Another Requiem

IV: A Boring Train Ride

"Is that all of them?"

Daisya stood there, balancing his Charity Bell on one foot as Marie adjusted his headphones, listening carefully.

"Sounds like it," he answered, at which they began to head back to town.

The two had been exterminating the rather large number of level one akuma near the sea of Zurich. Having been lucky enough to catch a ride on a carriage headed in the same direction, they had arrived at the place a lot sooner than expected, and were thus done with their mission by sunset.

"You think Eva's still alive?" Daisya wondered out loud as they made their way to the nearby town of Zug.

"With Kanda? I'm not too sure," the older exorcist answered, rather amused by the image of the disgruntled Japanese trying not to kill the new recruit.

When Marie, who didn't have the privilege of eyesight, had heard Eva's voice for the first time, he had known that a certain pony-tailed exorcist wasn't going to like her very much. The playfulness and warmth in her tone and the way she treated everyone like a younger sibling very much resembled a certain general. A certain general that Kanda was known to hate.

Daisya certainly wasn't about to complain. Anyone capable of teasing the notorious samurai (without getting killed) was a welcome addition to 'Team Tiedoll'. Someone had to convince that Kanda to loosen up.

Morning came and only brought more annoyances to the ever unsatisfied Kanda. Having secretly hoped that he had been dreaming all along and that there never had been a new exorcist to bother him, he was severely disappointed when he stepped outside the inn. There she was, chatting merrily with the two Finders, ready to leave, and undoubtedly in a good mood.

"Good Morning, Yuu-kun!" came the expected (but certainly not welcome) greeting. Kanda narrowed his eyes at her.

"I told you to stop calling me that," he stated oh-so-coolly, apparently failing to make an impression. Eva only smiled.

The Finders observed the two exorcists rather nervously- they had certainly heard all about the cold-hearted Kanda, and were now afraid for their new friend's well-being. She may be a few years older than the dark-haired Japanese, but that really didn't guarantee anything.

"Err, well," began Elias, the older Finder, "Karl and I will escort you down to Lucerne so you can catch the early noon train. We'd better hurry."

The Finders however, were surprised to find that the exorcists walked a lot faster than they had imagined. Obviously they had expected it from Kanda, but Eva's stamina was thoroughly underestimated. Everything about her gave the impression of a dainty lady, after all.

"Try single-handedly taking care of seven energetic children for a few years," was her simple explanation. It certainly gained her more respect from the Finders, though Kanda did not seem impressed. Then again, it was hard to tell whether he was actually listening.

Many roads led to Lucerne, which was why it had such an impressive train station. It had trains leaving and arriving from several directions, but it still managed to keep a nice, orderly appearance. Not that Kanda cared to notice. He just wanted their train to arrive quickly.

Eva had the decency to say a proper farewell to the Finders who had been ordered to investigate some other town, and was therefore left behind by the impatient Kanda who could only hope that she would miss the train.

"Che."

He had been waiting at the station for nearly a quarter of an hour when he suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Oi, Kanda!" Daisya called as he approached, followed by Marie. The two had arrived in Lucerne that morning, and were now waiting for the same train. They both seemed to be eyeing him disapprovingly. Kanda raised an eyebrow.

"Where's Eva?" Marie asked mildly- apparently he couldn't detect her heartbeat with his headphones. He was the one who had found Kanda by picking up that characteristic 'che' of his.

"What'd you do, kill her?" Daisya questioned, his eyebrows raised at the taller but younger exorcist.

Kanda only gave another 'che', since he didn't know where that woman was. She really should have caught up by now.

"There she is." Marie smiled slightly, nodding in a certain direction.

After having said her goodbyes to the two Finders, Eva had headed straight to the train station where she expected to find the other exorcist. On her way however, she happened to have come across a small boy who had lost his mother in a crowded area. Unable to ignore her maternal instincts, she had then proceeded to help the boy by lifting him on her shoulders and aiding him in finding his parent.

"Goodbye Miss!" the boy waved after her in the arms of his thankful mother. Eva waved back with a wistful smile before hurrying off to find Kanda. She only hoped that the train hadn't left already. She had no idea how to get to headquarters on her own, after all.

"Sorry I took so long, there was a lost child-" she called as soon as she spotted the uniform and ponytail, "Oh!" only to be surprised by the presence of two more exorcists.

