Chapter 5: A Tapestry of Travesties
Last chapter: And as Allen finished slipping back into his clothes he noticed one more thing. Kanda was still asleep, spread out in a boneless heap. The damn white belt was looped loosely around one ankle and tight black pants had slithered down to reveal slim hips. Allen blushed and smiled to himself: oh, yes. It was a beautiful day.
Fifteen minutes later, the two exorcists and their accompanying Finder stood blinking in the bright glare of a fine summer morning. Kanda, now fully dressed but still slightly disheveled, yawned and stretched discreetly as only he could: arms at his sides, his shoulders lifted and back barely arched. Allen could hear a soft pop for every vertebra. Samuel winced at the sound.
"So," Allen said conversationally, feeling that after such a wonderful morning (all twenty minutes of it that he had been awake to judge) everyone would be in a civil, if not genial, mood and ready for some light banter. "How are we getting to the mansion? You said an hour or two on foot to the estate, but Kanda said it was nearly thirty miles." The Finder flashed him a conspiratorial grin.
"Ah, but I never said on whose feet," Sam chuckled. At that moment, a short, broad man appeared around the corner of the station, hailing them loudly when he caught sight of Samuel. The Finder grinned as he explained to the exorcists.
"This is Thomas, an old friend of mine. He has kindly offered us the use of some of his horses."
The man introduced as Thomas smiled jovially at them, an expression completely at odds with the measuring gaze in his eyes. Abruptly the man became all business, clapping his hands together and rubbing them.
"Right," he announced, his wide, homely face once again creased with a smile, this one entirely genuine. "I know exactly who I'm going to put you up on; two fine studs for you two strapping young men, and a nice, dead-broke gelding for the pretty filly over there."
There was a little hush while the trio considered what the friendly rancher had just said. "Two studs...for the men..." Allen muttered aloud, pointing first at Samuel then at himself as his brain processed the statement. "And a gelding...for the...filly..." His pointing finger stuck out accusingly in Kanda's direction. Samuel smothered his laughter as Allen's eyes bulged out. "You think Kanda is a girl?" the younger exorcist yelped.
"Isn't she?" Thomas queried, his great brow furrowed in thought. "She sure looks like a girl." Horrified, Allen spun 'round to see how the "girl" was taking it. And, oddly enough, in the same moment it occurred to him that Kanda did look rather like a girl, albeit an angry, slightly strange one. Kanda had, for some reason, decided to button his uniform coat all the way up, meaning all the way down as well. The black fabric feel from his neck to his ankles and, what with the white trim and the two girdles—belts, Allen corrected himself—it looked very much like a dress. But what really clinched the image for him was that Kanda, in their haste to get off the train before it moved on, had left his hair completely unbound and the long tresses were fluttering around him in the wind. Thick bangs hid part of his face and two thick tresses hung straight and heavy on each side, framing his pale features. Wow, Allen's mind breathed as his common sense wandered off to pick daisies with his sanity.
A loud rattle brought the cursed teen back to reality with a soft thump and newly-awakened pale-grey eyes were suddenly riveted on a very angry and very masculine Kanda. A few inches of Mugen's blade gleamed threateningly above the sheathe and, as the swords master shook with rage, the sword clattered back and forth in its confinement.
"I don't think he wants a gelding, Thomas," Samuel confided in a loud and easily-overheard stage-whisper.
"And I don't think now is the time to bring up the word 'geld'," Allen hissed at the Finder. Samuel just chortled all the harder as he walked over to clap a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Let's get going, then," Sam burbled, tears of mirth sliding down his cheeks. He and Thomas turned and meandered away, soon turning a corner and being hidden by the small station building. This left Allen in the company of a very, very angry Kanda. The parasite-bearing exorcist had to resist the urge to giggle nervously as Kanda reluctantly stormed off after Samuel and his offensive compatriot, stomping and grinding the innocent earth beneath his stiff boots as though he was crushing a certain Finder's head. Unfortunately, Allen's self-control was not strong enough to prevent a half-stifled snort of amusement from escaping his quirked lips when the Japanese swordsman rounded the same corner that had hidden the Finder only seconds before and found himself under the intense scrutiny of a half-dozen young village men.
