R.I.P. Steve Jobs.

Well, here it is. The long awaited Kanda chapter. *sigh* I hope it goes okay. *crosses fingers* You guys are such good readers, and you seem to review more than my FMA crowd, so thanks once again for that.

Kanda is a tough one to write for...it's easy to observe him from the outside, but getting into his head and being able to write things from his perspective is a totally different deal. He can be very deep sometimes...also, angry. He's good at being angry. But people in their fanfics so often tend to make him an all knowing, untouchable enigma that some other character is pining over while forgetting that he is fundamentally a haughty idiot. For real. Even Hoshino admits it. So, I don't want to make him this Edward Cullen-ish god, I just want him to be a guy with maybe not the best past who is in severe need of anger management classes. I try pretty hard to make my writing distinct for each character...I want Lavi to sound like Lavi, Allen to sound like Allen, Kanda to sound like Kanda, and the snozberries to taste like snozberries.

Also, timeline. I don't freaking feel like describing the entirety of the world and the time period, so I did a little bit of searching. Since the Black Order is run by a religious entity and more concerned with private matters, I don't have to get real specific with politics of the day, therefore I am not going to bother. I think I said before that this story will take place around the time that Pirates Of The Caribbean does, so let me narrow that down to the turn of the 19th century, or very late 1700s to very early 1800s. That should help you imagine the things that people wear, since I am extraordinarily bad at describing that kind of thing...I normally don't bother with a description of clothes unless it is some sort of formal event where the form of dress is important. It just seems pointless to do so. So, you can look up the period styles and imagine on your own what they are wearing. Hope that helps you envision the characters a bit better. Also, I don't want to make them speak the way people would've at that time. It isn't like you guys are reading this for the historical accuracy.

~0x0~

Yuu Kanda was not pleased.

Then again, he never really was, but the past month had been particularly bad and he was just fucking sick of it.

First, he'd been forced to go on an extended stay mission with that annoying idiot Lavi and the stupid science squad. Then, he'd been stranded on the damn boat surrounded by nothing but water, water everywhere, and not a serving of soba to eat. Then that...that thing had showed up, tried to kill him, and the crew hadn't even let him kill it! For two weeks he'd been forced to deal with the knowledge that an unnatural freak was on board. Lavi had tried to convince him that the mermaid was essentially harmless, but he had known better.

Lo and behold, Kanda had been exactly right. That sea wretch had ensnared several of the regular crew and then made them set him free. The men had claimed they remembered nothing out of the ordinary, but the evidence was there. The tank, unlocked in a room it shouldn't have been in, the window wide open, a bunch of passed out morons on the floor, and most importantly, no mermaid.

Lavi had been the one to find that the sea devil was missing, since the poor bastard had been assigned to check in on it from time to time. After a bit of searching, the men who had helped it escape was been discovered, woken up and interrogated, but their recollections of that night had been very fuzzy. The clearest account had come from a man referred to as Ollie, and all he could tell them was that he'd had a dream about a dancing barmaid with flippers for arms.

They'd searched the nearby ocean of course, but it had been far too late to have any real hope of recapturing it. After a long, stressful week, they'd finally made it to port with nothing to show for all their efforts.

And now Lavi was bitching at him about 'being more gentle'. Stress relief shouldn't require that much restraint, dammit.

The long haired man huffed in annoyance and crossed his legs, cursing this small coastal Black Order outpost for not having more comfortable chairs.

For the most part, he'd been able to tune out the hushed words of the red head sitting next to him, but while the words themselves slipped by him, their intended meaning and the annoying droning sound that went along with them did not.

"Lavi, stop acting like a woman." Kanda growled, quite fed up with everything. All he wanted was a bowl of soba and room to work out, since he really hadn't been able to on the ship. But this place was a small building in a small town in fricking Spain. Most people around here had never even heard of Japan, they sure as hell couldn't understand the cuisine.