"Hey, you survived!" Daisya exclaimed with a lopsided grin, giving her a thumbs up. She mimicked the gesture with a radiant smile. Kanda's eye twitched at the cheerfulness of it all.

"Daisya and Marie! What a delightful surprise," Eva voiced pleasantly, suddenly very glad to see them. The prospect of having to sit in a train alone with Kanda had been a bit daunting, really.

"Seems as though we're all heading to headquarters- isn't that a coincidence," Daisya said, confirming her hopes of them traveling together. Marie simply nodded, though the way he could actually hear her happiness made him smile.

"And here's our train. Aren't we lucky today," the young woman spoke just as the train to Bern came chugging down the tracks.

Though she had been on a train as an exorcist several times now, the sheer size and luxury of a first class compartment never ceased to impress Eva. It was hard to believe that only two months ago she had thought horseback riding to be quite extravagant. Being a nun-in-training in the middle of the Central Alps rarely required any faster transportation, after all.

Furthermore- two months ago, Eva never would have imagined that she would ever be traveling in a first class compartment with three men. Two of them were younger than her, but still.

Sometimes she was convinced that she would wake up soon and find that all this had just been a bizarre, long dream. Except that the many, many bruises she had received during the last few weeks continually reminded her that no, the existence of akuma and her destiny as an exorcist were indeed reality.

"So you ever been to England?" Daisya was asking just as she finished her inner musing. The four of them were now seated comfortably in the large compartment as the train passed the usual Swiss scenery.

"No," Eva answered dreamily, her gaze fixed on the window, "I don't think I ever traveled outside the country before I met General Tiedoll."

"You've lived in the Alps all your life then?" Daisya continued. He was seated opposite her.

"As far as I can remember, yes," she told him softly, still looking out at the passing landscape. Daisya seemed a bit surprised at her answer.

"Then why is your English so good?" he questioned her, blinking in mild confusion. Eva finally turned her head to look at him.

"I thought I might as well learn it," she replied with a wistful smile, "since I was already required to study Latin as a nun. Besides, there are so many English books in the libraries-"

She paused when she detected a sort of dumbfounded silence. Marie seemed to be looking at her in surprise while Daisya had his mouth open in awe. Even Kanda, who had been pretending to sleep, was suddenly eyeing her coolly. Eva blinked.

"Wait, you were, or are, a nun?" Daisya finally asked after a few more moments of silence.

"I never told you about that?" she responded, rather surprised at their reactions. Now that she thought about it, she had never really mentioned her previous status as a nun-in-training. She chuckled.

"Well, I was still training to become a nun. It would have taken me a few more years to actually become one officially," the young woman explained, her eyes twinkling merrily at the sight of their confused expressions.

Daisya was quite taken aback at this surprising piece of information. Then again, it did explain a lot about her. The way she always had her head covered, the way her posture was always very correct, her simple clothing, and the gentle way she talked all made sense now. He couldn't believe that he hadn't known about this earlier.

When Daisya had first met Eva, he had been busy introducing himself and warning her about the horror that was Kanda. Thinking back, it was no surprise that she never got to mention much about her past. She already seemed so familiar, but there was obviously a lot about her that they did not know.

"Is there a problem with that?" Eva asked mildly, observing the other exorcists.

"Not at all," Marie answered gently.

He himself was now quite sure that this girl would set a good example for the two younger exorcists. Daisya was quite mischievous and Kanda a bit antisocial in his opinion. Perhaps this new addition would smoothen some of the rough edges in their team. He also wondered whether he would be able to discuss literature with her. The other two certainly did not possess the level of learning to be able to do such things- not that Daisya was patient enough or Kanda sufficiently talkative in the first place.

"What does a nun-in-training do, exactly?" Daisya wondered out loud once he understood how he had not known about this matter beforehand.

"That depends," Eva replied, smiling at his sudden interest, "I was in charge of taking care of the orphans, so that's what I did most of the time."

"That's all?" the younger exorcist retorted, as if slightly disappointed. He was under the impression that nuns had some sort of impossibly complicated schedule to work with.

"Seven children are quite a handful, you know," she told him, "I played with them, taught them, nursed them, put up with them…" Eva trailed off, smiling wistfully at the many memories that were blossoming in her head.

