Please let me know if you spot any typos or inconsistencies! Didn't have as much time as I'd like going over this one. As usual, thank you so much for reading, hope you all have a great month!

IcyLady: :D

The Charity Bell spun away, sending out a chime that rose and rose until it was a brittle ringing. Daisya looked frantically around for whatever could be messing with him. Apart from the fact that this patch of forest repeated over and over, there was nothing.

He let the Charity Bell keep going. Even if he couldn't see it, he could still hurt it. Daisya watched.

And saw cracks of eye-numbing nothing crawl up the sides of the world. There was nothing in here that the Bell could effect, so it was breaking apart the illusion. There was nothing underneath it. Shit. Shit!

There was nothing here. They'd snatched him out of the world and now—

Now—

Daisya started running at one of the cracks, feet pounding on earth that extended infinitely in front of him, never quite letting him reach the edge.

Where was he?

Was he still alive?

Was this his own body?

Somehow, he'd thought he'd notice when he died.

The ringing in the background climbed up beyond his control into the headache range. Daisya gritted his teeth, and ducked his head instinctively.

He saw nothing.

The Nothing was underneath him now.

Once he realized what that meant, he fell.

…

Daisya woke up.

Daylight streamed through the open window of his childhood bedroom, splashing up against the door.

He moved, then winced, the moved again and groaned as half-healed muscles tore. God, he'd been playing hard.

Kind of stupid, getting up all that effort just to beat a bunch of dead-end losers on a dare, but it was worth it this time. It was always worth it when he won like this.

A quick glance around the room showed him empty bunks; his siblings were up already, which explained the lack of any words or objects chucked at him so far.

Had mom let him sleep in? Nah. Tiedoll, maybe, or dad, because he was too spacey to a tight ship, so—

Daisya leapt out of bed as the realization hit and scrambled out the door, down the stairs, then ran headlong past the clamour in the kitchen and skidded out the door.

Click-ting—

There, there—that sound!

Up above the threshold, their doorbell jingled merrily.

He'd been here before. Back at the house, when he wasn't supposed to be. Home. Kanda was there. Kanda. Tiedoll. Marie. Lenalee. His family. His home.

Tiedoll. That was one of the names stamped in his mind next to "mom" and "dad," one he'd thought of while wondering why he'd been allowed to sleep past nine. The guy was chill. Why'd he always have to be travelling?

Tiedoll? Oh, yes, he was good…

Sure, Daisya knew he had it handled, but…it helped. To have someone there. To have him there. Proof that Daisya was meant to be an exorcist.

He found you here. He never left. You were always here.

Painting, was what Tiedoll did. The cliff he'd always been on was under his feet, and now Daisya used it as a vantage point. It was hour's walk down the bay from town, and he could see Tiedoll sitting a little way further on the rocky point. That's where the old man set up shop every day, up early and out late, until Daisya got off shift at the store and came to fetch him for supper. It was only lunchtime, now. He was needed back at the shop.

Daisya stared out at the hard glitter of the sun on the bay, holding it in his mind until it burned an afterimage there.

Somehow, he walked barefoot in the sand without any of the burning kind of feeling you got in sun like this. Could be that his calluses were finally catching up with his habits. Either that or the sun's rayed eye was staring off into the middle distance, missing him entirely.

It made the trek out to the cliff seem fast, the speck on the horizon turning into an old man as he drew near.

"Hey! You still workin'?" he called.

Tiedoll's glasses caught the sunlight as he looked over to Daisya, pinning him down.

"I am, though it seems it's time for my break."

The old man turned back to his work and squinted for a moment at the easel in front of him, moving his hand behind it to fix some mistake or other.

"I guess."

Daisya set down the dinner tray that he'd been carrying the whole time, the one his father had passed on to him as he raced through the kitchen.

"Would you care to join me?" asked Tiedoll. "I'm sure your mother won't mind."

Peeking at the canvas, Daisya found he couldn't reply. He just pointed to the old man's drawing, some big mess of charcoal scraped in random swirls and veins like butchered meat. One heavy black sigil was painted over the centre, meaningless except for the throb Daisya felt in his chest.

"What's that?"

"It's the headquarters of the Black Order," said the old man.

"No it's not."

The swirls resolved themselves into a mass of thunderclouds.

"Oh? How would you know?"

"I've—it's a building, gramps, not—not whatever the hell that is."

"A building? What kind of building?"