This sucked. He wanted to go back to the European Branch, where the cook could make real food and everyone knew to leave him the hell alone. But no. Life couldn't just cooperate with a man in need of a break. He was stranded here for three days before the next ship left for England.

"But Yuu..."he whined, unaware of the Japanese man's internal bitching.

"Stop calling me by my first name, retard. And if your back really hurts that much in the morning, then it is due to your lack of toning and muscle mass, rather than my lack of restraint. Perhaps if you took the time to actually train once and a while, you wouldn't have these problems."

"I do train." Lavi huffed, putting a very unconvincing pout on his face.

Kanda just raised an eyebrow at his bad acting and rolled his eyes.

After a couple seconds of still pretending to be mad, Lavi dropped the act and grinned.

"It's too bad that we won't have private cabins here or on the next ship," The idiot said, waggling his eyebrows, "But I guess we will just have to deal with it, since there isn't much room to spare. Speaking of which, where did Bak drag Old Man Panda off to?"

"They said something about setting up a further investigation into the mermaid-"

"Merman." Lavi corrected.

"Whatever. They are taking the crew members that were involved into custody for more questioning."

"Huh." The red head stretched in his seat. "Waiting around for them is boring..."

Kanda nodded in agreement. After about 15 minutes of more waiting around, he got truly tired of it and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"Hey, I'll go with you. I could stand to stretch my legs." Lavi started to get up until Kanda pushed him back down.

"Idiot. Somebody has to be here for when they return."

"But being here by myself will be even more boring!" Lavi whined.

"Just deal with it. I won't be long." Without another word, Kanda left, stepping in time with the unhappy grumbles coming from the other man as he marched out the door and closed it behind him.

The man closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. He opened his eyes once again and took a look around. The small building owned by the Order was situated on the outskirts of this port town. While it was a bit small, it seemed prosperous enough. To his left the streets stretched out and bustled happily with noontime activity. Kanda briefly considered going to the town square to see with there was anything that might be passable for his food tastes, but quickly discarded the idea. He didn't want to have to deal with trying to get food from locals that wouldn't understand his language.

Instead, he turned to the right and began to slowly meander. He walked out of the town completely and down to the shore, savoring the quiet that he so rarely experienced. HQ was normally busy and loud and he didn't really get a moment's peace on missions, so he took his time and walked a bit farther than he probably should have. By the time Kanda realized that he'd been away for quite a while, the town was a about a half a mile away, still close enough to be very much within sight, but far enough that all the buildings seemed to blur together to make one big shape on the horizon. He sighed, and hesitated along the shoreline, not really wanting to go back just yet.

He looked out at the ocean. From this angle it was pretty, he supposed. It was blue and vast, with a brisk sea wind coming from off the water. The beach that he was currently on did not have golden sands, but sort of a brownish grey silt with bigger rocks grouped together in several places. Not the idealized vision of a beach, but it was still sort of nice, in its own way. People often said that the Pacific and the Atlantic had a different feel to them, but he'd seen both and couldn't tell the difference. Water was water. He narrowed his eyes at the thought.

'Water is water, but the things in it aren't so harmless.'

Thinking about the merman made him grimace, and he had the sudden urge to not be near the ocean anymore.

As he turned to go back to town (and once again face Lavi's whining), something peeking out from behind one of the larger groupings of rocks caught his eye.

From here, it looked white and sort of shiny, so he initially thought that it was a seashell of some sort, but it looked sort of off.

Kanda took a step closer without thinking about it, then stopped, telling himself that it really didn't matter and he really should be getting back. But something on an instinctual level told him to go investigate, and over the years he'd learned to trust his instincts.

He shifted a bit, trying to discern what was compelling him to go over there and whether or not there was something dangerous on the other side of those rocks. After thirty seconds of not being able to figure it out, the long haired man shrugged and walked over to get a closer look. About three paces away from the rocks, he finally figured out what it was that he was seeing.

Hair. Snow white hair. And when there was hair, there was a body.

