Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-man. If I did then all the characters would be dead, or happy. Either or, y'know?
Chapter 13
The generals that had been called to finish Miranda and Marie's mission had arrived the evening after the incident with the revenge-crazed woman. Miranda hadn't gotten much better since that morning, but she insisted on staying to help the generals. After a considerable amount of arguing between all parties involved, it was finally decided that Miranda would be allowed to stay and help them continue fighting once she had to release Time Out from around the swarm of akuma so that damage could be caused to the swarm, but only if Marie stayed to help protect her.
Miranda had disagreed about Marie staying. She didn't want him to get hurt, and she had continued arguing against him staying to keep her safe until the final decision had been made. After that, there really wasn't much to argue about.
"Miranda when we tell you to, deactivate Time Record," General Teidoll said.
Miranda nodded. She always hated things like this. She hated having to watch her friends' injuries return or watch them put into danger. After a few moments, the command was given to deactivate Time Record.
Almost immediately, akuma were destroyed and shots were fired. Oddly enough, Miranda had gotten used to how loud battles against large swarms of akuma could be. One of the generals had been grazed by an attack from a level two, nothing serious, but if it was left even the small amount of blood from it would cause them to tire out eventually. She let Time Record reverse the time around that particular injury. With control over the time around everyone involved in the battle, Miranda could tell when one of them got even a small injury.
"Miranda, how are you doing?" Marie asked, though his attention didn't fully leave the battle.
"Fine," Miranda responded. She didn't need to ask how he was doing, she could tell how many injuries he had already received because of Time Record. She wished he had left.
At this point in the fight, Miranda began wondering what had happened to the level four akuma. It seemed that it had disappeared into the swarm of akuma around it. The level four seemed to read her mind, as it made itself known with a loud, screeching laugh that left everyone covering their ears in pain at the sudden noise. Forcing Time Record to keep working, Miranda made sure to heal any damage done to anyone's ears by the noise. Her own ears were still ringing, but she couldn't waste energy on herself.
The level four akuma seemed just as difficult to defeat as the last had, but after only thirty minutes, it too went up in flames. There was still a rather menacing swarm of lower level akuma.
When a level three akuma left a gaping wound across Marie's ribs, Miranda immediately knew she wouldn't want to deactivate Time Record. From the brief glimpse of the injury she got before she healed it she knew it would be bad. Luckily, the level three was destroyed rather quickly by the strings of Noel Organon. Miranda was surprised by how quickly the rest of the battle seemed to pass.
"We should go back to the Order before they close the Ark gate you all used," Marie decided once he couldn't hear anymore akuma.
"That's a good idea, Ma-kun," Teidoll agreed. The other generals voiced their agreement.
"Miranda, we're going back now, come on," Marie had wondered if she hadn't heard him when she didn't respond or agree with any of them. He frowned slightly when she still didn't respond, and he didn't hear her moving from the spot where she had been standing.
Teidoll seemed concerned as well. Miranda may not have been one of his students, who he honestly viewed more like his children, but he still worried about her, "Miranda, are you alright?"
"When we go back to Order I'll have to deactivate Time Record," Miranda answered quietly. They had all suffered multiple injuries, and none of them on their own would have been very serious, but the combination of all of the injuries they had was bad. She didn't want them to have to suffer with any of those injuries.
"Miranda, it's alright. Let's just go back to the Order so you can get some rest. Remember, you're hurt too," Marie spoke in a calm tone. He'd dealt with her like this once before, and it was always best to try and be calm.
"But what if one of you dies when we get back?" Miranda asked shakily.
"I promise, none of us will," Marie offered a small smile, "Come on, we need to head back now." He held out his hand for her.
Miranda finally took his hand and following behind the others, though she was definitely reluctant to do so. She walked beside Marie, holding his hand as they walked. Her hand was cold, and his warm hand was nice.
After they each recited their codes to get back through the Ark, they were let through into the Order. The hallways were fairly empty, as they had been recently.
It was decided it would probably be best to go to the medical wing of the Order before Miranda deactivated her innocence, just in case anyone had injuries that were too serious. However, when Marie told Miranda to deactivate Time Record, she refused. She didn't just refuse, she refused tearfully. She argued, saying she couldn't let their injuries return. She had seen the nasty cut to Marie's ribs, and multiple life threatening injuries each of the generals had sustained.
"Miranda, what's gotten into you?" Marie asked. He had never seen her get this upset about deactivating Time Record. Even when there were more people in worse condition, she hadn't ever gotten this upset about it.
"I don't want you to die. Most of your injuries were really bad, and I don't want you to die," Miranda didn't care how pathetic she seemed, or anything. All she cared about was figuring out a way that she didn't have to let any of them die.
