Beloved
A -man story
ch3. First impressions

The first half of the day went by rather quickly. When morning came, Tiedoll was met by two finders, both of which saw the child near the temple ruins some weeks ago. One of them was a tall and well built man called Edgar Smith, whiles his noticeably younger companion, Alexander Ross, was rather skinny and a bit shy. They both, however, had similar short blond hair and dark green eyes.

After they introduced themselves to the general, they started heading to the ruins. An elder woman tried to stop them, reasoning with them about all the dangerous animals hidden in the woods, however they successfully calmed her down with the help of her son.

Tiedoll was quite surprised, actually, at how little creatures they met on their way. They bumped into a few snakes here and there, Alex swore he saw something the size of a boar run past them at some point, and they also found a rather big and angry-looking lizard. The general couldn't resist wanting to sit down and draw it, however both finders desperately pulled him along, throwing worried glances behind to make sure it wasn't following him. Of course Froi pouted at least half an hour after that, but became cheerful again when a road appeared.

"That is the way to the temple. It should take us only about twenty minutes to reach the ruins now." Alex said as he adjusted his backpack. Edgar looked around and whispered "You should keep your eyes open; when we saw him last time, we were on this road. If we're lucky, we'll see him around here again" "Yeah, and have more stones thrown at us…" the youngest mumbled while rubbing his head, no doubt where he was hit before.

The general chuckled and started on his way, glancing sideways every now and then, when he heard movement. At one point, maybe halfway up, he noticed small footprints running down the middle of the road. He then stopped and inspected them. "I think he heard us coming and ran back up…" The finders exchanged a look and then stared at the ruins that could be spotted a few feet away. Edgar gulped and whispered "Brace yourselves"

Ignoring his companions' worried looks, he resumed his walk, never taking his eyes off the footprints. It took them almost ten minutes to reach the destroyed temple. Looking around, Tiedoll felt his senses sharpen. "There's somebody here. I suggest you two try and lay low" The finders immediately moved closer to each other, frantically looking around, yet not moving from their spot near the entrance.

Tiedoll confidently stepped in, hand on his Innocence, and scanned the whole area. It looked almost like a church; one large room, big, long rows of seats and an altar in the front. Two of the walls were more or less intact, and the other two were busted down. There were large holes that seemed as if windows could have been there at some point. All around, there were numerous remains of statues, ceiling and just plain rocks decorating the snowy floor. Looking near the altar, Froi noticed the footprints leaving the white ground and vanishing on the stone.

A small noise instantly caught all their attention. The finders yelped, dodging a few rocks thrown at them, and jogged their way near the general. He, in turn told them to go and wait outside; an order they complied to rather quickly. Tiedoll sighted and turned towards where the stones seemed to have been thrown from. "Why don't you come out from there?"

After a few moments of silence, the general was surprised to see the boy actually come out of hiding. He was also shocked to see the state he was in. "Skinny" wasn't doing him justice. The poor child probably hadn't eaten in days; his hair was messy, dirty and all over the place, he had dark circles under his eyes and looked as if he had been buried in dirt. He was still half behind a column, so Tiedoll couldn't see his other hand, but he didn't miss the feather-like things flowing next to him. Innocence.

Froi then knew exactly what he should do. He never took his eyes of the child as he bent down on his knees to be at the same eye-level. He raised his left hand, noticing how the other tensed, but didn't budge. "Hi"

The kid looked either really annoyed, shocked or maybe both as his eyebrows shut up, before changing into a frown. Tiedoll sat down completely, throwing his bag to the side and sighted "Ah, what a tiresome trip" He ruffled his hair and yawned before resting his head in his palm and eying the boy. "Say, do you know English? I haven't considered this before, but I'm pretty sure they talk in English at the Asian Base right?" The child looked a bit taken aback, but still remained in position, not saying a word.

"Oh, right, by the way, I am Froi Tiedoll. And I heard your name was Yuu, right?" Another moment of silence followed. This time, however, it was the boy who broke it "What are you?" The general smiled, finally receiving something "I'm an exorcist. I'm actually a General Exorcist. That means I'm strong" The kid snorted but otherwise didn't say anything. "Say, you're quite skinny aren't you? When did you eat last time?" As he asked, Froi moved to search his bag for the food he knew he packed earlier that day.

The second he pulled out a few sandwiches, he heard the boy's stomach react. He looked up, a bit surprised, to see him covering his stomach while trying to hide his blush. The general giggled and held out the food. "Here, you can have it. I ate a lot this morning, so I don't mind" Yuu, instead, moved a bit more back. Tiedoll unwrapped one and took a bite "And it's poison-free!"

"General? Is everything ok…?" Before Froi even had time to react, the boy ran out and disappeared in the woods. The finders appeared behind the door, sweating in anticipation and looked around, spotting the general as he got up. "Are you ok sir? You were taking too long so we came to check…"

Tiedoll sighted and looked through the crack in the ceiling to see the sun was going down rapidly. "We should get going back" He pulled his bag up and walked towards his companions. "Sir? What are those…?" Looking back, the general saw the three sandwiches, still wrapped, laying on one of the benches. "Those are supplies. Which reminds me, tomorrow, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to come here alone."

"What!? But general! The-" "Bah, who cares what the higher ups say!" "Don't say that sir! And it's dangerous and what if-" "Dangerous? No it's not! Don't worry!" "General!"

A/N: Hi guys, sorry for the long wait D: But here's a new chapter for you! Yay! Kanda appears! :D and he looks like shit! : But thanks to the kind-hearted Tiedoll, at least he has some food now, right? Well, next chapter will come faster cuz Uni is over for this year! Yay! So, please review, if you have time J I'll see you next chapter~ Bye~