Thanks so much for the comments, guys */* (though sadly this arc is short and filler so it will probably be a disappointment). Much appreciated! Actually, the feedback here is waaaaayyy better than ao3, which may explain why I keep forgetting to post there. Oh, well, I like the formatting here better, anyway.
I've never been to Cornwall, and I actually didn't even have the good sense to go on google maps before I wrote this (oops). But, it looks like I've gotten the geography correct. I just based it off of some pictures I saw in a walking book a few years back, when I was in England, the geography of Newfoundland, and what I thought it should look like. Not the best way to go about things (^～^;)ゞ, but I did get lucky.
Anyhow, happy April Fools'! Now that I think about it, I really should have posted a nice My Immortal-style joke chapter.
They woke up early, hours before sunrise. They hadn't so much slept as napped, but getting to the inn early gave them a base for their equipment. They needed to travel quickly from here, and get to Tin Tangle or whatever. Hopefully before dawn. The finders weren't in dire straits just yet, but they didn't want to be.
Daisya tried to remember everything he'd heard about the place, as they walked the winding road. Some old King had been born here, they said, but it had been so long ago that no one quite remembered how much of him was real and how much of him was legend. He'd read a bit about him in the stories the old man told and the books he'd gobbled up.
Some French guy who sounded a bit like a duck had written this big, long, complicated book about him. Daisya hadn't read it, but the old man had. He told stories sometimes. This King, Arthur, had a sister and an old mentor and a nephew. Morgana, Merlin, Mordred. They sure liked those M's. Anyhow, the sister hated him and his nephew killed him. That was family for you. It sucked.
He tried to imagine who would have killed him, if he became famous. His brothers had more energy, but it would probably be his sister. She had more motive. With the amount of attention his brothers paid to everything, she'd probably drowned by now. Or maybe one of his brothers. Then, he'd have to go back and run the shop. Or mom and dad could just have another kid...
The thoughts drifted through Daisya's mind gently, but the afterthought hit him like a ton of bricks.
She — they — might be dead without him.
Not that he really cared. At most he'd see them twice a year, from now on. Probably only once a year, and only if Tiedoll or Marie dragged him there. Kanda wouldn't bother and Lenalee was still too small to lift him. What sort of a brother was he, wondering about that?
He'd thought it was the normal sort, but Lenalee and her brother made it seem like normal siblings liked each other. Truth be told, he did miss having someone to boss around.
Not that they ever listened to him.
Not that anyone did. The Order wasn't much better, but at least it was fun.
His left foot caught on a grass-covered stone, and his memory lurched off the train tracks of thought.
This was a land of story, after all. Not memory.
He remembered it pretty clearly, after gobbling the book in a few days. He'd asked if it was all real, if this rainy, cold land had people as interesting as the weather, and the old man said that only a tiny bit of it ever happened. That there was probably a king called Arthur, and he might have had a sister called Morgana, but all that bit about magic and destiny and Avalon was all fake.
Daisya had been disappointing. It was such a boring cop-out. Here he was, hoping that this boring old place could have something cool hidden on the clifftops of Cornwall, but no. It was just another story made up by people who wanted to have some fun.
He could understand, a bit. Sometimes he wondered about things. Like why the moon stayed in the sky during the day, but the sun was never up during the night.
And looking at the mist, thick as soup in the night air, and the heather-clad stones, he could imagine why you'd think there was some magic in this place. It seemed alive.
So what if there was a King Arthur? What if he had a sister? What if that sister had a son?
King Arthur was born here, in — in Tintagel, that's what this place was called. He grew up running all over the moors, diving off of clifftops, and the like, until his mom and dad said it was too dangerous, maybe.
The fog swirled, like hair or wine, and parted as it slid across a signpost. In the distance, an enormous shape was barely visible, outlined in the haze. They were less than a half-hour away. They'd get to the castle, get the Innocence, and be done by morning. Then, to bed and back home.
Was it just him, or was it getting darker up ahead? But that was impossible, because it was getting to be morning.
He brushed the thought off. There'd be another mission in a day or ten, after they got back.
On a whim, Daisya tried to count the number he'd been on already. The first one, with Marie and Kanda, another with Isaac — the drawing kid was was always damn well better than him — a few quick jaunts out with a pair of finders, and this. He had only been stationed at headquarters since the end of August, for hell's sake, and now it was already late in October.
He knew he shouldn't use those words, as a servant of God, but couldn't he give them a bit of leeway? The rules they already had were ridicu—
"Activate!"
