Hello!
Sorry about that, I know I was supposed to have updated before Christmas, and I did promise that, but procrastination got the better of me. I was on sick leave last month, but now I'm back to regular routines and I will probably only update every ten days.
So yeah, check back next week. And no, this is not a Yullen story. This is about an awkward confidant and rivalry-camaraderie friendship quite close to the canon. Sorry Yullen fans. I might change the summary next update.
Enjoy!
"Wait up!" Allen panted breathlessly as he launched himself onto the train carriage. Kanda was a few steps ahead of him, crouched lowly over the roof of the moving vehicle that sped on, trailing black smoke that was visible only because of the moonlight.
"Did we really have to do this?" He and Kanda clambered over the roof slowly as to avoid falling off. "There's another train scheduled for tomorrow morning you know."
Kanda rolled his eyes at the supposed general. "Stop complaining, beansprout. It's this train that the Order made reservations for."
"It's Allen." He protested, but his voice sounded weak in the whipping winds. The wind mussed and flicked Allen's hair against his face, but Kanda's pony merely oscillated.
Kanda swung his legs around the side of the carriage and started to climb down the ladder.
"It would have been so much better if we could use…" The young general mumbled as he made his way down the first rung.
"What was that?" Kanda hated when people mumbled. It was almost as bad as whining, the only difference being one was consciously tuned out.
"Nothing." The boy's reply was carefully held in monotone, but with an upward lilt to the end, which made it obviously not nothing.
Kanda looked at the general suspiciously for a moment, then entered the cabin. All generals had their quirks, it wouldn't surprise him if this kid had an imaginary friend.
Didn't mean he'd accept it.
The white-haired marshall had the door unceremoniously slammed in his face. "Why thank you, Kanda." he said flatly.
He was ignored by the swordsman who simply laid out his luggage on the floor and adopted a position to rest for the night.
"Good night." Kanda thought he heard the general say softly.
Kanda always finds that he gets the best wake up calls depending on who the company he is with at the time.
And he was with the beansprout, which means it was the worst.
The sky had barely seen the crack of dawn when two akuma morphed out of the ground, and Kanda had his quick reflexes to thank that he was staring into a drooling, fanged mouth instead of being in it.
And surprisingly, the akuma weren't after him, or any innocence on the train; they were aiming solely for Allen.
As Kanda sliced through a fat four-headed machine, he saw the general swinging the broadsword at five others.
Before this mission, Kanda hadn't really known to what extent the generals were being hunted, he had merely surmised that the Earl would probably pick a day of the week to actively seek them out. But seeing the mutilated machines multiply and writhe doggedly towards the cloaked boy, he understood the need for escorts.
"Fourteenth…" The akuma whispered, dribbling dark matter all over the floor. Kanda saw the boy's eyes widen for a split-second, then a claw came over the akuma's head and quickly ended its miserable existence.
Or…wait.
Kanda had been so caught up in his thinking, he hadn't even noticed the way a gear-like device was rotating over the boy's cursed eye. Or that the akuma he just sliced had a ghoulish, ephemeral figure hovering above it. Once it "died", the figure's bindings snapped, freeing a man with a serene look on his face.
But the apparitions looked disgusting. If Kanda's stomach had been weaker, he might have lost his appetite for breakfast. But Kanda was Kanda, and he'd be damned if he let the beansprout see signs of weakness.
He also noticed that the general's hair was spiked back and out of the way of his eyes when his innocence was activated, but as he sheathed Mugen and Allen deactivated his arm, the white locks fell back into the long, nearly shoulder-length bangs they were. The kid looked like a girl with his long hair.
Not that Kanda was one to judge.
"Pitiful akuma, may your soul find salvation." The boy's eyes remained closed as he whispered his prayer, before looking up at Kanda with excitement.
"That was stellar, Kanda! No wonder I only got you instead of two exorcists for protection." His smile dimmed a bit seeing Kanda's questioning stare.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot my eye has this effect. Komui didn't tell you did he? The bound-up ghost-things were the akuma's souls. The part of them that is human." A sad look washed over the boy's face as he said this, and he looked so miserable Kanda wanted to punch it off his face.
"Sorry you had to see it, my curse makes me and the people in my immediate surroundings see them." Allen sighed. "Or sometimes, at least."
"I don't care about your stupid curse." This conversation was getting uncomfortable.
"Of course you don't. Now, keen on breakfast?"
To say users of parasitic innocence ate more than the average person was a severe understatement. That, or Allen Walker had a black hole in his gut. Kanda watched on with a vaguely disturbed expression as Allen continued to scoop plates and bowl after bowl of food clean, as if he were inhaling his meal.
"Don't look at me like that, Kanda." Allen said, having the decency to look slightly embarrassed after he polished off a plate of curry. "I won't have enough energy to fight if don't eat this much." It was surprising that the boy was still as skinny as a stick, hence Kanda's tag for him, even with the fact that he ate enough to feed the entire science division back at headquarters. Then again, it would take serious strength to swing that heavy-looking sword around with as much ease as Allen did, but whatever muscles the general had were concealed by the long-sleeved, heavily-embellished jacket and long white gloves he wore. And Kanda had yet to see him take them off unless in battle, not even when he slept.
"Why do you hide it?" Kanda asked, purely out of curiosity. Not that he was interested in the brat, he simply wanted to know whether the general he was accompanying was as whimsical as that bespectacled annoyance masquerading as his adoptive father. He didn't need a father, adoptive or not, he was born out of a hole. Allen blinked, and it seemed to take a while for him to realize Kanda was referring to his arm before a small, sad smile inched over the corners of his lips. "Isn't it obvious, Kanda? I think the general public might be a tad disturbed by me going around with a black arm that looks like a devil's." He looked out the window of the dining carriage, watching the scenery whiz past. "I just don't want to scare children away, but I don't think things like that would occur to you."
"So you're insecure." This statement was promptly shot down by the boy's withered look.
"Not really. If I truly cared about what others thought of me, I would start with dyeing my hair a more neutral colour, and then wearing a half-mask like Master." a look of contempt flickered through the boy's eyes before he dug the spoon into his large bowl of pudding. "I guess I was bothered once, but got used to it somewhere along the line."
He let out a short, bitter chuckle as he lowered his head, then his smile changed into the plastic genial expression Allen showed the train attendant earlier on.
"Why am I even telling you this?"
"Because you ramble too damn much, beansprout." Kanda huffed, not comfortable with discussing emotional things.
Allen's head snapped up, eyes wide, then quickly mustered up a cross expression. "You were the one who asked. I'm going to get some air." Kanda could hear the masked urgency in his voice.
And as Allen turned down the corridor in the opposite direction, he saw an ominous black and purple butterfly flitter behind the general's back.
Kanda cursed as he remembered the promise he made to Lenalee.
He knew that butterfly.
A/N: Allen's obviously trying to hide something. Guess what Kanda promised Lenalee? I'll reveal it next chapter. But I'll most probably favour Wired Connections.
See you!