"Hey, look at that girl!" came an ill-concealed whisper, carried to the two exorcists by the capricious winds. "Thomas wasn't joking, she's cute!" Allen's shoulders shook with suppressed glee.
"I don't know, Jake," a second young man responded to the first, who was lounging on a pile of barrels waiting to be loaded onto the train. "She looks kind of pissy, y'know? And she's got a chest flat as an ironing board. I'm not sure she's worth the effort." At this, the white-haired teen's eyes rolled heaven-wards, thanking whatever deities were listening for such a perfect opportunity to watch Kanda squirm. Poor bastard, Inner Allen mock-sympathized. I'll bet he can't decide which is worse: a bunch of guys thinking that he's a girl, or a bunch of guy's thinking he's not a very good girl. Just the idea of inferiority is usually enough to put him over the edge; and in this case, he really is inferior. Unless, of course, he can find a couple of socks to shove down his front. Luckily for the younger exorcist, the raven-tresses swordsman was still struck dumb with fury, disbelief, and just a touch of embarrassment, so Allen was able to spasm with delight in relative peace.
"Still," came a third voice. "She has nice hair and I'll bet she has the longest legs hidden under that dress."
"Yeah," another man agreed. "What's with the sword, though?"
"Maybe she's making up for something she hasn't got!" The first speaker laughed uproariously and was joined by the rest of his friends.
"Too bad she already has a boyfriend, huh?" one of them said. Immediately, the merriment ceased and the men stared at Allen, who gulped. Turning his head to look at Kanda, he could feel the bottom drop out of his stomach when he found himself gazing into a pair of blue-grey eyes so suffused with hatred and righteous fury that it was a wonder they didn't glow red. The pale exorcist suddenly remembered why it was a bad, bad idea to be the center of attention.
"I-I think I'll go help Samuel and Thomas with the luggage," Allen muttered, excusing himself as gracefully as possible, given the situation. Barely audible growling followed just behind him, telling him that Kanda was hard on his heels. The whistles and catcalls from the village peanut-gallery didn't help, either, so it was with great haste and discomfort that the two exorcists arrived into the company of the Finder and his friend. They were silent as they walked to the outskirts of the village and moved as a group onto a small, narrow trail, thickly carpeted with pine needles that wound through the dense forest surrounding the village. Samuel eventually struck up a conversation to pass the time with his friend.
"So, Thomas," he asked interestedly. "How can you raise horses in the middle of a forest like this?"
"I don't," the rancher replied good-naturedly. "This forest is only about half a mile thick right here. It opens up into a huge clearing a few miles across and that's where I keep my beauties."
"Really?" Sam said thoughtfully, and the two carried on in the same vein, completely ignoring the two exorcists. Allen trooped along behind them, glancing every once in a while at the sullen Japanese exorcist who seemed to have subsided into quiet seething interspersed with the occasional hiss that was as close as Kanda got to ranting out loud. It was remarkably peaceful for all that, and the white-haired young man found himself breathing deep the fragrant pine-scented air and enjoying the way the shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy of densely packed needles to dapple the ancient hoary bark. His lips curled in an unconscious smile when a blue jay, startled by the crackling of the summer-dry twigs under their boots, flashed through the canopy shrieking avian insults at them in its raucous voice. So idyllic were their surroundings that the pale teen lost all track of time. Samuel and Thomas were similarly affected by their own engrossment in their mutual conversation. Kanda, however, being naturally paranoid and hyper-sensitive to oddities, was rapidly becoming discomfited by the almost terrifying perfection of the place. Muscles grew taut and knotted under the black fabric of Kanda's uniform and the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck prickled and stood erect. The white-haired exorcist was blissfully unaware of the swordsman's increasing tension, an odd circumstance that was beyond suspicious in Kanda's mind. Sure, the bean sprout may be an idiot, but he always knew.
