Welcome to the questionable chapter 9, dear readers~ as always, thank you so much for your faves/follows/reviews, and a shout out to Mad Hatter, my lovely guest who gave me such encouragement ^.^ It really motivated me~
Here we see Kanda facing a lot of different things, and Lavi facing Kanda's wrath as always
D Gray-man belongs to Hoshino Katsura~
Broken Moonlight
Chapter 9: Weakness
Upon his arrival at the office of the Branch Head, Kanda knocked thrice, sharply, upon the doors before pushing them open. Striding in, he caught sight of the Supervisor speaking with the usagi about something or the other. Frowning, he leaned against the wall beside the door, watching the two.
"Oh, Kanda - I was just about to send for you!" Komui declared, his lenses glinting.
Kanda sighed. That couldn't possibly allude to anything remotely pleasant. To think he had merely come to hold a conversation concerning the current matters at hand. Hopefully he could make an escape before anything troublesome occurred, courtesy of the Chief Officer.
His eyes scanned the room. There was always the door, but the window was a closer option. He nodded slightly to himself. The window would be an ample escape hatch of sorts, in case Komui decided to resign him to some godforsaken task.
"Che."
Striding over to where the two stood, he blatantly left a liberal distance between himself and the redhead who did not seem to register the hint, and sidled over to him, throwing an arm around his neck with a hoaxed cheeriness.
"Yuu-chan came to see me!" he chirped.
'Yuu-chan' abruptly threw a punch to his cheek, his fist meeting its intended point of collision, much to his satisfaction, knocking the rabbit to the ground. "Next time I'll rip off your ears by those stupid earrings of yours," he snapped, glaring down at the taller exorcist.
"Yuu - so cruel!" Lavi comically wailed, holding his rapidly reddening cheek. Kanda brought a boot-covered foot pointedly down on Lavi's leg, lifting his gaze up from the redhead as he ground his foot downwards.
"Che." Ignoring the pained protests of the Bookman Junior, he turned back to Komui, who made no move to stop his actions against the redhead. "So? What did you call me for?" he questioned tersely.
"Well, Bookman Jr. here told me some interesting things about your interaction with the 14th," he began, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and lifting a clipboard from his unruly desk. "And I was just about to call you to talk about that-"
At least it wasn't the overseeing of another Komurin, Kanda decided, relaxing slightly, and even going as far as to lift his foot from Lavi's leg, allowing the apprentice Bookman to scramble gracelessly to his feet and rub his aching limb.
Sitting himself down at the end of the couch that sat within the office, Kanda crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "Well, I'm here for that reason," he admitted, staring at the Supervisor carefully.
"Wonderful!" Komui exclaimed, causing Kanda to wonder if he was truly safe from the often distorted whims of the Branch Head. "Now if you'll leave us alone, Lavi," he continued, making a shooing motion at the rabbit.
Without much more complaint, perhaps to prevent stirring Kanda's wrath against himself further, Lavi scuttled out of the office, still nursing his cheek.
After the door was shut. Komui moved to sit behind his paperwork-laden desk, clasping his hands together in front of his face and watching Kanda in silence for a few moments. A sigh passed his lips and he grabbed the clipboard that he had mentioned prior, flipping through it.
"Apparently the 14th, in Allen's body, seemed to have full control of him, right?"
Kanda tensed at the aloofness with which the query was brought up. He resisted the urge to snap at the man and instead opted to spare him a brusque nod.
"And according to Lavi, he protected Tyki from you?"
Kanda nodded once again in response, a scowl imprinted onto his face as he bluntly refused to speak for apprehension that he would end up saying anything out of turn and earning himself an octopus head despite the fact that that seemed to be reserved solely for anyone who approached Lenalee without his approval.
"So it's clear that he has no more ties with the Black Order?"
Kanda paused, unresponsive. His immediate answer would allude to an affirmative response to the speculation of the Chief Officer, but his teeth had clamped down on his tongue before he had the chance to utter a response to the man.
"Kanda?"
The eyes of the long-haired exorcist narrowed slightly. However, both Noah had left them without a scratch despite the fact that they could have done harm, did they wish to do so. Subconsciously, his hand reached up to his cheek as he recalled Allen's hand touching it under the control of the 14th.
