The day they left the bamboo fields was the day Marie truly began to worry about Kanda. Ironically, it was also the first day when he knew that Kanda had actually slept through the night.

As the breathy sound of wind in and out of the leaves filtered into his awareness, Marie lifted his head from his bedding ever so slightly so that he could listen for his companion, confirming that yes, Kanda was still there, and yes, he was asleep, and still sleeping.

From just at Marie's side, there was a leathery, impatient shifting as the golem uncurled itself-they had settled into a tentative routine of morning and night, with the golem leading them during the day, and then as night fell, rustling its wings stubbornly into its sides and landing near the bedroll of whoever was less likely to shoo it away, like it intended to sleep with them. Usually, that was Marie-Kanda had complained before about feeling like it was watching him, which, knowing the Order, it might have been.

Speaking of Kanda. Marie sat himself up stealthily, debating with himself whether or not he ought to wake Kanda right away, but he needn't have bothered. As soon as his muscles twitched with so much as the idea of motion, he heard Kanda jolt up abruptly, and a little bit wildly. Marie kept still and calm to let him look around and remember where he was for himself, but Marie wondered if his reaction came from being woken up, or from whatever he'd been woken up out of. He wished he could see his face to know.

Thinking on that as they packed and began to go, Marie came to the uncanny realization that he had never actually seen Kanda with his own eyes. It was very strange to think he never would. He could describe how he felt, sharp bones and taut angles, with a child's perfect, smooth skin and soft hair (he was positive that it was a shadowy color). There was a feel even to his eyes, narrow, ice-sharp slits that followed all his movements with suspicion, and an awareness of a bold spirit which peered critically out at the world around it.

He was learning Kanda's sounds, too, always like rain and wind and sometimes fraught with things that snapped their teeth. But for all that, Marie would simply never know what he looked like. It brought a sense of strangeness and a very real sense of loss which he had not quite felt before.

And it was as he was thinking about things he wasn't feeling and things he was losing that they arrived at the end of the bamboo.

Marie felt it as it happened-the wind suddenly became clearer in sensation, the smell of the air became drier and unfamiliar, and Kanda stopped short at the same time Marie did.

Kanda's reluctance made sense-spaces that didn't end in walls were still daunting concepts for Kanda, who had started and then spent his first year of life in a contained area-but Marie knew his own was irrational. He felt off his balance just at the thought of open ground with no immediate aids, even though it was probably less treacherous of a surface than rotting leaf litter.

He took carefully measured steps back to Kanda, counting each one in his head to remind himself he could, and then put a hand onto Kanda's shoulder-if he could find that without seeing it, then certainly he could find something as big as a city.

As per usual when he initiated any sort of physical contact with Kanda, the boy-though he neither lashed out nor moved away, like Marie had been warned he had in the past-froze into place and then tremored just perceptibly under his hand like a powder keg, as though only immense self-discipline was holding him in place.

Well. They both had things that needed working on.

"This way, Kanda," Marie directed gently, drawing courage from the almost-confidence in his own voice. The golem winged in impatient circles around his head. "We've almost made it."

Had they? Well, they were closer than they were before.

Kanda subjected Marie to a sky-colored scrutiny, unseen, but stayed under Marie's hand, because he was young enough and because he wasn't sure he wanted to move forward yet. The world ahead, still touched with green in patches, was…was a world, unbounded and frightening.

Kanda measured the distance to where the bed of bamboo leaves ended-that line was a threshold to Kanda, and once he was over it he felt that the whole bright sky could glare down at him and he would be exposed to everything in it and under it. But when Marie went on, so did Kanda.

Ahead was the only way, he told himself. Follow Marie. He could do that- follow Marie.

He held his breath-the cover of the arching plants broke-and…nothing happened.

Kanda felt no earth-shattering change. His eyes adjusted to the light. He heard a bird call that he hadn't before. Nothing else. To add to the non-event of it all, Kanda yawned.

He picked his way after Marie, making up the pause, and found that without the tension he was much more tired than he'd thought. Lately it had become harder than Kanda remembered to make his mind transition from thought to sleep. At the Asia Branch, he'd never had to think about how to sleep, but it was different when he knew he would be waking with a destination.

For the very first days of their journey, Kanda hadn't been able to sleep at all. He hated sleeping outside in the dark and the unfamiliar noise, but exhaustion did it eventually-exhaustion and enough days of Marie's even breathing nearby, and one night Kanda wondered about the sky and trains until his wondering simply became dreaming.

He still didn't like sleeping outside, of course. But Kanda had decided he would rather sleep out in the bamboo for the rest of his life than endure the experience that Marie was calling a "train"-which, from what Marie had said, promised to be teeming with people and confusing new terms and probably too much noise.

And Finders, Kanda recalled. Bak had said they were supposed to meet Finders in Europe. Kanda didn't know what Finders were, but it didn't matter to him that much-Kanda didn't like sleeping outside, he didn't like trains, and he didn't intend to like Finders, either.

Marie was steeling himself in his own way as they wore on.

He was nervous, but not showing it. Tiedoll's words were coming back to haunt him: keep him safe.