To hide his discomfort, the Japanese man busied himself with tying his hair up. The white cord he used glowed against his smooth, inky hair and pulled the fine strands tight away from his face except for his thick bangs and the two errant wisps that always seemed to have a mind of their own. A sudden hush made Kanda's wariness rise to a terrible peak and the Japanese swords master stood frozen in a sense of horrified anticipation. A quick jerk on the end of his newly-affixed hair shattered his mental and physical stalemate and he whirled about, one hand already drawing Mugen, his eyes searching frantically for the source of his consternation and foreboding. Finding nothing, he resettled the Innocence blade and turned back to his companions. What he saw forestalled any angry expletives that crowded on his tongue and his mind--usually quick and acerbic as his tongue--stumbled over the fantastical impossibility spread out before him.
The entire forest was frozen in time like a picture. Eerie amber sunlight hung heavy in the air and spread unchanging splashing patterns across every surface, undisturbed by any movement of the wind or leaves, which could have been carved from stone for all of their momentous weight and utter stillness. A bird floated in mid-air, its wings quiescent and unbeating, defying all of the laws of gravity in the silent vacuum that filled the forest like oppressive smoke. More unnerving still was the perfect quietude of his fellow travelers. Allen stood in the mulch of the forest floor, one foot upraised for his next step, ghostly hair a frozen curtain of chalk billowing in a nonexistent breeze, his body an impeccably carved alabaster statue: beautiful and lifeless.
The Japanese man's breath caught sharply in his chest with a painful mixture of shock and something else, intangible and choking, and Mugen sprang into his hands like chain lightning. Mocking laughter rang through the trees and Kanda could practically see the sharp notes moving through the intense stillness. He flinched around to face the sound and stared out into a vast white nothingness, all traces of the forest gone. Detail faded back in slowly and purposefully, revealing wood paneled walls where once had stood trees, flickering lamp light instead of golden sunbeam, and deep ruby plush carpets in place of fallen pine needles. Disoriented, the powerful exorcist stood dazed in the center of the fine European-style room, oblivious to the cheerful crackling of the fire that danced in the grate, casting heat and ruddy light into the open space. Still, despite the unexpected and incredible change in scenery, Kanda wasn't one to wait idly for solutions to present themselves. He strode to the thick, iron-bound oak door and pulled the handle sharply. The dead-bolt rattled loudly in the bolt-hole and the heavy door remained firmly shut. Unfazed, he stepped back from the obstinate portal and assumed a ready stance. The Innocence blade he held could cut through the hellish metal skin of the akuma with no difficulty; such a passage should pose no problem. Kanda hefted Mugen, then stabbed it firmly into the oak door and made as if to slice through the wood planks. The blade stuck fast.
Kanda's breathing became labored with the effort of repressing the strange feelings of irrational fear and crushing claustrophobia that threatened to overwhelm him. He stumbled back from the door, his chest heaving. Clear, deep-blue eyes widened with a passionate and crazed anger, the only signs of emotion on his mask-like countenance. The elegant swordsman gazed in visceral disgust and consternation at the unyielding wood that held Mugen's diamond-keen blade with such impunity. Once more Kanda took hold of the hilt and made as if to jerk the sword free. For all his efforts he only managed to wrench the muscled that spread over his broad shoulders. His iron-fisted control slipped enough to allow him to spit out a single word that burned the air blue. Kanda Yu could, at that moment, express himself singularly grateful that no other being was present to gloat over his humiliation and, after a meaningful glance skyward, he planted one booted foot on the door nearly level with his shoulders, wrapped both fists around Mugen's leather-bound hilt, and strained.
