World's End ch 1: Sleep
Synopsis: The Order has won. With practically nothing to battle against but themselves, what will the exorcists and the rest of the rubble-ridden world do now? Allen-centric, third person.
A white expanse, much like a spider's web, snaked across the ruins. The cloth came together at a point on a boy's shoulders, wrapping around him securely with a large silver mask much too big for his face gazing at their struggling prey.
"I hate you! I hate you! Cursed 14th!" A level 4 akuma screamed, its baby face twisted in rage, its glowing white wings fluttering like a moth and nearly destroying the web the smiling white Clown made.
He never minded the insults as he listened to the soul cry out that it did not need happiness, that it needed to be punished. But how could that be so when it committed sins against its will?
"Please... Pass on, like the others. You deserve to rest peacefully." Allen said in a gentle tone, before viciously stabbing the malformed baby like demon through the chest and slashing it apart.
His clown crown reformed to a feathery cape as the akuma exploded into dust, purified. Innocence and Exocrist both glowed with pride.
Allen's silver eye flashed to gold.
"Well, well, Al-" Nea's malevolent tone in Allen voice was cut off as he-well, Allen's body,- was dropped as Crown Clown deactivated suddenly. It sent a bolt of pain up their arm in its disgust. Nea ignored it and landed on their feet, "You got them all, Allen. I can no longer sense any more in this world." He tapped their activated cursed eye, which deactivated as well with a sudden release of pain that they never knew they had. Although Nea and Allen were both used to pain, the release made them relax further.
Allen/Nea's eyes were half silver, half gold.
"That... Is a relief." Allen replied quietly with a smile, his eyes getting teary. He had did it. He could see the souls that had lingered to watch him celebrating and thanking him over and over before ascending to the sky. He waved goodbye.
"Quit making this body cry." Nea chided.
"... Shut up." Allen's tone was lighthearted despite these words.
With a tired huff, Nea left Allen alone as they were both faced with a thought they had been avoiding for a long time: what would they do now?
The Order had been searching endlessly. While the lack of deaths was reassuring, tensions were still high as they higher ups could not decide on what to do next. Relax their defenses to build up preparations for the next war? Be on high alert because of the power the 14th, the last Noah alive, holds? What would they do about Allen Walker, who had helped them kill the Earl, and thousands of Akuma? Should they call off the order to kill on sight? Should they kill him because he was a threat, or forgive him because he saved everyone?
When they searched for Akuma, they usually found reports of people seeing a white angel-or white demon, killing the akuma that dared try to reveal itself to humans.
Wherever Allen went, the Akuma followed. The Order used this as evidence that they should just kill Allen before 'any more innocent lives were taken' although there was evidence that the akuma had completely stopped attacking humans after the Earl was dead. Why that was the case, they weren't sure.
The Guardian of the Heart, Apocryphos, had completely disappeared after he was captured by the Noah.
Over the months, The Order's main priority became searching for Allen Walker.
Allen and Nea were very good at hiding. It helped to have a pocket dimension that only they could control. Even if they let The Order use it, they could simply manipulate space so that their rooms were never found.
The Order was swarming the place. Often Allen's friends entered, calling for him. Allen had cancelled the transmissions automatically showing whoever had called him in the Ark, alone with Nea and Crown Clown as he ate food from wherever he had visited.
"They cannot touch the two who is the God of this space." Nea said in the mirror in the piano room, proudly. His young self was clear now, able to move about in the reflection.
Allen sighed, "Maybe not you, but... I miss them."
"I suppose you will continue life as a circus clown, Allen Walker?" Neah said this as if questioning his last name while Allen stuffed his face full of food.
"I just do that for money."
"What is your end goal, then?"
"What's yours?" Allen shot back, defensively.
"Half of you has finished your existence." Nea was not so easily swayed off topic, "Will you live the rest of your life as a half-life, always on the run?"
Allen was struck by that. He looked to his left hand, slowly lifting it up until he was laying on his back on the piano bench.
"Crown Clown... What are we going to do, now, that the fight's over?" He asked softly. He felt sleepy all of a sudden, and sat up quickly, glaring at the mirror at Nea.
