I'm so sorry about the long wait! This semester's been kicking my ass, and no matter how much I edit this chapter just isn't coming out quite how I imagine - it's more cinematic, and there's only so much action an amateur can write without it getting boring. I'm afraid this also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but once classes are over I'll be able to whip the rest of this arc into shape.
Also, I'm afraid I have to say that Kanda is, for better or for worse, the deuteragonist of this series. Marie and Lenalee are characters that are more compelling to me than Kanda, but they and Tiedoll seem like they would get along quite well with Daisya from the start. Kanda, on the other hand, is a challenge. I'll try to write about the others more in the future, though! And thank you all so much for your eloquent comments. Hopefully over the summer, I can get this back on to a more regular schedule!
Artistic liberties have been taken with architecture and physics. Please excuse them by means of the 'it's all magic and this guy fights with a soccer ball' handwave.
Kanda reacted with the speed of a snake, leaping to throw Daisya forward. He knew he could take the landing however far down; a bad angle for a real human, on the other hand, could crush bones and snap necks. He knew this, very well.
Real people broke easily.
When the dust settled, Daisya was hanging off the wall about fifteen feet up from where Kanda was standing, trying to survey the ground without taking either of his hands off of the crack between stones. How he'd managed to get a grip was another question — all Kanda had been hoping to accomplish was a landing on a flat surface — but now his fingers were starting to slide. At least the chalky dust would keep him there for a minute more.
A quick look around told him the hallways underneath the room were just another part of the maze they'd come through. Each one led off sharply into shadows, where the piles of debris dropped off. It was only about 3 square metres of the floor that had fallen through, so the high-reaching walls sealed them off above and directly to the side.
"All clear down there?" Daisya called, voice echoing shrilly, "I don't wanna break my ankle today, if it's all the same to you."
Ungrateful brat. Still, the ground was uneven under him, so he had a point.
"Hang on for a minute. Drop when I say so."
His muscles tense for a moment when Daisya's hand slipped, but he quickly adjusted his grip.
"That doesn't sound good."
Something pressed on his mind like a weight, at the sound of his voice, the sight of dust and darkness. Something from before — or not. He was tired. It was getting to him.
"Shut up and wait for five seconds, will you."
Kanda bounded lightly over the fallen stones, and stopped beneath Daisya, trying to find a spot to brace himself. A rolled ankle was nothing, but it was still best to make sure.
"I mean, I can't really see down and my fingers are seriously slipping—"
"Now."
Daisya was heavier, and bonier than the last time they'd done this.
…
The corridor suddenly turned right, but Kanda changed direction easily. Daisya did so with rather less grace.
"So, let me get this straight," Kanda called, not looking back, "The Innocence is in the bell, and it's causing this place to move?"
"Hey, you've seen it. What else could it be?"
Kanda scoffed, breath even despite the pace he took.
"How should I know?" Daisya shot back, "We're still alive, so it's probably not a Noah."
"Probably."
The two raced forward, trying to anticipate the next curve that would spring up out of the darkness, or staircase that suddenly reached up only to end in thin air. The shadows and grey stone layered on top of one another, so that judging any distance was impossible. Daisya had to admit, this was sort of fun. It was just that after a half hour of this, he knew he'd start to slow to a crawl. They needed to get out in the open, and quickly, before the Innocence trapped them.
"See?" Daisya yelled, overtaking Kanda on a downward stair, "It's trying to cut us off, like back in Croatia, or wherever that was. You know, with the river valley."
They hit the flagstones running, and were quickly driven up again.
"Who cares what it is?"
He specifically looked back to throw a glare at Kanda.
"You did, thirty seconds ago—"
The stair dropped into nothing. Just as he Kanda lashed out, and grabbed Daisya's hand the moment before he went over in a cloud of dust.
A few rocks, kicked up by their boots, took some time before they hit the ground.
"Watch where you're going," he said quietly. "I'll be in front, from now on."
Out of breath and embarrassed, Daisya nodded in agreement.
"Good."
They jumped, rolled, and Kanda pulled him forward into the black.
…
At last, the corridor ran up a stair, and opened on to the great hall of the abbey, moonlit and silver.
It was a soaring construction, strewn with the wreckage of a crumbling castle. The stones, true to form, had piled up just high enough to block any clear path through the maze's centre. Gothic windows rose up the sides of the construction like ribs or even teeth, all with the same eye-like shape as the first, written out in iron filigree.
Daisya had some suspicions about that.
If it weren't for the fact that this place was trying to kill them, it would have been beautiful. The walls were carved with columns, and the thin light falling through the moving glass formed mosaics on the ground.
