Juuuuuust under the monthly deadline! Our main characters are back on the page at the same time. Chaotic month but everything turned out fine in the end. Hope everyone's survived the year-end vortex as well! All comments much appreciated, let me know if there are any real obvious typos that I've missed
The mission had started like any other. Being called up to the Director's office, being given a map and a briefing and a "now don't go looking for trouble." Never mind that they were 16 and 17—even civilians would treat them like grown-ups now. Komui had waved them out of the office when Daisya said so. They were both thinking it! Daisya was the only one who bothered to say so.
Down the long spiral staircase they went, back to their rooms to fetch their gear. It was a long, cool spring that had everything smelling like mould. Leaks that he didn't even know could happen had sprung up. The dripping was so bad that Marie had to change rooms, that or stay up all the night listening to the three buckets they set up in his room. Lucky thing, Daisya's room was watertight! It took him ages trying to clean all his trinkets away to a safe place before Marie moved in. Siblings had taught him that you can't leave anything out where people can touch it. That's just asking for things to get slobbered on or thrown out.
"Did you hear that? He's only, what, two years older than us anyway," Daisya grumbled.
"Ten years. Same as Marie," Kanda said.
"Whatever, still doesn't mean I'm a kid! I could join the army now. The regular army, I mean. I could get married. That's got to count for something."
"You couldn't."
Daisya sniggered at that. It was so rare for Kanda to joke back that he still felt a little pride each time it happened. All this time, he thought it was Kanda making him do this, do that, pay more attention, stop messing around, but it went both ways. It didn't even matter that he wasn't funny.
"So, you think it's going to be tough? Been a while since we had to go together," Daisya wondered.
"They'd send me with Marie if I needed help," said Kanda, but heart wasn't in it.
"Probably it's just a lot of akuma. I bet Komui thinks I don't know how to talk to people."
Their feet barely made a noise while they trotted down the flights of stairs that went on and on. Daisya had cramped up more than once after trying to do the whole set without a break. That was ages ago, when he first got here. Now he barely felt his knees grinding themselves down. The problem was resisting the temptation to jump over the railing and just fly all the way down. Well, fall, but when he imagined it he was always flying.
"The adults are the ones who get those jobs."
Daisya balked. "I'm an adult!"
"No, the new ones," said Kanda distantly. "The ones who didn't want to come. They'll go out to talk to people. Lenalee and us, we're on extermination."
"You guys have the best synch rates here," Daisya disagreed. "I still don't know what I'm doing with you. Doesn't Marie have better long-range use?"
They came to a stop outside Marie's anonymous door while Daisya fished for the spare key in his cloak. The door didn't squeak or jolt as he opened it, a sign that Marie kept the hinges oiled on his own time. He was such a stickler. Daisya hoped he was having fun with his own half-rusted bedframe. It wasn't his fault if he didn't have time to clean!
Kanda followed him into the neat room, leaning against the wall by the dresser. "Don't be stupid."
"I'm not, that's your job," Daisya shot back.
Crouching down, he picked out clothes and kit from their piles on the floor to make another pile on the bed.
"Your synch rates are high. You haven't died yet. They need Marie for training. You're the only exorcist left who can handle it," Kanda finished.
Daisya grinned to himself as he checked the blade on his penknife.
"Are you trying to cheer me up?" he asked.
"Of course not," Kanda scoffed.
Turning his pack upside down, Daisya shook out the last of the grime and spruce needles that always got into the bottom of it. Right over Marie's swept stone floor. He'd apologize later.
"So I'm that good. I guess I did survive seeing a Noah. Twice."
Kanda stepped forward, which was as close as he ever got to jumping. "What?"
"You were there." Daisya sighed. No lost coins in this turnout. He did like it when he was suddenly richer than he'd been a minute ago.
"No. That was once."
"Didn't I tell you? We definitely ran into one before, like two years ago."
Now he had Kanda kneeling at eye level and giving him his best death glare. In his hands was a laundered bandage he was rolling. He could hold it up and put a line between them. Where would be the fun in that? The kid was all bark and no bite. Daisya just pinned it in place and tossed it on the pile right next to his socks.
"No," said Kanda.
"Oh. Well, remind me!"
Daisya caught his eye as a challenge. A staring contest. The crackle of tension lit up under his skin while his fingers worked the metal clasps of the roll. This one was a toss-up.
"Have I got something on my face?" he asked.
He could've laughed when Kanda nodded. The guy had just left him to do his thing without trying to drag him around into confessing anything! Maybe this new, docile Kanda would get old, but for now Daisya relished how fresh it was not to fight over every piece of information. He'd tell him everything. Of course. He'd forgotten what Kanda had and hadn't put together back when they were dealing with that other bell Innocence. That was beside the point! What mattered was that Kanda let him be when he wanted.
