Alma Karma had never considered herself to be normal.
After all, there were far too many things "wrong" with Alma Karma for such a word to ever be able to truly describe her.
For example, she had never actually explicitly identified as female. In fact, she had never really considered herself to be male either, just somewhere in between.
But after years of insisting that she really wasn't a god damn girl, she had given up and allowed people to treat her as female (despite the fact that she clearly wasn't one. She didn't have a gender. Hmph…).
She never really did understand society anyways.
Alma had always found it uncomfortable to go around gallivanting in fancy dresses. She had discovered that makeup was useless and impractical and that heels were nothing short of walking death traps.
And yet, every time she had decided to withhold on such useless things, she had always gotten slapped or punished in some other way, shape or form. After all, heavens forbid a "girl" goes outside wearing pants and boots, of all horrifyingly masculine things.
According to Alma's mother, she was meant to be nothing but a pretty little thing to be wedded off to the highest bidder. Alma had promptly told her to f*** off and that it was her own life and made sure to pleasantly remind both of her beloved parental units that she was not a piece of property to be sold off to some rich old man.
Having her mouth washed out with soap afterwards was so bloody worth it.
Suffice to say, her parents weren't exactly fond of her and often bemoaned their lack of fertility. After all, their daughter clearly wasn't a fine example of what a proper British lady should be and it was going to be absolutely impossible to marry her off to anyone when she was fifteen. They then pointedly ignored her protests that no, she was not a bloody lady of all things and simply sent a maid to go get the soap again.
So when the final sign of Alma Karma's abnormality finally reared its ugly head, Lord and Lady Karma were perfectly happy to send their freak of a daughter off to the Black Order. Maybe all of those strange priests and "exorcists" could fix her up.
Alma was of course absolutely ecstatic when her Innocence had first started acting up. After all, being abnormal had quickly become an enormous part of her identity and she was very happy to be able to add strange new powers to her already growing list of abnormalities. (Which currently consisted of being genderless and a totally epic crossdresser.)
It started off subtle. She began to lose weight more quickly all the while eating five times the amount that she usually had. Her reflexes became quicker and her grip was stronger.
Suddenly, it was just so bloody easy to push away the soap maid.
But of course, this did not discourage her noble parents.
So then the soap maid went away while the soap butler decided to make an appearance.
Lord and Lady Karma just didn't appreciate their daughter's dirty mouth so they had to clean it somehow.
Alma was not amused.
So after a few visits from the soap butler, Alma had enough. She was just so bloody pissed.
Pissed enough for blades to erupt from her arms and cut into the soap butler's stomach, to be exact.
Of course, the soap butler was given immediate medical attention and had sustained no lasting damage other than a rather badarse-looking scar, much to Alma's disappointment.
The soap butler never did come back, for some odd reason.
From that day on, Lord and Lady Karma had finally decided to leave her alone, although that never did stop them from talking.
Demon, they called her. Straight from hell.
And so the rumors spread.
Whispers and dirty looks followed Alma every time she dared to step foot outside of the large manor. Especially when she felt like being a he. Mothers and fathers tended to steer their children away from she/he and all of her so-called peers avoided her like the plague, either out of fear or disgust or some strange combination of both.
It was their loss, Alma would say, although she never did quite understand why the thought had left such an uncomfortable feeling in her chest. She probably never would.
Either way, the rumor mill worked fast.
Soon enough, Alma Karma was the talk of the whole province.
And not in a good way either…
Once upon a time, Alma would always complain that her birthday parties were nothing but the gatherings of stuffy nobles to have tea and gossip. Now however, as she gazed upon the empty dining table- as not even her parents had deemed her worthy of their presence today- perhaps it would've been nice if the stuffy nobles had come. After all, it was better to share a large extravagant cake with people than to sit here all alone in front of her simple, candled cupcake.
Alma blew out the candles, silently praying for this to be the last of the solitary birthdays.
A year later, strange men wearing beige hooded trench coats came to their house. It was his sixteenth birthday (yes, Alma decided he wanted to be referred to as a male for that day. Don't question it) and Alma was very happy to have guests over.
After a lengthy discussion on any and all unusual happenings in the town, it was decided that Alma was the wielder of something called "Innocence" (Alma had immediately giggled at the name. There were just so many opportunities for puns and dirty jokes with a name like that) and that he should come to the Black Order immediately.
Alma had no complaints. After all, getting out of there had to be the best birthday present he had ever received.
As it turns out, Alma was to become an exorcist, as that was what all Accommodators of Innocence apparently did with their lives. It was better than being a stuffy old noble, Alma supposed. Specifically, Alma was a Parasitic-type, meaning that his Innocence had decided that it wanted to share his body with him. Alma wasn't quite sure about how to feel about this.
Oh and there was also some kind of secret war going on between the Order and some megalomaniac fat guy who's trying to destroy humanity 'cause he hates God or whatever. Huh, Alma thought, dramatic much?
But that wasn't really important. What was important however, was the Order itself.
From the moment he got there, Alma declared it to be perfect. It was dreary and monochrome in appearance, but that didn't matter. The people there on the other hand, were absolutely perfect.
They greeted him with warm smiles and nice conversations. It didn't take them very long to realize that Alma was biologically female but liked to jump around between genders, but they didn't really mind. It was his life and they couldn't tell him how to live it.
That's what Alma liked about the Order members. They were so so very accepting.
The very thought of such people made Alma all ecstatic and bubbly and bouncy because he'd never ever ever felt this way before.
But of course, there was always that one person that didn't really like Alma.
Kanda Yuu was quiet, grumpy and an over all asshole, but his most striking trait had to be his appearance. He was absolutely positively ethereally beautiful.
It made Alma's heart skip a beat, for some strange reason.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Yuu's only problem with Alma was the cheerful bubbliness.
He wasn't judging him.
It was the first time that someone had disliked Alma not for being different, but for just being…well…him.
Alma found himself liking the feeling, weirdly enough. However, he really wasn't the type to just accept the fact that he was being disliked for no good reason.
So Alma took to pestering Yuu, never really leaving him alone.
Alma ended up finding out a lot of things about Yuu. For instance, he always trained in unhealthy amounts at ungodly hours, he liked soba a lot, his favorite color was midnight blue, he disliked the way her name sounded so he always called her by the Japanese version- Tamashī.
Alma found herself liking all of these things. She liked everything about him.
Maybe even loved.
Yuu eventually admitted that he found her to be slightly endearing.
So they had started up a relationship and Alma had to say that she was the luckiest whatever-the-hell-he-she-was.
Every kiss made her melt and every word just made her fall just a little bit more in love with him.
All in all, her life wasn't all that bad. Sure, she had a rough start but she was an exorcist now and she had Yuu so it was all good.
So when Alma Karma lay on the cold, hard earth bleeding out, holding her lover's hand as they both lay dying after their latest battle with the Noah Clan, she couldn't say that she had any regrets.
They both died peaceful deaths together and that's all that really mattered.
Alma's story had come to a nice, bittersweet end, or at least, that's what should've happened.
But fate is cruel and fate decided that Alma Karma wasn't going to get to rest so easily.
So instead, fate decided to let her be brought back, for it wasn't quite done playing with its favorite toy just yet.
Twenty-two years after that bloody day, Second Exorcist Alma Karma stared into Second Exorcist Kanda Yuu's cold, midnight blue eyes as she wondered just what the hell she did in a past life to deserve this.
~A/N- Alma will often switch pronouns in this story. Deal with it. Be prepared for slight confusion.
On another note, do you guys like the idea? R&R please!