He tried to look sideways, but his eyes were glued to the canvas screen as the image on it changed. Someone was here.

Tiedoll

Tiedoll was here, beside him, though he couldn't see his face.

"Dunno. Castle, maybe? Why aren't you painting the beach?"

"I wanted to do something a little different."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a grin emerge from the shadows over Tiedoll's face.

"Why come out here, then? You could paint that at home just as easy."

"Perhaps, but here I am alone. I can do my work in peace. Please, have something to eat. I couldn't possibly finish this myself."

Whatever spell had held Daisya to the paper dissolved, letting him whip around to stare at the old man, who…

…smiled gently and waved at the dinner tray.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess."

Daisya took one of the rolls from the tray and sank his teeth into it.

"What's the Order like, Daisya?"

"It's cold."

He gnawed on the bread, foot tapping as he thought.

"Aren't you from there?"

"I haven't been back in a long time."

"You think it's boring, too."

"Pardon?"

"Home. You don't like being home."

"No, I suppose you're right. Tell me, if the Order's cold, is it in the North?"

"North? Well, north of here, I guess."

"And how do you get there?"

"How should I know? I'm stuck here."

"Not forever, Daisya. You say the word, and we will go to the Order."

Lunch obviously wasn't high on Tiedoll's priority list, so Daisya helped himself to an apple.

"You didn't want me to go."

"No."

"You're having fun here."

"I must admit, you had rather the opposite of the reaction I was expecting."

"Figures."

"Most children don't want to be in danger, but they will agree to help others. You, on the other hand…you seek out danger, yet when someone asks you for help, you won't give it."

Daisya spat out a seed.

"Hey, I don't do that! What do you think I do the whole day? I've gotta help my sibs get dressed, then I help mom open, then I take your lunch out, then it's back to the shop—"

"You never are what's asked of you."

"I don't have to be."

"You're not what we need, child. You'll stay here."

"Nah, I need to go—hey—watch it!"

Tiedoll had stood up sharply, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him up, then shoving him down in his canvas chair.

"You will stay here, Daisya, and write down everything you know."

"Is this a test, or something?"

"No, Daisya. You were right. You'll never be a part of this."

He tried to shout out, watching the old man walk away and leave him and all his things—all his other things, since Daisya was one of them now—but his throat was stuffed with cotton and his legs didn't move from where they were melted into the sand.

In front of him, the lines on the easel swept over each other and swept him up. Carcasses became storm clouds became twisting fractals, all in sharp scores of charcoal that seemed to be leading him somewhere, running out of comprehension the moment he got a handle for it. The pattern on the doorbell. Whitecaps. Rock. Castle. A patch of dandelions in the corner of the Order dining hall. Lenalee. Headquarters. The evil old bastard who—

The Order. He was an exorcist! He was a hero!

He had no place in Bodrum.

With a start, he realized the ground under him had begun to shake, sending the chair and easel skittering towards the cliffs.

"Tiedoll!" he choked out, tearing his eyes from the canvas and looking to the figure slowly shrinking along the horizon. "Help!"

No use—the old man only kept on walking as Daisya tried desperately to move the hands that were stapled to the arms of the chair and the feet that had been melted into the rock.

"Tiedoll!"

With one burst of effort, he strained at whatever held him down—then felt a crushing force snap his head back, to the canvas where the images changed faster, one after the other piling on like the flip-books he made himself in his spare time.

It was like someone had strung up his eyeballs and tied them down; he couldn't blink, or move away, only stare as he watched the shadowed forms on the screen. Four figures, loose and lifelike at the same time, huddled in a circle at the back of the little scene, while a much cruder drawing took up the foreground. It was a drawing of a human by someone who didn't have a clue what he was doing, with lopsided arms and a frozen grimace, one eye perfect and one smudged and swollen.

It was one of Daisya's drawings, prone, dead, lying on the ground as the figures talked, and laughed, and turned their faces to him—

He knew those faces. How could he?

Marie, angry. Lenalee, stone-faced. Tiedoll, smirking. Kanda, the one called Kanda, was smiling.

They loomed up over Daisya's own dead body and stepped over it, stepped on it—

The force of a kick hit him in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs, then a steadier pressure landed on his knee as Tiedoll trod on the corpse's leg.

They were laughing, Daisya thought in his delirium, they were laughing and smiling and there was dirt in his mouth and a boot on his neck and they smiled, he smiled, a giant gap-toothed grin that devoured the canvas, devoured them, ground it all between his teeth and then reached out and swallowed him up—

…

Daisya woke up.