Bak had made a point that worried Marie-the Order was vicious, and a two-headed beast. It would be loath to let the last Second Disciple out of its teeth, but the reception waiting for them in Europe might be less than welcoming for someone with so little reason to owe loyalty. Marie hoped this wasn't the case, because he was not nearly prepared to defend their freedoms as secret and keeper, respectively, without the support of his General.

At least the timing was good. With no official word from Asia Headquarters to tell anyone otherwise, Marie was just bringing in a new Exorcist from his last mission, since the operatives in the Second Exorcist project had last reported Marie as being held for medical treatment (probably until they could claim he died of complications).

With European Headquarters temporarily without a Branch Chief, Marie hoped he could get Kanda's paperwork into the system before the next Chief got things in order. No one would question an Exorcist file with some holes in it-that sort of thing was standard for Exorcists.

What Marie was more worried about, actually, was what sort of uncomfortable questions might come up about where he'd come across a Japanese Exorcist. Akuma-savaged Japan had proven impassible to all Order affiliates trying to get in, and all human citizens trying to get out. Suspicion was sure to follow Kanda, but hopefully it would stay at rank-and-file-the Branch Chief never bothered to communicate personally with his Exorcists, except when severe disciplinary action was required.

In those cases, the Branch Head would come to them himself, flanked with shaven, stripe-uniformed guards, usually just before the unfortunate soul was dragged off for questioning under threat of inquisition. Marie had only ever see it happen once-Winters Socorro had gone the whole way laughing like a madman, and come back laughing harder.

The memory was disturbing one, and he didn't want to relive it. Marie debated calling ahead to the Finders at the European Branch just to put his mind at ease, but he knew it would be premature rather than prudent, and that the less warning he gave to Headquarters, the better off he would be.

He forced his attention ahead. This far out, the air was starting to change. It had been changing for a while-the chorus of half-conscious nature sounds had begun to die out, and there were fewer trees cropping up along the way. The ground was flatter, too, and there was a smoky edge to the air-all signs of human habitation. Marie swallowed in compulsion, and the smoke clung to the inside of his throat.

Was he prepared to do this?

Kanda was becoming broodier and broodier the closer they came to their destination, and Marie couldn't blame him-he himself was getting antsier with each second he thought about what was to come.

Marie catalogued everything he knew and tried to fit himself back into the mission routine-right, he could do this, he'd done this since he was a wide-eyed barely-teen. Marie wasn't in uniform-he and Bak had both decided it was too unsafe in their situation to advertise their own colors. Getting attacked by Akuma could be disastrous with an Exorcist fresh back into the field and an Exorcist who had never even used refined Innocence before.

Kanda's Mugen was sheathed and out of sight in his travel bag and Kanda didn't seem to have any other idea of what to do with it. Marie wondered if they should stop one more time, but a restless instinct made him press them on further-something told him the journey was almost done with. It was just that Marie wasn't sure what would be waiting for him at the end of it.

The exact moment the city appeared on the horizon, Marie knew, and almost wished he didn't. Here would be the test.

Marie was afraid of failing. He was afraid of failing himself, failing his General, failing this Second Exorcist. He wasn't ready for this, for being the only one to turn to, for having enough strength for Kanda and for himself and for himself for Kanda. The world was confusing and full of monsters, and how could he know where to go without his eyes anymore-

But now they were at the city.

It started to rise from the ground around them and Marie listened to the filtering of the air, first through little, squat houses that slowly became closer together, and then through denser, higher-reaching architecture that built towards its heart.

The threshold of Order territory to unaffiliated territory had needed an emotional steeling and a mustering of courage to cross, and marked a mental transition more than a physical one. A patch of dirt was only so different from another patch of dirt, after all. But the threshold from unaffiliated land to industrialized land was like a physical barrier hitting them.

It baffled Marie, who had heard the sound creeping up on them before it had suddenly roared up and swallowed them between one step and the next. The air came in hot on his next breath, Kanda coiled low into himself, and static blazed in Marie's ears. People swarmed around them, each one ringing painfully in his ears.

Wait, Marie thought, wait, I'm not ready-

But deep down, Marie knew that the issue was not really that he was afraid he hadn't recovered from losing his vision-if Marie was afraid of that, he would have never have left the Order, and certainly Bak would not have let him. Marie's doubt in himself was the issue in and of itself-he was not so assured, anymore, after losing a team and then losing his faith in the Order and then almost losing his life all so close together.

Marie took responsibility harder than most, and now this city, this rush around him, all the clamor seemed to laugh at him. Here would be such an easy place to lose a child. They'd gotten this far-it was high time something went wrong. Marie's high-running anxiety told him to act to somehow combat the intangible threat of failure, to grab Kanda and get out of sight.

Marie actually started to reach for him, but thought and stopped himself-Kanda clearly was not ready to be shepherded by the hand. He already had his hackles up like a wild hyena that had nearly torn Marie's throat out once when he was with his old team-Kanda's space was not to be trespassed, or it would be teeth for the trespasser. This was even more jarringly unfamiliar to Kanda than to Marie, after all. Marie already knew the steps, if not the method.

"Kanda, stay close to me," Marie murmured, pitching his voice deep for Kanda to hear. "We shouldn't be attacked in a town so close to the Order, and the trains running out of here are probably Order-monitored, but even though we're not wearing uniforms Akuma can sometimes sense Innocence when it's close to them. So make sure you keep Mugen with you all the time."

