Back again! Didn't expect to have another one ready this quick, so expect some delays down the line maybe hahaha. Thanks IcyLady for commenting :D The kiddo really does have so much to deal with (((': and the worst part of all this is knowing just how much he doesn't get to resolve it.
Daisya felt blisters forming as his boot slipped forward. Too late to change that! All he could pray for was that he hit the ball hurtling right for his goalposts. Just a little more…a little more…there!
The ball slammed into him just as he fell into the dust and richocheted off his hip. He couldn't rest now. The old man was going to score with the next shot if he had his way of it. Daisya wasn't about to give up so easily. The stone-walled square meant they had to play each game with a maximum of control. If only Tiedoll sent it out of bounds, he could win this thing!
Daisya rolled with the fall back on to his shoulder and hopped up, glancing around. Sure enough, the old man had captured the soaring ball with a header and bounced on his knee now. Show-off.
"What are you waiting for? Scared I'm gonna lose?" Daisya called. He was already in the goal, but where would the old man aim? He wasn't going to just put it in at the edge, was he? The man hovered in centre field shifting from foot to foot. He wasn't about to let himself slow down, no, he was just waiting for the perfect moment to attack. As tall as he was he looked like a bull pawing at the ground.
"No such thing, my boy."
Daisya went up on his toes, ready to dart at a moment's notice. He'd long since trained off the dizziness he got from somersaults. Right. No, left. No, what was with that grin on his face?
Tiedoll faced him off across the dusty old courtyard in his heavy coat. He probably wasn't even breaking a sweat. Left—no, another false start. He was just teasing him!
"Bring it on."
When the old man finally checked back into HQ he'd wasted no time in asking for a rematch. Daisya didn't know what he was expecting. That hair was getting greyer each time he visited, while Daisya felt like he only ever got stronger these days. So what if that was stuck-up! Why wouldn't he? He'd been running until his knees burned just to keep up with Kanda! There was no exorcist here who did better than him except Kanda in the running tests. General Yeager even told him he was good!
But no. Then the moment his master stepped on to the field, it was over. They'd been scuttling 'round the packed-dirt pitch for near on an hour now and they were 2-2. He couldn't keep up his own game much longer. No. The old man had him over a barrel here. If he didn't know better, Daisya would've sworn he was getting some joy out of his slow defeat. No. He would turn this around.
The ball hopped from foot to foot, knee to knee, switching the angle of attack. Sometimes Tiedoll would bounce it twice off the same side just to mess with him. Too bad for him, Daisya still had his reflexes. He could feel his muscles twitch for every false start.
Left, right, left, right, left, left, right—
Without even a wind-up Tiedoll sent the ball skidding right as Daisya moved left. God damnit!
He just had enough time to plant his foot. First, touch ground. Then he could use the momentum of that stride to push off in the other direction. It was a race through the air, gravity pulling Daisya down and whatever arcane grandpa magic Tiedoll used that propelled the ball forward.
He landed. This time the football hit him square in the stomach. And bounced up over him. Game over, 3-2, point to Team Geezer. What a joke!
Now he was covered in muck on both sides. He could stay here lying on the ground and nobody would look twice at him. He blended right in.
"Ugh."
Tiedoll sat down cross-legged in front of him, face hovering sideways in his field of vision. He was pretty sweaty now that Daisya looked closely. Maybe he really had tired him out!
"Your stamina really has improved. I hear you've been training hard this year?" mused his master.
"Give me a break."
"I would." Tiedoll chuckled. "Though it seems you've already taken one."
Daisya flopped over on to his back rather than give in to the bait. Time was, he wondered how the old man could handle such a prickly apprentice as Kanda. He should've wondered harder. Marie was no slouch in being a tough nut, either.
His master rambled on warmly just as if he'd replied. "I mean it. With how spread thin we've been, young Komui really has been relying on your strength. I'm glad you've found more enjoyment in it."
Now Daisya looked straight up the stone walls to the sky. Grey and cloudy, like most days in this wet country. That had to be half the reason he felt his chest swell to bursting. Nothing to do with the old man still smiling down on him long after he finished lessons. He never made Daisya do anything, never told him what he was supposed to be, just let him figure it out for himself. He should be proud of himself. Daisya turned out better than anyone.
"What else am I going to do?" He whined. "They don't let us wander between missions."
A shadow blocked out his view as Tiedoll stood, lined face floating over him again. He reached down one large, surprisingly soft hand that Daisya took and hauled, surprisingly strong, so they were both on their feet.