"Are you ready?" Kanda asked in return.
The daylight coming through Marie's half-blocked window said that it was still bright and early. They could be on the road by lunchtime if they wanted. Once Daisya had a goal, he found his feet itched, driving him toward the dojo if there was no one to play with, to the courtyard if there was, and more than anything out the doors to the Order, down the roads that could give him everything.
So, he guessed, he was more than ready. He was waiting. He was always one word from throwing his whole life back in that bag and jumping off the ramparts.
"You tell me. I think I'm prepared," Daisya explained. "But you know I'm not as strong as you. Were you just going easy on me this week?"
Kanda tossed his head like a horse. That wasn't a nod or a shake, he was just going through the motions while he thought over what Daisya was saying. His combat experience was in question. With how they'd had to work together to get out of that dream trap, it had been the easiest thing to say they should work some moves out just between the two of them. Daisya didn't have the same mobility that Lenalee relied on to keep up with Kanda.
Realizing that Kanda hadn't answered, Daisya bent his head back down over his much-washed backup cloak. It was fine, he was fine, Kanda wasn't that smart. He probably just had to take his time thinking about the question. It wasn't like Daisya was going to get worried about whether he measured up to Kanda's hopes. Hah! Definitely not.
They'd decided that if they were going to—and they were going to—keep going out together, they were going to want a few moves that didn't even take thinking. Sometimes you didn't have those five seconds to figure out where the next shot was, it was just bam, bam and you were leaping out of the akuma's way and hoping to whatever God was out there that you'd got the bastards. That's what had him in the dojo before sunup and running around the castle until only Kanda was beating his physical scores these days.
Daisya glanced up again before he could stop it. Marie's room was so tidy there was barely any room for his stuff, the dresser and shelves were lined up against the wall while the double bed—two beds put at right angles, not an actual double bed—took up the rest of the space. The light from the window cut right across the planks, down the floor to Kanda's boots. He'd all be in shadow if it were any brighter. He couldn't seriously say no, could he?
Cinching another roll of bandages as tight as it could go—
"You think I lie to you?"
—Daisya nearly stuck a safety pin through his own thumb. Those things weren't supposed to draw blood!
"Ow! What the hell are you talking about? No you don't lie, you just don't tell me stuff. I wasn't even talking about that," he whined.
"You asked if I go easy on you. I don't. If you remember what I taught you, you're ready," Kanda said. "If you don't, you're not. I wasn't trying to trick you."
"Then I'm fine," said Daisya. "I know what I'm doing."
Kanda still cocked his head, staring at him like a cat at a mirror. Ah, he must've taken that the wrong way. Sometimes he forgot Kanda was just a kid. The stuff he could do just made Daisya feel like he was a toddler trying to keep pace. Even the way he talked came off like some grown-up as much as it reminded him of a sulky child.
He tamped down on the smile. "I just won't try anything new if you don't think I can do it. That's all. It won't be any good for me if I jump and you're not going to catch me."
With that, the last of his gear landed on top of the packing heap. Every exorcist had loadout down to an art.
He put a hand forward for Kanda to grab, which he did, and pull him back up to standing with a yank that nearly took his arm off. Was that a smile on his face? Daisya knew by now that Kanda's jokes weren't obvious, but he still couldn't know for sure. He squinted.
"What are you looking like that for?"
Kanda shrugged. So he was laughing at him.
"You never asked me before."
"Asked what?"
Tightening his grip, Kanda lifted both their hands up between them. Then he let go. Deliberately. Now he was just being difficult.
"I need to get my things. I'll meet you below," he said, turning to leave.
"Wait up!"
...
Kanda stared over the ocean. The rainstorm that trapped them in port was still raining hard in the middle distance. It was still as dark as evening in the middle of the way, their stuff was wet, and the wind was strong enough to blow them sideways while they walked up here. They wouldn't be leaving for another day. It was the right decision to take them up on the cliff, with the crowd building up in town. Too many people meant too much chance of akuma for an exorcist. There was a reason they stayed outside of the bigger cities.
He had another reason for coming out here alone. It was watching the storm right now.
"Daisya." He'd need to get his attention first or else the boy would make him repeat every word, then stop listening halfway through. "Daisya!"
The moment Daisya turned to him, the wind whipped the wet tail of his hood right in his face. Kanda worked to keep his own face straight while he watched him try and claw it off, spitting like some cat.
"Why'd you have to do that?" whined Daisya, as if he could do anything about the wind. It was his own fault for not paying attention.