"I'm not the one making you tired this time." Nea replied to Allen's unasked question, "Let's go destroy more of my brother's things they have in your little Order!" He suggested gleefully, "That will piss him off in the next iteration!"
"The Order will catch us." Allen deadpanned.
"Not with the right planning..." Nea sat back on the piano to think, "Just use the Ark's gate, take the egg and other stuff humans are not supposed to have, and lead those lousy exorcists in a maze. It would kill our boredom."
"My friends have been through enough." Allen said sternly.
"... Humph. Stubborn clown." Nea grumbled, glaring at him. Allen stuck out his tongue and stuffed an entire gyro into his mouth. "Listen, let's just tease the Order a bit, they are probably tired of searching for you and, to be honest, I'm tired... And so is your innocence."
With some thought, Allen invoked his crown clown for the first time in months, just to see how tired it really was. In a green flash, his claw and cape appeared in all its glory. Allen was reminded of how he and Crown Clown fought together, and the passion and love he felt for akuma settled into a nostalgic happy-sadness in his chest, along with slight pain as he swallowed the gyro quickly in order to speak.
"You don't seem tired." Allen said to Crown Clown, examining his claw and extending his cape experimentally. It flowed as if a wind passed through it. Nea was glaring at the innocence, and Allen could feel the Noah's instinctual hatred spiking up in him from the pain in his heart and the innocence's own hatred from the cape's slight resistance and spikiness to his will. "Whoah whoah whoah, quit that! Do you remember what happened last time you two fought? We decided that we would work together."
"Towards what, exactly?" Nea asked bitterly from the mirror. Allen fell quiet.
"I... Don't have an answer."
"Neither do I. Just die so I can go to the next war." Neah grumbled with zero venom.
"You're sad that it's over, aren't you?"
"Speak for yourself, kid."
Allen sighed and looked to his innocence.
"How about it, Crown Clown? Want to fight for the humans only now..."
Crown clown deactivated in its disgust.
Allen smiled sadly.
"Perhaps the Ark will show us the way." Nea suggested.
Allen nodded and turned in his seat. His hands hovered over the keyboard, and Nea began to play.
"There it is! That goddamn piano!" Outside the secret room, one of the scientists yelled in the Ark. Lavi tilted his head, trying to find out which direction the sound was coming from with zero results.
"ALLLLLENNN!" He called at the top of his lungs, louder than any other voice, "COME OUUUUUUuuuUUUUT!"
A few other finders and scientists called out Allen's name, but...
"No luck, as usual." Lavi grumbled.
The floor opened up below him.
"Oh WHOOOOAAAAAHHHHH-" Lavi grabbed his hammer and shot it up at the hole it fell through, but it closed and another opened up below him.
He looked around wildly, then at the widening hole hole below him. Shooting his hammer down, he slowed his fall so that he landed safely in a white room... With a piano. Lavi looked up, seeing the hole close above him. The music had stopped Allen was nowhere to be seen in this white roo-wait. Did that corner of the ceiling just twitch...?
"Allen...?" He asked, his neutrality heavy on his mind. Any other exorcist would have probably instantly tried to capture this boy.
There it was again. The white ceiling mound shifted, just a twitch. Undetectable to human eyes but not to a Bookman's. Lavi poked the mound with his hammer and suddenly it grabbed and wrapped around his hammer and his arm. Lavi recognized it instantly and looked on with a relieved smile. "Allen. I'm not going to hurt you, dude. Aren't we buddies?" He said in an amused tone.
The cape parted and Allen was revealed, crouching on the web crown clown had made under him. He looked quite terrified and sheepish. He paused, as if listening.
Before Lavi could say anything, Allen lowered himself and talked to the mirror in the room, "He's my friend! Lavi! Remember? We don't need to do anything to him, much less kill him! Just, let me think..."
"... You're talkin'' to the 14th, huh?" Lavi said matter of factly, his arm and hammer still tangled in crown belt.
"... Yeah." Allen looked at him.
"... Could you let go of me, pleeease? I can't feel my hand." Lavi whined. Crown Clown let go of him and Allen watched him warily, but with a reluctant joy.
"I... Maybe... I was thinking of going back to The Order." Allen paused, looking guilty, "It would be nice to see you guys but..." He trailed off.
