Author's notes: I'm not sure what possessed me to write this. I was listening to Everything you want by Vertical Horizon and let myself write. This story will eventually be Tyki x Allen and based on Au concepts of what I envision the aftermath of the war will be like. If you're reading this thank you for taking the time to read it. Allen is seventeen at this story's beginning – roughly two years since the war had ended.
If anyone would be willing to beta this chapter and the following chapters I'd be very gratefull. Thank you for your time and enjoy the fic.
---
It was colder than he expected it to be. Allen guessed that was what death really was. Yet there was a rising tide of something that filled his soul like a torch bearing the light into the dark passages. With it came a song so beautiful it brought tears to his eyes even as it filled him with the kind of dread he'd never felt before. It wove through his failing body and set to restoring it with the strange unearthly power he didn't understand.
That's when he felt the warmth of someone holding his head in their hands, their thumbs brushing over his shut eyelids. "It's not so bad to take this road. Do you really have any other way to go?" He shifted in those hands and sucked in a breath. His lungs tried to give up as he struggled with the icy claws seeking to drag him down into the swirling frozen world he'd never return from. Not in this life at least.
What did he have to lose? He'd fought the Earl and learned he'd been using the Noah for so long – to sacrifice them to God. The 14th had learned the truth and attacked out of desperation. Part of him argued to give in would mean losing everything he'd ever worked for. The other side of him felt differently. It was time the Left hand of God was handed to another person to bear.
If he died it would be lost again. It was his duty to see it returned to the Order. If that cost him his life so be it. As if that decision had been all it needed the song pushed forward into his heart, filling it with that power that brought with it memories of a life that wasn't his.
All I ask of you is to give me my due and strike down the Earl with your hands. Don't let the task fall to another. Then return me to my brother, let us be together after so long. The voice retreated after it spoke and Allen said nothing in reply. He would honor that request. Part of it had already been fulfilled. Crowned clown tumbled out of his hand at that moment – the green glow casting its own light he could see despite being unconscious.
You served me well, Allen. I can only hope my next bearer will have half of your strength. I wish you luck where ever you go. He felt an ache in his heart as the presence he'd lived with for all of his life withdrew and left him truly alone. Maybe he cried in loss. The hands had brushed his cheeks as if wiping away tears. The song continued on and on in his heart. It slowly spread out into his arms, down through his chest, and past that to his toes.
He felt like he was the music by now. Nothing in this world can be had without pain, Cross had once said. Bone breaking agony came so quickly Allen wondered if it had always hurt like this. Maybe he'd been blind it while the music wove its spell. Fragments of other times drifted through his mind like falling leaves that only increased in number with each minute that passed.
Time seemed to have held still so he could see what seemed to be a dream of what the world would have looked like had the Earl succeeded. The ground was white beneath his feet, but it wasn't snow he was trudging on. He had a sickening feeling he knew what it was. Something crunched under his feet that confirmed his suspicions and he dogged on to pretend he hadn't heard it.
Water rushed by in thin rivets that quickly grew into streams then gave way to rivers. He walked through it. The crimson color that stained his pant legs made him want to scream. Would anyone hear him in this bleak landscape? Would they care? Ruined buildings lay on their sides, bits of stone and glass spilled out around them. They looked like the beached bones of some animal - stripped of flesh and inner workings by the harsh light of the sun.
Something bumped into his thigh as he knelt to check the strange thing he'd seen dip beneath the surface. He knew it was stupid but he plunged his hand in to search for it. A hand closed around his wrist and with it came the pain of someone who had been burned as a witch. As if that were a sign, thousands of hands grabbed whatever they could reach, their agony rolling through him until he was sinking to his knees.
His world became their ghostly pain, echoed and rebounded over and over until he was shaking with it. He sucked in a breath but it came out as a choked sob. Allen couldn't hold back his revulsion that anyone could harm people this way. It was too much. How could he bear all of this? But he had to. More latched on with each passing second before it was too much to stay silent. He screamed and writhed in their hands, his voice cutting through the silence.