A few breaths were enough to clear his vision, and scan the room for exits or openings. The roof was half-collapsed, but apart from the stars above there was no way out that he could see. Just up, or back into the maze. The General probably would have stopped to paint this, sentimental that he was, but he'd had seen too much to care about stars right now.
After a moment, he decided. If Kanda hadn't already taken the time to grumble his opinion, it was up to him to choose.
"I think," he started, weighing the possibility that this could all go horribly, horribly wrong (there was about a 30% chance), "We can get there if we take the stairs where we got in. You know?"
He met Kanda's eyes, soft for a moment in the darkness. They'd had a few close calls, but this hit them in a weak spot. Marie was the one for riddles and clues, but more and more as they grew older, he wasn't there like he'd been before, in Hungary first and on so many missions since then.
They just had to take care of themselves, now.
"Yeah," murmured Kanda, finally nodded, "Follow me."
They set off at a run, keeping up a guard. Some seconds later, a cloud of shrapnel fell over them when the Charity Bell swooped overhead, detonating another piece of debris. It was times like this where long-range weapons really showed their stuff, Daisya had learned.
He followed Kanda, leaping over the stones at a speed just below his limit, and weaving around the ones that shifted or sprung up. It wasn't that much like a maze, actually. This moved. Like something out of the nightmares, where no matter how fast you ran, your feet stuck to the floor like glue, and the
Now, ugh, anyone could see the difference between them. Kanda was light-footed, eating up the distance despite the few inches still between them. He seemed to have no weight, pack or not. The fact that he touched the ground after he jumped seemed to be just a bit of courtesy to the normal people (read: Daisya) around him. It was a good thing Kanda was such a bastard, 'cos otherwise Daisya wouldn't be sure if he was even human. Slim yet incredibly strong, harsh and quiet, something more out of the fairy stories than anything real; some shining knight standing on the threshold to another world.
His foot caught on a piece of stone, throwing off his balance to the point where he nearly fell. Damn. He'd been distracted.
Ahead of him, Kanda had reached the opposite wall, and wrenched open a door, turning to face him.
"Come on!"
He put on a final burst of speed, and skidded through the opening, before anything could block the way, and almost doubled over. Kanda followed, slamming the door shut behind.
"Man," Daisya wheezed, "Why do we always get these missions?"
"Because they want to get rid of you," said Kanda plainly.
"Hah, so you're enjoying yourself."
Daisya caught his breath, and straightened up.
"Anyway," he continued, "I don't think it moves much if there aren't any windows. I think it uses them like eyes, which is why they look so weird."
"It moved when we were in the dark."
"Yeah, but it wasn't specific. It was just trying to mess with us."
Kanda examined the walls warily.
"Let's just get this over with."
He started walking, and Daisya skipped into place beside him. The silence that had settled over them was one of the more uncomfortable ones. Somehow, it felt like something was going to go wrong. More wrong than it already had, anyway.
"Say," he said simply, "We've got nothing else to do, so how about a game of 'who's Alma'?"
It was always worth a try, to get it over with. What had started as a truce between Kanda's motivations and Daisya's stupid habits was now just another thing to pass the time.
"Calico Cat is better."
"But you got to choose last time!"
"Fine."
About twenty seconds passed before Daisya had his first guess ready.
"I'm gonna say he was about the same age as Lenalee's brother."
…
Kanda's face had settled into a sullen grimace. Daisya had made it a bit of a tradition to describe what he thought Alma was, and no amount of half-hearted 'shut up' could stop him. The first few times, Kanda had fought the urge to cut his tongue off.
But after a while, it was almost fun. The different versions Daisya came up with were just people who had the same name, and not him himself. It dulled the pain.
"…green eyes, I think, and blond hair. About 5'8"."
"Wrong."
Daisya was never going to know. The boy who even now was kicking pebbles down the hallway to pass the time, when he should have been lying somewhere in the dark with a broken leg and no chance of rescue, couldn't be allowed to know. Kanda had determined this to be a fact.
"Girl, then. You're lying about it being a he, I think. She's about the same height Helle was. I think 5'5"? Red hair."
It wasn't that he'd treat it as a joke. If that was true, Kanda would have given up ages ago. No. It was the opposite.
"No."
He was never going to know who Alma was.
"Blue eyes," announced Daisya, breaking the silence, "Liked to play card games. Smiley kind of kid."
"You know what I'm going to say."
"So that's wrong, then."
He had to grin. "Yeah."