"—sya? Daisya? Are you okay?"

He blinked once, twice as Lenalee's face swam into view. Right, they'd been walking together. She must've heard…whatever happened…and come back to get him. Yeah. Wait, she was saying something, or at least her mouth was moving.

"Whazzat?" he croaked. Darn, he could really use a drink. His throat was dry as a bone.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake. I was so worried—"

Ah, she was always worried, so he supposed it couldn't be too bad.

"Thanks, dude," he mumbled with a wave of his hand. "What happened?"

Lenalee stayed kneeling beside him as he pushed himself back on to his elbows, wincing.

"I was trying to channel some of the Innocence into my kick, but…I think I might have gone too far."

"Hey, you're fine. Now, if you can only do that on the akuma…"

"I know, I know, I'll kick their butts. You always say that."

Lenalee offered a hand, which he grabbed and clung on to as she hauled him up.

"'Cause it's true. Look, I've been doing this since I was old enough to ditch work, and you're great. You were better 'n me from the start. You've just got to stop worrying!"

"You'll have to stop worrying me, first," she laughed.

Stumbling forward, he shifted his weight on to her shoulders. That's right, he was going to ask for water.

"Say, you got anything to drink? I'm parched."

They picked up the pace suddenly, and Daisya found himself panting to keep up.

"Hey, slow down! What's going on?"

He had a sinking feeling that there was something he'd forgotten. Whatever Lenalee had hit him with to get him out, it was making his ribs throb painfully.

"Lena. Lenalee!"

He tried to let go. Somehow, she managed to keep a hold of him with a grip that was as strong as Kanda's. Okay, this definitely wasn't Lenalee. But, wasn't there an imposter Lena before? His memory of the last few hours was pretty hazy.

So now he had to get rid of the thing that was dragging him off to god-knows-where. Daisya grit his teeth, and, hopping along the ground with one foot, tried to kick the false Lenalee's feet out from under her. No use. She just kept going faster, yanking him along by the arm as his feet dragged in the dirt, catching on roots and rocks and sending a splitting pain up the rest of him.

In the haze of pain, he tried to remember whether this could be a dream. No—the other one was a dream? But then how could he be travelling so fast and going so slowly, nothing seemed to work here, his throat was burning and this wasn't Lenalee and he didn't have the Bell and he felt like he was getting torn in two…

And as his foot caught on another root, the false Lenalee just ran forward and he saw his legs tear off and leave him behind, still caught in the roots.

This had to be a dream.

But what if it wasn't?

Because this was something he remembered. Looking down at his own feet and realizing there was nothing between here and there. But that was in a different place, a different time, and…

Kanda had been there when he woke up.

…

Daisya woke up.

He'd only just fluttered his sharp eyes open when someone clamped a hand over his mouth. That wasn't exactly a foreign sensation, but it was worrying. He glanced up along the hand and up the arm, tensing for a fight.

But it was just Kanda, face dark as usual and crouched over him.

"Stay still and be quiet," he hissed.

Typical. He didn't even say hi! Daisya nodded anyway, turning his hands over to feel along the ground and take in his surroundings.

He was flat down on his back but slumped a little, staring out at a bunch of…big surprise…trees. So he was sitting around on the forest floor. There was mulch under one hand and bark over the other, and something was digging into his neck and the back of his head. Someone had taken him and leaned him up against a tree with no consideration for comfort. Keeping him out of sight, maybe.

Kanda was kneeling over him and patting him down for injuries, feeling each joint for swelling. Or a reaction. Sometimes Daisya thought he did it just to watch him squirm. He waited patiently enough while Kanda checked his ribs for cracks and shins for splints, but that didn't mean he didn't want to know what was going on. Last he remembered, he'd been…walking? Actually, he didn't remember.

"What's going on?" he breathed.

"I don't know, I just found you," said Kanda. He slid one hand under Daisya's knees and one under his shoulders, about to lift.

"You can do better than that!"

With one easy movement, Kanda hoisted him up into a bridal carry, cradling him close as he started into an easy jog. Daisya found himself looking up at him at an angle, rather different from the view of the forest floor that the usual fireman's carry offered him.

"I'm sorry, I heard noises and then I came looking for you, but I found you knocked out. Are you hurt?"

