I was today years old when I found out a rowan was the same thing as a mountain ash. My tree-lover card has been downgraded to a probationary certification.
"Did he get it?"
"I thought the message went through, we're not very far apart."
They stopped a moment as Lena took the golem out of her pocket, tapping it twice on the side of the body before giving their position again. Daisya tapped his foot instead, trying to stay still.
They had to stick together, safety in numbers, her legs were still screwed from carrying him a few miles first thing in the morning, blah, blah, blah. All he knew was he should be moving fast. Get to town, get a train, get out. Or get in a fight. Never mind that they had to hang back and meet Kanda back here behind the lines. Maybe if they were hunting the akuma, that would be better, but it was no fun just sitting and waiting for them.
He glanced around. Still nothing but a bunch of trees. At least it was overcast. It'd rain if they got lucky. They'd stuck to the thickest cover as they made their way through the forest, which was a lot easier to move through, ironically. Too far away from the path, the ground got wet and sticky and there were all sorts of plants getting in the way of your feet. They followed roughly along the same route as they took yesterday, backtracking close to the edge of the forest. There was a fence between there and here, and the trees themselves were packed pretty close together. Nothing got through to let any grass grow. It was almost creepy, though that was probably because he'd just been shot at more than he thought he could take in a place that looked a lot like this.
"Repeating again, it's Lenalee. We just passed a group of three dead trees, which I think are young spruce."
Lenalee turned the golem side to side, stroking a it a little when it chirped. The static crackling in the background was worse than yesterday. Eventually, though, something came through. It barely even sounded like Kanda.
"…red leaves, two or—hundred metres ahead."
"Okay, got it."
"How old's that thing, anyway?" Daisya asked.
He jumped from one foot to the other, stretching a little as Lenalee caught up to him. Not that he was really paying attention when they ran away, but he'd guess they were two or three hours from the town. Far enough that they could afford to speed up a little. You could get something out of a quick jog near the end of the trip, since you didn't have to stay fit all day. At least Lena was hitting her growth spurt. Darn, if she wasn't almost as tall as him now. When did that happen?
"This one? Oh, it's still my original golem. She's lasted a long time, hasn't she?"
The golem did a small twirl on her shoulder. All right, all right, it was sort of cute. His first golem had gotten lost somewhere before the old man even brought him back to HQ. Poor guy, but what was he supposed to do when it couldn't keep up?
"Yeah. Sometimes you have to retire them, though. Don't we have some sort of home for them? The reception's worse than my old one."
"She was fine last time." Lenalee frowned. "Maybe it doesn't work as well in the trees."
That didn't sound right. It was sketchy out in the open yesterday, too. But what did he know? Daisya strolled around a creeping nest of roots considering it and tripped right up and over them, but at the last second, he turned it into a half-skip. It took him right over the next bunch no problem, but the crunch as he came down on dead leaves brought Lenalee around to frown at him.
"We should stay quiet," she said.
"Well excuse me for looking for akuma instead of, what, trees?"
Damn, she was already picking up the pace a bit. He wasn't going to argue with that. It was easier to go fast, falling from one foot to the other over uneven ground, watching to make sure he stepped on whatever rocks or bumps were in his path rather than trying to walk through him. And watching, always watching the trees. He wasn't going to get caught out a second time.
After all, it'd just look bad if he got ambushed twice.
"Just don't get distracted," she snapped.
He jumped ahead of her, turning around to face her and half-walking, half-jogging backwards to keep up with the pace. Actually, his balance was pretty good. The view beneath the trees looked weirder from this angle, too dark to feel natural, with no shadows and no light.
"So, what's up?"
"Daisya—"
Clearly, she was a little annoyed. She had a long way to go, though. He waved his hands around to speed up the process. "Can I put your mind at ease? Anything I should know? Need a hand with something?"
"Can you please take this seriously?"
"I'm taking it seriously right now."
Hopping up off the side of a tree trunk, Daisya spun back again, picking his way through few fallen trunks across the path. Windstorm, maybe? The breeze was certainly picking up, carrying the clouds overhead.
"You do understand what we're doing, don't you?" she whispered.
"Sure."
"Since Marie has the Innocence, it's more likely that he's going to be attacked. That's why he and Kanda are moving through the Noah's path. If they can survive long enough to meet us, then we'll all be all right. Kanda might survive that. But we won't escape if we get attacked, okay? I—I don't know if I can go that fast again."
And here he thought he'd escaped getting told off when he left home. What was she thinking, anyway? She was just a kid. Two years ago she was begging him to each her more tricks, not acting like a sanctimonious old mother hen. Ah, well. She was scared. He should probably try fixing things before they got really fed up with each other.
"So what? If they want to kill us, they'll just skip over Kanda and Marie and turn back," he said quietly. "Even better, if they just want the Innocence, maybe we can hand it over and make a run for it. That's good. Hey!"
Tugging his arm away, Daisya dodged Lenalee's grab at him. Sheesh. They only had to be here for a few more hours, he reminded himself. Then they could all calm down.
"Stop being stupid! Someone tried to kill us, and they got really close," she hissed, taking another swing. She caught him this time. He let her.
But he did speed up, jumping from foot to foot through the clean spots on the ground while Lenalee tried to keep pace as she lectured.
"Daisya, I'm not going to watch you die because you're begging the akuma to come back here."
There wasn't any sign of life around them, so Daisya had the luxury of stopping in his tracks. He had to laugh, and not just at Lenalee trying not to trip over herself as she slowed down. "What? Is that it?" he asked.