All that he had done was merely reach out for him as though he wanted to inspect him or, at the very least, touch him in some way. Even then, the touch did not reek of hostility in any way; it almost seemed curious. His frown deepened.
That contemplative gaze did not suit the beansprout, but then again, neither did the umber complexion and amber eyes characteristic of the enemy. It was not Allen, he reminded himself: it was the 14th - the enemy, and nothing less.
"Kanda?"
His gaze shot up to the Branch Head who was watching him with a hint of interest in his eyes. His frown deepened into something reminiscent of a scowl.
"Che…"
"Is there something you need to say?" Komui questioned, lowering the clipboard and watching him intently. Kanda shook his head abruptly and lowered his arms back to his sides from where they had been crossed over his chest.
"No. He is the enemy," he confirmed, his voice in an expressionless monotone.
"All right…" Komui quickly scrawled something down onto the papers attached to the clipboard before flipping the pages once again. "And he recognized you but didn't acknowledge Lavi or Lenalee?"
"It seemed that way," Kanda stated ungraciously, a moderately harsh sigh eliciting from his lips.
A frown crawled onto the lips of the Supervisor as he scanned the contents of the papers upon the clipboard. "He had a lot to say to you, correct?"
"Yes." The second exorcist stared intently at Komui, reading each movement that was executed by his body in attempts to decipher just what he could be thinking.
"Such as?"
"That's my business," Kanda responded sharply, his eyes narrowing slightly. "And I would rather have it remain my business."
Komui hummed in acknowledgement, setting down his clipboard once again and glancing up at the temperamental exorcist that sat upon the couch. "Well, is there anything you're willing to share?" he asked, attempting a different approach.
"Let me find him," Kanda stated stiffly.
Komui's glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose as his eyebrows raised themselves in surprise at the raven's request. "Pardon?"
"Che…" Kanda frowned. "You heard me. Let me go find him."
The Chief Officer cleared his throat awkwardly, sitting up straighter in his chair and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose from where they had slipped down. "I don't think that will be possible, since we don't even know which area he currently is-"
"Let me go find him," Kanda repeated, no hint of hesitation or tentativeness in his voice. His eyes narrowed, piercing Komui with their sharpness. "I will find him and get rid of him."
"Kanda, that's a little excessive," he responded, his tone mild. "You managed to strike him one time, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to defeat him. We can't afford to lose you since you're one of our strongest exorcists. We already almost lost you once…"
"I don't intend to die," Kanda retorted with a frown.
"You can't ensure that," Komui responded. "We can't let you charge into enemy grounds on your own, especially since we don't know much about the 14th apart from his ability to control the ark."
Kanda scowled. As much as he hated to admit it, Komui was right. Clucking his tongue in displeasure, he allowed his stance to grow less hostile in appearance. He wanted to find that Noah and beat some answers out of him for the trouble he was causing, but if he was not familiar with the terrain, it would be child's play for them to ambush him.
"Fine," he concurred, albeit grudgingly. "But when we do find them, he's mine," he conditioned.
"All right," Komui agreed.
Kanda pushed himself to his feet with a nod. "Is there anything else you wanted me for?" he questioned after a moment's hesitation, more out of courtesy than anything else. He eyed the Supervisor, who seemed to be mulling over something.
"Kanda, did you sense Allen anywhere when the 14th spoke to you?" he questioned.
The second exorcist frowned. What sort of question was that? His mind drifted back to the incident as he attempted to recall what he had felt when he had been confronted by the Noah in the beansprout's body. After a few moments of thought, he shook his head.
"No," he conceded. "I didn't."
A resigned sigh passed Komui's lips. There was a long pause as silence extended between the two, one debating on whether to speak, the other waiting for him to respond. The Branch Head's jaw tightened and he lifted his gaze to meet that of the raven-haired exorcist.
"I'd hate telling this to anyone," he began, evidently prevaricating. "But taking things into consideration, I'll leave you an order." Kanda frowned, his gaze urging Komui to cease with the procrastination and get to the real matter. "It was his request, and I think you're capable of fulfilling it."
Kanda froze, his eyes narrowing. Surely Komui couldn't possibly mean-
"If the situation comes where he is facing us on the battleground, I want you to kill him."
