Not much to say about this at the beginning of the chapter, but I want to thank karina001 and waterlit again for reviewing. I fully intend to continue writing/posting this, probably regardless of responses, and your feedback both positive and negative allows me to look back on my work and attempt to change it for the better.

In other news, it's going to be an exciting next 13 weeks for DGM followers as we all get to watch the carnage of the Alma arc unfold in glorious technicolour. Poor, poor Kanda, frigid jerk that he sometimes is.

Daisya's steel-toed boots rang out against the stone floors and echoed off the walls as he dashed through the dining hall, skidding to a halt beside the lunch table. He was holding his old beat-up leather football, so he'd probably come straight from a game with someone. Or just from kicking it up against the wall by himself, though Kanda didn't really see the point in that. Daisya, for his part, said that it was the only way he could play with someone good. Kanda did see the point in that.

"Hey, Kanda, the old man's back! Wanna see him?"

Daisya's raucous voice cut through, and Kanda didn't bother looking up at him. At the moment, he was leaning on his shoulder and trying to snatch a bite of his lunch.

"You can bother him on your own. He'll be sticking around for a while."

"Don't want to get gushed over again, my son?" Daisya teased, "I can understand."

He finally managed to get a bread roll away from Kanda, and took a bite. At least he was leaving the noodles alone now, Kanda thought. Truth be told, over time Kanda had gotten used to sharing meals between the two of them. Trying to keep Daisya away from food was a losing battle.

"You owe me something at dinner," Kanda said evenly, "I'll take the

"You're so demanding," Daisya muttered, taking a chunk out of the roll. Kanda didn't bother arguing, so he continued.

"Well," he announced, "I'm tired of playing football with you bunch of incompetents, so I'm going to ask the old man for a game. He's actually pretty good, you know."

He picked up a spare fork, and made a final attempt at the rest of Kanda's lunch before getting rapped on the knuckles.

"See ya."

Daisya ran off, and Kanda rolled his eyes.

Somehow, he'd gotten used to Daisya.

…

"So where'd you go? How was it?"

Daisya dribbled the ball back and forth, waiting as the old man geared up; well, actually, geared down. It wasn't too easy to play in all the coats and stuff he wore.

"So many questions!"

"Well, y'ain't been here in a while."

The old man looked like he was going to correct him, but had decided against it. "I don't have time for all of it now, but I did go to Morocco."

"That's in North Africa, right?"

"Yes, well done. And it was colonized by whom?"

"France, I think."

"Indeed. It has some quite beautiful architecture. Very intricate. I would have liked to stay, but my finder did insist on limiting my sketching."

Daisya raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "Really? That's tragic."

"Yes, I do think so," the old man replied meekly, playing along.

"So what was the mission? I bet there were loads of akuma."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. There were a dozen or two, nothing too much."

Daisya pouted, and tried to look imploring. He hadn't raced up the stairs two at a time just to hear about some fancy building the General had visited. He wasn't about to admit it, but the old man was good company sometimes. They'd spent about a year travelling together before coming to headquarters, after all, so he was pretty used to the guy.

"But the Innocence was absolutely fascinating. It was embedded in the body of a dead professor did I mention we visited a university? Anyhow, the poor man kept trying to teach, even though what he was used to teaching was a century out of date."

Only Tiedoll would find that funny, Daisya thought. He rolled his eyes for effect, but it was the old man, so what else did he expect? The dude was so cool when he was fighting, but the rest of the time he was a pretty big nerd.

"Speaking of which, how are you doing with your schooling? I hope you're not disrupting class."

Parents. Old people. They were all the same.

"Nah, I'm fine. Get good marks and everything, and I know where Morocco is."

"Hmm. General Yeager was saying that you don't show up to class too often."

Daisya bounced his football on his knee, then caught it on the side of his foot. Parents always nagged.

"Hey, it gets boring. It's way more fun to study on your own. And I do better than half the kids."

"There aren't too many to begin with."

Most of the time he was a nerd, but the old man could pull out a few tricks once in a while.

"Come on."

"All right, all right."

The old man straightened up, shoes laced.

"I do hope you've been practicing while I was away," he said, swiping the ball out of the air.

"You bet," Daisya replied, jumping up to try and retrieve it, "But it's hard to find anyone to play against, so I keep having to drag Kanda and Lena out."