Yet through it all he couldn't hate them for showing him these horrible things. He couldn't hate their tormentors. Like the Akuma - they were such lamentable beings. He wondered if they were the Noah that had come before the current group. The answer eluded him even as he arched his body with his arms flung out to his sides as he gasped. "No matter how many of you give me your pain - I will still love you!"
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there to protect you. I'm sorry no one understood you. But I can never hate you." His voice gave out and they drew away like the sea receding from the shore. He crashed face first into the water as his legs crumpled beneath him. Allen realized he was alone again, with the pain of countless people flowing through his veins like chains he could never break. He didn't want to. To shatter the bonds would give those people back their agony. This was a burden he could and would bear so those poor souls wouldn't have to. It felt like an age before he climbed to his feet, his knees wobbling as he took a shaky step forward. As long as he could keep walking he knew he'd be alright.
So he went on into the twisted landscape full of the dead that gave him their pain to take with him. He nearly lost it when he came upon the remains of the Order tower. Departed Finders touched him as if he was the savior that had come at last. Skeletons clothed in the garb of Exorcists brushed his shoulders like comrades passing by in the halls.
Remember us, they whispered. The Vatican's vault of secrets burst open like a festering wound being drained of its poison. He learned the names of souls that couldn't avenge themselves. You gave our deaths meaning, They told him and he couldn't find the point in why they had to die. He moved through the endless stream like a bird seeking its wings until he came upon a man standing on a boat with his dark hat set slightly askew.
He bore a torch in his left hand and a sword in his right with Maria standing beside him. It was oddly poetic for a man he knew to be made of mystery and infuriating as they came. "Master." He said, his feet slowing but never ceasing their procession through this strange place. "Brat," Cross answered as he sheathed the blade to steer the boat with a long pole that looked like a staff.
"Why are you here?" The man ignored the question for a moment as he smacked a passing skeleton when it tried to touch him. "Why are you, here?" Allen blinked at the question and stared straight ahead into the distance. "I don't know." He let out a yelp as the wooden staff came down on his back rather harshly. "Hey-" "Idiot apprentice!"
He was pretty sure his ears were ringing after the third whack. " Stop that! What the bloody hell did I do-" The General's expression made him freeze in his tracks. The only time he'd seen that look was the time someone suggested Cross kept Maria for 'other' reasons. Last he recalled, that pub had been raining down in fine pieces a few minutes later. "…Master?" "If you came here just because, I will put you out of your misery right now."
"No! Where is here?!" He swallowed under the unwavering stare of his master until Cross drew away and pushed the staff into the water to keep the boat moving. "You listened to him." It wasn't a question, merely a statement. Yet Allen felt pressured to answer it regardless. "Yes," "Good." They moved through the barren and dismal world in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Took you fucking long enough."
"Can you ever say anything pleasant without following it up with an insult?!" Cross lit a cigarette in reply and lazily blew out a puff of smoke. "No." Allen huffed and trudged on with a growl. "You're such an arse!" So they moved on, past the Asian branch and through the cities he had known all his life. The dead only touched Allen from that point on. The further they went the stronger his love for the people that gave him their pain became.
He was afraid he might burst from it all. When they reached the edge of a waterfall, Cross stepped from the boat into the waters right beside him. He almost looked sad to Allen. He turned to ask him what he was doing when Maria's hand closed about his wrist. He gasped mostly in shock – her hand already letting him go. His master strode forward as proud and strong as he remembered and set his hands on his shoulders. "They're waiting for you. Get going and don't stop walking." Before he could ask the question burning a hole in the back of his mind he was hurled over the edge.
The wind rushed past him as the figure of his master rapidly grew smaller and smaller the farther he tumbled through the air. If he'd have been paying attention he'd have noticed the world was getting darker, all of the light draining away like grains of sand. But his mind was full of questions that the further he had trudged through this land refused to leave him. Was this really the world the Earl had envisioned?
He still didn't have any answers when he slammed back first into a sand dune. If that's what you thought it was, you're a stupid child. Allen felt insulted as he pushed his way to his feet. "I'm not stupid!" Then think back, look at all of those you encountered. What did they all have in common? He didn't even need to think on that one. "They're…" The rotting corpse of the Earl burst from the ground and grabbed his arm before he could finish his sentence.