"I know that," he thought Kanda's small, sulky voice said under the noise, but Marie felt him draw his arms tight to his chest with his Innocence and draw closer beside him.

Marie realized he sympathized with that edgy watchfulness. After the muted, resonating quality of Asian Headquarters, a place of reverence and respect despite a population even larger than the European Branch, the station didn't sound like it was packed full of people at all-it sounded like flocks and herds of high, chattering creatures, indecipherable except that they seemed to be bellowing, shrieking, and stampeding all around. It was…well, "disoriented" wasn't the word for it.

But now Marie found himself able to move on.

He still paid close attention to Kanda-to the way he shrunk into himself more at every piercing noise, locking into himself with a violent tension Marie could feel in the air, all fight and readiness to lash out at the first stranger who approached him.

Marie didn't think Kanda noticed him doing it-he was obviously familiar with the tongues being spoken around them, though he had only ever spoken to Marie in English. Kanda's English, it had to be said, was already much, much better than Marie's Chinese.

This didn't surprise Marie-the Order taught all of its members vigorous English for the sake of a common language, since such things were vital for the instant communication that could determine whether a mission succeeded or failed. They were often less vigorous with the Finders, as they were a lower priority and had a much higher turnover rate, and Marie found he occasionally liked to converse with the ones who spoke his native German. He hoped sometimes that he might meet another Exorcist who was naturally fluent, one day-sometimes, Marie forgot his own nationality.

Marie was mindful of how others reacted to Kanda, too-compared to Marie, Kanda didn't stand out half as much. Bak had said he was biologically Japanese, and Marie might have told as much anyway-he could have been deaf as well as blind and still noticed the attention he attracted with his hulking, muscled frame and his dark, earth-and-sun skin, or how that attention for the most part slid right over Kanda.

As an Exorcist, Marie was used to this sort of thing. The fact that he wasn't wearing his uniform in this country didn't make so much of a difference when he was already so out of place. At the very least, it afforded him more walking space, which he was sure Kanda appreciated.

It gave Marie the freedom to step less carefully, and be less wary of misstepping in the unpredictable human rapids around him. It also gave him the freedom to keep his head down and listen with his feet when the ground began to thrum with the very first vibrations of noise.

Marie beckoned Kanda subtly around and started weaving to where the sound was coming to before others who might be waiting began to notice. Hopefully, they could both get boarded before there was too much of a crowd inside-while the Exorcists were guaranteed seats and access, the affair of getting it tended to draw attention. Lots of people meant lots of eyes, and a strange passenger getting priority treatment in the Order's flavors drew many of them-and many eyes meant many mouths.

Kanda followed him step for step, determinedly avoiding the feet of taller passerby who didn't think to glance down, and pulled in close to the cover of a grungy building overhang facing the central train platform when Marie did, ducking inwards and waiting attentively. The thrum became a rumble became a screech heralding the engine as it came pulling heavily into the station, and Kanda straightened up in heart-pounding alertness to watch it.

He flinched into Marie when the whistle shrieked a mouthful of steam and the metal rails creaked with force, but for Marie these were all cues-the train stopping, the doors opening, the conductor's shout, and then the breath of collective impatience before people began pouring off the train.

Marie braced himself, brushed a hand by Kanda's shoulder to warn him, and then pressed shoulders-first into the one-way force of those disembarking. It was a short distance-Marie had picked his spot well-but an arduous one full of direct disruption.

Marie tried to hide Kanda in his shadow as they shoved out of it to the flank of the train-the conductor was still shouting at the front, and he didn't think Kanda would take to well to being shouted at. Marie already could see that anger was not going to be the right way to deal with Kanda, just like he could tell already that too many people were going to try it anyway.

Nervous as a rookie Exorcist, Marie felt his way along the side and clambered aboard the train, which he did his best not to give away either to the suddenly flustered and overly-welcoming conductor who had been told to expect them or to anyone else looking. The last think Marie wanted was to put Kanda on edge any more then he was already-at this point, if Kanda wound any tighter he was going to snap. And anyway, Marie had learned by now that there was nothing more likely to make people flock to you than acting like you had something to hide.

Moving into the stifled-smelling containment of the passenger compartment, Marie was hyper-aware of everything going on around him-his combat paranoia was kicking into gear just like normal, and his hearing, his best available asset, was compensating for the constant surveying he couldn't do. He hadn't even known he could listen at this level-wind, metal fixings, and human heartbeats, all percussive and arrhythmic.

But Marie was amused and quietly warmed in his heart to discover that, for all the world felt new to him when he was experiencing it through his other senses, he was so used to train travel that maneuvering through the seats and the aisle and the overhead was instinct more than even muscle memory. Kanda, thankfully, ghosted right at his heels, never looking at anyone for too long.

There were some eyes averted politely as they passed, appraising them peripherally, and there were some averted in discomfort and anxiety, maybe even distaste, of their foreign strangeness. But of course there were those eyes that stayed on them and burned like chips of ice melting on his skin, and it was those that Marie was cautious of.

