work sucks, chapter update, love you all, thanks for reading, comment for any typos or corrections, etc.
Daisya's ankles hurt like hell. He was pretty sure he remembered the akuma talking about the gate. The city gate. It was too far away from here, over the snow-covered thatch roofs. His cloak had been buried underneath the ruins of the warehouse wall clutched in some fist that wasn't fast enough to catch him. Lucky he had his bandages still on, but it was cold above the cover of the houses, and the wind bit.
It seemed like a dream.
If he didn't know that akuma looked like humans and Innocence worked like objects, this whole town might seem like some sweaty brought on by bad pork the night before. One big, quiet village where he was looking for someone he couldn't find, and no matter how fast he ran he was always far away, and every hint he found just put him further behind. All that was left was for him to start falling.
Around him, broad flakes of snow seemed to hang in the air.
He'd spent way too long in dreams.
Daisya threw himself across the main street, crouching for a moment on the roof of what he thought was the post office. The murmur of noise coming from the explosion site had shifted. The people who had poured out of their homes were going back inside to wait until morning for a declaration of war, if one was coming.
With one bent ankle he broke back into the spaceless black in front of him.
Maybe these akuma were the type that liked to have fun. He'd heard of a few that retained some of their human qualities, like belligerence and a bad sense of humour, along with the one shared akuma trait that was a desire to seek out Innocence and kill anyone who might be get in the way or work for the other side.
After all he'd experienced, Daisya wasn't sure he could call it "God." He hadn't been Christian to begin with. And all these scriptures and writings, from not just Christianity but from what mom and dad taught him, were pretty suspicious. None of them mentioned an Earl, though a few did mention Noah, and they all said that "God" or whatever was all-powerful.
That certainly wasn't true. Exorcists had died to prove—
His train of thought cut off as he skidded dangerously. A cramp ripped up his side straight to his head, making fuzzy spots in his eyes like he'd got up from kneeling too fast. He hadn't even seen them between the snow flakes. That served him for being distracted. For one second it was like he'd fallen off. He could feel the gravity take hold of every moving part of him and freeze.
He yelled.
Then it stopped.
Daisya's eyes unclouded.
He wasn't smashed on the ground, he was standing exactly where he'd been.
The weight flowed back into the world like a wave over tidepools. His own pack was on his back. The drawstring with Mugen was over one shoulder. The same one where the muscles were still unlocking from the shock. His eyes were fixed right on the ground that he'd been destined for. The ratty thatch of the roof stuck out from the tilted building over it, the space between two mismatched buildings that had to be built two hundred years apart or more. His side of it couldn't be further from the other if it was across the ocean.
This was the place.
An alley where a patch of dark, scuffed snow was still visible under the new-fallen flakes. One wrought-iron street lamp lit it up partway, yellow spreading out around it in a pool that came just short of showing the rubbish heap behind it. He could see some kind of loading door to a workshop. Must not be used much anymore. The gap under the brick outline was boarded-over. Each nail glinted. Disused, sure, but they hadn't left it for too long.
Daisya glanced around. His eyes actually hurt from trying to force the night into shapes that made sense. There was just nothing. He should be alone, if he believed the things he saw.
Hah.
He'd learned that lesson.
Eyes wide, he held the night's stare until it was finally too dry to keep them open.
The akuma would be coming back. He couldn't be sure he got all of them back there. Once they knew there was Innocence to get, they'd keep coming until they were all gone. He could imagine them knocking him to the ground, ripping the last piece of Kanda he had left off his back…
He gripped the pack's shoulder strap.
There wasn't any way he could get out of this. He had to go down and see what the shape was that was lying with its arm reaching into the lamplight. From the roof, he couldn't pretend that the rose-seal button he saw was anything else.
Daisya clenched his jaw.
Moving toward the façade-side, he slid down the roof to the corner of the building. With his hands buried in the straw to slow himself, he held on and picked his way down by inches. He hooked his feet in the gutter trough once he got far enough, dropped his pack over the side, then leaned down so he could check out the window situation. A ledge or two, not much to work with.
The pack landed on the stones with a ringing clatter. The akuma couldn't take anything more from him now that he'd ditched it himself.
He could see clearly three thick wooden beams that made a small window below him. The problem was how far inward it was set. The beams that supported the thatch came out far over the actual wall. Even with a strong body like this, he had to twist as far as he could to get there. His thighs shook as he bent his back around like a cat. If he so much as flinched now, his boots would slip out of the metal trough and send him plummeting two stories stomach first.
At least Kanda was down there.
Daisya reached his fingers out.
Mugen might spear him through the stomach before he even hit ground.
His hands fastened around the shutters that he hoped would hold, then his feet jumped off of the roof's edge as he flipped down to get a toehold on the sill. If his boots slipped on the worn wood, he'd be dangling by cold fingers over the same drop.
They didn't.
Daisya found himself crouched, pressed flat against the window. From there he half-slid, half-shimmied down the building to land hard at the alley's entrance. The steel caps on his toes cracked louder than an actual gunshot. He hoped nobody heard that.
There wasn't a lot more time he had to waste on stupid distractions.
Around him, the wind picked up as fast as a gale. The tall, narrow buildings funnelled air between them like the space between two ships. Daisya wouldn't hear anyone coming up behind him unless they were trying to make a racket.
He looked up one last time to check, questioning the purpose of the lamp, before stepping past. It seemed out of place with its curlicues of grey metal and the fluted design of the pole. Too pretty for a has-been old trading centre passed over by commerce.
