A/N: Oh look, another one! ... Are you guys even really surprised at this point? Haha. This evolved from a little snippet of a story I found on my flash drive. I rather like it and I'm really enjoying writing it, so I hope someone finds it to be an interesting read!
Disclaimer: I don't own DGM!
Minor edits done on 02/01/2015.
He couldn't forgive; he couldn't forget.
Tears dripped down his face. Gray eyes looked to the people who had once cared about him who looked down at him like they no longer knew him. They were convinced that he was someone else, that the Fourteenth Noah had taken control of his body and that he was no longer the Allen Walker that they knew. They looked down at the prisoner chained and bent over, the hands on his back forcing his head down on the block and he could see it in their eyes that they felt no remorse for any of it.
Allen was a traitor to the Exorcists and the Innocence. He was a traitor to the Akuma and the Earl.
It was plain to see that there was no place in this world for him.
Choking out a sob, he laid his eyes on his friends who had pushed for this outcome. Their numbers were half what they had once been. Lenalee, Miranda and Chaoji were the only ones left. Lavi had disappeared, along with Bookman. Crowley had been killed by Tyki in the same way that the Noah had attempted to kill him.
As for Kanda, it was the mark on his body that had killed him. It was pushed too far when Kanda was trying to protect him—from the Order, Apocryphos, the Noah and everything caught in-between.
Even Johnny was gone, but he lived and Allen was glad for that. He had managed to convince the scientist to flee when they'd run out of options. Allen had been captured and Johnny had been deemed a traitor for trying to help him, but they seemed to forget all about him after capturing him.
When Allen had awakened as a member of the Noah clan—albeit an estranged one—the Order had attacked him without an ounce of hesitation. No matter how much he tried to convince them that Neah wasn't in control, they would not hear him. Nothing that he said could even convince them to hear him out. They wouldn't believe that his Uncle had long ago given up the idea of swiping his body because it contradicted every stereotype they had regarding the Noah, that they all must be incomparable monsters. They wouldn't accept that he was just as much the Earl's enemy as they were and had no reason to fight them. That was too easy for them.
If he was there was even a trace of his Uncle, then Allen was a lost cause. Killing him was a mercy, they thought, provided the person that called himself Allen Walker was even still alive.
All they could see was a Noah's dirty trick. Allen Walker was dead; it was a nasty ruse so they'd let their guard down and he'd be spared of his fate. It was their excuse to kill him while keeping a clear conscious.
Bitter tears stained his cheeks an angry red. Dull, gray eyes that had long ago lost their familiar light dared to meet the violet ones of the kindest Exorcist he'd known. She was one of the many that he'd come to love during his time with the Order.
A weak smile formed on his face, despite the hateful glare she cast back at him in return.
"I loved you," Allen said. His voice was as soft as a whisper. It was weak like his resolve, broken like his heart and shook as his whole body did. "I loved all of you."
As he spoke, his pale white skin was dyed an ashen gray and a row of black stigmata bled onto his forehead, crossing over the blood red pentagram stamped above his left eye.
Allen Walker was allowed only one kindness and that was not being the one to watch the ax fall; it was his Uncle who bore that honor.
Gray eyes shot open as their owner burst forward out of bed, sweat dripping down his body and hot tears down his face. Glancing wildly around the room, his heart sank. No, no, no, no, no! This wasn't happening!This couldn't be happening!
He was supposed to be dead!
A fresh sob rose from his throat.
"I'm still here...!"
No, it wasn't still.
His gaze turned to the woman next to him, her head cradled in her arms as she slept at his bedside. Fou, he realized with a start and his right hand flew to where his left arm should have been. He tried to grasp it, but a strangled sob escaped him when he discovered that there was nothing there to grasp. It was gone. Staring at the space where the appendage should have been, the tears only hastened their path down his cheeks. Crown Clown. His last friend. His only friend besides the Uncle that resided in his head.
The painful ache in his chest grew.
He threw off the covers and pushed himself out of bed, making his way to the bathroom adjacent to the room he was in. He looked into the mirror at his reflection and what he saw should've been familiar, yet it was the exact opposite. His face was younger than he remembered, with short white hair and a chest that was bare where a scar stretching from his shoulder to his hip should have been. A weak smile spread across his tear-stricken face. He was left with only the curse mark on his eye and the comforting sight of his Uncle's shadow behind him.
He stepped back until his back hit the bathroom wall and he slid down it to sit on the floor. "Uncle..." he said, the word choked out through his tears. "God hates me, doesn't he?"
Allen found himself walking—stumbling, rather—down the halls of the Asian branch. He could sense his Innocence was there somewhere; he could hear her calling out to him, her voice cracking as she whispered his name. Like the last time he'd been in this position, he found himself staring at Fou's door with stormy gray eyes, the long trails on his face a constant reminder that he'd been crying barely half an hour ago.
