A/N: Hey, guys! *wave* So I saw a post on Tumblr (AGAIN) and it spawned an idea (AGAIN) and resulted in this little thing, which I, of course, had to write same-day, because why not. *eye roll* IT'S NOT LIKE FINALS EXIST OR ANYTHING.

Title: The Road to Hell

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Genre: Tragedy/Angst

Warnings: Canon-typical gore

Summary: Only when he finds Kanda crouched in the middle of a sea of blood and bodies does Bak remember that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Disclaimer: Like hell I own D. Gray-man.

Bak's first clue that something was wrong was the look in Fou's eyes.

Actually, it was the whole shape of her frame, really. Her head was dropped slightly, her teeth gritted, and she had a hand on her hip in a poor imitation of her usual swagger. Her shoulders were tense and hunched, and she was glaring at the ground, looking anywhere but at him.

Before she ever even opened her mouth, Bak's chest had gone cold.

"The project failed," she said at last, voice scraped raw with suppressed emotion. And then, "I'm sorry, Bak. They're dead."

For a moment, Bak couldn't speak, he just stared at her, feeling like the breath had been knocked out of his chest. Then it whooshed in and he demanded, "Who?"

"All of them, Baky." Her lips formed a bitter smile. "Everyone working in the lab."

As soon as Bak had processed her words, he took off running, and Fou let him, not moving from her spot. When he was gone, she repeated,

"I'm sorry."

Lab 6 was eerily silent when Bak arrived, save for the echo of his pounding footsteps.

It hadn't occurred to him before, but he had no idea which section he was looking for.

It didn't matter. He would look in all of them. What he was looking for, he didn't know, but… Something. There had to be something.

Sure enough, he finally burst through a door, and, upon seeing the other side, stumbled to a halt, wide-eyed. He took it in for one second, then two, and then clapped a hand over his mouth, gagging.

There was blood everywhere - blood and broken bodies. His eyes went straight to his parents; Edgar was in the middle of the room, a bloody hole in the middle of his chest, and Twi was off to one side, slumped against a wall.

On another side, Marie - what was Marie doing here? - was struggling to rise, calling out in increasingly panicked tones, "Boy? Boy? Are you okay? What happened? Boy?"

And, in the middle of the room, the child who'd crawled out of the water was kneeling, hunched over another body, a feathered sword clutched in one white-knuckled grip.

Bak took one deep breath, and then another, struggling to force his mind to work.

Everything had gone wrong. This was beyond a worst-case scenario - this was something past what any of them had ever dreamed could happen. And now they were all dead.

All of them, except for… Who was that boy?

"Marie?" he called out, trying to keep his voice steady, eyes staying on the child in the middle of the room.

Marie's head snapped to his, and he nearly fell over again in his haste. "Bak? Are you Bak?" His voice was still frantic, but there were hints of relief there now, too.

"Yes," Bak confirmed, weaving his way past limp extremities and slack-jawed faces to cross the room to Marie. Twice, he nearly slipped in puddles of blood, and once, when he stepped on a finger and heard it crack, he had to stop and breath deeply to keep from throwing up. "What happened here?"

"I don't know," Marie said quickly, letting himself fall limply to the ground. Bak crouched beside him, desperate eyes fixed on Marie's bandaged face. "It smelled like blood when the boy and I came in here - there was another boy, I think he killed the people here, and then he tried to kill…" He made a frustrated sound, but Bak could understand well enough.

"Thank you," he said softly, numbly, and started to stand. Before he could finish, Marie interrupted,

"Is the boy here? Is he okay?"

"He's here," Bak assured him, glancing at the form in the middle of the room. "He's alive."

Marie slumped back, relieved. "Thank God," he murmured.

Bak wasn't so sure that it was a good thing.

His eyes roved the chaos again - the corpses of scientists he'd known, hired, sometimes grown up with, all limp and bloody and broken on the ground - before settling on the child, and a lump grew in his throat.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Horror over the deaths of his parents lurked in the back of his mind, but he shoved it aside to pick his way back over to the boy and crouch beside him.

He had a job now. A duty to the Order.

He took a deep breath and said softly, "Boy? Can you hear me?"

The boy didn't respond, and he reached forward cautiously. His hand settled firmly on the boy's shoulder - and the boy shoved it off violently, throwing himself to one side. He twisted to look at Bak, eyes wide and wild, face streaked with blood and tears, and he looked so broken that it took Bak's breath away for the third time that day.