"Don't worry! Everyone'll find a way to defend you. You defeated to Earl, after all!" Lavi said optimistically.
Allen paused, before looking desperate.
"Tell the others... That they can leave the Order and live with me, if they want. I can make rooms for them. I'll take them wherever they want, I've been all over the world- there's no way The Order will find us... We can live together, in our own world!" Allen offered.
"And take them away from the lives they're trying to rebuild?" Lavi's tone was serious, "The Order will think you're trying to make your own army. If news gets out, they'll be imprisoned."
"Their... lives?" Allen asked, confused.
"Lenalee's training to become a nurse. Komui's paperwork will probably never end, and neither will Bak's. Kanda's off traveling, looking for you again. I've always been a bookman." Lavi explained.
"Ah... That... makes sense." Allen said tiredly.
"And the old panda has to be an old panda." Lavi added light heartedly. Allen smiled. Far away in the Order, Bookman would probably feel a sudden urge to hit his pupil.
"So what's stopping you from coming back, besides negotiating with a bunch of generals and higher church members with sticks up their asses?" Lavi asked.
"... I don't know what the Heart wants with me now that Nea's awakened and Apocryphos is missing..." Allen said quietly. Lavi blinked, surprised that Allen knew that white beast's name.
"Well... You won't find out if you don't try, right?" Lavi pointed out.
"... Maybe... Ah, don't you..." Allen's tone drifted off hopelessly but he perked up suddenly, smiling, "Oh, are you hungry? I have some leftover pies. I was gonna eat them for a snack later but still." He reached into a giant food sack in the corner and pulled out about fifteen pies, balancing them expertly.
"Oh, sure-"
"Lavi!" A screen popped up, showing Lenalee, a bit angry, "Where are you?! Allen, what did you do?!"
Oh, the last part seemed to sting Allen with how he flinched.
"You should go back." Allen said, setting down the pies and tapping a piano key to summon a door for Lavi, "Quickly!"
Lavi nodded with a somewhat unhappy look. "I'll see you again, Allen!" He said, suddenly cheerful as he took a pie and ran through the door.
Lavi wasn't counting on the CROWS that suddenly rushed in past him, holding talismans at the ready. Allen's eyes turned gold as he tapped a few keys. The Crows cried out as they dematerialized into Ark data, only to reform safely at the entrance to the main branch in a beautiful and very showy array of light.
Nea made his piano room's door disappear with another keystroke and sighed, wondering when these humans would learn.
The Order assessed the CROWS teleportation incident. Bookman Lavi reported that Allen simply didn't know what to do with himself, but didn't want the order to kill him. The CROWS were unharmed.
Once again, they tried to give a speech in the ark-but gave Allen an ultimatum:
"Allen Walker, The Order is willing to spare some mercy to you. If you do not turn yourself in within seven days you will never be allowed to step one foot into the Order again."
Allen saw that choice disappearing, and Heart be damned he did not want to lose his true home. He took a deep breath, trying to hold down his emotions.
"Nea... I'm... Thinking of going back."
"You fool, they will kill us or worse..."
"Not that it matters. There's still a chance it will turn out alright."
"Says the boy who constantly speaks with the Order's only remaining enemy. Besides themselves, of course."
Allen chuckled unhappily.
"It's better to try moving forward."
The second Allen stepped out into the public Ark hallway was the second the CROWS strikes, painfully and eagerly binding him with talismans. Allen let them do so with a groan of pain, and didn't resist the magic. Nea got restless but Allen calmed him, saying mentally they wouldn't kill them. Even if they did, they didn't have much to live for, didn't they?
A melancholy calm frustration settled over them both.
"We should have just had your claws stab through our head." Nea remarked tiredly as the crows stood Allen up and lead him away. Allen's left arm sparked with Crown Clown's anger as it resisted the talismans.
'No, we can't stop like that.' Allen disagreed in his thoughts, 'We'll find something. Calm down, there is no danger here...'
The sparking ceased, much to the CROWS's hidden relief.
They had sealed Allen's eyesight and hearing, but Allen could feel the Ark's warmth leave as he walked out of a gate. He walked down steps, lead quickly. Through long hallways, more stairs... Finally, he stopped.
The seals were removed, all of them, leaving Allen gasping as sensation and surprise as his power came back to him.