Marie gently hugged her, "None of my injuries will be enough to kill me, Miranda. I don't think any of the generals sustained any injures that would kill them, either. Just deactivate Time Record. You need to rest and recover, and you can't do that if you're keeping Time Record activated. We'll all be fine."
Miranda shook her head, "I can't."
Crying made her already aching abdomen hurt even more, but she didn't care. She just wished she could help more. She felt completely worthless, utterly useless, whenever she remembered all she could do was allow someone to fight more. She felt guilty, she had never felt this awful about deactivating Time Record before, even when it meant that a lot of people would die. All she could think was how selfish she was being, how it was wrong to let herself be this emotional simply because someone she cared about more than others was at risk. Miranda wasn't exactly sure what happened, whether she had simply fallen asleep from crying and pure exhaustion, or if she had passed out. She just knew that the next thing she was completely aware of was that she was tucked snugly into one of the medical ward beds. She felt a bit groggy, as if she wasn't quite ready to wake up yet.
She looked around sleepily, and noticed the room was relatively calm. After a few more moments of questioning what had happened, she fell asleep again. The next time when she woke up, her thoughts were much cleared and her mind seemed a bit less muddled.
"Miss Lotto, it's nice to see you're awake," one of the nurses had noticed that she was awake.
"I don't remember falling asleep. What happened?" Miranda asked uncertainly.
The nurse looked a bit guilty, "We decided it would be best to give you a tranquilizer to get you to sleep and deactivate your innocence. Sorry about that, but you didn't seem like you were going to calm down and listen to anyone."
"How is everyone else?" Miranda immediately asked, it seemed that thought had been enough to finally wake her up completely.
"They're all fine, Miss Lotto. Don't worry. A couple of them had to stay in here for observation because of their injuries, but they're all going to be just fine with a bit of rest," the nurse assured.
"They're really all okay?" Miranda asked. She was relieved they were all supposedly fine.
"Yes, really. Now you need to get more rest. Your body is still recovering from your own injuries," the nurse said, "If you need anything, tell me, but try to sleep if not."
Miranda did as she was told, and tried to get more sleep. It wasn't difficult to fall asleep, she was truly exhausted still. Her body wasn't used to sustaining injuries as sever as the current one she had and she supposed her body was just trying to recover.
"How are you feeling today?" Miranda had gotten out of the medical ward a few days before Marie, but she made sure to check on him every day. It was easy for her to get overly worried about him, even though she knew he was probably fine.
"I'm feeling better. How are you doing?" Marie returned the question. He had come very close to arguing with the Head Nurse when she had said Miranda was well enough to leave the ward, but he had managed to hold his tongue. It wasn't that he didn't trust Miranda to take care of herself, he just knew that she might very likely trip and reopen the healing injury on her abdomen.
"I've been doing well. I've been especially careful not to trip," Miranda almost sounded proud of herself for having not accidentally hurt herself recently. It was definitely a personal accomplishment for herself.
Marie laughed in good nature at her enthusiasm, "I'm glad to hear that. I was getting pretty worried about you. Maybe once I'm doing a bit better we can go and explore around outside."
"That would be fun!" Miranda agreed happily. She hadn't had very much to do recently, aside from reading and a bit of sewing. After all, she didn't want to bother Johnny for a new uniform just because hers had gotten a tear in it, and she could sew, so she decided to do something useful with her time and fix the hole left in her uniform from where she was stabbed. "Hopefully you feel up to doing that soon."
"I'm sure as soon as I'm out of here I'll be feeling well enough. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after," Marie was glad she was excited. It always made him happy to hear her excited or happy or some other positive emotion. He wished he could make her laugh more often. He might not be able to see her smile, but he could hear it in her voice when she was smiling, and he could hear the joy in her voice when she laughed.
"Really? Are you sure you'd feel up to it by then?" Miranda's tone was astonished. How could he recover from such serious injuries so quickly?
"Of course. I heal relatively quickly," Marie answered with a nod. It was true, he had been injured so many times since he had become an exorcist that his body had begun healing just a bit easier and faster than it had years ago. He also had a high pain tolerance, so injuries didn't usually bother him too badly unless they were extremely bad.
"You're certain?" Miranda asked. She didn't want him to worsen his injuries if he wasn't well enough to go out once he was released from the ward.
"Yes, Miranda. I'm absolutely certain I'll be fine," Marie assured with a smile. It seemed he had almost mastered assuring her that he was fine, because for once she seemed to believe him.
"I'm looking forward to it, then," Miranda smiled happily. She was really looking forward to spending time with him and looking around the forest outside of the new Headquarters building. She hadn't even looked around the inside of the building much, simply out of fear of getting lost.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading, please review~
