A/N: Old-fic from 2011, now dusted up and spit-shined.

Silence

He had been committed to this fight, to this war, with his whole being, and more. He had been engaged to it, to (t)his Fate to decide the End of Time, its looming presence suffocating everything else in his life into shades of monochrome until all he could see with clarity was the narrow view through the cross-hairs of his sinful eye.

And this was the result?!

Gods are cruel beings. He thought he had learned this with Suman but it seems he had been wrong.

Why?! Why did this happen?!

He couldn't comprehend what had happened – it was too large and earth-shattering to take in. Could barely start to wrap his thoughts around the concept, that all the pain and struggle he had gone through, that all the obstacles he'd overcome to become stronger, faster, better–

It wasn't supposed to end like this—!

He barely felt his body at all anymore but for some reason he was still able to stand despite his existence having become one with agony. His breath was continuously growing heavier from its already labored pace, his body trembling with shock and fatigue that registered pretty much only through the wavering of his field of vision than actually feeling the tremors. The only thing keeping him upright was the crumbling wall at his back, and even then, the spasms shuddering through is muscles threatened to topple him at any given moment into a shredded heap on the ground. Shreds and tatters was also what was left of his clothes anymore, under all the grime and blood that now did a better job of preserving his modesty than the destroyed garments.

He could barely see anything beyond a red haze, pulsing nauseatingly in rhythm with his failing body. It was hard to say if it was because one of his numerous, no, countless wounds, lacerations, burns, rips and tears that had been rent all across him, painting his normally blank canvas of a visage into a picture from a horror tale from head to toes. Or if it was because of the other blood that had been splattered along the ground and the walls in horrifyingly liberal quantities until it trickled down the surfaces in slippery rivulets that had only now started to turn sticky as the blood begun to congeal.

His friends' blood, all over him. He hadn't been able to protect them.

His hands were stained with the coppery liquid, both hands now identical in appearance with the sickening coating. There was no telling apart which spatter belonged to whom, originally, but it didn't make it less horrifying. It was his, his friends, his Akuma's. Tacky layers painted with broad brushstrokes, surrounding him with the nauseating, pervasive aroma of copper, salt, and guilt.

Sorrow was burning through his mind like acid, like poison. It corroded everything with searing touch until nothing else was left but what he still tried to deny, however futilely. Inside his mind he tried to offset the memories – please no more stop oh God no he didn't want to remember please no stop no no please nonono – but there was no stopping the flood of them anymore. He had no more fight left in him, he was too tired. Too tired of everything. It was no use fighting back.

Like a film, the nightmare started up again in the private theater of his own head. First, it was only short snippets and blurry visions flashing through his barely open eyes, snapshots of more to come. Interspersed within were names echoing in his ears, screams ringing like violently splintering bells through his head, only to stop suddenly with no warning. Then, the images started to gain length and definition, each gruesome scene intertwining with another at the edges until he was surrounded by a delirious collage of overlapping fractions of memories projected from within his grief-stricken mind. The cacophony would have been deafening (had been deafening) if anyone else would have been able to enter his self-inflicted torment.

In the end of it all, there were no voices left.

Which was, in truth, scarier than the screams themselves had ever been.

He reached out with one, shaking hand, as if he could grab onto those memories, to reach into them and bring everyone back with the power of his voice and will. Rewind the time. To re-deliver a miracle, perform another reality-bending impossible feat in the moment of despair. All he was able to, however, was to whisper near-silent pleas to people who could not hear him anymore.

"No! Don't do it!"

Lavi.

"Get back! Please! Don't come here!"

Lenalee.

"Stupid! You're going to die for real! Move aside now or–!"

Kanda.

"Stop it! Come back!" he begged, his ragged voice barely audible even in the tomb-silence of the ruins of destruction that were his surroundings. He squeezed his eyes shut to block the delirious apparitions out, too tired to try to do the same to his ears ringing with phantasm sounds. "Make it stop! Oh God, I can't take this anymore! They were my friends! Can't you hear me?! Myfriends! Bring them back! Give them back to me!"

But it was useless. He knew it – oh how he knew it. He couldn't have them back. He had no magic piano ensconced in a pocket reality, this time.

He wheezed out a painful sound that could be either a laugh or a sob. Maybe it was both, who knew. And wasn't it ironic that this time, there was no one to answer his desperate calls. No more Akumas were going to be born, ever again. Because there was no Creator anymore for he had destroyed him with his two, mismatched hands. His cursed existence had been fulfilled.