"You always have a choice of what to do," the old man said firmly. He ran his hands down Daisya's shoulders to brush the dust away. It wasn't an effort that would ever pay off.
Daisya fought hard with himself for not too long before he gave up. He knew he'd learned a lesson somewhere about just saying things out loud. Making sure to look in Tiedoll's eyes, he said it.
"Yeah. I know."
It wasn't just for the sake of making him happy. The old man wasn't the type to take words at face value. He picked them up and turned them over each time before he put them into place, like he was laying a mosaic. Same went for whenever you spoke to him. From the look on his face, eyes squinting hard at Daisya before they softened into wrinkles, he'd passed his test.
Tiedoll gave him a warm pat on the shoulder and nudged him toward the outside stair. Smart. They could take their time up on the ramparts of the old HQ building where nobody else would hear them. That was fine by Daisya; it was embarrassing to get beat this quickly at his own game. People would ask questions when they saw one of them scuffed up and one of them pristine.
"Daisya, I heard that you went to visit your family."
"Did you?"
The both of them left the wood pylons standing in the yard. Daisya couldn't make himself slow down unless there was a reason, striding off over the surface ahead of Tiedoll. Now, that was interesting. He hadn't included that in the last letter he sent to his master, but without warning Marie, Lenalee, and everybody else in the damn place, Daisya supposed it was only a matter of time until it got around to everyone. At least Kanda kept his mouth shut.
Daisya paused where he was, grinned, and reconsidered.
Nah, Kanda just didn't say anything.
He hopped up on the first stone step, beckoning the old man to catch up. It was what they always did. Daisya ran ahead, Tiedoll refused to catch him, and in the end Daisya just had to run back.
"Yeah," he said. "We were halfway there anyway, I figured it was less trouble than having to go all the way out there just to see a bunch of tourist traps. Komui said we could just pick up whatever jobs on the way back."
Finally Tiedoll caught up to him. His cue to start hiking. The dozen crenellated towers scattered all over HQ had twice as many staircases leading up, down, across, all over between the battlements. It had been a bit of a challenge when he first got here, trying to find his way all over the castle without touching the main corridors. He'd done it! Just took a few flying leaps here and there, with Marie standing worried below with a net of strings.
"Do you feel you need an excuse to return home?" the old man asked innocently.
"What? No, I just—"
Daisya didn't have a reason for it, it was just what you did. Saying he really wanted to be there would feel weird. Only, he did. He'd pulled a whole quad team off course so he could swim in the right water, no matter that it was the cold season, no matter that they might have a Noah chasing them. Even if he was in the middle of a fight he'd leave the Order if he wanted. But did Tiedoll really want him to say that? He knew how he felt! He loved mom, dad, Dana, Dari, Dol, and if he stayed in Bodrum another week he'd scream.
If he left them without saying goodbye, it'd be even worse.
"—wanted to go, then."
"I see. You didn't want to stay?"
"Hah, no."
Daisya found himself huffing partway up the wall while the old man breezed past him. It was only four stories' climb, maybe three and a half, but after a hard game he noticed it. When he was a kid he'd just thought being a General was all about combat records. Since then, he'd gotten to know his Innocence in a way that made him wonder what exactly it did to you.
High sync rates shouldn't mean the superhuman strength that Kanda usually had. Was it the same thing? Kanda made it sound like it was something wrong with him and no one else. But Lenalee…she wasn't like Kanda, her sync rates weren't great…and the Order had done something to her to make her stronger. It had taken a long time for it to heal. He remembered seeing the cuts on her legs when they were made, some of them, and the white mass of scar tissue that was there now.
Tiedoll probably noticed his sync rates were near the top a while back. Higher than Lena and Marie's. Below Kanda. Hevlaska said he embraced his Innocence.
"We returned to your homeland more than once in the year you were with me. A very nice spot. I've been there since, you know," Tiedoll said mildly.
"I know, I was there."
A mysterious laugh out of the old man threw Daisya off for a second. Wait, did he keep in contact with his family? He couldn't. That would explain how he heard.
"You've also told me of a few of your other visits," his master continued. "You haven't been there very often since you turned fourteen."
"Didn't need to. Mom and dad get my letters. I don't miss them. I should," he said, and didn't feel the usual guilty pang, "I just don't. They're fine without me."
They started on the final flight of stairs before the top. He'd missed winter at HQ, it was just starting now. That meant the air was cold, enough up here that he could see their breath steam. The old man was still smiling at the horizon far-off. There was something on his mind. Some days, he got the sneaking suspicion that Tiedoll never stopped thinking.
