onepassingnight | ❀ Fifth Illusion ❀ Kanda Yu

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❀ Fifth Illusion ❀ Kanda Yu

"I won't ask you again. Try to pay attention this time."

There was a girl chained to a concrete pillar in a dimly lit area struggling to catch her breath. Her clothes disheveled, she seemed to have gotten into a confrontation with the man in front of her. She was a pretty girl with bright blue eyes, her cheeks were flushed and her full lips were swollen. Kanda had done a good number on her by then. "Is that any way to treat a woman?" She scoffed, giving the pacing exorcist a glare.

"I'm starting to lose my patience.

Truth be told, Kanda had lost it hours ago when he first placed those sealing chains on her and stabbed her a few times with his sword. Her limbs were almost useless by now and whatever threat this level four akuma had was long gone. It had been following him, stalking him for the right moment to kill him but Kanda had known. He had been waiting for the thing to strike and when it did underneath the pretense of a very frisky brothel girl, Kanda had attacked. Normally, he would have killed an akuma and moved on but this one was different, it had been wearing something very peculiar and Kanda wanted answers.

"Where did you get this headband." He asked again, bringing it to her face as he grabbed a hold of several locks of hair as he forced her to look upward at him. She yelped but the only thing that came from her lips was a very metallic evil laugh. The akuma was getting angry and it was starting to transform. Kanda was unphased.

"Silly boy, why are you chasing a red-head, you should try a blond instead."

Kanda brought Mugen against her hip, cutting into her side before grabbing at her neck and choking her. The akuma cried and shrieked trying to free itself from the impale but it only helped in making the human exterior fade only leaving the monster that the girl truly was. Kanda grinned.

"Now that the mask is off, maybe you'll start getting a little more serious."

"I'll end you, exorcist."

"Try again."

He grabbed at his swords handle and twisted it deeper into the akuma. It choked, the wound starting to calcify and chip. Kanda had gone too far, the beast was dying and he hadn't gotten the information he wanted. Again. How long was this going to go on for? All of these things following him were clearly mocking him. The akuma squirmed as it took it's last breaths, a last effort of it's pitiful existence had it scratching and tugging at his coat but to no luck. Kanda was as cold as a gravestone. He let the remains crumble to the floor as he sheathed his blade and stared at the lump of ash disappointingly clutching the green bandana in his right hand.

"... I'm sorry, Lavi." I'm trying. I'm trying everything I can...

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"You still haven't found any information?" The voice, still strong, was nonetheless an almost soothing contrast to the brothel-girl akuma's boasting and taunting. If Kanda looked up, it was Mercury, in a rare moment of sympathy at the sight of him, alone, holding the useless token of his friend. She failed to give the blasted remains of the exorcist's foe so much as a second glance, as though not only was the creature beneath her, she was inured to the sight of death.

"I've been searching while I can, too," she said as she came closer. Her eyes stayed on Kanda with each slow, firm step. "However..." She let her voice trail off, and shook her head, as if to reluctantly say there'd been no sign of Lavi's whereabouts. It must have been frustrating. Very close now, she lifted her hand, about to touch his arm, or his face.

"You've been searching?"

The sight of Ami at first did come as quite the shock. He hadn't been expecting her here much less anywhere around akuma. This was probably a dream and his mind continued to address it as one. Kanda's tensed back gave into a shrug as he heaved a sigh and brought his gaze downward. He was unaware of the danger he was walking right into.

"Lavi has been missing for months now. Everyone prefers to consider them dead but I can't fail him." He's failed too many people before, he needs to make this one right.

She seemed pleased by his acceptance as she held his arm lightly, and Mercury raised herself up on her toes to say something quietly in Kanda's ear that had nothing to do with Lavi at all, despite having been the one to bring him up. Nor was this the time and place at all when she pressed her lips to his in an eager, passionate kiss and slid her tongue inside his mouth to taste him first.

