Aaaand we're back! Mild cw for gore, but we've had that before. Thanks again for reading!

It took half a minute for the bursts of static to finally turn into words. Later, Kanda would hate it for being too much time.

"—lp! Kan…ou there?"

He froze in place when he heard her.

Sinking into ready position, his body moved without any conscious thought. In one move he scanned the area. Nothing he could see. He then grabbed Marie and dragged him back behind a bush before he could make a move. Anyone could be watching them or searching for them. The golem followed him just like he'd trained it, hovering in front of his and Marie's faces in the thin cover. Their coats caught on the spiked branches that dragged at Kanda's hair.

"What happened, Lenalee?" Marie asked. He frowned at Kanda, but Kanda wasn't going to take risks. Marie could deal with the rough treatment.

A thin green screen was the only thing separating them from open view. When they'd been standing a moment before, Kanda could see the sky reflected in the fields beyond the edge of the thinning forest out. They were fenced in by flooding on the far side of the tall grass and the inlet Kanda had scouted ahead of them. The only way to run was into the forest where Lenalee was. That was Marie's bet. That they could afford to travel fast, as long as they joined up with Lenalee and Daisya.

"…sya not…couldn't see…"

Kanda strained to hear. He'd breathe once he'd heard the rest of the message. Overreacting right now would just fuck them in the end.

But all that they heard from the golem was static, then silence. Shifting position, Kanda noted that the thorns from the bush would push their way further into him the longer he stayed there.

"There's some kind of interference on our end," Marie said stoically. "Can you repeat what you just said?"

Kanda's fingers were still on Mugen's handle. That was instinct. His reaction now was to shift his weight forward. One word, and he'd be gone.

"Dai…gone…looked for…e's not…To re…I can't…"

He loosened up his ribs, breathing in slowly. Now Marie was the one who looked shaken, one hand curled over his mouth.

"You heard that," he hissed.

"I can't be certain," Marie whispered back, then spoke up again. "Lenalee, is Daisya there with you?"

"…o. No, he isn't."

"Then Daisya disappeared, did he? You can't find him."

"I…n't."

"And are there any akuma there? Could he have been taken by then?"

"…'t know. I ca…ny aku—"

The transmission cut off, but that wasn't static. Something scared Lenalee into shutting up. He watched Marie for any sign of what they should do. All he did was stare at nothing. He didn't even look concerned. Just calm—no, focused. He was thinking hard, without any feeling.

Good. They didn't have time for those.

"You can see akuma?"

A twig snapped, setting Kanda's nerves off. No. The noise came from in front of him. It must have given up under Marie's weight. He had to pay attention to the message.

"Yes."

It was the one thing they heard clearly.

Kanda's body moved for him, snatching the golem out of the air.

"Kill them all," he said. "We'll come get you."

"I'll…my best."

Not enough.

"Kanda—" Marie started.

He released the golem. Three dead trees. He had to find them.

Looking for a way into the thicker forest, he pulled Marie along by the arm. They didn't have time to start thinking. Whatever was going on, there were no akuma here. That wasn't right.

"She can do it," he said. "If she doesn't get scared. Come on, let's go."

"Kanda, we have the Innocence. This might be a trap," Marie warned.

"So?"

Like he'd guessed, Marie didn't argue, striding alongside him as Kanda guided them around puddles and over tree roots. They needed to get into the thick of the forest, even if everything could hear them. None of that mattered any more.

"I'll activate my Innocence. You can let go of me."

Kanda almost didn't.

"Okay. Keep up."

"Believe me," Marie said darkly. "I will."

There was a silky sound as Kanda heard the Organum strings extend, but he didn't watch to see them writhe and wrap themselves into their structure around Marie. No.

He ran.

…

Marie chased through the woods after the faint sound of Kanda's feet, strings spread out in a net around him. They moved instinctively, transmitting each point of contact to Marie in a constant overload of information.

This had taken as many years to perfect as he'd been blind. It was imperfect. It cost him energy and scope. The attacks he could make while protecting himself like this were limited.

