A/N: Aaand chapter/death number three. Kanda, obviously. You knew that. *wry smile*
Thank you to karina001 for reviewing!
Title: Loose Ends
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: Miranda/Marie
Genre: Tragedy
Warnings: Character death
Summary: After the end of the Holy War, CROW decides it no longer needs the exorcists. And CROW is nothing if not efficient. When a weapon is no longer needed - it gets put away.
Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.
April 26, 1875 - Banbury, England
Kanda lived in a small town in England. He lived alone, but the annoying beansprout called every week to pester him, and the stupid old man called every day. Lavi called in erratically, whenever he got a chance, apparently.
Lenalee used to call, too, but for some reason, she'd stopped. It wasn't like her - she held her friends so close you'd think she'd die without them, and Kanda thought she might. But she still stopped calling.
That had been three months ago.
Kanda hated to admit it to anyone, but he was worried. Restlessness, bad memories, conflicting views – all of these things had driven them to live apart, but there was still no letting go. There was no leaving behind the promises that tied them together, and there was no forgetting the years of tears (why did Lenalee insist on crying on him and why did she have to pass this habit on to Allen) and laughter (in the middle of the goddamn night) and fighting side by side (like they were born to it).
It had been his friends (and it had been the stupid beansprout, of course, who first got him to use the word) who had, in the month following the end of what had, at the time, felt like everything- his friends who had dragged him out of his funk after the Holy War, and who had forced him to find something to occupy himself, something besides training (for what?) and meditation.
So it was their fault he had found out that he liked to grow plants. That was his story, and he was sticking to it.
It was, he would reluctantly admit, surprisingly relaxing, and it carried little risk of injury as long as he was careful. And lately, that had been a pretty big concern.
He offered the owner of the garden shop, Mr. Titus, a curt nod and left with his bag of new supplies - a small bag of cactus seeds and some bags of soil. His house was far from the garden shop - stupidly far. But hell, he didn't mind the walk. It let him stretch his legs and have a look around and scowl at people.
As long as no one tried to talk to him, he was fine.
He nodded back grudgingly when the jeweler waved at him, and ignored the clear invitation to come and talk.
Less easy to ignore was…
"Kanda!"
Downside of staying in one place was that people started trying to make friends, like weirdos.
He sighed in irritation and glanced over at the potter, who had apparently deemed his passing-by to be an important enough occasion to come out from the shop. "Archie," he returned resignedly, absently noting the etched vase the man held under one arm.
"Good to see you!" he grinned, but didn't make the mistake of swinging his arm around Kanda's shoulders like he did with most people, which was good, because Kanda didn't feel like taking it off today. "How goes the garden?"
"I'm adding cacti," Kanda explained shortly, gesturing to his new supplies. "I'll probably need something to keep the bugs away soon, too, they're becoming a pain in the ass." He scowled.
Archie laughed, and Kanda rolled his eyes. "They're thorny, like your personality," he teased. "Hey, can you pay old Margaret a visit for me? I wanted to deliver her vase today, but I got a new order in and I want to start on it as soon as possible."
Kanda grunted and nodded; it wasn't uncommon for him to run errands for the old lady who lived between the grocer's and the bookstore, and it wasn't far out of his way. And the beansprout and the rabbit could shut up about his being 'soft'. He wasn't fucking soft.
"Thanks, I owe you one," Archie smiled, and Kanda rolled his eyes and took the vase, holding it gingerly.
"Shut up," he muttered, cradling the vase in one arm and holding the bag of garden stuff with the other.
He never would have dreamed of a life like this, back at the Order. It was… strange.
But not bad.
Margaret was very happy with her vase, and with her shaky legs, she got up and hugged him, which made him stiffen and hold very still until she drew away.
"Thank you, dear," she told him, smiling. He shuffled a little and nodded curtly, looking away, and she laughed at him and gave him a small jar of cookies, even when he tried to reject them because he wasn't a fucking kid, and he told her so.
He ended up taking the cookies home anyway. Margaret was pushy.
A one-bed one-bath house served as his home for the foreseeable future, and he set his new finds inside the area he'd set aside for that purpose, then checked on his Venus Flytraps. He fed them (a secret source of amusement for the twenty-one year old) and then turned away to start meticulously filling some new pots (which he'd gotten from Archie a few days before) with the new soil, mixing it carefully according to the garden shop owner's advice.
Plants were a damn pain in the ass sometimes. It gave him something to focus on, when it was late at night and he couldn't sleep, or when he thought too long about Lenalee's silence, or the fact that Marie hadn't called to announce the wedding yet despite swearing to propose by the end of March-
Anyway, it was nice to grow things instead of kill them, for once.
As he went through the rhythmic work, his thoughts drifted.
Five months since the end of the Holy War. In the beginning, Kanda had felt lost and confused - his sense of purpose had been ripped away from him, without akuma to kill. (He'd always thought he'd die that way, and he almost had.) He, like Lenalee, like Allen, had been raised in this and knew little else, and for a while he hadn't thought he'd be able to move past that.
But he'd adapted. He'd made a life for himself, and so had everyone else, and now there was this weird peaceful feeling. Like everything would be alright.
Which was stupid, because he would probably die sooner rather than later.
He looked down and paused to push his sleeve up, frowning at a bandage wrapped around his arm. It marked the spot where he'd scraped his elbow on a nail, stupidly sticking out of the wall. That had been three months ago, and it was still bleeding.
So much for healing.
He shook his head, shrugged, and went back to filling the pots.
