Made after chapter 166. I got it a little late cuz the internet was out, but I think people may still enjoy it... Also, I edited the dialogue because it was actually somewhat hard for me to understand the chapter, so this is edited so I couls understand it better. Sorry.

I hope you can tell who's speaking... I really didn't want to put text next to the dialogue, cuz I thought it would ruin it's effect. Not intended to be poetry if that's what it looks like it is, just read it like you would a book.

It banged into me. It thrashed around in my mind and it burned up into my throat, and yet, it all just sank into me like a heavy weight, seeping into my person and figure, as though I had waited a millenia—no, seven millenia, just to hear the truth.

"The fourteenth had an older brother."

There was a dog. A dead dog.

"There was one person and one person only who stood beside the fourteenth before he betrayed the Millenium Earl, and was killed by him personally."

He licked my hand. He licked my accursed, red, bad hand. It was warm and soft. It felt nice to have something touch that hand.

There was a clown. I cried in front of him over the dog's death. How stupid I must have looked, crying over a circus dog I knew only because of a simple touch.

"Mana Walker."

He tried to make me laugh but I never did. He was a good clown, but I didn't want to laugh. It felt wrong, for a person like me, to laugh and be happy. He thought I should laugh anyway. He was so stupid I actually did... a week or so later.

"Mana... and the fourteenth... were brothers? You knew about this all along?"

Mana was a person who would never be deterred as far as I could see. He bugged me until I would either laugh, cry, or confess my world to him. I was an odd-jobs worker. I was hungry, and I scowered the streets daily looking for work.

"I did."

Every coin and penny was horded and saved until it was enough to buy a cheep but large full-meal. I needed food, and I knew how to make it last when it had to last.

Mana adopted me on December twenty-fifth. My least favorite time of year on a day I only cared about because no one would give me work that day. However, we must have met in late autumn or early to late winter. I don't remember exactly, but Mana pretended to hang himself on a tree with no leaves, so I can guess it wasn't spring or summer.

"When the fourteenth died, I promised him I would watch over Mana."

But Mana and I would watch over only each other. We were not the type for bonds to form immediately, but we let them come after a time. We helped each other out in small ways, like when Mana's clown suit was completely ripped up, I sewed it back together. In return, he fed me when I needed food. I bet he regretted that promise...

"If I did, one day, he would return to Mana."

I would always come back to Mana when I needed help or something happened. He was my safety net after a while, always there when I needed to be caught. When I first met him, I said I didn't need anyone, but after a while, I just didn't know.

"You promised me that, Allen."

I never promised him anything other than that I would walk the path I chose until the end.

"Or should I say..."

But I have no other name than Allen Walker.

"...the Fourteenth?"

Why me?

"He probably hasnt fully awakened, but you have felt the pressence of the fourteenth within you, havent you, Allen?"

I wanted to kill him for that.

"Huh? What're you talking—"

"Dont play dumb, you knew the player's song."

The song Mana and I made together. It really was fake, or real, I don't understand anything anymore.

"That's his memories."

I want imy/i memories back. I wish I hadn't ever strayed into the circus like I did. I wish I would stop lying to myself like that... I was glad at the time, but... what if I had just stayed away? Would Mana still have found me? Would it be someone else in this room right now? Thinking these thoughts?

"You had the fourteenth's memories implanted in you."

I know that, I knew that, I hate that! I want my path back! I want my life!

"You are the host necessary for his revival"

Why me? Why does it always have to be me?

"I am no one's sacrifice but the Akuma's. I am no one's body but my own."

Of course, that would be an outright lie, wouldn't it?

"Why do I have to hate you all?"