They found their seats-there were no single compartments on this train, but there were sets that faced each other-and Marie counted back the number they had passed, just to be sure. Kanda's sure stop confirmed his count, and he made sure Kanda slid into his own seat with a firm grip on his satchel before Marie slid in opposite him, trying to stretch the little thrills of danger out of his limbs.

But he should have paid more attention to the eyes. A titter came from somewhere nearby-female, soft vocals-and Marie twisted his head, straining to keep up when foreign words began to be spoken in their direction.

A woman seemed to be speaking-to him? No, to Kanda now, greeting him with coy hands and draping sleeves, because Marie could hear her hidden fingers rustling like snakes in the fabric and there was a soft sweeping sound whenever she gestured or spoke.

Who was she? Marie was off his balance, unable to read her face for intent, or for an unnatural elasticity at the corner of her smile that sometimes characterized skin stretched over a metal puppet.

But that was the surface, he reminded himself. He needed to stop listening on the surface-he had to listen deeper, deep to the heart. Marie tried refocusing on her to find that she had not turned her attention from Kanda, who was mute in the face of her admiring. The sound of her seemed to smile and beckon from all directions, and Kanda was caught at Marie's side like a caged dog, frozen between shrinking back and springing at her. Marie let his humming, stressing fury fade out, and listened hard to the woman.

Her voice, her metronome heart. Human. Marie breathed.

And her words: the day. The weather. Beautiful child. Blue eyes-

Marie didn't realize the woman was reaching for Kanda until he heard the sharp rebuke-"Don't touch me!"-and her shocked gasp.

Marie shifted closer to the inner aisle, already with a placating hand towards her and a calm voice-"Please, I'm sorry, he's shy"-and Kanda shifted fiercely away until his shoulder was to the window, and Marie understood as the train began to move beneath them like a waking beast that it was going to be this way with Kanda for a long time. Marie wondered with a certain detached acceptance if he would ever meet Bak and the Asia Branch again-Exorcists almost never visited the same place twice.

But now they were moving on.

They found the Finders on their last transit into Europe.

Disembarking was just as chaotic as boarding, except that this time Kanda was even more sour about it. He kept his nose wrinkled firmly against the smoky, oily smells of the city, not in the least accustomed to the reek of non-sterility, but Marie himself was in much higher spirits after making it this far.

"Master Exorcist!"

There. That could be no one but one of the Finders-Akuma usually didn't bother with honorifics once their blood rage zeroed in on an Accommodator.

Marie pushed the reluctant Kanda ahead of him towards the thinner edge of the crowd, and listened for them again. He had checked in with Bak beforehand, so he knew there were two waiting for them. They had either been given their descriptions or Marie and Kanda were just that distinct because the pair immediately approached them.

They wove their way to each other through the tides of people towards each other with discreet difficulty. Marie focused on where the sound had come from and where Kanda had turned when he heard it, trusting them to intercept him as he moved.

"Here, Master Exorcist!"

The trust was not misplaced. Two breathing figures found them, stopping in front of them and dropping into brief bows that had Kanda leaning back like a threatened cobra.

"Please, follow us," said one of the two, a little breathlessly. "We'll be guiding you back to Headquarters."

It was a man who had called them first, Marie believed, and the smaller presence that had spoken after Marie deduced to be a woman. It wasn't unusual for a woman to be a Finder-the Order allowed in anyone who was willing to swear to their cause. Kanda, Marie noted with some interest, seemed slightly less ill-disposed to her. He had a feeling she reminded Kanda of someone, but Marie had no way to identify how.

They began to follow in the wake of the Finders, but the Finders were escorts rather than leaders-all those in the Black Order deferred automatically to Exorcists, and were reliant on them entirely to defeat any Akuma who appeared. All they could do for themselves was defend and contain, which was a good deal more than the average person, but, Marie surmised, a degree more aggravating-he could imagine nothing more frustrating than knowing exactly how to defeat an enemy but being incapable of actually doing it.

These two were obviously experienced in the field, and wise to the power of the Exorcists. They both had flighty stares and tense, steeled shoulders, the kind that said they would step between an Exorcist and a blood bullet if it meant the Exorcist could survive to do his job.

The man in particular, some years older than his female companion, seemed especially keen. Marie picked up on him sending curious backward glances at Kanda along the way, different from the woman's troubled, regretful ones.

Kanda himself was rigid but not locked anymore, each muscle sliding smooth and deliberate in a danger-ready prowl. His fingers didn't twitch, but Marie heard them brush just over his sword in an instinct communicated automatically from Innocence to wielder.

The man acknowledged this by nodding to himself. "That's good," he said. "He'll be ready to fight."

Kanda regarded him from the corner of his eye, raptly scrutinizing a disturbance across the way, but said nothing. The female did in his stead, scoffing sideways at her companion.

"Good?" she said scornfully. "When the Order says something is 'good', they never mean for the person it concerns."

"Careful," the man cautioned her, and Marie sensed him looking in his direction.

The woman dropped the subject, though she fell to muttering some things that Marie wasn't used to hearing from many ladies of the time. Marie made no comment, but her words set him to wondering-did even the base ranks of the Order mistrust their superiors so much?

If Kanda had any input on the subject, he didn't share it either. At a street-crossing, the woman female Finder took the opportunity to fall into pace with Kanda, which Marie, remembering the woman on the train, heeded conscientiously. He needn't have worried, though-the woman kept trying to prod Kanda into conversation, but he refused to speak to her. At the very least Kanda kept his eyes on her, unwavering but guarded, which he hadn't done with the man.