Now, that was weird. He and Kanda had been getting along a lot better lately, but there wasn't any reason to be acting like this when neither of them were actively dying. Hell, Daisya didn't even feel sore apart from the crick in his neck.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but what about you? Marie's okay?"

"Yes, Marie's fine," Kanda answered.

They pressed on through the forest fast enough that Daisya felt the wind on his face. This wasn't right. He shuffled around, placing a hand over Kanda's chest to try and feel if there was anything underneath.

"Okay. That's good."

So this wasn't Kanda. Was it an akuma? As far as he knew, the Level Twos could only look like the people they used to be. Could Kanda be an akuma?

The thought made him sick for two seconds, before he shook himself out of it. Kanda told him he was impossible to kill and anyway, you could only become an akuma if someone called you back. There was only the Exorcists that were his friends and the Finders that might have known his name, he didn't even make friends with Daisya for years. He never talked about any family. Daisya didn't ask. What did it matter, anyway?

Even if Kanda died—which he couldn't—no one who knew him would ever say his name.

Daisya sighed. So whatever this was, it had to be an illusion. Kanda hadn't come for him.

"What the hell are you?" he asked.

The Kanda that was wrong looked down at him with no face and two endless eyes.

"So kind of you to notice," it said.

"You weren't even trying," he mumbled. "Where am I, anyway?"

The Kanda that was wrong slowed down, then knelt, and laid him out gently on the ground. "It doesn't matter where you are," it said. "You can't do anything about it."

"Yeah, but I still want to know!"

He tried to get up, but the Kanda that was wrong kept him pinned to the ground with a hand.

"Then I guess I'll have to try something else," it said. "But, don't you like this better?"

Its face shifted back, forming Kanda's sharp face and black eyes, looking calm and almost softly at him.

"Nah, that doesn't look right," he said. "He only looks like that when he's really pissed."

"Oh, you're no fair!" the Kanda that was wrong said, but the mouth didn't move along with the words.

Daisya was going to make fun of it for that, but before he had the chance to think of something, it closed a hand around his throat and snapped his neck. Funny, it didn't feel as painful as it should.

…

Daisya woke up.

He was about to move, but just as he flinched into the living world he felt something…just the tiniest bit of pressure.

Someone was sleeping next to him. Must've been a mission. Yeah, maybe he'd been hit in the head. Something like that.

He glanced over. Whoever it was, they were a bit too close for a stranger.

Hmm. Dark hair, slim—either Kanda or Lenalee, but he was damned if he could remember the past few days. Could've been Innocence interference.

"You awake?" he whispered.

"Yeah," replied a voice that definitely wasn't Lenalee's as the guy himself turned over. "You?"

"What d'you mean, 'you'? It's obviously me!"

It was Kanda, but it wasn't. Deeper voice, longer nose, hadn't taken a jab at him yet.

"You've been talking in your sleep."

"You never told me that before."

"I have. You took a hit yesterday from something arcane. You've been in and out of consciousness since."

"That so. Hey, if you've been up for a while, why haven't you gone off already? Tidied our stuff, like usual?"

"Already did. I've been up for a while. It's warm here."

Kanda reached forward, fingers brushing along his hairline to sweep his bangs out of his face.

Wait—he'd never had hair this long before.

"What was my last birthday, again?"

"What?"

"I just realized, I lost track."

"You're twenty-three."

He what?

"But—that's for old people!"

"Suck it up," said Kanda fondly. And—yep, Daisya knew it when he saw it—he was smiling. Smirking. But it was real, there wasn't any bitter sarcasm like he'd seen a lot of.

"Geez Louise, that's a pain."

Kanda's face was getting closer, and closer, and—

Oh.

He was twenty-three, and somehow, somewhere, he and Kanda'd had a proper talk.

Because his best friend, and saviour, and rival, and everything else wasn't as stiff as a yardstick, wasn't lecturing him about anything, wasn't frowning or glaring or anything at him. Just smiling.

He was so caught up in it he nearly missed the flash of movement that was Kanda jabbing a knife up into his sternum.

In the time it took him to look down to where blood was spreading in the sheets, the world snapped back to something more normal. His legs were shorter. His bangs didn't fall into his eyes. He was still a teenager and he was looking into a scratchy mass of soot that just happened to have smooth, black hair.

"Got you this time," it said.

"Fuck off," Daisya managed.

…

Daisya woke up.

His eyes snapped open, dry as chalk and open to the red and smoky air.

Smoke. Fire.

