And here's part two! If you haven't read part one- Heir to the Crown- you might wanna go read that now. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

I don't own anything that you recognize. If I did Lavi would have been Allen's big brother.

'Allen to Neah'

'Neah to Allen'

'Niah to Artemis'

'Artemis to Niah'

"Song Lyrics"

Six months after the official events of Heir to the Crown

~Allen POV~

I sighed again as I opened my eyes to a picture of a grinning teenage boy and sighed. For the last few months I had taken to sleeping in Artemis's room to stop the nightmares that had started plaguing me the night after my daughter disappeared.

It was like a part of her had stayed here, among her sketches, to make sure those left behind would feel slightly better when they saw her work.

A knock sounded at the door and I quickly jumped up to open it. I shook my white hair out and straightened my general's uniform before doing so.

When I opened the door, an unusual sight met my eyes. Usually it was Lavi, my older brother, or Leenalee, my, uh, girlfriend, who sought me out just after dawn and knew where'd I'd be. This wasn't either of them.

This was Kanda Yuu.

"I thought you might be here. Would you mind if I came in and sat down?" he asked almost politely. Before, he wouldn't have asked. Heck he wouldn't have even been going into someone else's room.

But that was after Artemis. After, if Leenalee was right, he fell in love. It must have broken him even more than the rest of us when she left.

"Sure, it's not my room after all." I answered and a grim smile graced my lips.

"What's that?" I asked randomly and pointed to a landscape of a cottage in a swamp.

"That's where Madame Latruse lived. Or will live."

I tried not to feel angry that he knew more about my daughter's life than me. She had explained all of these to him, and if I kept asking him to relate the stories, maybe I could keep him from a deep depression that could kill him.

It was hours later when another knock sounded at the door and this time it WAS Lavi.

"Hey you two, new friends? Let's go, time for some yummy food!" he crowed as he dragged Kanda and I out to the mess hall. My oh so loving brother had taken it upon him to make sure I ate as much as I needed.

Recently, a rather odd sight greeted us everywhere we went. My grandfather had taken to showing up at all hours with more information for Lavi, but he sometimes stayed longer than needed and followed us almost everywhere we happened to go.

It was his way of preventing us from going crazy over the loss of Artemis. My daughter from the future, who had returned to the time period she had grown up in. Artemis Cain, or, as her birth would suggest, Artemis Walker.

So since he kept following us, everyone kept looking at us oddly.

It was getting on my nerves.

A different problem kept cropping up though. The moment anyone said something derogative about Artemis in any way, Kanda would react.

Badly.

It took all my strength to keep him back from killing the person, and it was hard for me to not kill the person myself. Sadly, this was the only time that he showed any real emotion anymore.

Kanda had always been a cold and aloof person for as long as I had known him, but this was even worse than that.

He was colder, and only reacted to probing when SHE was mentioned. He almost never spoke, and it meant a glaring contest whenever Lavi, Leenalee, Chouji, and I tried to get him to eat.

It scared me that he could care so little about what happened to himself now.

I sat down with a helping of sushi, and forced myself to eat it. Sushi had been one of Artemis's favorites, and I had to admit, it tasted pretty good. But it was the thought that I was eating someone else's favorite that almost made me choke on it.

I had only managed to eat half of my food when Reever rushed up to my table.

"General, Koumi would like you, your brother, Leenalee, and Kanda in his office immediately."

Without asking why, or for that matter where Mr. Lee had been hiding for the past month, I stood and took my plate of sushi with me.

No use in wasting good food.

Lavi, Kanda, and I made our way to Koumi's office and I did a double take as I took in the sight that waited for us.

Leenalee was already there, but so were two others that really shouldn't have been able to get in.

Road and Tyki stood behind Koumi as he sprawled at his desk, like the two of them had always been there.

"What in the world are you doing here?" I hissed at them and Road huffed.

"And is that any way to greet the ones that swore featly to your daughter? We've been searching for a way to locate clues that will lead us to more knowledge of Artemis. Don't you want to know what we've found?" Road said calmly and Tyki snorted.