Marie wasn't sure whether he should step in or not, and on whose behalf, so he kept one ear open to the pair while he himself exchanged occasional words with the male Finder on the way to their destination.

"Did you have to leave home to come here?" she was asking Kanda. Her tone was somewhere between empathy, anger and hurt-someone must have been taken from her.

Marie heard the long no in Kanda's lasting stillness, but didn't know if the woman did.

"Ruth," the male Finder said, this time with the authority of his years. "Leave it alone."

"We're going to make children give up their lives for us to feel protected, so of course everyone is going to leave it alone," the woman fired back, and Marie didn't imagine the extra force under her sole when she halted fiercely in place.

Before Marie could check back to her, there was a snapping sound that Marie at first couldn't figure out. After a moment's thought he identified it: the woman had just agitatedly remade a ponytail for herself. She let a breath go and did her best to let the grudge go.

"I'm sorry," she said, but the apology was only meant for Kanda. Marie thought he heard something like a smile come into her voice, like sun over a clearing, but by then she had turned back to Kanda. "Even if you have to leave, I'm sure someone will wait for you."

And then she yanked the straps of her pack forward, put her hood over her hair, and fell smartly back into step with the other Finder, who grumbled a few words at her before leaving her alone.

Marie knew Kanda watched her after that with a cloudy scrutiny, but could not have told you why.

He didn't get to dwell on it-the male Finder ushered him on toward an early train with open seats, and then they were on the rails again and everything fell away into travel once more.

For Marie. Not for Kanda.

For Kanda, this train ride was not like the rest. For the first time on their journey, Kanda was holding his Innocence in his seat. A bit gingerly-it had been packed away for the whole trip, but with the Finders taking charge of their bags, Marie had told him that it was important for an Exorcist to always have his Innocence within reach.

The sword still felt strange in his hands, and its name still strange on his tongue-Mugen. Zhu had been responsible for naming it, just like he had been for him. He had put the word into his mouth, gen, for illusion, and mu, for six, and Kanda had repeated it back to him so naturally that it was as though he had known it all his life.

Kanda saw no reason for why he should feel any affinity for the language of the country Zhu told him he came from, when he had been raised Chinese in the Order, but he loved the name of his Innocence in a way he couldn't explain-a sort of kinship to a weapon forged by the same smith.

He kept dragging his nails one after the other over the white seams in the black leather hilt, his fingers odd and nimble without bandages from testing binding them, still half-expecting the blade to become the sentient, writhing thing that pierced crystal wings through his hands again. He didn't want to look at it and remember, and the sound of it rattling in his lap with the rocking rhythm of the train was irritating, yet he couldn't put it away.

Because if he put it away, then he would look out the window and see the Western towns and Western skies, so many people and so much space, brown roofs and black smoke and red stones in colors that spread outside his possible perception in a completely overwhelming reminder of this terrifying new world he was in.

Kanda held onto the sword, because if he looked out the window, Kanda knew that he would begin to weep and not be able to stop.

Kanda glared at a curious child who looked at him hopefully from across the aisle, but just doing something outside of his own head made his mind ache with exhaustion. The world had been getting duller with every day, and there was pressure on the edge of his vision, a pressure that been there since after Alma, but that had begun to close in after he'd seen the ponytailed silhouette of the talkative female Finder. The one that had said-(don't think about it).

The more Kanda tried not to think of her, the more the pressure closed. Kanda shook his head and pressed a hand into his eyes for a short inhale-exhale into his other hand-forgetforgetforget.

Everything was so much. Everything was so, so much to take in-if he let even a bit of it slip through his indifference, then it would tear away his armor from inside like a hurricane gale and he would never be able to put himself together again.

He tried to mimic Marie and practice focusing on just one sense at a time, closing his eyes to make himself only hear the voices of the people in the other car, covering his ears so that he could only see the outside landscape wavering past without the constant drumroll of train tracks, or sometimes both at once so could just feel himself breathe and remember how he did it.

Sometimes, though, that only made it harder to bear, because a relentless voice in Kanda's head-or maybe from outside of his head, like the lady and the lotuses and sometimes Alma-would shout at him louder and louder that he was an idiot and a fool, and that no matter how jarring the unceasing flood of unfamiliar input was, if he stopped monitoring it all for even a second, something would happen. Something would get him. Something would find him.

And even worse, Kanda knew like he knew water was wet that the lotuses were moving even where he wasn't looking. If he stopped thinking about them for too long, or sometimes just when he blinked, he would open his eyes to find them scattered into new nooks and crannies around the coach. Kanda tried not to let Marie catch him looking for them when he was staring around at the hint of pink petals sticking out from the doorframe, or fluttering against the outside of the window like something had trapped them there.

Keep it secret, Zhu had said, and Kanda would. He'd learned his lesson after he'd come screaming back to life on an altar surrounded by sealing marks, the life-sealing marks, meant to kill. He knew the difference; he'd faced both. For the rest of his life, Kanda would remember that the people who had created him had also created a means to destroy him, and because of it he would never quite be able to stop regarding Crows with a degree of unease greater than was probably warranted.

