Title: saint allen and his retinue
Disclaimer: the usual
Pairings: None
Ave Maria
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death
i. Allen Walker
(the sainted one)
Beyond the gate, there's a stretch of shore awash with blood. Withered trees lie across the sand. Death settles in his chest, icy fingers pressing ridges into his broken heart.
It's so hard to breath.
Nightmares flash across the sky, lightning searing across the underside of his eyelids—
There's a man, wavy hair and sharp cheekbones and a dance in his walk. He stretches his hands out; pale, slender fingers that fly over piano keys. He looks over, glance sharp as jagged glass
—and the pain ignites, pure fission in his bones—
I'm Allen Walker, not Neah Campbell. My name is Allen. Allen Walker.
Neah stands on a promontory, watching as the berry-red sea crashes against the breakwater. There's a pipal tree stretching tall above him, putting roots into rock and brine; a fallen marble tower lies across the walkway and hides its hideous head under the waves.
Neah holds a calloused hand out to Allen. "I'll save the world," he says. "I promise you this."
Allen closes his eyes and sees a golden field and a tall tree and two men staring at each other across the width of the trunk as the world crumbles around them. Here he has a decision to make—life and death and all the other mysteries hang in the balance, and the world, the world—the world rests on his thin, sixteen-year-old shoulders.
"I will end it," Neah says.
Neah ruffles Allen's hair, and Allen thinks back to Mana, to a dead dog buried under soil and snow, to snatches of affection to a boy starved of love.
In the distance, the gate still stands open, and sounds spill from the glittering opening. There's swearing and grunting. There's the cacophonic beat of thunder, the steady roar of a fiery blaze. There's the sound of metal against metal, of flesh torn open and death grazing bodies from bone to marrow.
They're dying out there, while Allen dawdles.
When he can stand it no longer, Allen faces Neah. Far away, across the shimmering sea, he hears a soft melody. "Please, please save them all. Akuma and humans."
Neah nods. "Trust me. I will end this war. There will be no need for either Innocence or Noahs when I'm done. Close your eyes and step backwards."
Allen closes his eyes. Steps backwards. And again.
And again.
And—not again, for there is nothing to step on. There's a moment of weightlessness, of endless flight and the sea spray cool against his skin. Then the waters embrace him and the sea gurgles in his ears.
Overhead, the stars flicker out and the darkness sizzles with untamed things. At the far end of the beach, the gate shatters like glass, glimmering pieces falling like tears into the choppy sea. Neah wipes his eyes and gets ready to steer the battle into victory.
Miles deep in the shrieking sea, Allen continues his endless fall, and knows nothing.
ii. Kanda Yu
(the knight-at-arms)
Dead weight in his arms—sand in his eyes—rocks and stones digging into his legs through torn and tattered fabric—the sun blistering overhead—searing wind screaming through empty houses and through the catacombs, playing an unholy melody through the alchemy of smashed windows and yawning doors—
Amidst the shifting sands of Matel, Kanda hugs Alma's crumbling body close.
Alma's lips move against Kanda's chest.
"Shhh," Kanda says, rocking back and forth.
"Stay with me," Alma whispers. "Won't you, Yu?"
"Shhh."
"Don't use your Innocence," Alma says, a bloody finger trailing down Kanda's forearm. "Just stay with me and hold me until Dark Matter destroys me."
Strokes of weary memories burst into being behind Kanda's eyelids. He sees a woman, a faint lily scent ghosting behind her, her skirt brushing against the grey of the floor. Her headscarf flutters in the brief summer wind; her light hair dances against the stiff collar of her uniform.
Something warm and liquid scrambles in his chest.
"Yu," Alma says again, gasping against Kanda's collarbone.
Kanda rests his chin in the groove of Alma's shoulder. Alma's getting weaker. The space between his heartbeats grow longer; the pulse at his neck grows fainter. Kanda presses his palms into what remains of Alma's back, stroking the scarred skin with gentle fingers.
"I wish we had a longer time," Kanda whispers.
"I'm sorry, Yu." Tears spill from Alma's wretched eyes.
A sharp intake of breath. And then, Kanda says, "I'm sorry too."
"Remember me," Alma says, eyelids drooping. His blood no longer sloshes against the ground; it drips slow and steady from his many wounds.
"Thank you," Kanda says, his lips moving in silent prayer, this one last prayer to the stretch of blue above his head. He doesn't expect God to answer. He has never had an answer, even in the most trying of times. Not once, not ever. Not now.
There's a whiff of the lotus blossom, faint mud stirring in the distance. A desert storm cracking into existence along the far horizon.