A bullet thudded into the ground where Lenalee had been a moment ago, Daisya saw from behind a rocky outcropping.
He replayed the last few seconds over in his head. The darkness looming over them had coalesced out of the fog, but not before a spray of lead slugs had bitten into the ground in front of them. Lenalee was in the lead, and had seen it just in time to dodge. Kanda, for his part, had grabbed both him and Liba, and dragged them off the road instantaneously. Then, in a flare of light and sound, Lenalee had leapt — what was it, five, seven metres — straight up. For a moment, she froze, illuminated green by the glow of her Innocence.
The akuma had wasted no time in firing a new stream of bullets, aiming at the easy target, but Lenalee was quick. She dropped to the ground, darted forward, and jumped, swinging her legs in a kick that arced up and over her head.
Daisya barely had time to notice where he was, and she'd already taken out an akuma.
"Lenalee, stay activated, and keep a watch," Liba called, as Kanda pulled him to his feet. "More will come."
Ahead, Lenalee nodded, a silhouette against the falling ash.
She was nine years old. She was really nice, and sometimes shy.
She had destroyed a grotesquerie of metal and madness in a ball of flame.
She was not his little sister.
Arthur's parents made him study to be the next King, but not his sister. She was allowed to do what she wanted. And so she did.
They set off again, with a renewed vigilance. Kanda stayed in the rear, dragging Daisya forward when he started to dawdle, while Lenalee led the way.
Each of the new akuma that appeared fell the same way. They aimed, she dodged, and kicked off the ground beneath, catching them on the way up. One, two, three, four more vanished. They were only level 1, but for a nine-year-old…
If Lenalee was this good, then how powerful was Kanda?
For a brief moment, Daisya understood Kanda's anger at his defencelessness. His vulnerability. His twisted ankle and his scale-like burn scars.
He was a burden.
The moon was still high in the sky, lingering, as if waiting for the sun. Maybe it was nervous, Daisya wondered, looking at the faint blush of lilac on the horizon, maybe it hovered like a bird, or a boy, or a girl.
Back home, the girls always used to hover at festival time. The tradition was that the boys would ask the girls they liked to accompany them, but truth be told, the boys were even more nervous about it. Leading up to the festival, the girls sent messages — not actual paper ones, but things they did. Daisya didn't get it. The kids down the street said that everyone was terrified of getting turned down, but they hoped anyway.
Maybe the moon hung shyly in the sky, in its best suit, waiting for the sun to come. It knew it'd burn, and the sun would curse it out of the sky like the big, too-damn-hot bastard that it was, but it still waited. It hoped.
Maybe it came up early because of that, too. It knew it could only bother the sun when the sun was tired, just waking up or ready to sleep. It was an idiot, but one that thought it stood a chance.
Maybe.
That was a train of thought that had crossed Daisya's mind on occasion.
Why did it wait there, when it knew it couldn't last?
…
When they finally got to Tintagel, Lenalee was starting to show signs of wear. The finders had five akuma trapped in barriers outside, waiting for extermination in front of the ruined stone walls.
"Please," one said hesitantly, "Miss Exorcist, could you eliminate them before you go in?"
He gulped nervously when Kanda skewered him with a stare.
"Um, we only have a few barriers. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry."
Daisya could bet that he was. Kanda wasn't someone to mess with.
The castle itself wasn't too pretty, squatting like some ancient tree stump. It looked like it had been there a thousand years (it probably had been) and was pretty sure it was going to last a thousand more. It was long dead, but it wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Daisya envied the job security. Imagine, being a legend for two thousand years.
This was a nice place. He could smell the sea, and hear the waves on the cliffs.
Lenalee's face was like a doll's — set in stone — and for some reason Kanda was standing close to her, almost standing over her. He was still glaring daggers at the finder.
Daisya could hear Kanda say, "Lenalee…"
And hear Lenalee say, "I'll finish them."
No, stop, hold it! Could this be Kanda caring for someone? Could this be another curious case of Marie?
Seeing as Kanda stood by Lenalee, back when the first akuma attacked, as she floated down again, and how he stood now, it might be.
Seeing as she'd now just tried to trip him, it was probably a slightly different thing.
The akuma were the work of a few seconds, and a curtain of dust fell over the scene.
"Let's go," she said. "I'm getting a bit tired."
I just crammed a bunch of headcanons in here, but in this universe, Daisya genuinely hates hot, dry weather, because it reminds him of home, and loves stories, because they let him escape and give him somewhere to live for a little while.