Seconds swam by slowly as fine beads of sweat oozed out of Kanda's fever-hot skin to trickle down the small of his sharply arched back. Ancient timbers groaned under the abrasive treads of his boot but refused to relinquish the treasure that now pierced their honey-toned grain. Kanda heaved, nearly his whole weight thrown into the effort of dislodging Mugen, his Innocence, his companion, his damn it. The patterns of firelight flickering against the wood were soothing and even as he flung himself into his exertions he admired them with absent-minded praise. The lights danced across the planks and glittered off of the Innocence blade, winking like jewels, until it lay in a molten pool of radiance around the join of tree and steel. And then the blade moved, not as Kanda expected, but sliding deeper into the oaken material, vanishing by inches. At the sight of his last and most precious defense slipping away Kanda lost all semblance of reason and propriety. He tore at the uncaring door with his bare hands, jerking at both hilt and blade until blood ran freely from his mutilated palms. He screamed like a madman and still the blade sunk away until the base of the hilt rested flush with the door's surface. The Japanese swordsman's bloodied digits could find no purchase on the crimson-slicked hilt and he was forced to watch with mindless despair and futile rage as the last shine of the Innocence blade was swallowed up entirely. He scrabbled at the stoic wood even as his nails cracked and splintered and tore free, his scarlet life-fluid now liberally splattering the once-golden oak. Foam flew from the corners of his mouth as he threw himself against the impassive portal again and again, howling incoherently until all of his vast reserves of energy were spent. Agony overtook the graceful man and he swooned down to his knees with every nerve-ending seizing with the white-hot fire of pain. He pressed his tortured brow against the gore-soaked timbers and sobbed, deep, racking gasps that would steal the very soul from him.
Minutes, hours, days later, he stood, lifting his face from the sticky glue of congealed plasma. Trembling hands were raised before delirious eyes, the gummy sclera showing all around the deep cobalt irises. Rusty flakes of caked hemoglobin cracked and fell away as a sick parody of fairy dust. The madness of loss was driven from him, leaving behind only abyssal despondency and a sense of irreparable lacking, a void only curable by the return of all meaning and purpose stolen away with the Innocence blade.
Gasping in anguish, the Japanese man turned slowly to huddle against the threshold in such a way that the smooth brass handle, so cool against his pyretic flesh, dug into his cramped spine. Midnight eyes fluttered shut and his breaths shuddered into pained coughs.
"Poor Kanda," breathed a gentle voice, a soothing voice. Cool fingers brushed gently across the swordsman's scorching face. "So alone. So defenseless." Convulsions wracked Kanda's sickly body and his mind, once diligent and penetrating, floundered after recognition that eluded him teasingly, threads of recall dancing just out of reach. Eventually those ocean-dark eyes struggled to open, parting the crusted lashes, then widened exponentially to drink in the heavenly sight before him. Cool grey eyes gazed back at him pityingly, surrounded by downy snow-colored hair and pale skin: a vision of winter mush welcome to Kanda's burning conscious.
"I know you," Kanda's voice ground out, low and cracked by the abuse it had suffered. "I know you." Those lips, pale pink like the earliest spring bloom, smiled gently at him and the refreshing voice—heavenly voice!—spoke again.
"Hush," the vision sighed, easing the battered swordsman into an embrace that smelled of fresh snow and aurora. Kanda fell eagerly, savoring the small lessening of heat in the inferno of his bones. "Oh, poor, poor Kanda," that sweet voice whispered again as the phantom pressed the raven-haired man's battered face to his shoulder. "Stop worrying; you'll never feel alone again." Too weakened by his illness and psychosis, Kanda didn't question as the ghostly hands passed over his shoulders and down his back only to slide up the front of his shirt. Gone was the pleasing comfort of the touch, replaced by biting cold. The fevered exorcist shoved the other away with a groan to look down at his own belly, prickling with goose bumps, and the oddly scaled appendage that rested lightly on his tense abdomen. He wavered in disembodied confusion at the faint white light that radiated from the cross-marked claw and his eyes struggled up to stare into frigid grey.
"Goodbye, Kanda Yu," fell from those pale lips, icy droplets that shattered like dust in the wind. Kanda drew breath to speak, to cry, to howl—he himself was unsure—but long silvery talons thrust through his taut flesh. Deeply blue eyes watched dazedly as sparkling wine-colored fluid spilled like a curtain of wind-blown silk, the red torrent marking the marble-and-alabaster form of his wintry companion. One shaking hand, calloused from years of sword-handling, clutched reflexively over the icicle spires that impaled him, and suddenly his body was cold, too cold, as though it sought to match the temperature of that frost-rimed appendage that pierced it. He tumbled forward as slowly as the last autumn leaf falls, his stouter body draping over the unmoving shoulder of the white child.
