Edit (January 17, 2009): Did, uh, something. I forgot what I did to this thing. Oh, that's right, I changed the in-chapter title.
A necessary side note: This chapter takes place before It's not All Black and White. I'm filling in some blanks on what Allen's been doing in the two years before It's not All Black and White's timeline.
Another side note: then sun actually sets from East to West. There's a reason for the way I wrote the summary. I did it on purpose.
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Oh geez, I finally got this out. Whew.
I'd like to say a big fat hearty THANK YOU SO GODDAMN MUCH for all my faithful readers, if any 8D. And sorry if I've insulted your religion. I tend to say 'goddamn(ed)' quite a lot, and I'll stop if it offends anyone. Really.
Also, please don't read between the lines of this chapter too much. It's wonderful if you do, but you might get a headache, so please don't. I'll be bringing bits and pieces of this chapter into other chapters and clarifying them as we go along. So don't worry your pretty little asses off. Yet.
The other meaning to the title of the previous fic, It's Not All Black and White, is also mentioned here, but it's kind of obvious, so no kudos if you find it. D'aw.
Now that that's out of the way..
Summary: Hand in hand, we'll walk down this road together. Stay by my side, and I'll stay by yours, forever and ever. We'll walk and walk, and when we have ceased, the sun will have set from the West to the East. Yullen, sequel to It's Not All Black and White.
Warnings: One F word, implied sex, but nothing bad... Allen's screaming. Does that count? No, it's not because of Kanda. Sorry.
Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THIS. Except the rabid plotbunny that has spawned this fic. And I own the fic itself.
Shinigami Hunter (FINALLY) presents to you…
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The Final Stage: Scenario 14
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First Stage: I am one who must keep walking
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Silence.
That's all he hears; silence.
There's no sound at all, not even when his blood trickles down his sickly pale arm and falls into the giant body of water, crimson red swirling down into the depths. There's no sound, no sound at all, no senses.
The moon in the sky is white.. a beautiful color.
But the one reflected in the water that's slowly being stained red… is black.
Not again…
Ruins, buildings that have fallen, buildings that weren't there… reflected on the water's surface. He can't see himself; he's not being reflected, but neither are the trees or rocks, not even the sky is reflected correctly. There aren't any stars in the reflected sky, no clouds, no dead trees, just a black moon, and ruins. Old, old ruins…
And.. Linali…
Linali.. she's the only one there. But there's someone else lying next to her, someone that looks like him.. but it's not, because he's not there. He can't help her, not even as she cries, her tears somehow reaching the water on her side and causing ripples on his side.
His blood continues to drip, down his arm and to the ground, creating a puddle that in turn spills into the lake, into the water.
His hand twitches, instinctively wanting to reach out and help her, consol her, stop her from crying, because Linali shouldn't cry. He wants to move his hand, but he can't, he can't help her, can't do anything but watch.
No… no…
And he stands there, watching, until he falls to his knees, still watching, still bleeding, as Linali cries silently, because he can't hear her. He can't help her, he can't move at all.
And then, just when he's able to reach out, just before he touches the water…
No, no more! No more!
--
Gasping, Allen wakes from the dream, his skin covered with cold sweat. He shivers and pulls the sheets closer around him, only to find that they're already as tight as possible. Despite this, he curls in on himself, clenching his eyes shut in an attempt to get rid of the image burned into the back of his brain, the image that he started seeing ever since that happened, and he's been seeing it ever since.
He stays in that position for a while, as his breathing returns to normal and he can think rationally again.
Where am I..?
He doesn't want to open his eyes and find out, even though he should, but he doesn't want to. He's comfortable lying where he is right now, listening to the sound of his own breathing, the sound of his own heart… his own… heart.. beat…
That's.. not my heart beat…
With deliberate slowness, Allen loosens his death-grip on the white sheets, shivering as some of the warmth is taken away, and sits up. His head hurts, like a migraine has suddenly decided to make a home in his head, but he looks around him anyway.