"Dead~" It sang before he fell down beside it. His body felt like it was on fire with a kind of pain he never expected to feel. He lay there gasping and sucking in dry air until shadows fell over him. Don't fall here. You've come so far and yet you've barely begun. He peered up into the gold eyes of the clan of Noah. It was everyone who had ever fallen while holding a memory of Noah starting from the first and ending with the last. Allen shut his eyes as he rose shakily and breathed in – preparing himself for what was to come.
They parted into two lines with a thin strip of sand in-between them at his approach. He started down the line and forced himself to keep walking with each touch that brushed his shoulders and arms. Some of them had been hunted down and slaughtered in groups like live stock. Hewn down daughters had fallen beside their fathers as they reached blindly for a power that consumed them. Others have participated in wars and changed history. No...
They had been thwarted by those clad in black that raised their holy weapons high like royal standards in the name of God. He felt guilty as the Noah touched him as if he was family. Exorcists like he'd been had hurt them. Even if it was necessary to save the world, he hated to see anyone die for it. The slim hands touching him felt familiar and he peered up into a face that reminded him strongly of Mana.
My brother raised a fine boy, The fourteenth said in a voice that was youthful despite the weight of years that gave him wrinkles at the edges of his eyes. I'm proud to call you my nephew. Skin shoved him forward as Lulubell disdainfully gripped his wrist in a punishing grip. You took down my lord, family or no I do not love you at all. Finally he stood before the shadow of the last man. He nearly fell to his knees but the man grabbed his arm to keep him from falling.
Remember this, remember that God can cast some of the faithful aside if he so pleases. It is up to us to choose our fates. It is up to humans to make a difference in their world. Never forgive him, for tossing us aside. "I will always forgive." He answered as that strange song wove through the dark landscape like a torch – giving light to the darkness. "That 's my way...the path I've chosen." The man shook his head and stepped away from him. His expression was neither kind nor scornful. After all of the sorrows and pain you've experienced you still have the ability to forgive and love? There were others like you and you saw what happened to them.
He heard the music pass down the line like an arrow streaking at his target and shut his eyes. "I'm fine with that. Didn't you say we choose our fates?" The music struck him full in the chest before the pain burst into one roaring crescendo that carried him up through this strange world into reality again.
He shot bolt upright and gasped while sweat trickled down his brow. He could only hear the pounding of his own heart at first. Slowly little by little the sounds of life from the rain hammering against the roof and the crackle of a fire in the room filtered through. Allen gripped the wool blankets draped over his legs - trying to will his heart to stop beating as quickly as a frightened rabbit.
The pain he'd carried through that world seemed centered in his forehead, his hands inspected it curiously. Only to be slapped away by much larger hands that grabbed his and pulled them away from what he suspected was there. "Stop. Let them heal over, lad. You'll regret it if you don't." Tyki frowned at him, his cigarette gripped in his surprisingly white teeth. Wisps of smoke escaped his lips as he leaned forward into Allen's space to check him over. "It's been a while since anyone bled from the other points."
The remark drew Allen's gaze downwards to his hands. They were already covered by pale linen bandages but, there was old blood on the sheets - the stains a dark dusty red. "What does that mean?" The Noah paused while he soaked a cloth and wrung it out. "You didn't restrain or fight it when it came for you?" It took him a moment to think about it and he shook his head wearily.
"Should I have?" He inhaled deeply as the cool damp cloth was used to clean his aching forehead. "It's different from person to the person. Some don't make it this far." The bandages were wound around his head before he was gently pushed to lie down. "Get some sleep; we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow." Allen opened his mouth to ask a question but Tyki shushed him. "Later. Boy, swallow that stubborn pride for a little while and do as your elders tell you."
He wanted to argue with him but he was too tired to do more than growl in reply. He watched him walk away to tend the fire and noted something strange. The colors of the world were sharper than he remembered as if he'd been living in a dull nearly colorless place since the day he was born. What caused that? Why was everything louder and the smells stronger? He shut his eyes and let sleep take him down into the world of dreams. He'd find out later wouldn't he?