There were a lot of things he was never going to know.
…
Daisya trailed off after a minute, and in silence the pair followed the corridor along and up, as it turned into a series of staircases. The blackened walls seemed to absorb all sound but the chalky noise of boots on stone, and the occasional gasp for air.
By the time the stairs opened at the top of a tower, Daisya was far too tired to speak. The night had worn on longer than either of them had wanted, grinding his mind into the dust.
From here, you could see the whole of the complex. The tower they were on had the typical alternating pattern of stones, giving slots for crossbows as well as more open gaps, with higher stacks of blocks to hide behind. In short, your average defense turret from the Dark Ages.
The view of the castle afforded by the turret was a bit less than average.
But for a single stone hallway cutting across the grounds, this half of the castle wasn't even standing; the wall of the castle and the outer wall of the church-like hall were the only other pieces intact. Stones and half-broken walls stacked up, sometimes low to the ground and sometimes metres above it. If M.C. Escher had laid eyes upon the structure, he would have been amazed to find a building he could copy perfectly.
Beyond the other side of the wreckage, the bell tower stood tall, embedded in the wall. Leading to it was a single staircase, one side attached to the wall, the other stepping off into empty space. It climbed down from the turret, and ran parallel to the ground in uneven stretches, before stepping up and up, with roughly five sets of steps and landings, one on the inside of the wall's corner, before reaching the tower. The stairs looked barely navigable. Parts of them would likely collapse with the tiniest amount of weight, so it would be safest to cling to the wall on the right side. Magic held this place together, but even then there were places where a stub of rock was the closest thing to a step for a few feet.
"I'll go first," said Kanda, having come to the same conclusion as Daisya, "We need to get there quickly."
"No arguments here."
Smoothly, the two walked on to the stairs. Running wasn't worth the risk. Here and there, the outer stone crumbled, and the staircase clung all the more perilously to the side.
Despite all of that, there was a strange comfort in it. Moving shadows and glassed-in eyes were one thing, but exorcists were no stranger to the nighttime, and these two were no strangers to each other. Their feet fell in stride, so light they seemed to glide up, though they were quick to gain a hold on the edge of the wall when the ground fell out from under them.
Daisya followed Kanda, now leaping over a missing stretch of about a metre as the staircase reached its midpoint along the wall. A brief glance over the scene showed him a blackened vista greater than he'd been able to see before. There was a sheer drop of at least twelve metres from here, on to stone or muddy grass. Any fall from this height would end badly; that knowledge slowed his steps and sharpened his senses. He'd need to put his mind to it to get out of this intact, as on most missions. Kanda, on the other hand, went ahead with the self-assured grace of a cat.
The staircase dropped down again.
…
Some information about the next setting is important. The staircase was climbing now, with a landing for every six or so feet of ascentsion. The bell tower was straight ahead, then around the inside corner, to the left as it skirted the inner wall. The wall the staircase was still attached to ran along their right. A more ruined barrier, still standing, blocked part of the staircase from sight, but a window left enough of a view to assure that it was still there.
A gibbous moon rose behind the bell tower. Had Daisya cared to notice, it was in conjunct with Mercury.
Kanda had started to pick up the pace, more sure of the ground beneath him. He followed the stairs over a rabbit's warren of rubble and roofless rooms, not glancing down but staring ever forward.
His path hit the wall, and he turned with it, Daisya on his heels.
The wall was solid, but some feet above, part of a leftover landing jutted out. Neither of them noticed it.
Neither of them noticed the thin trail of dust leaking down, following them.
Beside them, the window opened a fraction, as if breathing, an iron mesh swirling across its surface. Just as they settled, the bell tolled like thunder, without any hands to ring it.
Once…
Daisya saw the movement, and heard the ringing of the bell. Kanda was still walking, just ahead of him. The stone above and below had started to give out more easily.
In a split second, Daisya recognized many things.
Five feet of staircase was missing ahead, having fallen away from the wall. The opening was easy to jump; Daisya would need a head start, but Kanda could easily do it from standing.
The wall beside it was full of chinks, large enough to fit a hand or a sword.
Kanda halted near the edge, looking ahead to the tower.
Above his head, something whistled through the air, disguised by the noise of the bell and by the darkness.
A handful of stones, each more than a foot square. Enough to hurt. Enough to crush a head or a ribcage or both in a fraction of a second.
Twice…
There were no akuma, not here, not now.
Only one living exorcist was needed to obtain the Innocence.
The last thing Kanda felt before he fell was a hand, planted in his back and pushing him forward, into the gap.