The reason why he'd kept working on it well after he'd adapted to using his ears and the cane was because there would be times like this.

Kanda was drawing away as fast as he could without tapping into whatever power was behind his strength, but Marie kept up. They wove through the forest without noise, without contact.

He sent out the quietest of ultrasonic signals while they ran. The strings gathered together formed a kind of bell, reinforcing rather than damping each other, and when one side of the net was curved inward, they amplified all the sounds from a wide area into Marie's ears. North, west, south, east, he listened for the tell-tale rattle of akuma shells.

None. Or, none yet. It was no comfort to Marie.

Nothing more had come through the golem, which meant that Daisya was still missing. If they were lucky—no, even if they were lucky, he was in for it. The Noah weren't known for letting victims go without a lobotomy. In one or two cases, Exorcists had been injured so badly that a Noah assumed they were dead, and managed to survive when their teammates or Finders came searching for them.

There was no possible good ending.

Around him the ringing grew more sonorous, the hard tree trunks here echoing noise where the thick brush before had absorbed it. Overlaid with Kanda's rhythmic footfalls, it could almost sound like the start of a song.

At every step of this mission, Daisya and the others had followed him. Even if they did complain, when he sent Daisya and Lenalee away they didn't question it, not to his face, and Kanda only asked him so he could support him. That was what he had assumed. It had all fallen in place then, splitting up the team. Kanda to search for Innocence, him to wait and listen to everyone around, Daisya and Lenalee out where no one would find them and the water was clean. That should have kept them safe. After all, why would a Noah be here if it weren't collecting bodies and Innocence? Where would it be, if it weren't hiding in the town or marshalling an akuma army that they could have seen from miles away?

Marie picked his way around a hollow in the ground as fast as his feet could take him without falling, following the huff of Kanda's breath. Leaning this way and that, he felt the string net close in around his head in places as he just barely dodged a hanging branch or ducked out of the way of a tilting log.

It didn't matter why this happened, only that he was wrong. A Level Two could have tracked them from the port, no matter that Daisya and Lenalee were trained to spot non-humans. The Noah could have gone after them to pick them off first. There might be more Innocence out in the forest, or they might have been sitting on Gertrud's last location as a trap, waiting for whoever came along. He'd bet they wouldn't be that obvious, but then, what if they'd bet that he knew better? Daisya was gone and Lenalee was alone, the two he'd tried to save from whatever was waiting for them all.

Wait—

A sudden shock in the air froze his chest around his last breath while he ran. A gust of wind, and a thrumming noise like a choir's lowest note.

"Kanda."

"What?" the kid whispered, several metres ahead. He was saving his breath, knowing Marie could pick up any noise.

"She activated."

"That's late."

Be grateful she's alive, Marie didn't say. Daisya's gone.

That wasn't entirely true. Tiedoll said that he'd encountered the oldest race more than a few times, getting out with nothing more than a few scratches.

But that was with the Maker of Eden. No one else carried a shield with them wherever they went. Daisya didn't have anything that could keep a Noah, or even an akuma out if it was fast enough and clever.

More noises flew into his net, clanging and whining, shots and rushes of air or fire. She'd be alive as long as the sound went on. Marie clung to that.

So Daisya was dead, or worse. Daisya. Who stretched even Tiedoll's patience. Marie almost laughed at that, the irritation he felt even as he wondered how they'd break the news to Tiedoll that his own pet apprentice was dead and disappeared.

The quiet nest of noise that was Kanda tacked off toward the fight, speeding up to a pace that even he was struggling to keep. Maybe it was the fear tightening up his throat, but it didn't feel like he could stay in fighting shape for long. Just long enough. It had to be long enough.

He would cry, he realized. If they died. He still could. That was what made it hard to breathe.

"…sya."

Too late, he realized Kanda was trying to talk to him.

"Louder," he said.

"You help Lena, I'll get Daisya. Don't wait for us."