It's dark. There isn't much light, aside from a faint violet glow from an hourglass on the nightstand. A cracked stained glass window lets in no light, presumably because the sun has not risen yet. The room is barren, made of stone, cold, and has no furnishings but the bed and nightstand, and something that looks like a coat rack in the corner.
This room... Why am I here..?
Thinking about it only makes his head hurt more. Allen closes his eyes again, wrapping mismatched arms around his legs and hugging them to his chest and waiting for the inevitable, however long it takes. He has all the time in the world.
A shuffle next to him disrupts the silence, however, and Allen turns his head. Someone else is in the bed with him, someone obviously male, and naked, at that.
And Allen takes a moment to notice that he himself is also naked.
Mild panic surfaces but is metaphorically squashed by a rock labeled 'immunity', otherwise known as "shit that I've experienced more than I'd like".
Leaning over the sleeping form, Allen brushes his Innocence hand over the pale skin, tracing the man's cheekbones down to his jaw. Every part of him is sharp and angular; nothing is soft or childish, naïve, or weak, but there's something about him that's.. gentle.
Midnight tresses flow through his fingers like water, silky smooth and smelling faintly of lotuses and even more faintly of vanilla. The man's hair is nothing like Allen's; stiff and choppy, cut with unskilled hands into a fashion that isn't really a fashion, just one that is the most convenient.
And his eyes are so dark, almost like a pair of black holes, sucking in anything and everything in sight. Recognition flits briefly across his eyes and he blinks, his face scrunching into a frown.
A drop of common sense would have told him to get the hell away and cover up.
"What the hell are you staring at, beansprout?"
Allen could see himself reflected in those pools of blue-ivory as specks of white and gray, a hint of red from the scar on his face.
He has seen his reflection numerous times, whenever he walks into the piano room, in the bathroom, but he still can't help staring. He's not a narcissist, not at all. It's not his beauty (or lack therefore of) he's looking at, not his strange hair or eyes, or the scar. He's not looking at what he can see.
Allen's looking underneath the surface of his reflection, and he's looking behind it. He's looking at the past, everything he's been through, all the battles he has experienced, all the people he has met. He seems them all.
Every time he looks in the mirror, it's all there.
"Are you deaf now?"
Allen blinks and stares, long and hard, at the faintly familiar features of the man lying under him.
"..Who are you?" He asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion when he can't recall where he's seen this person before.
"What the fuck?" The dark-haired man looks appalled and shocked but it's replaced with anger and annoyance. "Drop the act, idiot. You're not good at it."
Allen glares and opens his mouth to respond but instead, his vision blurs and he feels sick to his stomach. A few puffs of breath, and he can smell alcohol on his hand.
"You really can't hold your alcohol, can you?"
A hangover, then?
Pain spikes through the left side of his skull and he winces, sitting back and clutching at his head. Aching fatigue seeps through his body, particularly in his abdomen, and he makes a pained whimper.
"O-oi!" Firm hands shake him by the shoulders. The other man's voice is surprisingly comforting, Allen realizes, dulling the pain if only by a tad bit. But.. who..? "Walker!"
"You.. who.. how.." Another wince. "How do you know.. my name..?"
Familiar pain, right on schedule, tears through Allen's mind with a red-hot knife and he screams. His eyes are wide but unseeing, glassy, shaking, nothing but pain.
His own fingers become tangled in his hair, tugging sharply on snow white locks in agony. A feeling of nostalgia rises from the depths of his heart at all of the harsh words from so long ago, all spoken by the same man, the same person, from one single being. He bites his lip, temporarily silencing his cries, and hears that person speaking again.
But whether the voice is coming from reality or from his past memories... he can't tell.
"Dammit, Walker, snap out of it!"
Allen wants to reply, wants to assure him that he's fine even though he's not, but all that comes out of his mouth is another hoarse scream. It's not physical pain, because his body can still function; his limbs are fine, but there's still the pain.