"Is that so? Well, show me what you can do, and if you wouldn't mind, try not to aim at my face."

Daisya managed to snatch the ball away, and grinned.

"Gotcha."

…

The game wore on for far longer than it should have with only two players. When they finally quit, the old man led the game 7-4.

"Very good," he said absently, adjusting his glasses, "I'm glad you've kept practicing."

Daisya smiled back, red-faced with exertion. "Hey, I promised I would."

…

Daisya punched out with his left arm, twisting his knuckles as he did and keeping his wrist aligned. That had been the hard part, after the throws and the stances. A few months of work had allowed him to now start practicing as soon as he got down to the training centre, instead of spending half an hour standing still with Kanda yelling at him.

Not really yelling. Lately he'd been talking like a normal person.

He punched again in a cross with his right arm, concentrating on his wrist. A hook, then an uppercut, and the brief demonstration was done, though whether Kanda approved of it, he couldn't tell. They'd spent a lot of time together in this room, with its plain whitewashed walls and padded mats, so Daisya hazarded a guess.

"Was that good?" he asked tiredly. He'd been trying to get them right for weeks, and it was Kanda he had to impress, so his hopes weren't too high. At least it hadn't gotten boring yet.

His attention jerked back to he present when Kanda narrowed his eyes for a second. Internally, he sighed. Yay. Another week of practice.

"It was okay…"

Daisya grinned, feeling a weight lift up and off his chest. Maybe this time he'd get a break from all of Kanda's lectures about defending yourself, knowing how to fight a human, blah blah blah, et cetera. That seemed to be bothering him.

Maybe he found out about what the glassmaker guy did to Lenalee, Daisya mused, or maybe she'd told him.

Maybe it had already happened to Kanda.

"…but you need to practice more on your own time," Kanda muttered, avoiding Daisya's invitation to a high-five. "Don't get full of yourself."

Daisya didn't really care about that last bit. Coming from Kanda, those first words were high praise.

"Soooooo," he started, drawing out the word, "I'm not full of myself already?"

The loud sigh that escaped Kanda showed that he was playing along with the routine, but there was the hint of a smirk on his face.

"Well," Daisya added, "Even if you didn't mean it, you still said it."

"Say another word about that, and someone else will be teaching you kicks," came the reply.

Daisya theatrically put a hand to his chin, and knotted his eyebrows together as if in thought.

"Hmm. Getting taught by someone who won't whack you with a stick all the time? That would be absolutely terrible."

This time Kanda glared properly. He'd mastered at least ten different nuances of the usual stinkeye — annoyed at having his free time interrupted, angry because Daisya had just played a prank, annoyed because Lenalee and Marie weren't there, annoyed that he got outsmarted, pretending to be annoyed to get someone to go away, hiding a smile, trying not to look too tired in the morning, annoyed at getting woken up too early, angry that he'd had to save Daisya, angry because someone had moved too close to Lenalee, and one that he pulled a lot these days that Daisya hadn't quite been able to figure out but that was pretty much unique to him, and many sullenness in this look gave Daisya a twinge of guilt. There wasn't much sense in that, but there wasn't much sense in letting it continue.

"Sorry, sorry. But let's get on with it, if you're going to be teaching me."

Kanda tucked his bangs behind his ears, and swept his ponytail back. He like to fidget with his hair.

"Straighten up first, then. Your weight isn't balanced."

…

Daisya landed a hook on the punching bag in the yard, watching the dust puff up. It was nice in this little corner of dirt, out of the sun, with the bag and set-up they'd dragged out from the training room. He followed the hook with a kick, and seamlessly with another punch. He hadn't learned any particular strings of moves yet, but you could sort of make it flow for yourself if you tried.

He experimented with another flurry of movement, which didn't turn out as well, but no matter. This was actually pretty fun, after a while.

"You didn't twist your wrist on the last punch," said a voice to his left, quietly, "Do it again."

Dutifully, Daisya repeated the move, and added a sharp lift with his knee. That would be more useful if he ever had to fight an actual human, particularly a guy. As usual, Kanda seemed to be pretty enthusiastic about that part of it. By this point, Daisya had decided that something had happened to Kanda to make him feel like that, but who knew what it was? Was it like what happened to Lenalee?