"You don't listen," he said.
"Not that, you scared me! You didn't have to yell," said Daisya. He was smiling too much for it to be serious. As much as Kanda wanted to shoot something back, that would take them off course.
"Did you meet another Noah?" he asked.
With one long look at the storm, Daisya came back from the clifftop by a few steps to face him. Good. They wouldn't have to shout over the gusts.
"Not another one. Same one. Actually, I didn't know if it was a dream, so I didn't not tell you, I probably just didn't think you'd believe me. It was when we were both up getting that bell Innocence."
He didn't need to give Kanda any more detail. Neither of them was going to forget the fight they had over it and the days they had to spend with each other. Daisya didn't even remember half of what happened there. He was lucky. Kanda had dragged his eviscerated body out from under the rubble that Daisya took for him, and then he had used up half a year of life just to get him stable. More than that.
Lenalee said it shouldn't count if it was his first kiss. Not his first. He remembered one from before that didn't count. But even if it was his second one, it was worse than the first. Old Lejun conscious even if he'd been hallucinating. It couldn't count if you were spitting your own blood down a corpse's throat.
Kanda crossed his arms before they started shaking. So there was a Noah there with them. He never saw or heard it. Somehow, Daisya did.
"When?"
Daisya's grin got wider. He was embarrassed. "Well, I think it was after you fixed me up." Trying to avoid the topic. That was fine by him. Kanda had no intention of remembering it any longer than he had to.
"You weren't conscious."
"No," Daisya agreed. "I don't think I was."
"What?"
A variety of looks shot over Daisya's face before he settled on serious. He could make himself look like a theatre mask if he wanted to. In the same minute he'd frown harder than Marie and stretch his grin wider than a Level Two. It made him harder to read. For months Kanda thought he just showed everything that came into his mind, then for years Kanda second-guessed whatever he said, once he realized that Daisya used those ridiculous faces to cover up whatever he was really thinking. Kanda noted every twitch of his body trying to read him as he put down his hood and let go of the tail.
"You know how you put me out in the woods?" said Daisya carefully. "Well, I remember seeing me there."
"How?" he asked.
"It was like I was somewhere else. We've got souls. Akuma are souls," Daisya jumped in like he was expecting an argument, "So they have to exist. Whatever was happening to my body, I think my soul was out of it. I just remember seeing a girl, the Noah, grey skin, crown tattoo, you know, walking by. I think she said something."
By his sides, Daisya's gloved fingers clenched and unclenched. Trying to warm up.
"Anyway, I can't remember that much. I did see her."
"You should be dead," was all Kanda could think of to say.
Daisya couldn't have been able to move, not just fight. He was wearing the Order's rose on him. The Noah were the Order's enemy. They killed exorcists. If they were lucky. Sometimes they just corrupted their Innocence. Hevlaska would know if he came back corrupted. The body in front of him didn't look dead. Just wet.
"Yeah. I get that now. If my soul was out of my body, though, I must've been dead."
The chill that Kanda's cloak had been keeping off sank right through to his chest. A gust of wind ripped through the heather, spraying them both with rain from all sides.
"That's why she just left me. I looked real bad there. She didn't know about you," said Daisya quietly.
Kanda nodded. He'd asked Daisya to tell him, and he had. He'd told him the truth. There were months of time he and Daisya spent away on opposite missions. After six years with the Order, there was a chance he'd seen a Noah before.
There was no reason that Kanda should have known. He was still angry.
Why?
Daisya should have told him.
He didn't even know if it was real.
He should have told Kanda.
Would he tell Kanda, if he knew it?
Another burst of wind slammed across the two of them and blew Daisya's hood back. The seas roared around them both. The tail of his hood streamed out in the wind like a banner.
Kanda nodded.
"Why does it matter, anyway?" Daisya asked suddenly. He was back to his old self. "I'm fine, she's gone, whatever."
That meant asking questions Kanda didn't want to answer.
"Yeah," he said.
"Yeah?"
"You're—" Kanda struggled against everything telling him to shut his throat down and stop talking. Daisya would just hound him if he didn't give him a good answer now. "—fine."
When they were talking, it was like Daisya knew everything that was going to happen before he started. Kanda couldn't even say "yes" or "no" to a question without Daisya looking at him like this. He was figuring out what Kanda meant, telling him that he could see whatever Kanda tried to hide. Fine. Daisya didn't know everything yet.
After a long time, Daisya just grinned. "I am, aren't I?"
Kanda nodded before he could stop himself.
A friend pointed out that storms feature in the climax of almost every book in my fav series (Discworld). Couldn't possibly have had any influence on my own habits. Thank you for reading!