WARNING! This story contains SPOILERS and YAOI! Also a few minor OCs, so don't kill me.
Reviews....*drools* Thanks for reading everyone! I'm glad to see the story is pleasing you. ^_^ Hopefully this chapter won't disappoint! I would have updated a little sooner, but I've been extremely swamped with unnecessary things like...college...and work. Blah. Anyway, without further ado, chapter five!
Rated: T [for violence and language] Bold: Used only in dreams or flashbacks to indicate the main character's lines. Italics: Used to indicate dreams, flashbacks, and thoughts.
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Chapter Five: A Broken Promise
"Thank you for disposing of that annoying pest for me, boy. Now if you please, I'll take what is mine."
"G-Get away!! Don't touch her!!"
"My dear boy, she belongs to me. Farewell...perhaps you'll see her again someday."
"No!!!"
::
Sweat poured down the red scarred body and pooled in a particularly large scar that wasn't healing as fast as the others. A nurse wearing the uniform of Central dabbed the scar with a warm moist cloth; her eyes narrowed slightly with concentration. She failed to notice the exorcist's hand slowly tighten into a fist at his side.
::
"P-Please...don't...take her away..."
Tears poured down the little boy's face and he stretched out his hand desperately towards the large retreating figure. One look at his small blood-stained fingers froze him to the spot. Explosions shook the ground on either side and he lost his balance, falling to his knees, staring in horror at his own hands.
"Ja ne, Yuu Kanda."
With an eerily cheerful laugh, the man stepped forward and the sky rent in two. His perpetual smile burned itself into the young Japanese's memory before the sky swallowed him up and he was gone.
::
Both hands lying on the bed clutched around fistfuls of sheets. The nurse's eye caught the movement and she gasped, pulling the cloth away from the samurai's chest. One glance at the machines near the bed confirmed her suspicions. Hurrying to the door, she called for the head nurse from Central, who appeared in the doorway of the private room almost instantly.
"Number Eight is acting up! His heart rate is rising as we speak!"
The flustered nurse babbled, dabbing her brow with the cloth nervously.
"Calm down, Nancy. Let me see."
The older nurse brushed by her and tapped a few buttons on the machine, watching the undulating lines carefully. Her eyes glanced once or twice in Kanda's direction. A solemn look crossed her face and she whirled around.
"He's unstable. Nancy, get Inspector Fei immediately."
::
Komui's worst fears were playing out in front of his eyes. The Chinese man stared in horror as the Order's brave exorcists rose as one to oppose the cloud of akuma and the solitary dark figure who led them: Allen Walker. Stumbling backwards a few feet, he shakily gripped the hard stone of the wall and stuck out a slender finger towards his most trusted friend.
"R-Reever...is there any explanation to this disaster?"
He was shoved to the side as a large boulder hit the wall next to him, crumbling the old stone. Reever panted, his hand on the Supervisor's chest.
"Careful, Komui-san. You were nearly flattened."
The scientist cleared his throat and looked from the battle scene to Komui.
"As for an explanation...I'm afraid I couldn't tell you."
Komui grabbed the man's arm to steady himself and grimly looked over the scene again. His eyes glazed over with a stern look that he hardly ever wore and his voice lowered so that he was just audible over the noise.
"Where's Leverrier? We can't let him see this...he'd take our Allen away for good."
Reever looked at his friend in surprise and raised his eyebrows. A blonde-haired man stepped out from the entrance to stand just behind them, and before Reever could speak, the man questioned Komui softly.
"Am I to assume that you would hide something as colossal as this from the Inspector?"
The Supervisor turned to look at the face of Howard Link. Shit... Straightening his shoulders, he looked the man in the eye.
"Yes. I would."
A stony silence passed from Komui to Link, bullets flying and the sound of metal upon metal in the background, punctuated by the occasional explosion. Finally, Link broke the silence with a smooth smirk as he adjusted his spectacles on his nose.
"Good...I'm glad to see we're on the same page."
::
"Ĺzuchi Kozuchi! Grow! Grow! Grow!"
The huge hammer slammed down, hitting five akuma at once and causing them to explode on impact. Lavi gripped the handle and pole-vaulted himself into the air, swinging his anti-akuma weapon and hitting a gigantic level three right in the face. A solemn smirk flickered across his face and he landed solidly on the ground as the monster burst into pieces. The smile instantly left when he caught a breath and paused to look up at the Noah suspended in mid-air by the extended bottom of his white cape.