And for the rest of his life, the lotuses would be there-but from today on, Kanda would not say a word. He vowed it, and when it made him miserable, he vowed not to be miserable. Marie couldn't know.

Pressure. The lotuses got closer.

Marie awoke to the sound of someone breathing.

For half a second, his own heart sped up to outrace the other breathing tempo, his Exorcist instincts ready to spring him up from his bed and crush the stranger-the enemy-with his strings, but a deep breath and a clearer mind later he was reminded him: Kanda is here.

He let himself slowly reorient to the room from his bed-this was the first hotel they were staying in for more than a shower and a meal between trains, and the first time Marie had slept not sitting up.

He knew Kanda wasn't asleep-the boy, like before, now rarely ever slept. He would spend hours of the nighttime motionless, always with his face away from him, seeming to watch something or many somethings that Marie could hear no trace of. Marie did not know what to make of him-he would say the stress of constantly switching from here to there was beginning to weigh on him, but the weight on Kanda seemed greater even then that.

Today would be the last leg of their long, long trip. Today was time to rest, and then tomorrow was the Order. Marie hadn't heard back from Tiedoll, so he was in the dark about what to expect-he prayed that the General would return at the same time they did.

Gradually remembering the layout of the room, and finding his headphones right on the bedside table, Marie got up, remade the bed, and then sat on the edge of it again to put on his boots while his hearing adjusted itself to the raised sensitivity-separating the tangles of muffled voices into the "outside" snatches of words on the street, and into the "inside" humdrum of people waking themselves up in their own hotel rooms. He was aware, too, of Kanda whispering out of the sheets and into his own clothes, and then dropping onto the floor idly to wait for him.

This was all becoming normal to Marie, now, that it was hard to remember the world without it. But that normalness made Marie frown, because there was something about this morning that wasn't as normal as the others.

The morning was…sour.

Yes, that was it-there was a sourness in the sound of it, somehow, a sort of sensation Marie couldn't place, nor whose cause he could place.

The room was undisturbed, and the night had transitioned as smoothly to day as a fish through the river of time. Kanda was where he had been waiting before, listless and strange, his face turning and twitching in tiny, watchful circles around the blank walls. It was strange, yes, in the way that Kanda's ordinary motions could sometimes brush Marie's nerves like running fingers over piano keys, but he had been like that the last night, too.

The sourness, though, was impossible to ignore, and Marie didn't try-one of the first steps to surviving as an Exorcist was to always assume he was being targeted. The world was against the Exorcists, and it was safer to say all of it was than to spend time being selective. But, also as an Exorcist, there was nothing he could do-danger would come to him, not the other way around, and he wouldn't know it until the disguise came off. He moved about the room with a mechanical efficiency, gathering their items by memory and packing them away, preparing to move.

Kanda stayed still, limbs curled in on the carpet like a dead spider. He was worse, somehow, than he'd been when they were leaving the Asia Branch, the time to his storm breaking counting down in tandem with the vague, gray reckoning Marie was listening for.

Which would break first, Marie was wondering. He stood and was about to rouse Kanda to go collect the Finders, when his teeth suddenly went on edge.

There was a low sound in the air, one that was made his teeth ache at the roots when he clenched them together. It flirted with his awareness, like wind did in the moment just before it picked up.

Marie crossed the room in a huge stride and threw the window open, angling toward the sound with his battle sense sparking at his adrenaline. He'd never heard anything quite like it, but the monotonous, black note of it, carrying from somewhere neither near but far (but getting closer), told him that whatever it was, he would have to be stupid to put his head outside for a better listen. After a certain time spent as an Exorcist, Marie knew when danger was coming to call.

And he knew that danger's name.

"Akuma."

They must have recognized the Finder's uniforms, or heard them say "Exorcist", or perhaps (and more unnervingly) one of them had gotten close enough for the presence of their Innocence to trigger their bloodlust. Regardless, they were coming for them.

Marie spun back to the inside of the room, mentally calculating how close their traveling possessions were from the window, and Kanda slid fluidly from a resting stance to a lunging one. The action was graceful-the drag of his Innocence's scabbard was not.

Kanda was dangerous. Kanda had killed Alma. But Kanda was not finessed, and he had never seen an Exorcist fight before or seen an Akuma. Marie couldn't let him fight, either an Akuma had found them or it was looking for them, and-

"Kanda," Marie said, his voice adopting the weight of command he reserved for getting people out of danger. "Take the bags and go with the Finders. Get out of range-keep heading for the Order if you have to. Tell them what I'm saying to you."

"No." Kanda's response was both expected and instantaneous. "I won't leave. I'll fight-"

Marie dismissed him sternly. "Not now. Wait until you've learned how. I'll do this alone."

There was no doubt Kanda still planned to argue with him, but Marie turned away from him and trusted him to act, running his thumbs over his knuckles so the threads of his Innocence started to come alive from their spools on each finger.

"Kanda, go now."

The hesitation from Kanda was palpable and fuming, and he gazed for a worrying moment at nothing over Marie's shoulder, but then his feet pounded at a run out of the room and to Marie's relief there was no question in his footfalls.