"Boy?" he asked cautiously, wishing he knew the child's name.

The boy's face screwed up, and he jerked his head to look away from Bak, curling in on himself like an injured animal. His shoulders started to shake, and tears flowed from his eyes, but he never made a sound. Bak, hand still outstretched, stared at him with lost eyes and a heavy heart.

This was our fault.

We did this.

It was hours before Bak managed to coax the child out of the lab, and Marie's arm was slung over his shoulder for as long as it took to find someone to take him to the infirmary.

Unable to think of anything better, Bak brought the boy to the kitchen to find something to eat, though that was the last thing either of them felt like doing. This turned out to be the right decision.

As soon as he spotted them, Zu hurried forward as fast as his old-man legs could take him, squinty, baggy eyes darting between the two of them anxiously. Bak summed up a wan smile for the man.

It didn't fool him for a moment, but Zu went to the boy first, leaning down. "Yuu? Yuu, what happened?"

Yuu - that must be the boy's name - stared up at him hollowly. He was still in shock, Bak could tell, and his grip on his sword hadn't loosened; his hand shook slightly. His lower lip was trembling, but his eyes were dry now.

"The other subject of the project must have gone mad," Bak explained, holding a small, tremulous smile on his lips. "Everyone in the lab is dead."

Horror dawned in Zu's eyes.

"Alma?" he breathed, disbelieving. And then the rest of the statement registered, bringing grief and pity with it. "Everyone? Oh, God…" Bak flinched, but no sooner had Zu said that then did another thing register, and he continued, stumbling and stunned, "How did… If everyone..."

Yuu's breath hitched, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Zu's attention returned to him, and something seemed to click that made his eyes widen even further.

"Yuu," he whispered. Then, a little louder, "Yuu? That's not… Alma's blood?"

Yuu's eyes shot open and his mouth twisted, expression coming together in a venomous, defensive glare, shoulders shaking and fists clenched tight.

"Marie said that he tried to kill Yuu too," Bak offered numbly. Zu's horror reached new heights, and his wrinkled hands shook.

For a few minutes, he seemed lost for words, and Yuu's expression slowly crumpled and turned more defensive and brittle. He took a step back, and then another, and finally, Zu reacted - which was good, because God knew Bak had no idea what to do.

He reached for the sword first. Yuu jerked it away, turning defensive again, clinging to it like a lifeline, and Zu promised, expression pained but sincere,

"I'm not trying to take it from you, Yuu. I'll make it into a proper weapon. You'll have it back within a few days."

Yuu stared at him, not responding, but when Zu reached to take the sword again, he let him.

Bak was grateful when Zu took charge of the situation, because it gave him a moment to breathe, to think. He was ordered to sit down at the little table near the kitchen's entrance, and Zu took Yuu away to clean the worst of the blood off him, setting the sword aside to complete later.

Bak was left alone for precious minutes while Zu cleaned up Yuu, and he took the time to grieve, pressing his hands into his eyes and forcing himself to process what he'd just lost.

When Zu and Yuu returned, his eyes were red, but dry. Zu met his gaze questioningly for a brief moment and seemed to accept Bak's small nod at face value, sitting Yuu down beside him.

"I'll make you both some food," Zu said quietly, and left.

The two of them were stuck in awkward, heavy silence, Yuu staring at the table and Bak staring at Yuu. Bak wanted to say something, anything to make that look on his face go away, but all he could think of was,

"I'm sorry."

Yuu shoved his hands in his lap and ignored him. He was still shaking.

A few weeks later, Bak sent Yuu off to war.

He'd found the kindest general Headquarters had, the one most likely to be able to help, and the man would be there when Yuu arrived. Mugen, Yuu's Innocence, had been forged into a beautiful katana, now strapped to the boy's small back. He'd given Yuu the foundations of what would become the boy's knowledge of the English language, and introduced him to as many aspects of the outside world as he would let him.

All of these things didn't even begin to make up for what they were about to put Yuu through, let alone what they already had.

"Goodbye, Yuu," he called out, voice a little rough and a forced, bright smile on his face. "Good luck on your journey!"

Yuu turned and gave him a look, scornful and angry, and Bak felt his heart drop a little more.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

Kanda. Kanda is a source of endless emotional agony. *sigh* Thanks for reading, and please review!