It hurts to breathe; the simple, usually unconscious, action of drawing breath and inflating his lungs is torturous as his throat is slowly tearing with all of his screaming. Rivulets of blood trail down his chin and breathing suddenly refuses to become naught but a bloody chore, rather than a necessity.
A chore… something that should be done, but is not necessary…
When was it that I started thinking… about that…
"No…"
"..Moyashi?"
Allen shakes his head slowly, staring at the droplets of blood staining the bed sheets, still holding his head with more force than needed.
"No.. I don't want to do this anymore… don't.. want.." Something wet trickles from the corners of his eyes, tears, and mixes with the metallic red from moon-shaped punctures. "No…!"
When did I start telling myself that.. staying alive.. was just a chore…?
"No more.. no..more…"
Allen coughs, blood and phlegm clogging his airway and forcing him to hack and draw breath painfully. The man is talking again, yelling, but it's all muted and dulled. It's there, but it's not, like trying to talk to someone on the other side of a Plexiglas wall.
A soft buzzing reaches his ears, in his mind, a metaphorical mental barrier being raised around him in a sea of darkness. And out in the distance, little specks are flying towards him, moving, emitting sounds that echo and ricochet off the inside of his skull like Akuma bullets on his body.
Another impeding headache shakes the very foundation of his shivering form, his heart throbs and pulses against his ribcage and his breathing becomes more and more shallow, rushed, drying out his esophagus with each and every breath.
Is this a dream.. another one..? No.. no more, please.. no more…
There's a line between what's real and what isn't, often distinguished by things that can't possible happen.
But when you find out that you've fallen in love with the man you most hate, that line tends to blur a bit. When you've died and come back to life, that line starts breaking down. When you leave your friends and your beloved behind and hear of their deaths, that line loses solidity.
When.. when did I…?
When you die a second time and are brought back again.. that line has no meaning.
Allen is no longer able to clearly distinguish his nightmares from the everyday horrors of life.
--
When did I start losing my will to live..?
--
Walking.
That's his job; to walk. To walk, and walk, and keep walking, keep killing Akuma.. keep saving them..
He walks through the fields of dying grass, through a forest of dying trees, through a valley of crumbling rocks.. he walks along the winding path, never losing his way, always getting back on track, and leaving countless dead Akuma behind him.
And the road leads to an empty plain where the wind whistles softly, and the moon shines down from above.. and doesn't reflect from the water.
The path.. is.. gone…
"Idiot.."
…What..?
"You, you're an idiot."
Someone's.. talking…
"Of course I am."
Dark tendrils reach up from the water's surface, a sea of inky black. He stands at the shore of a piece of land that's slowly sinking, centimeter by centimeter, slowly but surely. Or maybe he has it in the wrong perspective. Maybe the water is just rising, rather than the land sinking.
He opens his mouth but no sound comes out.
"Don't talk. Think. You are, after all, the Musician of the Mind, aren't you?"
Musician.. of the Mind?
"The 14th Noah who was kicked out. You're not a real 'Noah'; you're the 'Musician'. Your only relation to the clan of Noah is your ability to control the Ark."
He kneels down and peers into the water, where the source of the voice is coming from. It's all black, and the only thing that separates it from the black sky is the slight shimmering of the surface. Despite how foreboding it looks, he finds it.. serene and peaceful, like something he'd want to fall asleep in.
"Crazy. You'll drown!"
Who are you, anyway?
"You've forgotten?"
I.. don't know what you're talking about.
A breeze blows through, rattling the dead branches and sweeping his bangs out of a pair of hollow holes that should be his eyes.
"Look on the water, idiot bean."
He wants to frown but all his efforts are futile, so he merely does as he's told and looks. The tendrils in the middle of the body of water twists and morphs into a black and white lotus that looks oddly familiar.
A lotus?
"No, it's a man-eating alien. Of course it's a lotus, dumbass."
I'm not a dumbass!
"Ha ha. Whatever. Look closer."
How?
"Uh, I dunno, walk?"
…But there's water.
