could make it from fifteen feet out to the beach with one little jump. And when two waves ran into each other, the wave that came out would be bigger. Maybe the music was like a wave, and the two musics together made a sort of jump, or spring. Like the mousetraps they had at headquarters. The music was in sync, and the sync rates did the same thing, getting bigger and bigger together. And the strength, too. If they were both unconscious, then the Innocence could take over. The two Innocences would overlap to create something big enough to swamp the forest.

But that was wrong. These sorts of things never made sense.

Even if he wasn't wrong, it all sounded pretty stupid to hi—

Distracted, his left foot planted itself in a puddle, and slid out from under him. He just managed to catch himself on his forearms. After dropping Daisya, of course.

—m. Damn. He could carry Marie fine, but one more put him off balance. Why'd he have to carry Daisya? Why was Daisya even here in the first place? All he'd done was get himself beat up doing stupid things.

He pulled himself back to his feet, wiping his boot on the grass that edged the dirt road, and picked Daisya up again. It took his eyes a moment to refocus on the road ahead, leading into the village and then off into the horizon, dusty and brown, filled with ruts. The grass framed it almost like a windowpane.

The window.

Daisya wasn't like him. Stupid bastard tried to get hurt every time he could by playing the hero. He could have saved himself from the fire. He'd be healed up by now. He didn't need to get dragged to safety. He wasn't the one who couldn't deal with a broken bloody ankle. Daisya was the one who didn't heal, so why didn't he...

Why didn't he just jump?

The window. He remembered staring out. He'd seen Alma, covered in scars and marks, with two curving down from his eyes like tears.

Why'd he have to stay behind? Why'd he have to pull that stupid stunt and get his skin so burnt and charred that he couldn't even feel how bad it was?

If Daisya'd been there a few minutes longer he'd have died. He could have survived longer. He would have healed, but not Daisya. Daisya wasn't like him.

Daisya wasn't like him.

And here, here and now, he'd been a centimetre away from getting shot just to play the damn hero.

Why had Daisya tried to save him?

Fuck

Kanda's breath was getting heavier again, catching in places. It had been a long week.

Why did people always have to save him?

For a minute or two, he was glad no one was awake to see him.

...

Tiedoll ran out of the village at break-neck speed. He'd taken care of the Noah and her akuma for now — at least, he doubted she was going to want to show up any time soon — but it would be a while before the akuma drifted away. If Marie and the children hadn't exterminated theirs...well, first of all they could be dead, and second of all it would only be a matter of time before the akuma found him or someone less prepared.

But that wasn't a good way to think. They had exterminated the akuma, that was what was true. They had to have. All that was left was to find out how, and where they were now.

He ran beneath a multicoloured stretch of canvas awnings and past a row of shabby shops — a bakery, a post office, a butcher — and didn't think about the little, cyclical lives of the former inhabitants of the village. About the innkeeper and her sister, or the cats that now weren't fed, or the birthday cake slowly moulding over in the oven. He had learned not to dwell on it; far better to think of the task at hand. Heroes, full of compassion and sorrow — they didn't save anyone. They merely died tragic deaths. Exorcists did. Their objective was not to save, but nonetheless — he liked to think they could.

Now, where were his apprentices?

...

The farm road met up with the highway through town about a hundred metres from the first building. Another copse of trees was clustered at the side of the road, and in the centre of the crossroads a signpost pointed every which way. The letters were familiar, but the language looked like someone had taken a pepper grinder to it. Too many dots and lines. Kanda could make them out in the night, but now the sky above the clouds was lightening just enough for a normal person to make out the shapes.

Later, Kanda would again be suspicious of the Hungarian language, when an older, marginally more mature, and conscious Daisya tried to convince him to learn it. For now, though Daisya was asleep, and Kanda's mind was marinating too much in bitterness to care.

Kanda let out a breath when he saw the General, and let Daisya drop to the ground. He set Marie down a bit more softly.

"What happened?" the General asked, who had dropped to his knees, already fussing over the unconscious pair.

"There were akuma. We killed them. I don't know what happened next, but I think he—"

Kanda nudged Daisya with a foot. The General was checking his pulse with a quick press of fingers to his wrist.

"—did something stupid."

The General sat back on his heels, having assured himself that Marie and Daisya weren't going anywhere any time soon.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You mean you didn't hear it?"

Behind the suspicion, there was a note of genuine confusion in Kanda's voice.

"No. I, uh, had a little run-in. Which reminds me, we should probably get out of here are quickly as possible."

"Whatever."

Kanda rolled his eyes, but his heart wasn't in it. He was too tired to care at the moment. No, that wasn't right. Too pissed off, that was it.

"If that's true, I'll make Daisya tell you about it later."

Kanda knelt down beside Marie, and gently lifted him back up.

"You can take him."

With that, Kanda turned and started walking again.

...

He seemed off balance again, like after the fire. He was just a bit too tired-looking. Too...not sad, not angry, just wishing he was somewhere else. Or maybe that Daisya was somewhere else. You couldn't blame him.

He'd been acting strangely towards Daisya for a while. Maybe the paper-pushers had been right, about them working together. Or maybe just terribly, terribly wrong.

Tiedoll followed him, carrying his own burden.