His sharp, ever-angry voice goaded the Finders in the next room, and the sound of urgent movement began. They were moving out-Marie almost found it humorous to hear the female Finder Ruth swearing on her way out. But if they were escaping, then it was up to Marie to make sure they wouldn't be chased.

He took a deep, fortifying breath. The first fight, Akuma in the air and all his worst fears. But Marie's razor strings sang death and return as they unwound-a welcome back to the battlefield.

The hotel was a tiered building, so Marie swung himself out the still-open window onto the overhang of the floor below. There was a cutting scream raising from somewhere further down the street and Marie could just make out the syllables through the machinal hiss on them-"Exorcisssst!" His feet barely had time to touch onto the roof tiles before he was hurling himself over the road and blood bullets were eating up the surface he'd been standing on.

There hadn't been time to think about the jump, but Marie's subconscious mind had filled in most of the information for him-he used Noel Organon to capture a support on a building across the street and he could tell from the tension of the strings when he was about to hit it. He skidded into a landing on the slope of another roof and filled in as his strings unraveled that his Innocence had tethered him to a chimney-and Marie did suspect that it had been his Innocence that did it more than Marie himself.

He had only lost his balance slightly in the uncertainty of the action but he regained it as he started sprinting along the top of the building, intuitively anticipating what was ahead while listening, listening, listening for the Akuma that had attacked him, and for any more that might be around-where one was, others were sure to appear over time, and there was no saying how long this one had been here.

Marie cocked his ear to the left-there was a catching-clicking of gears inside a shell, ticking, ticking, ticking their teeth around as the Akuma which had fired at him rotated eerily in place-Level 1, Marie's memory supplied to the sound. He hadn't even realized he could distinguish the sounds of Akuma before, but as soon as he heard them through his headphones he realized he'd been hearing them every time he fought a battle and just had been too distracted by other senses to fully comprehend them.

This…really wasn't so different, was it? From one of those battles?

A bizarre happiness ran through Marie. This danger was one he knew intimately, whether or not he could see it or it had killed his teammates. Akuma still needed to be hunted, and Marie was still meant to hunt them.

Marie swept out his hand and the strings danced away from his fingers towards the screaming metallic sphere, entangling it, crushing it, cleaving it. The scream died sharply into vibrations through his Innocence, the flesh-metal chunks igniting into explosions as they fell away from their solid form, piece by piece. Marie's Innocence whipped back to him like hornets, and he could feel hot energy all through them-a buzz at the base of his skull told him about the second Akuma locking its bristling guns onto him from behind before it even got the chance to fire, and he closed his other hand into a fist that slit unseen lines cleanly through it.

Its internal heat blasted outwards and Marie felt ashes singe through the back of his shirt, but it was a good feeling. His ears rang, but they rang with silence.

Two Akuma, no more. Marie had done his duty. More importantly, he had proved to himself that he could.

He leapt down from the roof, hearing nothing below him, and he was confident when he came to the earth. The world was steady when he walked, and the others were waiting, so Marie dared to pick up into a jog, a striding run-and around the corner, not even quite that far out the back of the hotel yet, were the two Finders and Kanda.

Kanda noticed him first, but it was a jubilant "Master Exorcist!" from the outspoken female Finder that had them all turning to him.

They circled in, Kanda not quite as close as the rest, and Marie observed that the Finders were both standing almost too close to Marie, presumably so that they did not have to be close to Kanda-Marie wondered what Kanda had managed to do in such a short time to make them afraid of him.

"How many were there?" the male Finder asked seriously. "Were they after you?" the other woman pressed.

"Only two," Marie told them. He thought back. "And no, their appearance was a coincidence. I'm sure of it."

The two Finders exchanged looks between themselves and reached a conclusion beyond Marie. "We'll trust your judgment, Exorcist," the elder of the pair said. "Should we continue as planned?"

"We'll stay one night over," Marie decided. "Just to make sure nothing is following us."

Nothing would draw attention to Kanda's arrival at the Order like a horde of Akuma showing up out of nowhere with him, and Marie wanted to avoid attention-especially that kind of attention-at all costs.

"Right," the Finder affirmed. "I understand. Ruth and I will go call in to Headquarters to let them know we'll be a day behind schedule."

"Thank you," Marie told them, making sure to address the both of them. "We'll meet you again at the train station."

The Finders nodded each, and then left with brisk purpose, leaving Marie to turn to the unspeaking Kanda. He was still, Marie judged from the sound of squeaking leather in his arms, holding the bags. He would have expected the Finders to try and take them from him, but given the pure obstinance radiating from Kanda they might have tried and simply failed.

Marie could sense Kanda instinctively trying to avoid his eyes in the stretching pause that followed. "Don't…try to protect me," he gritted out eventually, fighting with the words. Marie couldn't tell if he was fighting just to express the emotion, or simply to marshal his violent impulses into emotion in the first place. He let him say it, though-no good would come from silencing someone already so reticent.

"You're not an Exorcist yet," Marie said in his most neutral tone. If Kanda thought he was being treated like a child in any way, this confrontation would lose all semblance of reason. "That skirmish wasn't challenging, but it could have been. I'll let you fight with me once you've been trained."

Kanda scowled fearsomely. "You don't understand!" he burst out. "I…you shouldn't get hurt because of me. I was made to get better. It takes you too long, and…it just doesn't make sense!"