The first thought he had was that someone had killed an old woman and dragged her out here for the ocean to wash away. But he knew what an old person's hair looked like. Thin, brittle, worn from all the years of being on one's head. But the little lock of hair the was showing from the other side of the stones looked full and lush, though it didn't look like it would be particularly soft.

The swordsman had only seen hair like that once before.

Slowly, he drew Mugen, the sword that was always at his hip. He was on full alert now, as he walked around to the other side of the rock formation.

It was a body all right. He was completely naked, giving no doubt as to gender. He had long white hair that obscured the majority of his face. He was sopping wet, and there was a lot of blood on the sand and in his hair that was still red, which told Kanda that he had a fresh head injury. But the man was confused. He was positive he'd seen that hair on the merman, but this guy was obviously human, only a couple years younger than himself.

Kanda wondered if he'd been the victim of some sort of hate crime, which would help explain the nudity, blood, and odd placement of his body. The dark haired man leaned toward him a bit, trying to figure out whether or not he was alive. He thought he saw some movement, a slight flutter of his eyelids, but the rise and fall of his chest was very shallow, almost imperceptible.

He knelt down, sheathing Mugen and turning the boy over so he could see him a bit better. Blood completely covered his face, making most of his features indistinguishable. The red liquid seemed to be coming from a huge, strangely shaped gash running from his forehead to nearly his jaw. It poured from the wound, seeping into his hair, streaming over his neck, and dripping off his shoulder in big fat droplets onto the ground. The blood spilled down his left arm, which was covered in tattoos.

The sight of all that blood put Kanda into the automatic state that he experienced during all emergencies. He no longer really thought about his actions, just did what he had to do in the most efficient way he could. He took off his overcoat, covering the boy with it. He then pressed his ear to a cold, pale chest and listened for a heartbeat, paying close attention to his breathing to see if there was any water in his lungs. There didn't seem to be anything obscuring his breath, but for some reason he breathing was really shallow. Kanda didn't have much medical knowledge, but he knew that going into shock could cause all sorts of strange, dangerous effects. He ripped off a strip of fabric from the bottom of his shirt pressed it against the boy's head, wrapping and tying it as best as he could. He knew that the kid needed to be moved to a place with better medical equipment, now.

He then picked the boy up bridal style, noting distantly that he was pretty light. Kanda ran back to the town, doing his best to not jostle the passed out form in his arms. It had taken him a while to get down here, but the Japanese man was quite swift when he wanted to be, so it was only a few minutes before he was on the doorstep of the Order outpost, yelling at them to open the damn door, and startling the few people that were walking around.

Bak opened the door, and Kanda shoved his way past them, setting the still bleeding kid on the floor.

"Treat him." Kanda commanded.

"Uh, I...w-what?" Bak stuttered, obviously taken by surprise.

The door leading to the back room open, and Lavi emerged.

"Hey, what's all the ruckus?"

"I found a boy injured on the beach," Kanda motioned toward the body on the floor, absently taking note of the wide eyed look Lavi got once he'd seen what the long haired man was talking about. "I think he's in shock. He needs medical treatment, or he'll die."

For a moment, all was still, then both the blonde and the red head burst into motion, Lavi kneeling beside the kid, shooing his friend away with strangely shaky hands and Bak calling for the Bookman and a medic. Kanda stood and backed up, knowing that he'd just get in the way at this point. He walked backward, going to lean against the wall and observe. Now that the kid was in better hands, he could think with some semblance of normalcy again.

The Japanese man was a bit surprised at his actions. He didn't think that it was out of the ordinary for him to help a random injured person; he'd done that after battles plenty of times. But he was surprised that he'd actually moved to help a person that reminded him so much of that horrid sea wretch. He'd heard that severe trauma could cause one's hair to go white at an early age, but he'd never imagined that he'd see that kind of mane again.