The voice doesn't reply, but the lotus starts steadily drifting away. He could have reached it with a single step were it solid ground, but not anymore. He looks down into the water again, and sees a speck of light near what should be the bottom.
The light grows bigger, eating away at darkness of the water and sending more ripples and waves across its surface. Soon, the light reaches the top of the water and bursts up, engulfing everything into a blinding white mass.
When he can see again, it's a different world, yet it's the same. A white moon, reflected black. His own face isn't reproduced on the top of the now colored liquid.
Colored? No, it's not colored.
It's another world down there; a world of broken buildings and decimated landscape, a black moon in a red sky.
Linali…
She's crying, silently, sitting atop a fallen structure, holding the body of a most likely dead comrade in her arms. He can't hear her, but he can see how frustrated and distressed she is, and he wants to go help her.
Linali.. I have to.. help her… I..
"Help her?"
I have to…
He reaches out and touches the water, sees it ripple and shimmer, but doesn't feel it. It's not wet, not cold, not warm, not slippery, not anything.
Linali..!
"By all means, go ahead and try, beansprout."
And he dives, falls into the lake, tumbles and turns until he's falling from the colored sky, such a contrast to his own world of black and white. He lands next to the Chinese girl, but she doesn't notice him and keeps crying.
"Allen…"
He can't blink, but that doesn't mean he's not confused.
"Allen.. why..?"
Linali.. Linali, I'm right here.
"Why, why did you leave.. Allen..?"
I'm.. right here…
His mouth moves soundlessly, still unable to make any noise to alert her of his presence.
Why..? Linali, why can't you hear me? I'm right here, Linali!
His hand, a deathly white, reaches out to her and grazes against her pale-peach skin, but she doesn't react at all. Like he's not even there, even though he is.
A splash catches his attention. The ruins are stuck deep in seemingly shallow water, lapping gently at the crumbling structures. But Allen's not interested in the dead bodies, human and Akuma, floating in the water, or the black and white lotus, or the petal that's falling from it, sinking into the black water, only to defy the laws of physics and fall from the sky and into the palm of his hand.
Allen's looking at his reflection.
.. I can.. see.. myself… why couldn't I see it before..?
In a world of color, with Linali, Lavi, the Order, the Finders… he couldn't see himself. Like he didn't belong, he just didn't… feel right. He doesn't look like any of them, he can't communicate with them.. From his own world, he couldn't see himself living in this world.
His gaze is drawn towards a mess of dark blue stained red. A man, pale, Oriental, the same one he saw next to him in the dark room. He's obviously dead, like everyone else except for Linali.
Linali.. why can't you hear me..?
"Because you don't belong."
The dead man's harsh voice reaches his ears with a hint of an accent, barely there, but he can tell. Why, he doesn't know, but he can.
You.. who are you?
Lips that should be cold and lifeless quirk into a sneer.
"You've forgotten already, idiot bean?"
A black clothed arm, torn and bleeding, sinks into the water, reaching for the lotus on the surface. His whole body dips down and goes under, his hair fanning out like a curtain as he falls and comes to a rest on the shore of the island.
I don't get it… I don't this at all..
"Allen.. don't leave.. don't leave, don't leave us. We need you, Allen.."
Linali continues crying, shaking the shoulders of the person in her lap. She's calling him 'Allen', but he can't see the person's face.
He knows it's not really Allen, because he's standing right there, next to her, not lying down...
"Do you understand yet, beansprout?"
He finds himself kneeling down next to Linali, facing the water, watching the lotus lose more petals, watches those petals sink, watches them fall from the sky and onto the water, sinking again, repeating the cycle.
The petal has fallen, but it's still falling.
His time has come, but he has yet to die.
"Remember?"
No.. no, please, no more..
"Stupid.. you always were a stupid beansprout."
No, no--!
A figure erupts from the water, from his world of black and white, and easily scales the side of the building. Linali takes no notice as the person, creature… thing… grabs the front of his shirt, tugging him forward by the ribbon around his neck, the ribbon that should be red, but it's not, because his world has no color.