Just for a second, at the end of his voice, there was a strange drifting quality to what Kanda was saying, like he had forgotten why he was saying the words. Something was definitely going wrong with Kanda, and Marie had no clue what to anticipate.

But he still needed to respond to this situation first. He chose his words with care. "Sometimes, I won't be able to protect you," Marie said, very deliberately. "So when I can, I will."

"But-"

Marie heard a question and saw a chance to answer it. "Because I want you to live," Marie said firmly, and Kanda's nails scraped against one of their parcels, but the Finders came trotting back before he could think of anything to say and Marie thought that was for the best.

The new hotel was just far enough to be outside the range of the commotion caused by the attack of the Akuma, but close enough to spare them too much of a walk. One of the Finders had detoured ahead of time to get room keys, so Marie let them in to the room to put their bags down (which he had not yet gotten Kanda to let go of). It was barely daytime, and there wasn't much to do in the room other than sleep, but Kanda didn't seem up to going out again.

The walls seemed to bring Kanda a sense of safety, just as it put Kanda at ease to be behind a closed door, despite how he came across to Marie as a little claustrophobic most of the time. There was a small offset room attached to the bedroom with a table facing the wall and a square window over it that could be opened, so Marie left Kanda to his own odd devices and propped the window open to hear the morning birds outside.

Eventually, he took a seat at the table, and out of habit began to pluck at the strings of his Innocence, thinking over everything that had changed today and how little actually had. Marie's song wandered, at times repeating into the cries of the birds, but the sound lingered often on that unsettling vacancy in Kanda's voice earlier.

As he mulled it over, thoughtful, barefoot steps wove into the melody, and Marie felt Kanda's stare from the doorway. Marie stopped playing and turned in his chair, listening apprehensively to Kanda's smooth little-boy nails biting in and out of the wooden frame. If staring had a sound, Kanda's was black and hollow. Things were not the way they had been before. The storm was here.

"Marie," Kanda said cautiously, and maybe it was just in Marie's head but he didn't sound all there, "do you ever hear-"

Marie could tell Kanda was struggling to articulate, and when he failed he became frustrated and demanding.

"Do you ever hear her?"

Marie stiffened. He didn't know the right answer.

"No, Kanda," he said carefully. "I only hear you."

That was no the answer Kanda wanted. "I know!" he exploded out of nowhere, slamming his fist into his thigh, and there was so much helpless anguish there that Marie was truly afraid. "But I can still hear her! I heard her before and when I was waiting for you and now I still hear her!"

Marie got to his feet, trying not to move suddenly. "Kanda-"

There was the sound of skin against hair as Kanda's hands clenched into it and the boy stumbled three, four, five-six eight steps backwards, his corpse-stiff spine hitting the wall behind him. Marie followed with him this time, dropping hurriedly down in front of him.

"Go away, go away," Kanda chanted like some terrible nursery rhyme, gaining volume and pitch as he stared around a room of things Marie couldn't have seen even with good eyes. "Go away, why won't they go away?!"

Marie wanted to grab him or soothe him, but he wasn't sure he should touch him, so he stayed kneeling on the coarse hardwood with splinters digging into his knees.

"Go away!" Kanda thrashed and half-sobbed, before suddenly his head dropped to one side and he was quiet. His heartbeat pounded wildly around the boards of the room, but not a murmur came out of him. He stayed still and fixed, staring into empty space over Marie's shoulder.

And then, with an eerie, slow clarity, he spoke. "I hate you," he said. "I want to kill you. I want you to leave me alone."

It was not Marie that he was speaking to. Marie heard no tremors in his voice. The boy listened, listened and waited, and apparently heard something, because like the snuffing of a candle that focus was gone.

"I hate you!"

Kanda threw his head back furiously against the wall and screamed, thudding his skull into the wood like he wanted to crush something out.

"Kanda, stop!" Marie shouted, lunging for him. "You'll hurt yourself, stop!"

He rocked violently forward into Marie, who quickly locked him against his body with one arm and searched his free hand over the back of his head for injuries. He blew out a sigh when there was nothing, or at least nothing that hadn't already healed, and realized that Kanda wasn't trying to fight him at all.

Instead he leaned listless and dead against him, muttering into the front of his shirt. "Hate you, hate…"

Marie heard the thin scratching of his eyelashes against the fabric as they fell low over Kanda's eyes.

"Please," Kanda quietly begged his ghost, all of his storm spent. "Please don't go."

And, abruptly, Kanda was senseless in his arms, leaving Marie to sit there with him in the surreal after-hush, shaken by the things he couldn't see.

Welcome back to Infodump: The Novel. Writing is both love and torture. Finally, here's some action-Lenalee next chapter. I super-special promise this time.

This one could probably use more cleaning up, but I really enjoyed writing it, no matter how much time and pain it caused me. As ever, I beg for your help in spotting the weak areas-I need criticism to smooth these things out. Thank you warmly for taking the time to read, and thank you especially to those who reviewed previous chapters-you're all silver-tongued angels who make me want to be a better writer. Expect another D. Gray-Man standalone soon.

Also, mind the italics-the site's been a little testy with me on the matter, so if something seems off, it probably is.

Until the next chapter. Cheers!