Flames engulfed him with a loud swish the moment he moved, searing his head where it lay on the pillow. All he could think of was escape, scrambling to his bare feet on the burning floor and falling headlong towards the window he somehow knew was there as he ran, burning further and further into the calluses on his feet with each step.

He was nearly to the window, broad and open, looking into a narrow alleyway when he remembered—Kanda.

This was so many years too late but—he remembered this night.

He tried to get his legs to move. They wouldn't. He remembered the heat and the dust. He remembered not knowing if he was breathing or just pushing air in and out. He remembered wondering if he was tasting blood or just sweat. He remembered wanting so badly to run. He just wanted to get out of here.

But Kanda was here.

But he'd saved Kanda, right? So why was he here again? Why did he keep coming back? Why couldn't he just forget?

Maybe it was because every time he took a step and felt the bandages around his skin he knew that he would never look like a person again. Just a walking pile of mottled meat wrapped up, half-mummified, ready to bury. He didn't hate it. He just knew. No matter where he went, this was the place he'd return, not home, here.

So Kanda had to be here.

Just as he wrenched his foot off the floor, something knocked him back hard enough to break skin and make him scream. Or maybe he was screaming before. Eyes streaming, eyes steaming, he stared up.

On the ceiling, a face stared back at him, shadowed eyes and a broad jaw, child-like, framed by a mess of hair—

—and two marks standing out in the soot, curving down its cheeks.

"What…?" he breathed, too stunned to move.

The face only laughed at him, his face—it had to be—and a different voice.

"See you, Kanda," it called out. "Let's die, now."

Kanda.

Daisya tore himself loose from the ground and whipped around, staring into the flames to see a thin silhouette standing there, paralyzed.

"Kanda! Come on, we gotta get out!"

His voice came out high, choked, flashing him back in a heartbeat to the fire. This fire. Every fire, where Kanda was there and he could do nothing.

"I said, come on! You're going to die—"

"Alma," was all he said, two cut-out eyes in black paper.

That name again, gods damn it! So they were friends, what did he care! Daisya was starting to get sick of Alma, staying a mystery but never making sense. Why did Kanda care so much, why did he let Daisya see it, if he wasn't going to talk to him!

"All right, you're coming with me."

He lunged forward, grabbing Kanda by the hand only for the kid—it was him then, it was Kanda then, they were both still kids—to kick into action and kick him in the gut.

"Kanda—Kanda, stop it!"

Quick as a snake, he felt a palm strike at the base of his skull and a knee in the nose, but it didn't stop there—Kanda caught his shirt and unfolded him for another mad attack.

"Stop—" was all he could get out between his clenched teeth. "Stop. Just stop, okay? I'm sorry I—"

"I have to kill you," Kanda whispered, teasing apart Daisya's quick defense. "I can't—"

Daisya was thrown against the wall, but he managed to land on his feet and shift back into the stance they'd practiced, hours and hours on end, the two of them and Lenalee and Marie too, sometimes.

Kanda always beat them all. Even Lenalee.

"You can't what, Kanda?"

"I can't let you kill them."

The next barrage drove him back, but the way he stumbled, fell, and rolled, it led them back towards the window, Kanda fighting desperately and Daisya running for his life.

"Kill—I'm not killing anybody! We're in a fire! You're burning up, Kanda. I'm sorry I pushed you but just let me get you out of here, okay? Please?"

But, typical, Kanda wasn't listening.

"I know what they did to us."

He kicked Daisya's feet out from under him as he grabbed him by the shoulders, then shoved him hard up against the wall, just beside the window.

"But you can't kill them."

"I told you, I didn't do anything!"

"Look—"

Kanda swung him out the window, holding him by the back of his shirt over the alley below. Just dirt. Footprints and ruts in the dirt road.

"Look!"

His head jerked up as Kanda's other hand pulled him by his hair, forcing him to stare right into the windowpane opposite.

His face stared back, the one from the ceiling, but now he could see—it wasn't his.

And the room reflected wasn't a wood-framed guest room, it was a cavernous thing, strewn with corpses and partially obscured by a huge, bloody wing extending from his back.

"Look."

His hair was messy, but darker and thicker, his nose short and snubbed like Kanda's, and three marks—not two—showed on his face.

"I love you."

He saw Kanda's agonized expression reflected behind his own, noticed the momentary tension in him.

"Goodbye."

The grip on him released.

But not before Daisya snatched up Kanda's wrist, and pulled him forward with him out the window.