Alma shudders, skin cold as sin, breath rattling in his throat. In Alma's battered body and dull eyes, Kanda sees the death throes of a rotten world.
"Go in peace," Kanda says.
In the distance, in the spaces between the falling petals that snake across his vision, mist gathers. A full skirt, the hem stained with mud. A headscarf flitting in the wind.
In Kanda's arm, Alma shudders again. Once, twice, thrice—
The mist swirls. Alma steps out of the mist and looks back over his shoulder. He grins and winks, and steps off behind the woman. Kanda watches them walk off, their steps light and giddy, lotus blossoms falling around their feet. Something shears through his heart like jagged glass.
The world starts to swim before him. He presses his hands against the ground, shaking with pain, tears gathering at the edges of his eyes, and spilling down into the arid ground. The lotus flowers fade, and he hears Alma's laughter in the wind that whips through the catacombs, sees her bright smile again in a flash of memory.
And then, he thinks, no. The Beansprout's face shimmers before him, blending into the sand and the crumbling towers. No, I still have a debt to repay.
The allure of a long and endless sleep beckons beyond the mist, but Kanda presses his lips together resolutely as the pain of healing and regeneration shatters his bones and scars his flesh. The agony of resurrection. The anguish of life. The call of duty.
A little longer, he tells himself, clutching what remains of Mugen within his bruised and bloodied fingers. Just a little while more.
iii. Lavi
(the scholar)
First, there's darkness.
—then a pinprick of light.
—then a river flowing in the wrong direction, its waters a tepid mauve.
Again they converge on him, arms outstretched, death burning bright in the hollow curves of their browbones, in the bland white of their eyes. Oh God, Lavi thinks, and would have thrown himself onto his knees to pray for salvation if he could only believe in divine mercy.
In this fair approximation of hell, Lenalee, Kanda and Krory encircle him, their faces blank, bodies flickering around the edges. A glint of silver, and then another. Lavi shudders as pain spears his belly, slicing through flesh.
Deep breath. Stem the blood. Try to flee.
Then, there's darkness again.
—then a pinprick of light.
—the gentle hum of water falling over rock and pebbles.
The monsters shred him into pieces from inside out. Death grows in him, putrefying flesh and bone, wriggling under his skin. He thinks of the stories, of the saints slain at the stake, holy and devout even as bonfires devoured their mortal selves.
Bookman presses a thumb against Lavi's wrist. Gentle pressure.
Through a parched throat, Lavi whispers, "Don't tell them."
And so Bookman doesn't. This is when the pain begins. Again. And again. Pain without end.
Darkness again.
—then a pinprick of light.
—then a cool hand brushing against his hot forehead.
Lavi opens his eyes. Sunlight, bright and glaring, scours across the room. He smells alcohol, and something rusty, like blood. Something soft under his aching bones. Panic flares in his chest, and it's so goddamned hard to breath; where is he?
He takes one breath, and then another. He tries to sit up, and a sharp pain shoots from his collarbone towards his hips. How long has he been in captivity?
"Don't move," Matron says, coming into view with a towel.
"The others," Lavi whispers. "Grandpa."
"Away," Matron says briskly, and then adds, "You need to sleep, boy, or I'll make you."
Lavi sleeps. But there is no rest, not even within the safety of the Headquarters. In his dreams there is always a dark river, an underground cave, echoes bouncing off sharp rock. Something shifting in the darkness, something creeping, fingers twitching, daggers glinting, blood spilling, and screams crackling like autumn leaves roasting in a spitting pyre.
And he's ten again, standing on a bridge, watching soldier boys march off to war to the heady beat of drums. Widows in black crepe and young girls with glossy hair and bright cheeks waved them off, and the boys went so very bravely, so very jubilantly, to what he now knows will be a bitter end. But the sun shone so perfectly then, the water had been so clear and blue in the whistling river, the birdsong so joyful.
And then he's twelve, standing in a field of wheat, watching the crows take off, a line of black against the infinite sky. He hears weeping in the background. War's like that, Bookman had said, and clasped him gently on the shoulder. But a Bookman doesn't cry.
Lavi wakes trembling. He stumbles to the basin, looks in the mirror, pulls at his bandages.
The bandages, crusted with blood at the edges, come off easily. They fall softly like clumps of cotton against the ground. Now he picks at the small white patch, pressing the pads of his fingers against the edges, pushing, pushing, pushing.
Don't ever touch it, Bookman had said, when Lavi was eight and fresh off the streets. There had been candles laid like a maze, and old men in dark robes, and slow chants, and incense burning at the back of the room. And then gauze laid gently over his face as warm blood trickled down his cheek.