"What?" He gasped, reaching out with a string to catch Kanda's arm. "Kanda, no—"

But Kanda just shook him off, not slowing down.

"Shut up," said Kanda. I'm stronger than you are."

"No. That's an order."

This time, Kanda skidded to a halt, turning back to face him. His breath was steady where Marie's was harsh, there wasn't any feeling in his voice.

"You can't."

"I can," Marie said, "And I will. This is my mission. Daisya's gone, do you understand? Wherever he is, you can't help him."

No answer. Reaching out, Marie took Kanda by the shoulders.

"Kanda, there's nothing we can do. Tell me you understand."

"That's wrong." Kanda's muscles tightened, but he didn't shove him off. "You're weak, but I'm not."

"What's wrong with you? You're going to die!"

"No. I won't fight if I can't win. I can win. Don't stop me."

With that, he shook Marie off and sped back up, leaving him no choice but to race after him.

"Kanda!"

"Don't," snapped back at him.

"Just listen to me, I won't try to change your mind," he insisted.

"Fine."

He tried to think of what he'd want his last words to Kanda to be, if this was it. Hard to do now that blood rushed to and from his head.

"Remember that there are people who love you. I'll tell Tiedoll and Lenalee not to cry too much if you don't come back, but I'll wait as long as I can. Be careful."

"I know."

…

Road hummed, wandering around the edges of the Dream as she sifted through the boy's memories.

It had taken a while to catch on to the girl's mischief and track them back here, but luckily the akuma from town kept the Exorcists distracted long enough for her to sneak back here with Lero, who was under strict orders to be quiet. There was no telling who was listening under here, with that sonar Exorcist the Level Twos had been running from.

This wasn't ideal. But, she had to do it, since she wanted to keep the other Exorcists unscathed until she knew what was going on and who she had to ask. The problem was that she was getting lonely. There just wasn't anyone to talk to! And she couldn't go fully into the Dream, she had to wait out here and keep watch over the raggedy half-hearted forest that hovered at the edge of town.

The Earl had told her a lot of times that the Dream was the greatest power the Noah had. Maybe Lulubell wouldn't have the same trouble getting alcohol, and maybe Tyki's Choice made his life more fun, but the Dream, the Earl told her, was important. It protected her. No one could hurt her unless she wanted it. And—except that one time—she never did. She could hurt people with the things she called up, and if she couldn't kill them any special way, she could make them as useless as a corpse. Within the Dream, she controlled anyone she chose. No one could resist her forever.

And once they gave in, there was no limit to what she could do.

While they Dreamed and drifted off, humans' memories were open for a stroll. Wisely read memories like books or watched it like a play, she didn't have such an easy time. What she knew was limited to what she found, poking and prodding at the Dreamers until one of them remembered something useful. With each scene they fled through, she could track the associations as their minds flitted from one desperate thought to another. Put a man in front of a roaring bear and he would think of his mother or his wife. Maybe he'd think of the hatchet he had at home.

That was why she was waiting here now. The dead boy, easy to catch after he wandered away from his protector, was sleeping away beneath a convenient bush. No one was going to wake him up until she let him go or, if this was the one time in a thousand, he broke out of it.

Strange. She'd thought at first that his body was covered in bandages because they were all that were holding his corpse together, but here he wore them even when he was healed and walking. But that didn't concern her.

She looked in him for the Black Order first. What she found didn't add up.

He told her that they'd been afraid of an invasion—they only ever thought what they were supposed to think, the poor lambs—but somehow each time she looked for the location it slipped through her fingers. It didn't seem like he was resisting, more like he was distracted.

But if she had really wanted to know that, she would have done something else. Kill one and threaten the rest. Capture the younger one, more innocent and less able to pick out the intrusions. This one, she knew already. She had seen him before. In the old man's memories, and…dead.

Yes. If she couldn't find out where the general was, she could at least have some fun.

That would pass the time until the others got here.

Road was excited when she jumped into them, but deeper she searched, the more it seemed like the boy's memories had nothing to tell her about that rainy day in the east. What flashed through his mind were memories of pain, just not in the places she was looking for.