The teeth of the long-haired exorcist clamped down savagely on the flesh of his inner cheek at the words. His stance was strained and stiff, and not a single word escaped his tightly pursed lips as he merely nodded before striding over to the door of the office.
Opening the door almost robotically, he stalked out of the office before shutting it behind himself. Leaning against it, he stared blankly at the wall across from himself. The thought should not have perturbed him to this extent. He should have expected it. And yet, it had still fallen upon him heavily, despite the fact that he really had no attachment to anyone in this godforsaken Order.
Pushing himself off the door, he made his way down the hall, ignoring any and all that passed him by, his focus entrapped solely within his thoughts. His hand had unconsciously tightened around Mugen's hilt, only serving to empower the dark aura that seemed to hang over him.
Treading instinctively back to his room, he opened the door and entered it. His eyes drifted over to the blooms that sat upon his table. Staring dully at them, he leaned against the door, refusing to traverse further into his own domain.
Gritting his teeth, he reached up to massage his temples. This entire circumstance was nothing short of a pain. He allowed his eyes to slide shut as Alma's figure drifted into his mind. His posture relaxed somewhat at the brunet's smiling face. At least, even now, he could find solace somewhere.
Absently, he wondered what his friend would say, had he seen Kanda entangled within the situation that he was now. Perhaps Alma was indeed watching him, and laughing at his inability to see an apparent obvious answer. He would not put it past the brunet, were he to be completely honest.
Or perhaps he was angry that Kanda had not followed him, instead opting to choose another path over being with him. At this moment, the long-haired exorcist didn't know what he valued more than his late friend and lover.
His eyes narrowed slightly as bitterness swallowed his heart painfully. He persisted in being detached from the others that inhabited the Black Order, and yet the depraved world still continued to strip him of everything he had even remote regard to.
His jaw tightened. He had admitted it. He had attachments to this gilt prison and it's occupants. Even the annoying rabbit. His chest seemed to have occupied itself in twisting into an inextricable knot. It was useless to deny for much longer: his attachment, regardless of how vague or distorted, extended to even the moyashi.
The thought itself was enough to cause a flame of acrimony to run through his veins. His fingers pulsated with the urge to cause destruction to something, provoking him to entrap Mugen's hilt in an impossibly tight grip. His knuckles had painted themselves white due to the ruthlessness of his execution which he refused to terminate.
His teeth sank into the flesh of his cheek in a habit that he had grown all too familiar with as his dark eyes seemed to grow darker as they narrowed, fixating the ground with an intensity only Kanda himself could possibly accomplish.
He despised the bonds that tied him to his fellow exorcists. It was that sort of thing that inexplicably weakened him. He resented any form of weakness, and yet, he could not deny that even he possessed them. He was weak.
The hand that was not wrapped in a death grip around Mugen had clenched into a taut fist, his nails digging unrelentingly into his palm, causing a steady stream of blood to flow from his appendage and spill to the floor in crimson droplets.
That stupid beansprout… If he had not allowed that Noah to take over his body, this situation would have been evitable. Kanda's eyes squeezed shut.
He himself was the one that had first offered to be the downfall of the 14th Noah, but he had not paused to consider what that would mean for the host of the Noah of destruction, or Allen himself. If he eliminated the 14th, he would be killing Allen as well.
Nevertheless, he had still accepted the burden that had been placed upon his shoulders by the Chief Officer. The distinct flavour of blood was not even vaguely registered in his mind as his thoughts whirled around in his head, inadvertently eliciting a guttural groan of pain from his lips. No one else could do it, he realized, the moyashi having grown on them.
He was beginning to doubt his own capability of completing the task that he had laid upon his own head. Stepping stiffly over to his bedside, he stared down at the eight flowers that sat upon the table. He was supposed to hate the white-haired beansprout. He needed to hate him.
And yet, he could not. Fraught fingers tangled themselves in his hair as his eyes widened at the all too unmistakable task that he found thrown into his desperately opened hands: it would be the third time he was forced to take the life of a person he cared about.
His breaths drew themselves from his throat erratically. He had returned with the purpose of returning good for good, and not evil for good. Was this how cursed his own existence was? More so than Allen, he was not a threat to the enemy, but the very people whom he had considered and had considered him comrades.