"Poor, silly Kanda," the ghastly voice hissed against his ear and his vision flared darkly red, obscuring everything but the throbbing of his own heart. Time and space stretched, warped, then snapped back with terrible elasticity. Heat raged through Kanda's body once more, but it was no longer the dispassionate symptom of illness; now it rose like a coiled beast from his gut, rich and heady, fiery, burning lust and desire. Gone were the acrid reek of gore and the sharp tank of copper and iron, replaced by the more sensual scents of sweat and musk. He still lay with his head pressed to the shoulder of the pale being, but now he controlled it, dominated it, while its two perfectly-formed hands clutched at his shoulders and smooth, unmarked belly. That perfect voice was raised in incoherent cries, half-smothered by the red silk pillow to which its owner's face was pressed, its tones anguishing in pain or pleasure; Kanda found that he did not know and could not care. The searing heat built low, pooled aching at his loins, as he thrush punishingly into the pale, fragile body spread beneath him on a scarlet coverlet. He looked into pale grey eyes once more and found them wet with tears and filled with the same trapped fear that had broken his soul apart only—how long had it been? Hours, days?—earlier. The swordsman's stomach roiled and he ripped himself away from the smaller figure, who yelled in exquisite pain. Clamping a hand over his mouth, Kanda rushed out of the oppressive bedroom, gaudy and tasteless and a whore's, and slammed open the door stained with his own blood to stagger out into a field of clear, virgin snow. There, accompanied only by the wind and uncaring stars, he retched and heaved until his throat was raw from the passage of acid bile. Weakened, he fell to one side, yielding himself up to the chill of ice particles against his skin, naked skin, sinful skin, and was confronted by images of pale eyes, weeping eyes the color of rain. Kanda tossed back his head and screamed wordless denial at the endless vault of the heavens, seizing a handful of chafing snow to scrub his guilt from his mortal flesh. Blood, clean blood, pure blood, welled up and spilled around him, his penance. Black surged up from the ground and rushed down from the firmament to explode behind his eyes in a dazzling parti-color flash of lurid lights. The swordsman collapsed insensate and knew no more, the maniacal laughter of some hidden observer unheard and unheeded.
The soft noise of a limp body impacting with thick leaf mulch made Allen turn in surprise.
"Kanda!" his startled yelp broke into the repartee between the Finder and his friend and they, too, paused to look. The pale-haired exorcist ran to kneel down beside the Japanese man who thrashed wildly on the ground, his long black hair in complete disarray. Allen could only try helplessly to pin down the flailing limbs as Kanda's superior physical strength kept shoving him back with a glancing blow from one tossed appendage. Samuel and Thomas hastened to help and the rancher took command with the ease of long experience.
"Get his head, Sam," he ordered calmly as he produced a lead-rope from his pack. "He's just like a little calf; the trick is to get his legs." Thomas twisted the rope deftly around one of the swordsman's legs and pulled it forward. Between them, Allen and Samuel managed to grasp the other leg and Thomas accepted it with another loop of the lead and tied it and one of Kanda's forearms together with a quick-release knot, then sat back to admire his handiwork. Allen and Samuel just stared. The dark-eyed exorcist had subsided and now lay curled in a decidedly painful-looking ball, his knees pulled nearly to his chest because of the binds around his ankles and wrist. He was still quaking and a low, keening wail issued from deep inside his chest, but he was no longer in his earlier paroxysms of unexplained origin.
"What happened, Allen?" Samuel asked worriedly, eyeing the bonds restraining the black-clad swordsman. Thomas patted the rope reassuringly and averred that they wouldn't come loose until the tail-end of the knot was pulled. The Finder absorbed this information gratefully and relaxed slightly.