"What are you doing here?" Allen turned to the source of the voice and found a familiar man sitting in the shadow of a nearby pillar.
The man's eyes bore into his own, searching him for an answer that Allen didn't have. "I don't know," he admitted, touching the surface of the door with his bandaged hand. "I want to open this door."
His voice was low, like he'd lost the will to use it—and he had. Allen had always been good at upholding his mask. Even when he was suffering, he was able to smile and pretend he wasn't in pain. But the mere thought sounded so exhausting now and the cracks in the surface of his facade were things he couldn't hide anymore.
He was broken.
"What will you do if you get through? Why not just go back?"
"I don't know." Again, Allen was honest, his eyes turning to stare at the floor. "Standing still hurts." A tumultuous swirl of emotion washed over him as his voice cracked and tears started down his cheeks, though the man's reaction, or lack thereof, told him that he'd been expecting as much.
This whole conversation sounded so familiar, but Allen couldn't remember how it had happened before. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to forget all of it and start again.
... No, he didn't want to start again. He didn't want to forget. He wanted to be forgotten. More than anything, he wanted to disappear.
"Even without your left arm?" Allen remembered him asking something similar the first time they'd met. For Bak, this was the first time and he couldn't forget that. At this moment, the Order was unaware of who—what—he was. The Noah might not even know it yet, but something told him otherwise. That part of him that was no longer human told him that they'd felt it. His "awakening".
Whatever it was for anyone else, Bak at least hadn't the slightest clue.
When Bak had said that about his arm the first time, it had provoked a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. Allen had been blind; he'd been deaf. He'd been unable to see Crown Clown's suffering then, the loneliness she'd felt when he was more concerned with the Exorcists than her. Not only that, he hadn't been able to hear her calling out to him. But that was not true this time. He could hear her cries gradually turning into soft whimpers and of all the things hurting him right then, that was at the top of the list.
He had to go to her.
Gray eyes didn't look up from the spot on the floor they were staring at. "My arm's not gone, though. My Innocence is still alive; she's... she's okay, isn't she?"
That grabbed Bak's attention, but he pushed onward, undeterred and trying to keep his surprise from leaking onto his face. "Allen, how would you like to become one of our personnel here? There are other positions besides Exorcists; you could serve as a supporter now. Not even God would blame you, if you did."
"God?" Allen repeated the word like he'd never heard it before, like the word had never slid off his tongue. "Whatever God there is, he hates me. ... There's only one place I belong and it's not with 'God'."
It wasn't with the Order or with his friends. No, they hated him. They had watched passively as he had wept and been executed. The memory had his gut twisting in knots, pleading with him not to think of it. No, his place was with his Innocence, his Uncle and the Akuma they were supposed to save, but now... Allen wasn't sure that was enough.
... He loved the people of the Order that he'd called his friends, but had they ever felt the same? Would they have died for him as he would have them, given the opportunity?
In one ear, it was his Uncle whispering to him. They cared about him, that's what Neah said. They'd cared and they'd honestly thought that what they were doing was all for him, that they were saving him from an ugly fate.
In the other ear, his Innocence whispered to him. They didn't love you! The bitter, angry words rolled off her tongue. But I do! Allen smiled softly at her words, as she told him to stay with her, that neither of them needed those Exorcists.
They weren't any classic, black-and-white interpretation of what was bad or what was good. One spoke of his hopes and the things he wanted to be true, while the other spoke of the things he hated to admit were the actual truth.
Hopeless optimism and cynical realism.
"This is the only path I can take," Allen said, a hollow laugh escaping his pale lips. It was broken and lost and twisted with emotions that threatened to crack him in two pieces. This was all he had left.
"I understand, Allen Walker," Bak said, moving away from the darkness of the pillar and stepping into the room's unnatural lighting. "I'm not sure how you knew, but your Innocence is not dead. I wondered if you would want to go back to the battlefield after finding out about the Fallen Ones and tasting the anguish of death."
Charcoal black eyes staring into his own gray eyes. "Komui and I had to know. To prevent the creation of another Fallen One."
A sad smile spread across Allen's face.
"Although you did go a bit overboard with the 'God hates me' part," Bak said, his lips curving upwards into a small smile. Allen couldn't return it more than he already had, however. What an Exorcist needed was an unbreakable heart and for Allen, that was already too much to ask for.
"My name is Bak Chan; I'm the leader of the Asian branch of the Black Order. Wong's been looking for you to re-bandage your wounds. Once he's done that, we can talk about restoring your Innocence."