"So you have finally chosen a side, Allen Walker."
That voice made him freeze, made Neah and Allen shudder with anger... And how much they feared him.
They slowly looked up.
Standing there smiling gently, was none other than Apocryphos.
Allen looked around; he was standing in what seemed to be a magic circle. He backed away as his arm activated, but his back hit a powerful barrier that sent electricity through him and made him scream in agony and fall to his hands and knees. He glowered at the fake Cardinal as he stood back up. This creature had killed his mentor! It chased him and made him live in fear of ever being found by his friends! Apocryphos seemed smug, but his eyes were also sparked with an determined anger. Almost like he was going to kill him.
"I was always an exorcist," Allen spat back, hatefully, "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" He saw it die! The Noahs had captured it!
"That of course, does not seem to be the case." Apocryphos said casually, beginning to circle the edge of the circle.
"Crown Clown and I are fine without you!"
"I am aware." Apocryphos was in awe of how stabile Crown Clown was as the mask moved to watch him with Allen.
"You are-? Then what do you want?!" Allen demanded, circling away from the Cardinal. Luckily, this magic circle was large, about 8 meters in diameter. Still, he was trapped. He didn't have Timcampy anymore, he couldn't cry for help. Nea was desperately trying to call the Ark, but it only made Allen clutch his chest in pain as the magic circle cancelled it, painfully.
"The war has ended for a time, but The Heart has decided not to let you go."
"... What? Are you just going to trap us here?!"
"No, no..." Apocryphos put a hand over his mouth and yawned, but such an innocent gesture did not let Allen's guard down for a second, "Not exactly. You see, it is time for both Innocence and Noah to rest until the next war..."
Neah had a suspicion that horrified him.
"Allen, just end yourself-we'll save yourself from a fate you never needed-!" The last Noah cried out.
"... And you'll be coming with us, Allen." Apocryphos's tone was affectionate despite his bitterness, holding a hand out to the circle. Crown Clown extended and glowed before carrying Allen to the center of the circle, binding his limbs quickly with crown belt. Allen struggled, trying to pull and twist himself painfully, but the bonds almost held him more tightly and wrapped around him more.
"F-fuck! Crown clow-What the hell are you..." Allen felt his innocence synchronize with him even further and paused, suddenly relaxing at the feeling as Crown clown flashed white and sparked green. Allen longed for this, with no battles for a long time he wanted to battle with Crown Clown again against the Earl, to stop his terrible manipulation of tortured souls against tortured souls once and for all.
"No! Don't! You'll lose-!" Neah suddenly screamed in pain and Allen did so as well, feeling his Dark energy compacted tightly and sealed by his own innocence. Neah was forced asleep for a time, and Allen wasn't too far behind as he gasped for air.
"But I... Wanted to see... My friends..." Allen whispered, crying at how much he missed their smiles in half-pained-daze.
"They're safe now, and happy. They will be fine without you. Look to the future, where there is more to be saved. This is what you and Clown Crown wish for." A voice he was too tired to recognize said soothingly.
Allen had to agree as he felt his precious innocence synchronize with him more and more. This didn't feel like synchronization, it felt further than that... like fusion...
Crown clown lifted Allen into the air and tangled around and through him, suddenly colder and colder as they glowed, beginning turn feathery and crystallize.
'Fate, huh...?' Allen struggled to stay awake instinctively, learnt from fighting with Neah, but he knew exactly who the presence comforting him this time was and at the slightest waver of resolve with confusion he was forced asleep.
The glow faded, and a white circular crystal streaked with transparent glowing green was revealed. Allen was asleep, frozen in time, his cape forming the crystal around him and his arm glowing a faint jade color. At the center of his chest, a ball of dark purple fire raged.
The magic circle faded, its energy expended.
"Allen Walker...bonded so deeply with innocence, winning over the despicable traitor Noah, all the while being human... Perhaps you will become a key to ending this endless war. Or, perhaps, you become a terrifying monster that I will have to put down." Apocryphos mused, sending his brainwashed CROWs elsewhere as he exited and sealed the room with another spell.
A/N: Edited as of August 11th, 2016
Please feel free to criticize me. I want to write my best for my favorite anime/manga.