"C'mon, Allen-kun...snap out of it!"
The redhead gritted his teeth and clenched the handle of his hammer tightly. Air rushed by his face as the handle extended, shooting him up higher and higher towards the white light where Allen floated. Seeing his approach, Allen turned cold golden eyes upon his friend and the Clown Belt unwound from his waist, whipping out to wrap around Lavi's throat.
Lavi's green eye widened and he let go of his anti-akuma weapon, clutching at his throat as his breath was sharply cut off. Staring into the lifeless eyes of Allen Walker, he wanted to scream at him to stop, but nothing came out.
"Stupid exorcist..."
The voice of the Fourteenth came out of Allen's mouth as a cruel smirk curved across his face and the Clown Belt held the young Bookman in the air. He extended his claw to scrape a long gash along Lavi's arm from shoulder to wrist in one smooth motion. The sharp claw cut through flesh and muscle all the way down to bone. Lavi's head snapped back and he cried out in pain despite the tension at his throat.
::
"Aaahh!!"
A scream penetrated into Allen's mind, cutting through the darkness and a picture of Lavi's pain-stricken face assaulted him like a blow to the chest.
"L..Lavi?!"
::
"Aaahh!!"
Another cry of pain echoed from inside the Order building.
"We're losing him!"
"We can't! We won't! I will not lose my new general!"
"Sir! He's slipping!"
"Well, fix it then!"
"But, sir!"
"Just do it!!"
A mass of Central nurses and doctors swarmed Kanda's private recovery room in the clinic, all working with incredible speed as the unconscious exorcist thrashed in the bed. Looming over him stood the angry figure of Malcolm Leverrier, shouting orders to the doctors and occasionally turning to yell at Mono Fei, who stood off to the side, recording everything in a black notebook. Fei's mismatched eyes watched the scene emotionlessly and his pencil scritch-scratched across the page.
Suddenly, Kanda's body spasmed violently and the doctors were forced to step back, lest they get hit. His eyes flew open in shock, then immediately closed again tightly as he was jolted back into consciousness by an unknown source. Something was gripping his heart, twisting it, tightening around it. He could barely breathe and seemed not to notice a single soul in the room. He was being suffocated by an invisible force.
The dark twisted face of a familiar person flitted across his mental field of vision without warning. Kanda's eyelids clenched together tighter and his fingernails pierced through the bed sheets that were crumpled up in his fists, digging into his bare palms. The red liquid slowly trickled out of the small wounds as the samurai threw back his head.
"No, Moyashi!!"
::
As Lavi's scream began to clear his head, another voice cut into Allen's brain as his eyesight came into focus.
"No, Moyashi!!"
Allen's golden eyes widened in surprise and changed back into the usual bright blue. His skin tone began to lighten up and the marks across his forehead started to fade.
"K-Kanda!!?!"
The samurai's face found its way into his mind, wrenched in pain and agony. Allen blinked in horror and lost the picture. He began descending from the sky as the Clown Belt released Lavi, coughing and holding his injured arm, back onto the ground. It retracted back around his waist and suddenly, he saw the scene around him.
Exorcists were scattered right and left, battling akuma. There were scores of finders and scientists stretched out on the ground in mangled heaps and several black and red coats punctuated the bloody mess. Allen's breath caught in his throat as he looked over the field, and the door of light behind him shut with a snap. Once on the ground, his innocence deactivated and he fell to his knees.
Wh...what did I do?! Was this all...me?!
Tears rose into his eyes and he felt his throat twist into a lump. Scanning the mass of bloody people, he noticed that most were injured and not dead, though there was a fair amount of corpses that were now being stacked to the side. The akuma had stopped their attack as Allen's innocence deactivated and stared at him for a moment before the horde began to leave the area.
"Ahh~! Noah-sama is asleep now! Let's go!"
One level two akuma who took on the form of a woman riding a horse called out to the others and they followed it, dispersing into the woods and disappearing from sight.
Allen's eyes desperately began searching the scores of wounded, looking for one face in particular. He began to feel faint and was suddenly lifted to his feet by an arm, scooping him up by his underarm.
"Oi, Allen-kun. You're back!"
Lavi's voice barely registered in Allen's mind as he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, still trying to find the face. His voice croaked, sounding weak even to himself.
