Chapter Text
Kanda is the one who sees it happen. And also the one who blames himself for it.
They’re out on a mission in some godforsaken town in the middle of Germany. Abandoned. Left to rot. Crumbling houses everywhere. Roofs fallen in. Walls collapsed. Nobody in their right mind would come here of their own accord. Except stupid kids on a dare. Kids from a nearby town that isn’t quite dead (yet), who’ve been reporting strange sightings in this hellhole for months. Kanda wishes they had half a brain, even to share—then maybe he wouldn’t have gotten sent to this dump with the beansprout.
Alas, here they are, standing in the middle of an empty street, debris from a nearby collapsed building strewn across the overgrown cobbles. Dusk is settling quickly in the forest that surrounds the town, and they need to find the Innocence and return to their inn before the moon gets too high in the sky; that’s when the akuma have been reported. “Strange specters” haunting the woods, said some ignorant locals when they arrived two hours ago.
Tch. If only they knew the truth. It’s a miracle none of their kids ended up dust in the wind.
The beansprout takes a few steps forward, turning his head left and right, like he’s mapping out the place. But Kanda knows better—Allen Walker couldn’t tell north from south if he had a compass glued to his hand. So Kanda catches his attention with a growl, and then throws a scowl behind him for good measure, aimed at Two Spots, of course, who’s loitering in the background, leaning against what used to be a light pole.
The ex-Crow stares back at Kanda evenly, unaffected by his threat, and doesn’t move.
Shaking his head, Kanda addresses the beansprout. “One of the kids said he saw a green glow inside that old church over there. That’s probably where the Innocence is stashed. An altar or some shit. Let’s get in, get out, and get back. I don’t want to be fighting akuma all damn night.”
The beansprout sticks out his tongue in response and then snaps, “And if they follow us back to all the living people? Then what? We catch the train and leave them to fend for themselves?”
“Don’t be stupid, beansprout. If they follow us—and I will know if they do—I’ll just destroy them all. Simple as that.” Kanda skirts by the shorter exorcist and marches off toward the rundown church, the steeple slanting at an angle so severe it’s a wonder the thing hasn’t cracked in half and tumbled to the soggy ground below. Maybe God cares about his places of worship more than the homes of the dead.
A gust of wind shrieks by and rattles the entire church, steeple to steps.
Or maybe not.
Kanda hears the beansprout huffing and puffing behind him, hears him mutter “The name’s Allen” under his breath. And for a second, Kanda doesn’t think the sprout will follow him to the church, too worked up by Kanda’s apparent nonchalance in the face of danger, in the face of threats to the innocents in the next town over. He’s always like that, so concerned with what’s right in front of his face.
But then Kanda’s ears catch the beansprout’s footsteps trailing after him, heavy and slick on the rain-washed soil. Maybe he’s learning, Kanda thinks. At last.
He immediately takes that thought back when the sprout says, “Hey, stupid Kanda.”
Groaning, he peers over his shoulder, noticing that Two Spots still hasn’t moved from his position at the pole. The man is surveying the surrounding town with his sharp eyes, as if looking for any movement out of the ordinary. Kanda would think up more insults for him, but he’s at least doing something useful. The sprout, on the other hand…
“What?” he barks out.
The beansprout pauses a few feet behind him and pouts. “Don’t be so rude, Kanda. Christ. I was just going to suggest we take two separate entrances in case there are akuma hiding inside the church somewhere.”
Huh. Would you look at that? A strategy from the beansprout?
Kanda shrugs. “Whatever. Take your pick.” He nods at the church. “You got the front door off its hinges and the side door next to the cemetery.”
The sprout eyes the mossy graves off to the left of the church and rolls his shoulders back. “I’ll take the cemetery. You can be the akuma bait and come through the main door.”
Before Kanda can spit out another comeback, the sprout hops the short metal fence encircling the cemetery and storms off toward the side door, partially concealed by a stubby pine tree recently overturned. The sprout skirts around the edge of a fresh grave and eyes the tree, contemplating how to best move it out of the way of the door. As he nears the tree, his lips chewing on the activation command for his Innocence, Kanda rolls his eyes and heads up the front steps—
Fresh grave?
Shit.
“Beansprout, watch—!”
A Level 4 explodes out of the grave, mud flinging through the air, and launches itself straight at the sprout. Shit. Shit. Shit. (The damn thing knew how to hide, far enough down in the ground, to avoid the sprout’s cursed eye. Too smart. Too fucking smart. Too fucking human, and it’s so, so wrong.)
The beansprout whips around to face the threat the same instant Kanda draws Mugen and shouts his activation. The sprout’s arm starts to transform as he reels back, trying to avoid the oncoming akuma, the oddly jointed, cherubic fingers reaching for his neck. Kanda charges forward, leaps over the fence, just as the sprout loses balance, wet soil giving out underneath his boots, and tumbles backward. Somewhere behind them, too far away, Kanda hears Two Spots calling for Allen in panic.
But no amount of shouting will help.
Not as the akuma changes tactics mid attack and forms a brutal first.
And drives its armored knuckles straight into the beansprout’s face.
Kanda is ten steps away, the words to summon his dual swords on the tip of his tongue. And he thinks, in hindsight, that because he’s so close, too damn close and yet too far away, because he tries his best to save the sprout from a dumb mistake, a mistake on both their parts—because he is there, in that exact spot, in a field of buried, rotting corpses, topped by rotting headstones…
That is why hears the sound that changes everything. And sees the blood that rewrites a life.
The sound is the beansprout’s skull cracking wide open against the brick steps in front of the side door of the church. As Crown Clown’s cloak is just inches away from protecting its accommodator’s head. And the blood—God, the blood pools so fast, a flooding river rushing out in all directions.
And the beansprout doesn’t move. His Innocence cloak disintegrates, even as the Level 4 swings back around for another blow. He doesn’t move. His limbs go lax, his body limp, even as the akuma lunges toward him to rip him to pieces. He doesn’t move, half-lidded eyes staring at everything and nothing. He doesn’t move.
Because his head injury is fatal.
Yes…Kanda is the one who sees it happen. And there’s no one else to blame.