"I miss those kids," she muttered after a while, gazing out the window once more. Kanda was pretending to sleep again. Marie simply listened. Daisya felt the need to cheer her up.

"Maybe the next new exorcist will be a kid for you to take care of," he suggested, though he knew that it was very feeble consolation. Nevertheless, Eva smiled and nodded.

"That might be interesting."

The train reached France before sunset and was scheduled to arrive in Dijon soon after. It grew dark earlier than expected however, due to the sudden fall of heavy rain.

Daisya had pretty much given up on finding anything interesting to do after searching through the entire train and coming across nothing but equally bored passengers. Kanda had actually dozed off in his seat after all that pretending, while Marie and Eva were quietly discussing classic literature. Which explained why Daisya was so bored in the first place.

"Are you sure there isn't anything exciting to talk about?" he muttered as he re-entered the compartment reluctantly, having just returned from his fruitless search.

"We could talk about ways to wake him up," Eva suggested amiably, nodding towards the sleeping samurai. Daisya had to grin at the many, many ideas that came to mind as he stood near Kanda.

"Or we could discuss the many things we could do to him without waking h-whoa!" the last part of his sentence came out as some sort of yelp which was drowned out by a very loud screech and the force of the train coming to a sudden halt.

The result was four exorcists practically plastered to one side of the compartment.

Daisya, who had been standing in the space between Marie and the now rudely awakened Kanda, was stuck between the two larger exorcists, Marie having been thrown on them by the sudden stop. To her relief, Eva only landed in Daisya's empty seat, narrowly avoiding being part of the exorcist sandwich.

"Get off!" came a muffled and very angry growl.

"I would, but Marie's squashing me," Daisya's equally muffled voice replied from the mass of limbs.

"…Sorry you two," Marie muttered as he managed to get back to his seat, picking up an irritated Daisya from an even more irritated Kanda in the process.

Having been thrown face-first into an upholstered wall, Eva was too busy rubbing her aching nose to laugh at the scene. She did however, let out a halfhearted chuckle.

"Who would have guessed that Marie had the best seat?" she mumbled, referring to the fact that the rather large man's fall had been cushioned by two exorcists.

Kanda glared at her, as if challenging her to try and point out who had chosen the worst seat. He did however make a mental note of never sitting across from Marie in a train ever again.

"Wait, so why did we stop?" Daisya wondered out loud, already standing by the window, though all he could see was rain.

"It's the rain," Marie told them, listening in on a conversation outside their compartment with his handy dandy headphones, "the ground has turned into mud up ahead, so the train tracks aren't safe."

They all looked at him with varying degrees of exasperation and despair. Eva really didn't know what this meant, so she was the least annoyed.

"Even if the rain stops soon, we could be stuck here for hours," Marie added, just to clear it up for the blinking Eva.

"Oh," she responded simply. This was why she preferred to travel on horseback.

"Oh great," Daisya grumbled, looking forward to a lot more boredom as he sat down with a huff.

"Che," was all Kanda had to contribute. He had his arms and legs crossed and was glaring holes into the wall. Anything group-related had that effect on him, though he did prefer not having to deal with that woman. Having Daisya and Marie talk to her meant that she wouldn't be annoying him all the time.

It would have been a very peaceful albeit boring few hours of helpless waiting, but no. It was raining heavily and it was dark. A train full of people was stranded in the middle of nowhere. This could only lead to one thing…

"Marie?" They all looked at the large exorcist who seemed to be listening intently through his headphones.

"Please tell me you hear something interesting," Daisya commented, pretty sure that the situation couldn't possibly get any more boring. Marie simply nodded, getting up from his seat.

"Akuma."

-to be continued-

A/N: Right so… nothing happened in this chapter… BUT STILL. That just means the next chapter will be more interesting.

I have only recently found out that Daisya is actually 19, according to a translation of the official DGM profiles. I always thought he was in his early twenties. Weird.

These profiles also revealed some very interesting information on our exorcists- like their level of education. Kanda and Daisya both have a 2 out of 5, while Marie has a 4. On that scale, Eva would also have a 4.

Speaking of profiles, I just put one up of Eva in my devart account. You can find a link in my profile.

PLEASE REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW that people are actually reading this. That would be encouraging.