Blinded for knowledge. The scholars of the world have to pay their dues. The measure was different for every Bookman, and Lavi's payment was his eye.
Don't touch it, Bookman said, the morning after the ritual, and pushed a box of eyepatches into Lavi's hands.
But now Bookman's gone. Lavi watches himself in the mirror. One edge of the gauze lifts. Lavi sees his eye for the first time in years. Pale skin, red eyelashes growing out. A normal eye.
It opens.
It sees.
Lavi sees. With both eyes.
He has traded ten years of his life for a lie. Spent over two years of his life walking the tightrope between life and death.
He could leave now, leave the Order and the Bookmen and strike out on his own.
But he doesn't. Instead, he wipes his face and pulls the eyepatch down. He will continue to be Lavi the exorcist, Bookman's heir, until he reaches the end of the road that winds away down into the future.
iv. Lenalee
(the huntress and the hunted)
In her dreams, she hunts, bow taut and arrow notched, following the trail of some fleet-footed animal, crossing dells and splashing through clear streams, always following the call of the hunt.
She dances between the roots of great trees, sometimes lying in the crook of grass and soil, breathing in the earthy damp, watching the starlings wheel across the sky.
The bugle calls, signalling the close of the day. She's too far—too far from the greater host, lost in the greenwood, a girl alone, a huntress no more. Now, she's the hunted one, for in the dark, shapeless things prowl, slithering through trails, their tongueless whispers carried on the breeze.
So Lenalee runs. She runs, and does not look back, does not wait to see what nameless creature creeps through the underbrush, eyes bright and hungry against her back.
But the dreams always end the same way—a trailing root, a careless fall in the empty-dark. Hot breaths against her neck, panting loud in her ears, chains slung around her feet, her hands, and luminescent eyes like nothing she has ever seen before. Half-human they seem in the shifting moonlight, with claws for hands and sharp teeth.
"Let me go," she says, "my brother is waiting for me to get home."
"No, he isn't," they say, drawing closer like a flock of shadows. "He doesn't know where you are. Doesn't even know you left."
She has never been so afraid. Because Komui doesn't know.
And now, there is only the sprawling darkness, the towering trees, the flickering moon high above, the damp earth, the monsters, and her. There is no one to save her, and she is defenceless.
Here in the darkness is where it all ends. Always and without fail.
When she wakes, she shrugs off the shadows, the nightmares, the remnants of a childhood spent in chains and pain. In the daylight, she hunts Akuma.
Then she returns to the Headquarters. It is so empty now—so many Finders massacred in the last wave of attacks, so many exorcists dead or missing in action. She looks across the dining hall, and feels an emptiness in her bones, an ache for the earth, a yearning to leap into the vista beyond the windows.
And then from the corner of her eyes—
A swish of long hair, dark as midnight. Kanda.
Raucous laughter, a hand slung over a friend's shoulder. Lavi.
A gentle smile, sea-grey eyes. Allen.
But when she looks again, it's as if they never were. All around her are people, scientists and Finders and other personnel, and yet she has never felt quite so lonely—
And she thinks back to darkness and a hard bed and chains harsh against her ankles, and the moonlight pooling against the cold floor. Shadows and robed men towering over her, Hevlaska glowing green, the nameless boy who smiled at her through a crack in a door, the same boy whose Innocence was burned into his very bones until he transformed into a fallen angel, all light and strange angles, leaving an unholy wind in his wake and scorch marks on the floor.
The robed men shouted and ran, raising a ruckus with their spells and light. She had retreated, then, watching the white glow subside and fall to the ground, revealing only a tiny body, so broken and bent, blood frothing against his lips, one hand pressed against his heart. Hevlaska's sobs were loud above the din.
Lenalee had run then, and never looked back, bitter bile rising in her throat. But they caught her, those robed men, and trussed her up.
Back to her room, where the darkness waited with all its monsters hiding under her bed, rattling against the door of her closet, cold breath whirling across her feet.
How she had longed to flee then, to fly into the night.
How she longs to flee now, to fly out into that infinite blue sky, to search for her comrades, to cauterise the pain of their absence. To flee her cage.
How she longs to say yes when Marie in the quiet after the breakfast rush, asks quietly, "Will you follow them?"
But this time—this time, she stays. She stays to fight, stays to lay down her life for the greater good. This time, there will be no more running into the darkness. This time, she stands her ground, turns around and faces her fears.
She will yield no more, she will close her ears to the siren call.
AN: Thank you for reading.