Whatever, he'd keep that to himself. He almost wanted to say he was satisfied - he'd done everything he'd ever thought he would, when he'd first been apprenticed to General Tiedoll.
He'd been useful. He'd helped them win. He'd even found Alma, for fuck's sake, whether in the way he'd meant or not.
The problem was, he'd also made friends. Friends he'd miss. Worse, friends who would miss him.
Kanda couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
He checked the instructions on the packet and started poking holes roughly in the soil. And then he paused, glanced up- and threw himself back.
A pile of spell strips, CROW spell strips, landed where he'd been moments before, and he heard a soft curse. His eyes widened, and then a snarl ripped across his face as his mind processed what lay before him.
The window smashed in. Kanda's navy eyes flashed, and with a thought, he summoned Mugen, scarcely more than a katana now he couldn't power it up with his life force.
"Bastards, what do you want from me this time?" he demanded, though he had his suspicions.
Kanda counted five CROW now breaking into his house, the assholes. Two with black hair, two with blond, one with brown. Most of them with that stupid self-righteous expression.
One of the blondies looked uncomfortable, though.
The CROW with brown hair and eyes stepped forward, gaze determined. Yep, there was that righteous look Kanda hated. He bared his teeth.
"Kanda Yuu," he began, tone neutral, giving nothing away. "Second exorcist, general, eleven years of experience, 146% synchro. High risk."
Yeah, that just about did it for Kanda. He snarled and cursed his own stupidity. "You're here to kill me. You're done using me up, so you're going to kill me - kill all of us, I'd bet." The exorcists had never been human to Central. They'd never been anything but weapons.
Blondie looked more uncomfortable.
One of the guys, with black hair and green eyes, sneered. "You're an exorcist," he said scornfully. "You didn't deserve to live in the first place. You were just a desperate measure."
Typical. Well, Kanda had always known that. All the way from the very beginning.
Kanda offered a feral grin. "Desperate measure, huh?" He lunged, katana swinging, and the CROW ducked, and the fight started.
Spell strips and needles went flying; Kanda avoided them all, because as soon as he was hit, that was probably the fight over. Switchblades flashed and whipped through the air, and he avoided those, too, eyes narrowed and intent, blood running hot through his veins.
He was already losing too much blood just from the cut on his elbow - a knife wound would probably finish him off in days, even if it were minor. Owing to how 'not healing' included 'not producing any new blood'.
His katana bit into the shoulder of the green-eyed man, who cursed, and the uncomfortable blondie had apparently gotten over his problem, because he slammed into Kanda, who let out a grunt and crashed into a table. It shook hard enough for the pots to fall to the ground, smashing, and shards of clay were scattered across the floor along with heaps of soil and growing plant matter. The jar of cookies fell as well, and they rolled across the ground and were crushed underfoot.
Kanda wondered how many of his friends were dead already.
He supposed he knew, now, why Lenalee had stopped calling. Why Marie hadn't fucking gone through with the damn proposal.
The thought filled him with rage, and suddenly, he no longer cared if he died, or how much it hurt. His eyes burned, a snarl overtook his mouth, and he lunged with renewed energy.
Tiedoll had just found his family again. Lenalee had started learning from her brother. Marie and Miranda were sick in love, Lavi was doing his fucking Bookman thing again, Allen was the happiest he'd fucking been since Kanda had goddamn met him-
And the Order- the Order was going to take that away.
He heard nothing but the roar in his ears. He felt nothing but the burn of his rage. Images flashed before his eyes, switchblade clashing with katana, flying splashes of red, smashing furniture, startled and disappointed and self-satisfied looks.
He screamed in more anger than pain, the slash of a knife only just missing his eyes but blinding him with blood. It distracted him enough to stumble into a table, and he snarled out a curse and turned, but it was too late. Too fucking late.
A spell strip hit his left leg, and quickly its fellows joined it, making it heavy and hard to move. Kanda did anyway, wiping the blood roughly from his eyes; his anger gave him energy, and he channeled it, as he always did.
He knew how to handle anger.
He knew how to handle vengeance.
But the fight was lost, and another set wrapped around his other leg, and then one of his arms, and the other, and he bared his teeth, growling at the CROWs, even as Mugen was ripped from his grip and he fell to his knees, and his hands were bound behind his back.
He ached all over. He knew he'd been cut in several places, probably while he was raging and not paying general attention. He was going to die.
He didn't care. If everyone else was, too, then he had nothing more to live for.
"Bastards," he hissed. "We weren't ever really people to you, were we?"
Blondie looked guilty. Brunnet looked startled. Fuck them both, they were obviously stupid.
"No," Green-eyes replied, and his switchblade sank into Kanda's stomach and ripped up.
Pain followed in the blade's wake and he let out a yell, arching back. It had sunk halfway through his flesh and slashed all the way out his shoulder, and it grated, horrible and rattling, against his ribs, and-
He was dying. He was dying on the ground, and he panted harshly, and he glared.
"Bastards," he repeated, a breathy word even he could barely hear. It was cold. It hurt. He was dying. After a long time coming, it was here. "I'll... see you... in Hell."
Kanda's eyes shut, and he hit the ground with a thud he never heard.
He would see his friends soon, he was sure.
And that's Kanda for you - fighting 'til the end. I'm actually not sure how that would've worked out if he'd had bystanders to worry about... he would've shooed them off, I guess? Well, whatever. Thanks for reading, and please review!
Edited 12/7/15 because I freaking forgot that the ribcage existed.
Edited again 9/26/16 for detail and mood.