Hachi: Hi! We are Aya and Hachi, two really crazy bfflz and this is our first fanfic! Wah, so exciting!
Aya: Good for you. Hachi talked me into this. Anywayz hope you like it!
Hachi: Yup, yup XD hope you like it! (and Aya you volunteered to help me stupid XP)
Aya: And the disclaimer
Hachi: DGM does not belong to us, if it did Yullen would TOTALLY be canon XD and also our imaginations are wild but they're still not as awesome as Katsura Hoshino-sensei's :)
Aya: And the title and some concepts were inspired by the book 'The Fetch' by Laura Whitcomb. Great book! XD
Hachi: But the plots our brainchild! So anything that happens is our idea! Yay!
Aya: That sounds really weird. Okay mooooving on, without further ado...
Hachi: We present...
Aya & Hachi: THE FETCH!
Kanda Yu was a Fetch, a death escort, and had been since his own death at the age of nineteen. He had been a Fetch for some three hundred and sixteen years, and had seen countless people at Death Scenes to which he had been sent to collect souls of the departed.
He had seen people drowning, the water stealing their last breaths. He'd watched people die peacefully in their sleep. He had seen men and women alike, lost and broken, some murdered while others had taken their own lives. Some died in the warmth of their soft beds, some forgotten in alleys. But Kanda had never cared for them, being a Fetch was just his job and he knew he did it well.
Kanda Yu had also seen the people near those dying at Death Scenes. Friends crying, family in shock, lovers distraught. Some had tried to 'save' the dying. Others were wiser. But Kanda never empathised with their pain. After all humankind was weak and easily broken. Death, in the end, overpowered them all.
Over the last three hundred and sixteen long years, Kanda Yu had seen thousands upon thousands of mortals, so he did not understand why, on this day, at that very moment, the sight of this particular boy affected him so much.
He had seen the young boy while he had been summoned to England in the winter of the year 1887. A cold, sharp wind whipped around a nearly silent forest. Kanda's task was to escort a dying man to the afterlife. Trees swayed to the rhythm of the wind, an eerie dance in the twilight. Flakes of delicate, pure white snow fell from the skies, swirling as they fell. In a small clearing near the edge of the forest a figure lay on the ground, struggling to breathe.
Kanda moved closer, and realised the figure was a man who looked to be about thirty years of age. The man had a deep gash running from the top of his torso to his waist, oozing blood in a glistening pool around him.
"Mana! Mana, I'm so sorry! Mana!" A small voice interrupted the silence.
Kanda hadn't seen the small figure kneeling beside the dying man. The first thing that struck him was the shock of white hair on the boy's head. Kanda had never seen such hair. The boy could have been no older than six or seven years old.
"Mana, don't die! Don't leave me! Mana!" He sobbed. "I'm sorry!"
Kanda moved forward to stand beside the two, unaffected by the boy's pain. He had seen worse. Of course, the young boy could not see Kanda. The only people who could see or hear Kanda were the people on the brink of death. The dying man, Mana, turned his head in Kanda's direction.
"Choose. Life...or death?" Kanda spoke, his voice deep and sultry. Every mortal was given this choice. Some chose to live, others chose to die. To Kanda, it did not matter which a mortal chose, asking them was just his duty.
The man by the name of Mana looked at Kanda through bottomless dark eyes.
"Death." He whispered.
The young boy beside him jumped, shocked. He did not know why Mana had spoken. He did not know that a Fetch was standing right beside him.
"M-Mana?" He choked out, tears running down his face. He tilted his head upwards, suddenly tearing his eyes away from Mana, looking right at where Kanda was standing. Almost as if he knew Kanda was there.
Kanda's breath hitched. In all his years as a Fetch, he had never seen eyes like those that belonged to this boy. They were silver, a beautiful and ethereal shade. Like stars, Kanda thought. And the pain reflected in those eyes hit Kanda like a blow to his chest. Such pain. Agony. He hadn't ever seen such terrible pain. Kanda watched the boy, his own ocean-coloured eyes wide. Even though he knew the boy could not see him. And then Kanda did something no other Fetch had ever done before.
He hoped that the man named Mana would live so that the boy would not be in that pain.
Kanda, like all Fetches, was meant to be emotionless. Indifferent to the outcome of a Death Scene. Kanda had never wished to stop a death. But his heart twisted for this boy. Poor child. He did not know why but the child seemed so innocent, so undeserving of the pain he was in. And he was so beautiful, that white hair like a halo upon his head, and star-like eyes. An angel. If this man, Mana died, the child would be broken with grief.
"You choose...death?" Kanda asked Mana.
"Yes." Mana gasped. The young boy beside him looked at him, confused.
"Mana?" He choked, his voice breaking.
"Allen," Mana spoke, this time addressing the boy. "I curse you. I curse you Allen."
The boy, whose name was Allen, gasped in shock, his silver eyes even wider than before.
Kanda was taken aback. He had thought that this man loved the boy called Allen. Why would a child love someone who hated him enough to curse him with his last breaths?
"W-What? Mana?"
"I curse you. This is your fault. But I love you Allen. I love you." Mana breathed.
By now Allen was crying loudly, tears staining the ground below him where the snow had not quite covered.
Kanda looked on with distaste. Mortals were so stupid. Why curse someone you love?
"Mana, why?!"
"Goodbye Allen...my son..."
"MANA!!" The boy screamed in horror, just as the life drained from the man's eyes.
Kanda stepped forward and kneeled down at the body of Mana. He could not change the man's decision. The man's soul sat up from his body, and soft glow surrounded him. Kanda helped the soul up, at the same time pulling out an ornate key from his heavy coat.
"Door of Death." He spoke, seemingly to thin air. Kanda tried to ignore the pained, irregular sobs of Allen. A door materialised out of thin air, as if it had been there the whole time. Kanda did not look at the soul of the dead man but he could sense him standing close. He twisted the key in the large lock of the door and pulled it open soundlessly. Blinding light spilled from behind the door.
"Come." He told the soul of Mana as they stepped into the light and led him wordlessly into the abyss of white.
The last thing he thought of as he left the mortal world was of Allen, the young boy who looked like an angel that had mistakenly fallen from heaven. But Allen was not his responsibility and neither was his past. Kanda pushed the thoughts away. The boy was none of his business therefore he did not care. Or so he told himself. Kanda would forget for a long time that it ever happened. But those few moments in the forest had embedded themselves firmly into his memory, for they would impact the fate of things much bigger than one could imagine. The wheels were already in motion.
---Owari---
A/N
Hachi: OMG WAS THAT AN EPIC FAIL OR WHAT?! DX
Aya: Yup, totally.
Hachi: You're meant to comfort me!!!! T^T UWAAAAAAAHH!!!!
Aya: Its too funny watching you being emo, so go ahead!! XD
Hachi: Meanie.
Aya: Suuure. Anywayz in the future chapters there will be way more dialogue between characters.
Hachi: Definitely!
Aya: And don't forget to review!
Hachi: Pretty pretty pretty pretty please with Yullen on top?
Aya: Or Hachi'll be emo forever.
Hachi: So pleeeeeease press the awesome button below so we can know how we did!!
Aya: What do you mean 'we'?
Hachi: The story was your idea, I just wrote it!!
Aya: Sure, okay. Don't forget to review, otherwise I'm pretty sure Hachi'll be super emo for who knows how long (aka until you review so she knows whether she sucked or sucked a lot)
Hachi: T^T And why are you making it sound like this whole thing was only my doing?
Aya:...Okay and thank you again for reading!
Hachi: Thank you!