"Nothing yet Road! We just know that she used the Ark and her powers as the 15th to transport herself away." He said in a bored tone, but something sparked my curiosity in his voice.

"Why are you so concerned Tyki?" I asked and he glared at me.

"She promised that I would be able to contact someone the Earl has forbidden me to see."

Lavi's eyebrow rose and he gave Tyki an odd look.

"And just who would that be?" he asked and the Noah turned his glare to my brother.

"My son." He said emotionlessly and my breath caught in my throat.

"Well that's as good a reason as any." Leenalee said and she smiled. "I hope you get to see him soon."

It took a bit of work to steer the conversation back to where it need to be, in other words, about why Koumi had actually called us in.

"I want to send the four of you on Allen's first real reconnaissance mission as a General. The last one you went on was just an excuse for you all to go find Artemis. Now you actually need to take your responsibility seriously. So off you go!" he said decisively in that curt, lost tone that he'd been using for the past six months. From what Leenalee told me, he barely talked anymore, even to her.

She said that he blamed himself in part for not figuring a way to stop Artemis from having to leave. The rest he blamed on the Gatekeeper for letting her out. Nobody had told him, and nobody planned on doing so, that Road was the one that had helped Artemis get out.

If we did, he'd try to kill Road. And oath or not, she would retaliate.

~Artemis POV~

I kicked back onto my messy bed and looked at my newest sketch. It was a full color picture of Kanda. He looked slightly happy, just like I hope he was right now.

But in knew that was a false hope. I was gone, and I had a feeling that the only reason he even laughed at times was because I was there.

I sighed and grabbed a few pieces of tape off my beside table and started jumping on my bed.

It was the only real way I could hang stuff above my bed. I had pictures of Lavi, Allen, and Leenalee already up there.

My attic bedroom was perfect for posting things all over the walls and ceiling, but I had the misfortune of having a not very sloped ceiling. I had more rafters than anything really.

Once I had successfully taped my newest picture above my bed I jumped one more time and then flopped down onto my bad facing my drawings above my bed. The ceiling above me right here didn't have any rafters for me to jump onto, so, joyously, I got to jump on my bed for an actual reason.

It was way too much fun.

Unfortunately, when I thumped down onto my fluffy bed, the frame bounced slightly and a loud bump echoed through the house.

"ARTEMIS!" my younger brother Troy hollered, "YOU MADE ME LOSE A LIFE!"

I started laughing. Troy was obviously playing on of his beloved video games that I couldn't manage to master. His favorite time to spend with me was when he challenged me to a video game montage.

Made solely of fighting games.

I suck at fighting games.

I press random buttons and hope for the best, and I can't figure out what button does what. The best I ever get is when I figure out when I can press one button and do a really damaging attack.

Which is not often.

"SUCKS FOR YOU!" I hollered back at him and sighed. Our foster mother would've gotten pissed if we had done this a few months ago. But…

I cut my thoughts off and twisted so I was lying sideways on my bed, staring at the wall.

Actually I was staring at the costume hanging there. In two days I would be entering a cosplay contest for my new favorite anime.

Over the years I had fallen in love with anime in its various forms, but this particular anime had eluded me until my return from the past.

Its name was D. Gray Man.

I don't know how I missed it before, but now I wondered if I actually had been avoiding it subconsciously until I would understand.

But now I couldn't just brush it off as fiction.

I had worked hard on my costume, and I was immensely proud of it.

The black and white exorcist coat I had tried so hard to make was exactly like the person whom I was dressing up.

A full length mirror hung next to my cosplay outfit and I grinned as I shook my hair out and felt it pool on the floor.

I wonder…

Is my hair longer than Kanda's now?

'Maybe…'

'It sure as heck better be!'

A/N: and here's the first chapter of part two! I hope you liked it! If you just read this chapter and you have no clue as to what's going on, I suggest you go read Heir to the Crown, which is part one. If you're reading this and have read the first one, THANK YOU!

Allen: harrumph! Who are you dressing up as?!

Artemis: I'M NOT TELLING!

Me: oh lordy, both of you shut the heck up!

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