Timcampy, Miranda, Krory, Reever, Komui, Johnny, Bak, Fo Wong, Lo, Li, Bookman, Chaoji, Link, Tyki…

Everybody.

A low keening registered in his ears, and at its crescendo he realized he, himself, was the originator of the wretched sound. It cut off temporarily when a bout of wet, hacking coughs wracked his body. The attack made him slump into himself, despite his precariously balanced position. More blood dribbled down his chin and neck to fall in a pitter-patter on his chest, on his arms that found strength to curl instinctively around his midsection, to join what already decorated the appendages.

As soon as the coughing attack subsided, the wail emerged from deep inside of him again, an unstoppable manifestation of the tragedy that had now come to an end. The arms that had curled at his front crawled in jerky motions to claw at his head, both human and demonic nails burrowing though the hanks blood-matted mess of used-to-be white hair, as if trying to hold together the fraying scraps of his mind. He was beyond caring if someone heard him. There wasn't anything that could make him care anymore. And it wasn't like there was anyone here who could hear him anymore. No-one could hear him. No human, no Akuma, no Noah. No-one.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

His legs gave in, sending him to slide down the broken piece of a wall to slump at where it met the equally broken ground. Whatever lingering force that had kept him standing had now left him. He couldn't stand anymore. He couldn't think anymore, either, though this was more of a blessing. Tears were falling from his eyes since some unregistered point, clearing thin trenches through all the muck on his face as they travelled to the free-fall point on the downside of his chin. The murky drops drip-drip-dripped on his lap, mingling with the rapidly collecting puddle of blood that oozed there from his wounds and the over-saturated ragged leftovers of his clothes. His agonized scream echoed in the empty space around him as his only remaining companion until it, too, disappeared into the silence.

He didn't know or care how long he had been lying there, in the silence, like a puppet whose strings had been cut off and which had been discarded so much like a broken toy.

Until the silence broke.

It was faint, but through the ringing that had started in his ears, he though he heard uneven steps, slowly approaching. He tried to open his eyes again, but was only partially successful, and the thin sliver of vision he was able to gain was blurry, hardly worth being called "vision" at all. The ringing was also growing worse, gaining a muffled quality that made it difficult to ascertain if he was imagining things or not, if he was just falling into delirium once more.

But for a moment, or an eternity, later, he could discern that someone had come to a stop in front of him. For a few more heartbeats, the silence reigned again, the white noise gaining ground in his ears cancelling out all other possible sounds. Then, with the crackle and scrape of moving rubble accompanying the motions, the figure kneeled down into the vee of his legs, folding themselves to the ground in jerky, pain-filled motions until they, too, were down in the dust and blood, now mainly his, which coated the surface.

"I heard you."

Gently, slowly, Road Camelot extended her thin arms, the hands guiding them sliding over the slopes of his shoulders to cross behind his neck, then pulling him into a tender embrace. It was reminiscent of the first time they had fought, all those years ago, but this time around, he wasn't the only one who was wounded. Through the now almost all-encompassing numbness of his body he could feel the warmness of the droplets of blood that were steadily falling from the little Noah's own extensive injuries, his skin functioning as a makeshift palette where the two near-identical shades of crimson were getting mixed together.

He could feel Road's tears soaking into his hair, dampening the crusted-over strands that had become stuck between their pressed-together cheeks at the embrace. He leaned back into the touch, shutting his now as good as blind eyes. At some point, he had started crying again, the salty liquid getting absorbed into Road's equally filthy mess of a hair, a few stubbornly gravity-defying strands tickling at his nose as he trembled. It didn't matter, and as the renewed sobs made his body shiver and shudder, Road only tightened her grip until his face was nestled snugly at the junction of her shoulder and neck, a spiky curtain of dark violet hair shielding him from the yawning emptiness stretching at her back.

"Shhh," Road whispered to his ear, voice scratchy. He could remember her screams, too, the memory of it making him buckle in her hold. She didn't seem to care, only held him even tighter with her waning strength, if possible. "Everything is okay, now. I'm here. You're not alone anymore."

They were slumped there together, alone in the middle of the zero-ground of total chaos and destruction, rubble and ruins stretching on as far as eye could see. Like lost children they clung to each other as they waited for the falling night to come and cover them up, shrouding them softly with its velvety blanket made of stars and shadows. And when the moon had joined the stars in their silent vigil on the night sky, under their silvery light a last, faint whisper could be heard.

"Good night, Allen Walker. You don't have to keep walking anymore."