Now that Allen could smile about. Apart from Timcanpy and his Uncle, Crown Clown was one of the only friends that stuck beside him. Even though he could feel his Innocence, that it still existed in this world and that it still cared about him, he didn't like that it was separated from him. He wanted to have his arm back, to have that white, billowing cape embrace him and that silver mask hide his face from the world.
When Allen offered only that smile, Bak continued. "Now then, it's rather cold here, so why don't we—"
He was cut off when a foot collided with his face and a woman with red hair landed where Bak had previously been standing. Fou's kicks hurt; Allen was all too aware of that, given the time he'd had to fight her.
When Fou demanded gratitude, he gave it to her, even after her violent display. Even though the deep ache in his chest wanted him to hate her for saving him, it wasn't possible for him to think ill of her. She was clueless, just as he'd been. What fate had in store for him was something she could never have guessed in a hundred years or more. She had no hand in it. If she had been able to take part in those meetings that eventually ended in his execution, something told Allen she would've opposed it wholeheartedly. That was the kind of woman that Fou was; she was kind, beneath that harsh exterior.
At the end of the day, it was the voice of his closest friends that had swayed them the most. Instead of using the Exorcist that loved them, they chose to destroy the Noah that threatened them.
If it was by his friends, he would've been okay with being used. He would've been okay with living with a false happiness, with friends who hated him deep down and couldn't wait for him to meet his end. He would've been okay with that; it would've hurt less than seeing the disgust, the anger, the hatred held in their eyes when they'd looked down at him at his own execution.
Why did he have to live through it all again?
Allen blinked away his tears as Bak finished explaining the origins of the underground church. He said that it was larger than HQ and Fou spoke of a man who'd gotten lost for two weeks and died of starvation. "Try not to get lost, Walker!"
Yes, he remembered that story; he remembered the worry he'd felt when she'd first told it.
He'd been a child; he'd been naive.
A cheeky smile spread across her face, but Allen merely glanced back and met it with a weak smile of his own. It was too much. It was too hard to smile, knowing everything he had would be gone in the coming months, that everything would be torn from his grasp and that he would be killed by the very people he'd sworn to protect.
"I'll be okay," he told her.
"Cut the idle chatter and get in!" Bak said, filing them all into a familiar room. It felt as though it had been forever, but had it even been a year? Allen couldn't remember how long he'd stayed locked in that cell until they'd finally killed him. Whether it had been hours, days, weeks or month, he had no earthly idea.
As he entered the room, he felt the tension in it. The "fog" swirling in the air seemed to grow still when it noticed his presence. Slowly, it reached out to him like a person would outstretch their hand, as if it were a living, breathing thing—and it was. Crown Clown thought; she spoke to him. She meant so much to him that knowing no other Exorcist had this relationship with their Innocence made him sick to his stomach.
The people behind him became little more than white noise in favor of her. As far as Allen was concerned, it was only him and his Innocence in that room.
"Are you angry?" Allen asked the air, stepping further into the room.
"Walker, wha—"
"It's okay." Allen raised his hand up to the particles, the bandages having been abandoned by Wong when he'd noticed they were no longer needed. The cuts and bruises that should have been present were long gone, repaired by the part of him that was no longer human.
The particles brushed up against his hand and a soft, sad laugh echoed off the walls. "Are you comforting me?"
The others resigned themselves to watching as he communicated with his Innocence. They couldn't do anything for either of them, after all. Allen wouldn't hear them and Crown Clown would see herself destroyed before she would listen.
"It's okay if you don't want to come with me," Allen said, his Innocence freezing its movements in the air. Did she know what he was going to say? "If you don't want to, I understand. If you can't help me, there's someone who will." As if he'd struck her, the particles pulled away from his hand. He could feel her anger in the way she danced through the air, but his smile didn't falter, nor did his hand move away. "I'm not trying to hurt you."
The particles crept closer again, caressing his hand again. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her scaled hands wrapping around his own. He could hear the reverberating sound of her soft sobbing in the back of his head. The words she was saying were so plain to him, yet no one else in the room could hear even the barest of whispers from his Innocence.
"I don't want you to leave me, either," he said, tears of his own starting down his cheeks for what was at least the second time today. The creeping feeling of loneliness in the pit of his chest stemmed from being separated from his Innocence. Even with his Uncle living in his head, it was far too quiet.
It felt... Empty.
He could hear her sniffle and feel her warmth when the particles wrapped around him; she was hugging him. His lips twitched upwards into a bigger smile, but it was one that betrayed its purpose. It showed nothing of happiness or amusement or any other reason a man had to smile.
Instead, it was the hollow smile of a broken man who'd lost his will to live, who was hanging on to his last thread of hope.
"Can't we go together?"
A/N: Okay, there we go! Hope you guys think it's interesting!