"See? You don't belong here, Musician. This world isn't for you. Come back to your world."
But.. who are you..?
White circles open up like eyes on the sorry excuse for a head and a face splitting grin appears underneath the orbs.
.. The 14th…?
"Wrong-o."
Black mud drips down its head, thinning out into threads like hair, like that Japanese man's.
"I don't have a name.. yet.. Doubt I ever will. But.. my host has a name.."
Its mouth moves but no sound comes out.
..What..?
"…da…."
.. I.. can't hear…
The grin doesn't let up.
"..nda… nda…. anda…"
Seemingly frustrated, the creature jerks him off the ledge and back down into the water. He sinks, chokes, falls, and lands on the shore again, next to the other man.
"His name is.. Kanda… Yuu Kanda. Remember it, beansprout. Remember his name, no matter what."
Kan…da… Kanda…. Yuu… Kanda.
"Che.."
He turns his head and looks at the long-haired man, whose face looks like his now. Colorless, a simple, pasty white for skin, and hollows for eyes. The only difference is his black hair. Blood still stains his skin, bright red in a sea of black and white.
The creature crawls out from the water again. Black sludgy liquid molds into a more defined form, a body, arms, and legs. It.. he.. whatever it is, still has circles of white for eyes, and a forever leering grin. Its clothing is the same as the one the Japanese is wearing; a black and white Exorcist coat, ripped, torn, and ragged at the edges.
"Do you understand yet, moyashi?" it hissed in a tone similar to the Japanese's, ghostly white grin widening more than its face should allow, a grin that was frighteningly like another that he'd seen before.
…You're.. a Noah..?
"Bingo, beansprout. I am Yuu Kanda's Noah. When his lotus wilts, I will be awakened.. or so I am hoping."
What does that mean?
"The Noah contained in a person is not known, and therefore unnamed, until they have awakened… When I am not yet awakened, I have no name and I do not claim any existence more than a dream or nightmare does."
So even you don't know which Noah you are?
"I know what I am, but I have no name. I am a Noah with certain powers, and those powers will dictate which Noah I am."
I thought it was the other way around…
The dying lotus drifts closer to the island, another petal falling off and sending itself to the dark depths of the body of water and into the other world. Looking into the lake is like looking into a never ending mirror in which another mirror is situated across from it, forever reflected against each other into something like a tunnel.
He looks back at the Exorcist next to him – Kanda, was it? Kanda…
..Why did.. Kanda…He was over there.. with Linali.. How.. how did he get over here..?
"This is your world, beansprout, and that is your friend's."
Linali's world?
"Aa, Linali's."
The difference between his and Linali's world is small, yet so big and noticeable. Hers is vibrant and full of color, or it used to be. Buildings, technology, people – friends and family, people she loved, loves, and will love…
His world is dull, monochrome, only two colors – only two sides. Black and white, evil and good.
Akuma and humans.. no, not humans; him. Akuma.. and him.
The only ones Allen cared about were the Akuma.. and himself. The Akuma, because they didn't belong in this world, in Linali's world, so they must be destroyed and sent to heaven; and himself, because he must be alive to save the Akuma.
And he lost sight of that path. He walked all the way, and came to a dead end, only to see what he's missing. To see, and finally realize, that his world is being swallowed up by Linali's, being drawn in by her comfort and love.
He could so easily transcend the barrier and dive into her world, be part of her family, her friend.. but he would never belong.
Rising to his feet, he moves to pick up the dying, most likely dead, Exorcist, Kanda.
"Where do you think you're going, beansprout?"
He looks down at the man in his arms with eyes that did not exist. He can't tell if Kanda's alive or not, because his eyes aren't close, never will, never can, and the lack of skin color doesn't help either.
…I don't know…
He steps out onto the water, and it turns to ice under his foot. Another step, and another, a path of frozen water appearing as he walks. Like a barrier being created, that prevents him from falling, drowning, into Linali's world.
.. But I have to keep walking.