"I love you," she told him, and that's when the smile turned crafty and stretched as she added one word to chill the blood: "Exorcist."

This was not something Mercury would ever call him. In the same moment, her free hand gripped something sharp, and deadly: the sword she always carried. She stabbed Kanda in his side, as if to impale him, using her grip on his other arm for leverage. She clutched it tightly with an inhuman strength.

Edited 2013-03-10 21:45 (UTC)

Ami had many names for him throughout their relationship and none of them included that title. He couldn't quite put a finger on it but it all made sense once the original shock of that sword piercing at his side started sinking it. He growled as the wind caught in his chest at a ruptured lung. He grabbed the imposter and shoved her away trying to take out the blade as fast as he could. The venom was spreading but his body was countering.

"You're an akuma." The words came out in heavy breaths as he clutched onto his side. There was more pain in those words than what he was actually feeling. How could Ami of all people be an akuma? Had the Earl found out about those dreams? How was that possible? Why was she still in her body? There was only one explanation.

"...what have you done to her. Who was this idiot trying t save!"

The force of Kanda's blow was enough to push the akuma back; but it took only seconds to regain its footing. The game of deception was up, but it wasn't finished playing with its hoped-for prey.

If there were anyone Mercury would have gone this far for, in the world she woke up to when she left dreams behind, it would have been her mother. However, the akuma did not call itself Mizuno Saeko, either.

"Will you tear her apart to find out?" it challenged Kanda instead. It was certainly as smug and taunting as Mercury could be to her enemies. And it planned to keep this appearance for as long as it could. Human emotions were such ripe fodder for such manipulations.

Without waiting for his answer, the thing with Mercury's appearance lunged for Kanda, closing the distance between them alarmingly fast. It didn't bother trying to reclaim the sword; the poison would already do as much of its work as it could. All its attacks were concentrated near his side, as if the open wound were nothing less than invitation to do even more internal damage.

Edited 2013-03-11 06:43 (UTC)

Kanda stumbled backwards as he grabbed his sword and activated it. He managed to remove his hand from his side but this would be a slow healing process if he didn't kill the akuma quickly. His eyes were stern and dark, how the hell could he kill someone that looked like Ami...

"You better not be that bastard who thinks he owns her." He spat, his sword rising to meet the others blade on the defensive. "That's some trouble you got yourself into."

If Kanda did not kill the akuma, it seemed to have no qualms about killing him; it's own eyes were bright with the heightened thrill. The outward play was to catch its target off-guard; the fighting was deadly serious.

"The trouble is yours," it observed, as if this was not particularly important, but may as well have been a pleasant comment on the weather. "I wonder how long you can keep fighting with those injuries."

Either it was unaware of the exorcist's rapid healing, or it was confident of inflicting enough damage to make that useless (or perhaps it was still counting on its stolen shape to make Kanda hold back). As their blades met, however, it was Kanda's skill that quickly became apparent, even now. The akuma turned and stepped with deceptively fluid movements to buy itself some space.

"Long enough to kill you."

Kanda wasn't giving the akuma a chance, the instant she backed off, he was on the offensive, attacking without so much as a moments hesitation as his wounds continued to bleed. He didn't seem to quit, his eyes taking a dark tint. He was emotionless now. Barren. He wouldn't be able to kill her any other way.

How was he still standing with those injuries? An unfamiliar expression crossed the familiar face. It hadn't known he could recover like that. And it had nowhere to run, now.

A desperate parry was only one of a chain. The akuma lost ground, was pushed back, far too quickly. Its fate was the more assured the longer the fight dragged out, but even in this form, it wouldn't go quietly.

With Kanda's next attack, a gash opened up along its side. It bled freely, a grim repayment for its earlier betrayal.

Edited 2013-03-24 21:36 (UTC)

Seeing Ami with an injury he inflicted was an uncomfortable thing to witness but he was in battle mode. This wasn't his woman, it was a monster. Although it had her body, it didn't have her soul. That was long gone.