They finished up the treatment of the head wound after a few minutes, with Bookman declaring that it wasn't all that serious, though he'd definitely have a scar. Lavi got up and walked over to Kanda's position on the wall without even putting hands on the boy to check his vitals. The red head was very pale, and his dark haired counterpart guessed that he'd also noticed the one striking similarity between this kid and the merman. If fact, judging by the looks on everyone's faces, he would have to guess that they'd all noticed. It wasn't as if they would forget something so recognizable so soon.

The mysterious boy was cleaned up, fully revealing a face that they all recognized, then proper bandages were put over the cut. Bak wrapped him in a blanket, telling Kanda that he would make sure his coat got cleaned.

"What should we do?" Lavi asked. Kanda chose to ignore the fact that his voice had cracked at the end of his question.

"We should take him into custody, of course!" Bak said.

"They may look similar, but this obviously isn't the merman. He has legs." Bookman said, though he sounded a bit uncertain.

Everyone just stood around for a while, trying to work out this puzzle. Eventually, Kanda got bored and pushed off the wall. He picked up the still unconscious boy, nodding when he saw that his breathing was much more normal now.

"Let's take him to one of the rooms we have at the inn. We can figure out what to do with him when he wakes up."

Once again, he just turned and walked out of the little Order outpost without waiting for a response.

He snuck a quick glance at the boy as he walked through the streets, studiously ignoring the odd glances that passerby gave him.

Now that he could actually see the half of his face that wasn't covered by bandages, Kanda thought that he had very pretty features. There was something almost unnatural about his looks, but that was the only thing setting him apart from anyone else. Now that he thought about it, the dark haired man knew why he wasn't reacting more violently toward this stranger.

He might have the same face, but this kid didn't have the same aura as the merman had. The ocean scum had been surrounded by loads of mysterious swirling energies, giving him a distinct and powerful chi. He could feel nothing out of the ordinary coming from the body huddled warmly in his arms. It wasn't as if this child could hide his aura when he was traumatized and passed out, so Kanda was positive that this boy had no relation to the merman that had attacked him.

Kanda shrugged. He was certain now that he'd never met this kid, and that his face was some sort of strange coincidence. Chi didn't lie, after all. But still, he couldn't help but feel as though this chance meeting was really an act of fate in disguise.

~0x0~

VineCaper- I am happy that you like it. ^_^

Ichigo1010- I said that Kanda would appear in this chapter. *points to AN in ch. 9* See? And no, Allen didn't loose his voice. That is a stupidly low price to pay for a year long transformation. Ariel got off easy. Allen wont, because Allen is fate's bitch. And there may be a little AxL, but not too much.

XxGothivXxXLolitaxX- I like to put surprising kisses in every now and then.

LizluvsSpongebob- They are a cute couple. I want to get to some lemony action soon too. ^_^

scrletfyre- Poor Kanda can't keep up. XD Lol

ivory-fanged-goddess- Merfolk are actually taller than people, because their tails and fins are a bit longer than legs. Cross was 6'4 in the anime, so I'd say that he'd be about 6'10 as a merman. And yeah, it just wouldn't be him if he wasn't a perv. ^_^

Miso Ramen-sama- Did you like how I portrayed Kanda? ^_^ I luffs him just as much as the next person.

Tintaglia In Flight- 'Man Hunt'...*thinks perverted thoughts* Lol. Yulaven is my new favorite word.

sweetkakes35- Did you like the way he reacted to Allen?

Conrii- You are the only person to actually guess one of the side effects correctly! Good job!

Anonymous- I wouldn't end it there! Gotta get to the smut! LOL.

KingRabbit- Meh, there will be some hard times in store for the boys, but it will turn out okay...I hope.

Starisia the Shadow Demon- I feel a little sorry for him too. He's not gonna be happy when he wakes up.

JayPay- BECAUSE BITTERSWEET IS THE FUEL FOR ALL FANFICTION! (Also, the humans can't get jiggy with the mermen. So, in the interest of smut, I must move Allen.)

Jasper-Jazz- Kanda and Lavi found him, that's how. *giggle*

kyone- Hmm...could be *waggles eyebrows*