"I'm not sure," the youngest member of their group responded thoughtfully as he mulled over everything he could remember before Kanda's sudden collapse. "He was just walking along behind me; it didn't seem like there was anything wrong. At least, until he fell over."
"Well, leaving him on the ground isn't helping him any," Thomas interjected. "Let's get him to my place and then you can decide if you want to go on to the Manor tonight or not." The other two nodded agreement and the farmer hefted Kanda's limp body up over his head so that he rested across Thomas's shoulders with his bound limbs dangling in front of his chest. Allen stepped up behind him to steady Kanda's lolling head and the three set off slowly. What had started out to be a brief walk of well under an hour instead took more than three as they had to stop every time Kanda resumed his struggles. It was almost ten o'-clock in the morning, four hours after their departure from the train, when the group finally reached Thomas's home.
Kanda was deposited on the bed in the guest room of the moderately-sized clapboard house and with one swift jerk his limbs were unbound.
"What now?" Allen asked quietly. Thomas flashed him a soothing smile.
"There's not much we can do until Sleeping Beauty there wakes up, so we're going to go have lunch and talk about my horses."
"Are you sure it will be alright to leave him alone?" Allen queried anxiously.
"Allen's right, Tom. I'm not sure leaving Kanda in such a state really in advisable," Samuel agreed.
"Bah!" Samuel scoffed, throwing his hands up, but he fetched chairs for each of them before hustling off to make lunch. He returned a short while later with a plate piled high with thick cold-cut sandwiches and a beer for himself and Samuel. Allen was offered a glass of milk which he downed in a single gulp before his anxiety forced him to ravenously attack the proffered meal. Thomas watched in awe as the slender boy packed away half-a-dozen sandwiched in quick succession, then teased the white-haired young man good-naturedly. Samuel joined in and lunchtime passed cheerfully until a soft moan broke through their laughter.
Kanda's dense black lashes stirred then opened slowly and the young man sat up, one hand on his head. Allen leapt to his side.
"Are you feeling well, Kanda?" he inquired. Muzzy, dark-blue eyes lifted confused to meet Allen's direct pale grey stare. There was a breathless pause then the swords master wrenched himself away with a shocked gasp, clutching at his belly just below the ribs on his left side. Apparently satisfied by something, Kanda let his hands drop as he rose abruptly from the bed to stand with his back to them.
"Kanda?" Samuel probed gently.
"Let's go," came the curt reply and the swordsman marched out of the room, one hand grasping Mugen's hilt as though he was afraid of losing the Innocence blade.
"You heard the man," Thomas said, casting a strange look after Kanda. Allen and Samuel mumbled assent and the rancher led the Black Order trio out to the stables. In the flurry of hostling activity that ensued, each of them found themselves holding fast to the leather reins of a horse. With a final pat and tug on a girth, Thomas declared himself satisfied.
"Now," the rancher said, suddenly serious. "You bring them back to me, you hear?" His attitude gentled and he added, "just head to the northwest corner of this clearing; you'll find a path there that will take you all the way to the gates of the estate."
There was a swirl of black fabric like raven's wings as Kanda settled himself into the saddle with casual grace. Allen and Samuel mounted more slowly then followed the swordsman as he nodded his thanks to the rancher and turned his tall grey stud to the north. The rancher watched them until, with a last swish of the chestnut tail of Allen's mare, the three disappeared from sight. Thomas sighed and rubbed the velvet nose that prodded at his broad shoulder.
"Oh, Lady," he addressed the nose's owner, staring into her clear brown eyes. "That swordsman had better watch himself." He looked back to where the trio had vanished and shook his head before returning to his house and bolting the door behind him.
BWAHAHAHA!!!! I'm back and amazed that I actually got this chapter finished. It's been, what, four months? Anyway, I already know how the story is going to end so I'll keep plugging away at getting it finished. Other that that, torturing Kanda is important to the story.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Generally I reply to every one, but if I haven't replied to you it's because I haven logged on in three months. Thank you for reading.