At it's moment of weakness, Kanda brought his fingertips to brush against the blades side before bringing it down on Ami, shoving it straight through her chest.

"You lose, akuma."

Kanda was right to remember all that; whatever part of Ami's consciousness would wake up with the knowledge of what happened here knew that. He was right to do the only thing he could. He was right to save what he could - that soul, if not the body.

The akuma snarled and thrashed, but the noise turned to death throes and before long, it finally lay still.

Kanda was panting by then, the adrenaline still surging through his vein as he moved closer towards the body. It hadn't even turned into dust. He stood silently for a few moments before leaning down and lifting the akuma's chin. It really did look like her. He grabbed her face this time and ripped away at the flesh only to find what he had been expecting: the metal frame within her.

Somehow seeing it made him feel a little more at ease. Unlike Allen, Kanda didn't have a special eye that could show him the tormented souls within akuma, it was all based on hind sight. That being said, normally akuma disappeared once they were destroyed but this one hadn't. He brought a hand to rub at the sweat on his brow before taking another look at the thing.

That's when he noticed it, the name etched into the metallic forehead of the skeleton. He hadn't noticed it but the name was very much clear in a cursive font: Ami.

"That's impossible...."

Homura was as impartial to Kanda's pain as to the akuma's. If he wanted to treat this as a mission to gather information as well as to eradicate their enemy, the demons, he would have to learn to calmly hold himself back.

"Your haste has allowed the prey you truly sought to escape," she noted. Long hair was brushed behind her as she prepared to move on. "I will not be held accountable for whatever may happen next if you continue to permit that to happen."

"What..."

This was definitely not the time or place for Kanda to expect a lecture but here he was being told by some child he was, in summation, doing things wrong. His blue eyes narrowed spitefully at the girl.

"What the hell do you know."

"I have experience in hunting demons. They are not precisely the same as what you call akuma; however, the enemies that attack humanity from the shadows do not vary greatly from one form to another."

She herself was no longer certain exactly how long she'd been a captive to time, walking the same path over and over again hoping for a different result. There was a saying about that, wasn't there, and insanity? At any rate, Homura took no outward offense at Kanda's sharp words, at least no personal offense.

"It will be more to the benefit of both of us if we continue to seek out this prey together. However, keep your true goal in mind in any future encounters. I am not often an ally of the rash and hot-tempered."

Kanda was at a loss for words. Who ever this child was, she was ordering him around on a subject she had no business getting involved in. His eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists.

"Who the hell asked for your help. Get lost, annoying brat. This isn't some game!"

Regardless of his harsh attitude, he was doing the girl a favor. One inhale of an akuma's noxious gas would have her dead. A single touch of an akuma would do the same. This girl was no exorcist and he wasn't going to let her kill herself because she didn't pay attention.

"The reason I am here is because this is not a game." Homura seemed entirely unoffended by Kanda's attitude. In spite of her own words, she was used to tempers and snappishness. She had only to think of Kyoko and Sayaka, for two notable examples among her fellow puella magi.

"Do not think I have come here helplessly."

"Yes. I do." His answer was short and precise. Who the hell did this kid think she was lecturing.

"You're not an exorcist and you're not even an adult to realize the danger you're putting yourself into. If you're really that desperate to die then keep going the way you're going. I'm sure you'll eventually find yourself in a situation you'll regret."

Edited 2013-03-12 02:58 (UTC)

"If you allow appearances to guide you, it will be easy for your enemy to deceive you as well."

While she wasn't an exorcist, her replaced body was far stronger and more resilient than any human's could be. That was an advantage in her favor against these akuma. Besides that were her own powers - and she had endless experience in knowing how to use them. She had repeated that endless loop of time long enough to have seen far more than her young face would ever display.

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❀ Fifth Illusion ❀ Kanda Yu

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