Daisya shuddered at the thought. Strike that. There was a bigger question, here.

Who knew what had happened to make him who he was in the first place?

Wondering about Kanda's childhood didn't get you very far. It was a short track, and ended in a very big sign saying "DO NOT ENTER." He'd travelled with Tiedoll for one year, just like Daisya. He'd met Marie and Lenalee around the time that Daisya had met the old man. That was all Daisya knew, and probably all that he was going to know, but the shadows behind the gate were tempting.

He tried punching again, and noticed the dull pain as his skin wrinkled and stretched, straining where it hadn't quite healed. Damn. And he'd only taken his medicine an hour ago, which should have been okay.

It would take a lot of work to try and open that gate, and even more to bust it down.

Experimentally, he brought his shin up and around in a roundhouse kick. Geez. It was getting more and more annoying, but it did feel kinda good. The pain was like a big, irritating badge that said "not boring."

What else…maybe just a plain old strike? Yeah.

He dealt the blow, trying not to wince when the pain shot through his hand.

"That good enough?" he asked, giving the punching bag a final kick.

Putting one foot gingerly after the other, he turned to face his instructor. Kanda's expression was still pretty dull, but at least he wasn't frowning.

"I've seen worse," he said simply, "Mostly from you."

"I think I'll take that as a yes."

Daisya started to unwrap his fists. Wow, that hurt. The fabric had left imprints on his skin, and overlaid on top of the scars they made inhuman patterns. If he squinted, and turned his head a bit to the left, one almost looked like a fancy drawing of a dragon — just like with clouds. But not like with clouds. Clouds were nice and white and fluffy, but this was red and ugly as hell. Speaking of which, ouch.

He walked over to the walls of the little courtyard, grabbed the the satchel he'd thrown down beside Kanda, opened it, and rummaged around. After a few seconds, he fished out a glass bottle of water and another vial of painkillers, downing a couple.

"You take too many of those," Kanda muttered from his place.

Daisya slumped against the wall beside him, and let his breath slow down from its hectic pace. Somehow, it wasn't going down so quickly. Neither was his pulse.

"Hey," he protested, "it's not going to heal for a while. And you don't know how painful it gets when you forget to take your medicine."

The look was there again — the one that Daisya couldn't quite identify — and Daisya hastily backtracked. It used to be a source of amusement to watch Kanda go pale like that, but now it just seemed wrong.

"Well, actually," he drawled, trying to lighten the situation, "You probably do, and you've probably had worse, but let me complain for a few minutes, okay? I can't leave it all for you."

Kanda didn't bother replying.

"And the medicine makes you feel good, anyway. I think it's got poppy seed extract in it, or something. It's healthy!"

He watched, and Kanda snorted irritably.

"You still take too many of those."

"Yeah, and why are you worrying about it in the first place?"

There was silence for a moment. Daisya thought about it, and decided to test Kanda's patience again. This time, he was still going to run as an escape instead of testing his new skills. Pretty soon he'd be able to fight Kanda off.

"Oh, well, take care."

He rocked sideways, planted a quick kiss on Kanda's cheek, and in one fluid motion launched himself forward in a sprint towards the door.

There wasn't enough time to look back at for theoretical fist aimed at his nose, but if he'd had the opportunity, he wouldn't have seen it.

Kanda couldn't be bothered to retaliate, but that didn't stop his expression from shifting.

Just a couple of notes: this time period is a month or two after the end of the first part of this story, give or take (I probably said something about it earlier but honestly I forget what the heck I've written in my own story), so Daisya's burns should be pretty much healed, but with the constant wear and tear he's had from training and actually fighting, they're probably a lot less healed or more messily healed than they should be. As to why he isn't dead and wasn't in a coma back then, Kanda and his blood are pretty useful to have around.

Speaking of treatments, most painkillers in the 19th century seem to have been opiates, which are pretty darn addictive. The effect wears off, and the biological and psychological need for them grows stronger. Whether he's actually in pain or just misattributing this sensation is up to you, though it's probably a bit of both. Punching is hard on the knuckles.

Lastly, Kanda has learned that threats and actual violence don't work on Daisya (unlike with Lavi). He has also learned that it's difficult to outrun Daisya when he has a head start, and so it's better to get revenge in other ways (read: sparring).