She watched the boy struggle through a fire, screaming at a dark and twisting memory that seemed familiar. He dreamed of a thin forest and akuma swirling around. There was also a keen memory of him falling through the air and falling, but somehow he squirmed and struggled at the landing being less painful than it should. He danced through the stone halls of the Black Order, never distinct enough to be useful, he tramped along dirt roads and watched the stars from the thatched roofs of backwater inns next to a shifting shape that sometimes looked like a skinny, sulky boy his own age.

Some figures passed in and out of his dreams. The old man general—this must be his apprentice—two skinny young exorcists, the skinny boy and the girl who escaped her, a tall man with scarred white eyes, and a sunken-eyed girl who changed with each time he dreamed of her, but whose hair writhed around her like Tyki's true form.

Road waited, trying to spot the damp and grey stone abbey where, try as she might, she never found any Innocence. The Earl hadn't been too happy about that.

Speaking of which, he also got mad at her when she let an Exorcist go that one time, or the time before that. It wasn't her fault! The akuma with her had burned or blasted them all before she even needed to put them into the Dream to break them, how was she to know they were still alive?

She knew she hadn't been wrong about this boy, though. Walking by, she saw his ribcage was flat, the top of his pelvis showed through his skin, his midsection was a bloody pulp with bits of masonry here and there. His legs were skewed this way and that, clearly broken, and every part of him was soaked in blood. It gathered into little pools in the few unbroken bits of skin. It dripped down from his mouth, over his lips and down his chin. He was dead.

He was also still here and she'd dragged his warm body across the ground, looking a little tired but not looking very bad for someone who was dead. He couldn't be an akuma, could he? She'd heard that there were some experiments, but they wouldn't let one just wander around like this, would they?

Wait—go back. Spinning another shard of recollection at him, she watched what splashed up.

The boy was wandering through the abbey, hopping over stairs that changed levels and directions as he chased after the same dark figure, the boy was running away from him and facing him and yelling at him at the same time. Memories didn't always show what happened, they showed what people experienced.

The dead boy chased the dark one, reaching out, and the stairway was suddenly an open jaw, closing down on the angry boy. She felt what happened next at a distance, the feeling that a dream tells you is pain, as the ramparts above came crashing down on the body.

That had to be what killed him.

But the memory didn't show anything of that, it just changed and showed her the same scene she remembered. For one frightening moment, as the dead boy ran through the dream and screamed at nothing, she looked into her own eyes as as the dream-Road stopped by the corpse. She wished she hadn't. The boy's fear bled into her own and she shuddered at the monster that was her.

And then it faded, and the feeling was warm instead. Before she could wonder why, the next memory floated to the surface.

This one was just a face looking down at the boy, dark and also pale, smiling and also frowning, with eyes that were hard and bright with unshed tears, and Road was still stumped as to why the dead boy wasn't dead.

Maybe the clue was in this shape that kept bobbing back up to the surface. No matter what he Dreamed, the dead boy—Daisya, they all called him, so that was probably his name—never seemed to be far from the warped and twisting image of the other boy his age. Sometimes he was scuffed and cranky, other times he was dark-eyed and frightening, sometimes human and sometimes just the shape of an idea, but always one that Daisya sought out and ran back to. The boy looked different after that happened, the hunched posture was just a martial stance and the grumpy face was stern and serious. It was all the same thing, Daisya just split him into two different feelings.

Would this one know how he lived? It was the only face Daisya saw before and after, so he had to be the one to save him. If she could just find him—but Daisya's memories weren't clear on that. They were supposed to come fetch him. Maybe she could wait? They should run away, though. No junior Exorcist would come chasing after Daisya if they wanted to live. It would be the general who came.

Oh, well. There had to be something else she could get from him. Like, who was their backup? A group of kids like this would never be sent out alone. Or what were the powers of the white-eyed Exorcist? She looked.

And at the same time, the Road in the real world heard someone running.

Oh Kanda, he's not very smart.