"What are you talking about?" she huffed.
"You guys are so boring."
He uncurled her fingers from his sleeve one-by-one as she muttered at him, then started back off on his merry way. Hah. As if he hadn't had to deal with this kind of bullshit before. Well, Lena had another thing coming. After so many years arguing with a guy who could lift him with a finger, a girl his own size wasn't a problem.
"Why is everyone always obsessed with me staying safe?" he complained. "I train like you guys, I can fight, but it's always 'oh no, Daisya, you're going to get killed if I'm not right there.' Well, maybe I am, but it hasn't happened yet! So calm down, okay? I'm not going anywhere. I said I'm going to stay here with you guys, and I will."
"Hmph."
Lenalee's face just screwed up more as she caught up to him, pressing forward as fast as her skinny legs could go before a run. Ah, shit. He knew that look. She was going to cry, wasn't she? At least with Kanda, that wasn't really a problem. But now that he remembered, mom always yelled at him because miserable little sis could never take a joke. Oh boy.
"I'm sorry, I know you guys get worried," he said quickly. "Just, it's not that big a deal if something happens. We shouldn't've split up anyway," he muttered. "If you're really that worried, I'd be safer with all of you guys."
"No."
"Huh?"
He did a double-take, careful to check under his feet before so that there wasn't anything to trip over. Yep, she was crying, but Lenalee's face was locked up in determination as she kept pace.
"You're safer here. You can't get hurt if it's only Marie and Kanda that get targeted." She sniffed. "What did you hear about Noah?"
There weren't any shadows today to grow darker, and if there were, they wouldn't have. She was trying to scare him, and it wasn't working. Something deadly somewhere else had nothing on Kanda up-close-and-personal, and he'd been inured to that ten times over.
"Big, bad, evil, but the old man beat one without me even noticing when I was a kid. Long story. It was me 'n Kanda and Marie's first mission out together."
"Well, most Exorcists sent out against them die. E-even the really good ones. We hunt akuma, but the Noah hunt us."
As best as he could while they were on the move, Daisya reached out and patted her on the shoulder. It felt like the only option at the moment.
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "This one couldn't even catch us. Listen, it's stupid to get scared before anything bad actually happens. We'll just keep watching, and it'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Well, no. But I am actually trying. I've got a few debts to work off, anyway. It'd be stupid if I died here."
Lenalee actually laughed, to his relief. "Yes, it would be."
He felt the weird urge to shake his hand off. Not that he'd ever admit it, but Lena wasn't the only one feeling tetchy. He couldn't exactly comfort her when he couldn't see a reason to be upset. None of this felt real. Yeah, it was a tough fight, but he could've finished off the first lot if he needed to. He did finish them off. He'd been in danger and this wasn't what it felt like.
For once he was sick of the clouds. At least with sunlight, it threw everything into different shades. The shadows were sharper and you got a nice toothpick through your eyeballs whenever you tried to look at something light. This was just getting on his nerves. The trees went up-up-up and the path went on-on-on and nothing looked different from anything else. It all looked the same.
Would Kanda know what was going on? Probably not. But at least then he could whine as much as he wanted. Lena was spooked for some reason that she wasn't about to tell him, and he couldn't just push on her about it. She was a kid!
Which meant that he just had to keep himself from getting bored when he couldn't make noise. Geez.
He looked over, to make sure Lena wasn't watching him. Good. She'd pulled just ahead of him.
Maybe he could make up a counting game. You know, number of red hats. Number of sour-faced old geezers. It was just trees, but trees were great! Number of…how about the number of round-leaved bushes.
God, things were boring here.
He slowed down a little so he could keep an eye out. For akuma as well as bushes, he wasn't that dumb, no matter what Kanda said. There wasn't a lot, but he spotted a couple of blueberries once he got to looking for them.
Yeah. He could kill time for a few hours and then they could move on to the next mission, or back to the order. There wouldn't be this weird tension going on.
Hm. Did rowans count? They were trees, but they were sort of bush-y.
Probably not.
Daisya wasn't stupid. Actually, he was pretty smart. Kanda just never noticed that he always got himself hurt in very deliberate and strategic moves.
So when he noticed it was always two blueberries in a row, then a moulting rowan, a few bushes he didn't know, and then a rock that wasn't a bush that looked out of place, this far from a stream, he didn't say anything.
He waited for it to happen again.
When it did, he glanced up, trying to pick out where the sun was in the sky.
He couldn't.
Then he glanced all around to see if there were any strange shapes or blobs that could be akuma.
There weren't, but that didn't mean there weren't any akuma.
Then, he tried something else.
"Hey, Lena?"
"Yes?" she said, not looking behind her.
"Are you still feeling okay?"
"Hm? Oh, yes, I'm all right."
"Only, it seems like you're kind of not talking to me."
"Really, Daisya, I'm okay!"
"Great. D'you mind if I sing a bit?"
"No," she said. "Could I sing with you?"
Daisya trained as hard as any of the other Exorcists, at least, any of the other Exorcists who weren't Lenalee, Kanda, the Generals, or the Generals-to-be. Since he realized exactly what role he played there, scratch that, since Kanda shouted it at him for the fifteenth time, he'd tried to hone that edge.
It took him all of a second to grab the Charity Bell out of his pocket, toss it up, then send it whipping through the air with a kick that send tremors right up his legs.
"Innocence, activate!"