He leaves behind his world filled with destructed Akuma, broken and scattered across the desolate landscape. Every time a friend dies, Linali's world breaks down, and when they're all dead, her world is like an ancient ruin straight out of a textbook.
Every time he kills an Akuma, his resolve should be strengthened.. but instead, he has slowly been losing that resolve, that reason to fight, tricked into thinking that he will soon be able to leave his world, where he is obsessed with Mana, and enter another one of peace and devoid of death…
I have to.. keep walking…
Allen holds Kanda closer to him, doesn't stop walking, doesn't look back, and continues onward towards the lotus.
And red blood continues to fall from their wounds, mixing and swirling together as they hit the water and spiral into the depths, dripping onto the stone beside Linali.
--
Because, now, my world is no longer black and white…
Because, now.. Yuu will be my reason to walk forward.
--
"General Walker.. General, wake up!"
Allen's eyes open slowly, blinking away the sleepiness and groaning at the faint roaring of the train.
A dream… It was all just a dream.
"General.."
"Myria, stop calling me that. I'm not a General anymore, remember?" He sighs and sits up, leaning back against the leather seat of the first-class compartment. He should be riding in second- or third-class, but he's gotten to used to first-class and uses his silver cross out of habit. "..Where is this train headed, Myria?"
"You've forgotten already?" Myria gives him a smile anyway, out of understanding. "We're heading to China, then taking a ship to Japan, Gen—Mr. Walker."
"Allen, Myria. Just call me Allen." The white-haired man, no longer a boy but still having the appearance of one, looks out the window at the passing scenery, thinking back on the series of dreams he's been having over the course of the week. "..Japan, is it..?" Another moment of silence, and he's finally made up his mind. "Myria."
"Yes?"
"You have no problem controlling your need to kill humans, correct?"
"…Yes. To an extent. I do have limits."
"Hm.. you don't have your Innocence anymore.. I guess you could make do as a Finder."
"Huh?"
Allen smiles but doesn't turn to look at Myria.
"We're getting off at the next stop, Myria. There's something.. someone important.. that I've forgotten about."
"Ah…"
Allen reaches into his suitcase and extracts a pair of silver golems, not unlike their black counterparts, and hands one to the modified Akuma sitting across from him.
"I've managed to make these, but they're only prototypes. There's no range limit to how far we can communicate, but unfortunately, they can only connect to one frequency."
She takes it and turns it on, checking to see if it works, then turns it off and stows it away in the Finder robes Allen gives her, also from the suitcase.
Where he finds the room to store all that stuff, no one knows.
"Why do we need these? Won't the normal golems be good enough?"
Allen tucks away his own silver communicator into his faded Exorcist coat. "It's just a precautionary measure. I'll do my best to make sure our arrival is not brought to the attention of the Grand Generals, lest they manage send us in different directions. If that happens, we may not be able to communicate with regular golems."
Myria leans forward a little, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "..Grand Generals?"
If only for a little bit.. if only for a single reason…
"We're going back to the Black Order, Myria."
--
I must keep walking.
--
--
A/N: Bleeehhh, I guess I kind of like how this turned out... Oh! Oh! And I'd like to mention this once and for all..
THIS FIC DOES NOT CONTAIN SEX.
I mean, aside from the mentions, and none that hasn't already happened. I'm still debating whether or not to try and type up two drunk teens doing it in Kanda's room (what a horrible place for a first time; it's so gloomy in there. No mood at all!), and some feedback may help.
Why do I get the feeling no one will say 'NAY' to this?
Oh well. Probably my imagination. After all, it may be the only bit of pr0n/smut that will ever appear in this fiction, but that's probably just me being me.
I was not giving you a hint.
But, no, this is not a 'omg I slept with Allen/Kanda do I love him nao?' fic. They have already.. had sex. Drunk sex, but still sex. And they already know that they love each other. There's just some.. complications. Like usual.
LOL the word sex looks so weird on the monitor right now. It makes me laugh. 8D