He couldn't stop thinking things like that. Even now. For once, the habit was something he hated.
Picking up his backpack from the ground, he couldn't stop himself from shaking. There was nothing else he could look at that wasn't what was right here.
Daisya stepped out of the light.
His eyes only took seconds to adjust back to the dark as he crossed it. Black patches on the grey ground gave him the direction he needed, but even then, he couldn't miss it if he tried. Clothes, smashed and empty boxes, frozen kitchen trash were all mounded between two wooden panels that stuck out from the wall. A body was roughly dumped on top of it and had slid down.
Daisya's chest spasmed like the bubbles on a soup pot. How had he ever felt cold? He was so hot he was queasy. As fast as he'd jumped to the ground, he came down further on to hands and knees.
"Kanda!"
He was face-down, head twisted to the side and limbs bent or sticking out at odd angles. For the second time in six years and countless missions, Kanda was the one who was out cold. His feet were on the heap. His face was pressed into the stone. His one arm was stretched out towards Daisya. That didn't look like someone who was still living.
Funny, considering the number of times Daisya had been in the same position.
He touched him as light as he could, like a stray cat. The old man taught him not to move people unless you were really sure.
Turning Kanda on to his back, Daisya cushioned his head with the other hand. Huh. There were frozen patches on his coat. His hair was all matted. He'd been bleeding—except, no, that was what other people did. Boring people. Normal people.
Daisya slipped the other set of cold-numbed fingers under Kanda's off-set jaw.
His skin didn't feel any warmer than his own.
Glancing over his shoulder, Daisya saw a trail of sloughed snow and smeared blood behind Kanda that showed he had crawled out, halfway, before…
He felt a faint pulse beneath his fingers.
Out of the light, out of anyone's sight, one boy lowered his head.
Daisya counted the beats. If he said anything else, then no one could even hear him. The wind swallowed up every noise he made.
He had to know for sure. He had to get closer. Clutching Kanda to him, he pressed into the space between his neck and shoulders. He could hear it. Finally. Against his ear, he could hear him breathe.
They stayed like that.
Then Daisya wiped his eyes on Kanda's collar.
He raised his head.
It was time to return a favour. More than one. A few. Did it count as more than one favour, when it was always the same thing Kanda did for him, every time he got hurt?
Daisya hooked one arm beneath Kanda's shoulders, the other around one of his legs, and stood up, hoisting him on to his back. Fireman's lift was practically the first lesson they all learned at the Order; most Finder owed their life to somebody being able to book it out of a fight with a body on their back. Daisya knew that.
He took a heavy step towards the alley's entrance, watching out for anyone coming after them, but he stopped before he even took a second one as he felt the cold night seep into his own mangled chest.
The unconscious groan Kanda let out told him something he didn't know before.
Kanda was hurt.
His wounds should have been long healed by now.
Even moving him had to be painful.
Daisya screwed up his face. Damn it! He couldn't wipe his eyes with his hands all tied up like this.
But, he guessed it didn't matter. Either something was waiting for them out there, or it wasn't. He couldn't stay here knowing Kanda was this bad off. They'd both go into the yawning nothing at the end of the street. Every place was the same in this night. They'd both die. Or they wouldn't.
Setting out, Daisya was as close to alone as he could be when there was another person there. No one could watch his face collapse, which might've been why he let it happen.
He sniffed.
He snivelled.
Then, like he hadn't done for a long time, at least, not since the last time something happened to him and Kanda, he cried.
He was so tired.
…
Daisya kept his knees bent, taking in the extra strain of Kanda on his back, and trudged back through the snowy streets. This journey went far more slowly, clouds of breath puffing out in front of him before streaming behind. There was only so much a body was going to take.
It could've been an hour without a watch to measure it.
They made their way up the outer ring of houses towards where the inn was. Silent houses on the one side, silent shops on the other. It must be past two in the morning. Daisya had woken up well before sunrise the day before. He'd see the night through soon. Then they could skip town and never come back again, ever.
There hadn't been the gunshots that always came after him when there were akuma involved. His ears still rang. Everything felt wrong as he tried to get some of it out in sobs. You couldn't breathe fresh air until you hacked the stale stuff up. It was a choice between crying and being sick at this point.
After few hundred footfalls, a grumbling noise stopped him in his tracks.
Daisya had just enough time to react through the haze of fatigue before the weight on his shoulders began to shift.
"Hey…let me go—"
It was like thawing ice with hot tea. His chest practically cracked open with the shock as warmth poured in.
"Quit moving!" he hissed.
Like Kanda ever listened to him. Daisya let Kanda shake himself loose, rolling over him and somehow landing on his feet. Despite the reflexes, his words were still slurred when they came out. He was talking from somewhere else.
Daisya held his breath.
"Fffine…" he said. "I'm fine."
It wasn't so much a word as a hiss. You could've lost it in a breeze. Kanda glared out from under his bangs as Daisya giggled.
"Yeah, you are."
Nodding, Kanda started to walk. It didn't take long for his body to realize that he wasn't. The next step forward dragged, the next one tripped, and Kanda fell forward on to Daisya's waiting shoulder. The thicker snow still didn't give much of a cushion if he was going to go over.
"Want a hand?" Daisya asked softly.
"No."
Kanda pushed him back gingerly. His eyes were still as blank as stones.
"I said 'm fine."
Daisya grabbed him again before he fell a second time, pulling Kanda's arm over his shoulder.
"I can see that. Just walk slowly."
Daisya timed his first step to Kanda's, then the next.
Snow settled on them like ashes.