"Where's...Kanda...?"
The redhead's eyes widened and he looked grim.
"I...don't know."
Allen's body fell limp in Lavi's good arm as he passed out.
::
"Where's the beansprout?! I demand to know!"
Kanda glared furiously at the bewildered doctors and nurses around him. His pain had stopped just as suddenly as it had started, and he was now sitting upright with no signs of anything wrong, save for the scar across his chest that refused to heal. Cold sapphire eyes surveyed the room and finally found the stern grin of Leverrier.
"Welcome back to the world of the living, Number Eight."
Fists clenched at his sides and he narrowed his eyes at the older man.
"Welcome back, my f*cking eye. Answer my damn question! Where in the hell is that beansprout?!"
The doctors and nurses caught a look from Fei and quickly began filing out of the room. Leverrier laughed; the sound of his voice scraping against the air made Kanda's eye twitch.
"That's none of your concern. Glad to see you finally woke up. Wouldn't want the first artificial general in history dying right away."
He smirked at the look of shock on Kanda's face and turned to leave, waving.
"You'll continue your schedule right away of course. Congratulations, General Kanda."
As the man left, Kanda blinked. General? He glanced over to the only person left in the room. Fei closed his notebook and stuck the pencil behind his ear, casually standing near his bedside.
"You reached one hundred percent synchronization. You're officially a general, if the Supervisor can fix your sword that is."
Mugen...oh yea, where is it? He looked around the small room but couldn't find the slender anti-akuma weapon. Che...Komui's probably working on it now. Kanda sighed and swung his legs around to stand up from the bed. His first question was suddenly remembered and he glared at Fei as he pulled on a white shirt over his bare chest.
"You aren't going to tell me where Moyashi is either, are you?"
Fei said nothing. Kanda gritted his teeth when a noise broke the silence. Without bothering to button his shirt, the samurai walked to the door and poked his head out. The hallway was filling with people shouting back and forth and a group of finders carrying a stretcher came into view. Eyes widening, Kanda stepped out of the room. Fei followed him silently.
Stretchers were passing by him with countless bleeding and torn people. Some were finders. Some were scientists. He recognized a kitchen aide.
What the hell happened...?!
The raven-haired exorcist caught his breath when, along with the stretchers, body bags were carried in. The men who bore the grim burdens held faces of painful sorrow and were holding straight faces as best they could while they worked. Stretcher after stretcher made its way into the clinic. Corpse after corpse followed a different path down the hall towards the one of the main rooms.
What...the hell happened?!?!
Kanda's blood froze as he recognized the boy on the next stretcher. White hair fell in a dirty mess around the boy's head. A distinctive red scar ran down one eye. On his forehead, strange marks were faintly evident, but quickly fading from sight. A redhead followed the stretcher, his bloody right arm held in his left. He noticed Kanda and managed a small painful smile.
"Hey, Yuu. Missed a...rather interesting fight...heh..."
The taller exorcist's heart tightened and he clenched his hands at his sides once more, ignoring Lavi as the Bookman-in-training followed the stretcher into the clinic. Once Allen's unconscious body had disappeared from view, Kanda turned on his heel and took off at a rapid pace for his room. Anger, resentment, shock, and finally guilt were welling up inside him and he needed to get away from everyone. Far away. Isolate himself. He was faintly aware of Fei following him.
As he reached the room, Kanda threw open the door, stepped inside, and shut it in Fei's face, leaving the inspector to stand awkwardly outside. He pressed his back to the door and slid down it to the floor, staring straight ahead of him in the room that was dimly lit by the light of his glowing lotus flower. One hand clutched at his chest as he again felt the tightening around his heart. Thoughts instantly poured through his head; questions without answers.
Why did this have to happen? Why did it have to be at such a wrong time? And why do I even care what happens to the idiot at all?
He cast a glance over at the eerie lotus in its hourglass cage. Eyes widening, he noticed one more petal had joined the small pile on the bottom of the glass, leaving only seven left on the flower. A face from Kanda's memories hit him, mocking him as he realized it had happened yet again. He shut his eyes, lowering his head.
Moyashi...I...wasn't there to keep my promise...
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And there you have it. Surprise, surprise! Link's on Komui's side?! What next...Leverrier having a hissy fit over unicorns? Oh the possibilities... Next chapter...Blame.