"It's not wrong to look for your own happiness, Daisya. I know your parents understand that about you."
"Duh, otherwise they wouldn't let me go." There was a small noise. Daisya whipped his head sideways. "What's so funny?"
The old man just smiled without any respect for the moment. Go figure. He must be happy Daisya had finally got over the lingering feeling that he'd fucked up by leaving home. Wasn't a teacher supposed to be proud of his student?
"Nothing, my boy. You are entirely right."
Damn right, he was. Daisya didn't turn away that easily.
Finally, they came out the top of the stairwell. The Order was right in the middle of the mountains, not that there were many here, but between the crags you could see a long, foggy land of hills and heather. Each time he saw them Daisya felt his stomach float up inside him. Back home everything felt so exposed, like the sun was looking for you and there was nowhere to hide. Here, the clouds were always shifting around like his own cloak.
"I know what you're trying to say, old man."
"Hm?"
There was a little glimmer in Tiedoll's eye, like a monkey trainer at the circus in the middle of his act.
"Sometimes, yeah, I thought that maybe I should go and check that dad was picking up the slack for mom, or Dana wasn't crying so much. Feels kind of weird to be the only guy here who doesn't mind it so much. So-I just thought I should check, you know? Make sure that the shop wasn't going to fall apart, or something."
"It's understandable. You love your family, if they needed your help, you didn't want to deny them. It's hard when you can't make yourself happy along with the people you love."
Daisya sighed. "'S not just that. I know, being an Exorcist isn't that easy, but if I'm not careful I won't ever go back there again. You know? I might die. That's fine, it's not like I want to be doing anything else, but…"
"You want to know that your family will be able to cope when it happens."
"Yeah."
The breeze up here was cold when you'd been sweating. Daisya folded his arms around himself, hunched over to try and keep a little warmer. It didn't matter that he enjoyed the chill when everything was going numb. Not just the chill. He was more tired just trying to talk to the old man about this than he'd been running around the field or climbing up here. It was like he was scooping out bits of himself. He—
Suddenly, Tiedoll's coat covered his shoulders. Geez, the lining glowed with warmth. The man was a furnace.
"Thanks," he muttered.
"Daisya, you know you never have to answer my questions if you don't want to talk."
His master laughed again. This time, there was hesitation. Daisya could pick out that grumbly tone of voice a mile off. Tiedoll was close to crying. Again. He did it more than Lenalee.
"Since when did I tell you stuff I didn't want to? You're getting old, gramps," he tried to joke.
"I saw, well, I read your letter. You didn't put down what happened to you, at least, I didn't realize—until Kanda—"
Daisya cut him off. "Shoot."
He already had a sinking feeling he knew what the question was. Daisya put his arms through the coat's sleeves and started fastening it up. It was easier to talk when he had something to do with his fingers. Funny, that Tiedoll took off his glasses just then to clean. There were tears standing in his too-small eyes.
"What made you think that—" A high-pitched crack in such a gruff voice. "—you were going to die soon?"
There is was. Daisya had just hoped that Kanda's explanation, whatever it was, would be enough. He braced himself for another big long soppy talk by thinking of the dinner menu pinned up in the mess hall. Just another hour and he'd be tucking into tagine.
"I don't. I always knew it was dangerous, you told me that. A few of the people I knew when I came here died. Antonina had something freaky happen to her, didn't she? I don't mind." He sighed. "But if the Noah wanted to kill me, I think it would've. I didn't even know when it had me. That's what I'm worried about. I won't have time to make my peace, or whatever it is."
"I see," mumbled Tiedoll.
Daisya pulled up short. This was all way too familiar. The little heart-to-heart, the tears, the works. He'd already said these words with other people, or to the same sad, drooping teacher in another place.
"Wait," he said.
Something must have sounded off about it, with the way the old man snapped his head up. At least he had his attention. Though Daisya had the sneaking feeling that Tiedoll always paid too much attention to everything even if he kept murmuring and sighing all over the place.
Stepping back from the edge, back from the grey, snow-specked hills that blended right into the white sky, Daisya stared down the man who taught most of what he knew.
"If you're going to get upset every time I'm hurt, why'd you ever take me here? All I do is fight. Did you think, what, I'd just be safe?"
From the look on Tiedoll's face—no. He didn't.
I'm intrigued by Hoshino's initial concept for Tiedoll. Apparently he was meant to be hollow inside, a veneer of care over a cold and empty man, but she liked him too much to go ahead with it! Still, I wonder...if there are so few Generals and all young exorcists have one for a teacher, why does Tiedoll only have the odd students out?