A few long strands of bluish-black hair drifted to the ground unnoticed by the raven that had previously possessed them as his hands tightened around his tresses, involuntarily tugging a few from his pale scalp. His gaze was fixed wildly upon the tatami-covered floor of his room.
His muscles cried out as his tense stance enabled them to be stretched out for longer than what was deemed natural. His breaths grew from erratic to choked as he suddenly found it difficult to inhale due to the knot that his throat seemed to tie itself into.
His gaze lowered to Mugen, and immediately, his hands removed the sword from his hip and dropped it upon the bed as though it had burnt him upon the contact that he had experienced in the last few moments. His sword…Mugen was an anti-akuma weapon; it wasn't meant to tear down the ones he loved.
He stared blankly at the katana, not making any move either towards it or away from it as he drew in a sharp breath that nearly caused him to choke from the dryness of the inhalation. His hair, had come undone from the executions of his hands, and hung limply about his shoulders in vicious snarls.
He had considered himself a person of admirable self-control, but even he could not stop the angered expression from tearing across his features more candidly than they had ever. However, the consternation was directed not towards his fellow exorcists or even the Noah, but towards himself.
He couldn't allow himself to commit the abominable crime of taking the life of a loved one not once or twice, but thrice. Notwithstanding, he could not refuse the task that had been assigned him by the Branch Head himself. Kanda found himself torn between himself and his loyalties yet again.
Inwardly, he cursed his selfishness and the despicable Order. He desired something unattainable, and the the Black Order would sacrifice anything and anyone to reach their goals. In his mind, his own desire was the lesser of the two evils.
Closing his eyes, he forcefully brought his body under submission to his will, his countenance relaxing considerably. His reappearance had resulted in the unusual fragility of his mental state, much to his chagrin. To allow himself to remain composed as was normal would merit more effort than normal.
The consequences of a task such as this should have been something he had developed immunity to, but to his consternation, that didn't appear to be the case. His weakness had always been there, despite how painfully hard he had tried to bury it.
Emotions were troublesome things, and if they did not exist, he had no doubt in his mind that menial things such as this would not cause him such distress, if he were to place a word upon it. However, he deduced that it would also leave him under the complete control of the Vatican and cursed people such as Lvellie.
To have a will and a mentality of his own was doubtless difficult, but he would strongly prefer that to being one of that evil man's mindless puppets. Kanda opened his eyes and ran a tired hand through his long, dark tresses, tugging violently at the snarls until they untangled.
Drawing in a few long breaths, he allowed his mind to temporarily clear and his body to loosen. He unclenched his hands and stared down at the floor, his gaze thoughtlessly blank. He needed to rid himself of his trouble and calm himself down before facing his problems head on. Were he to confront the situation with a stressed mind, he would never overcome it in any way.
The situation was indeed a grim one, and he had but one available choice, or so the circumstance spelled out. The current path he took stated that he would have to kill Allen or be killed by the 14th within Allen's body. Either option would result in death, and perhaps even victory on the part of the opposing sides, but the aftereffects could be disastrous.
Kanda opened his eyes and stared at the pink blossoms seated upon his side table, observing his own single bloom before shifting over to Allen's seven. The second flower had already begun to open, which surprised him somewhat, considering its speed.
His stance remained relaxed under the will of his mind despite the fact that his mind had once again begun to work itself to weariness once again. He had never truly realized the quantity of his thoughts that were occupied by his fellow exorcists, namely that troublesome moyashi.
Wryly, he wrapped his fingers around Mugen and set it upon the side table beside the eight blossoms. He had always been weak, he realized, much to his vexation. He had never been strong enough to willingly sever his ties with his acquaintances.
"Yuu! Yuu, Yuu - Komui found out something!" The obnoxious voice cut through the air long before the door was flung open unwarranted by the redheaded rabbit.
Kanda's grip instinctively tightened around Mugen once again as his jaw clenched in exasperation. "Get out of my room, usagi," he snapped.
"But Yuu! Komui found the location of the Noah!"
Our poor Kanda has to suffer so much, but he's right; he is selfish because other people are suffering too :P But he does have it a little worse than most and Komui isn't helping~