IMPORTANT AN: I am messing with the time line to fit my needs, please forgive me and it shouldn't be too noticeable. All I really changed was that Kanda and Alma didn't wake up in the Asian branch until later, though physical age is still the same.
WARNINGS: for kidnapping, swearing, mentions of past abuse.
Disclaimer: don't own Man or make money from this fic. There are more than 19 thousand fics for this fandom and I haven't read them all so something similar might already exist, if so let me know so I can read it.
The little boy with the red-brown hair and twisted arm was adorable, in Mana's not so unbiased opinion, despite his violent attitude when he attempted to prove otherwise to anyone silly enough to say it out loud, or just get too close. The boy was too small for him to take his foul language seriously, anyone that young was just repeating the words because they were the predominant language where they grew up, and the very idea of it broke Mana's heart.
Maybe he would take the child's abrasive personality more seriously if he hadn't seen him crying over what had happened to his poor dog.
Sometimes he wondered, in the middle of the night during the few minutes for which his mind was clear, if the boy minded the name he gave him. Allen was the name of a dog that helped him in his performance, a dog that died, and he wondered sometimes if the child thought he was nothing more than a replacement for the now dead animal. He wasn't, Lord knows he was not a replacement for anything, he was his own person and Mana loves him all the more for it, but sometimes he wonders about the message he sent when he gave the child that name.
But Allen suited him so much better than Red did, and the dog didn't really fit the name Allen as well as the clown would have liked. Oh well, it was done now, and Allen hadn't actually complained about his name. Not before, and not once the paper work was filled out to make it official.
He won't say it out loud, but he is proud, in the moments he is aware enough to be, of just how far Allen had come when accepting human kindness and being with humans in general over the last year. His distrust is not surprising, and Mana would wait forever for the child to be ready, but even just a few months ago the boy would never have agreed to be officially adopted, to put his trust in another to take care of him when he doesn't even know that that is what people are supposed to do for the young.
Mana might not be the best parent, he knows he isn't quite sane enough for that, but he intends to make it work, and try his hardest to be the best he can for Allen.
Because Allen makes him feel whole, in some weird way, and he doesn't want to lose that.
TAKENTAKENTAKEN
The Finder stared at the little boy handing out flyers on the corner of the street. Thin, guarded, and dressed in second hand clothes just that little bit too big, but surprisingly they still look warm, he paid special attention to the way the boy hid his left hand, no matter how much he might have struggled to hold the flyers without it.
He and his team had been sent to investigate rumours of a Demon Child travelling around, that was their job at the Order after all, and after tracking down the boy and his "father", despite their inability to stay still, they were able to find the truth of the matter.
"Demon's" were always better at hiding, indistinguishable from their prey until they struck, this child stood out as something different and so wasn't likely to be an Akuma, but he still might turn out to be something of even more interest to the Order.
He and his team had been following the strange family of two for months now, waiting for confirmation that this would be a parasitic fragment of God's Crystal, an Exorcist to add to their ranks, rather than just another, regular, deformity. In that time, they hadn't seen any evidence to point either way, but they had seen enough to hope that they wouldn't have to put up with the brat in the long term. Kid was prickly, only in the last two weeks had they seen him start to lessen his guard, and only when he was looking at the man that became his father less than a month ago, and even still the brat insisted on being stubborn and rude to him. The Finder found himself hoping, rather fiercely, that they wouldn't have to bring him with when this was all over. Traveling with an unwilling companion was a pain to go through, mission from the Order or not.
It wasn't as if, if the boy did turn out to be an Exorcist, they could bring his father with them. The Order had no place for family, those that did not share blood and so useless in experiments even less so, though he wasn't supposed to know about that. Even if the higher ups might, on occasion, be convinced to let someone related to an Exorcist in on their own merits, after they had proved themselves an asset both by themselves and with an advantage to their association with their family members, that outcome was never going to be a possibility in this case.
The so-called father was insane.
It had been obvious from the first two days of surveillance that the man wasn't all there. It hadn't been anything extreme per-say, at least not at first, the man didn't talk to thin air or anything like that, it was just a whole heap of little things that built up to a rather clear picture.
Mana, at least the Finder thought that was his name, had the habit of getting confused and forgetting what he was doing, though he had yet to mess up a performance, he would be in the middle of getting his son food and then just wondering off until the boy complained of hunger and then the man would remember and go to get it again. He would talk to the boy as if he was someone else, treat him as someone else and call him by a different name, there seemed to be at least three people from his past the man would think had returned to him in the form of the boy. His behaviour was often childish, not seeming to understand the harshness of the world, then a switch would seem to flick, and he looked like a man who had gone through hell and would act with a seriousness befitting such a thing.
The boy knew, the boy had to, and yet the child just rolled with it as if it was all perfectly normal, and in the last few days appeared … fond even, of the random mood changes. Over the last couple of months, the Finder had often wondered which of the two was really the parent in their odd relationship.
Movement brought him out of his thoughts, and he looked up in time to watch the boy struggle with the flyers. It wasn't surprising, in fact it was more impressive that it had taken this long, the boy's left hand was always covered with an oversized glove that restricted the limited mobility the deformed limb already had, at least according the rumours they had followed to get to this point.
And because it was an oversized glove, it fell off as the boy tried to juggle a stack of paper that refused to stay balanced.
The tiny green cross winked mockingly at the Finder from the back of the scarred red hand.
The boy had the glove back on in recorded time, if you had blinked you would have missed it and indeed most of the passer-by's continued on regardless. But the Finder had been looking for it and, despite what he would have liked from life, it seemed as if he had would have to take the crass little bastard back to the Order with them. He wasn't looking forward to getting such an uneducated little urchin on the train, as that was unlikely to happen without a fair bit of fuss.
The Finder casually released his golem and called to the rest of his team, four people in total with at least two of them being quite big people. With adult Exorcists, the Order tried to reason and bargain, or occasionally threaten if that was what it took, but children were less complicated, at least in some ways. When it came to the Order, if a child was an exorcist it was taken away, no question asked, it helped that the last Exorcist they had found under ten had been an orphan, just like this one, so as far as the rest of society was concerned the church was just doing its part to look after the poor unfortunates and keep them off the streets.
It didn't take long for the rest to arrive, the kid had just finished picking the flyers back up, and the four of them casually walked towards the always suspicious brat. It was a wonder he had managed to hand out as many flyers as he had.
'Hey, kid, need a hand?' he called out, trying to sound casual as they approached, 'those look like a lot of flyers for a little man like you, you look like you could use some help.'
The brat was on guard before the first two worlds had even left his mouth, eyes narrowing and posture shifting to something that would more easily allow him to defend himself, at least from most people. 'No,' there wasn't even a hesitation, kid was confident in his denial though his body language screamed distrust.
'You sure? What's a kid like you doing handing out flyers anyway? Looking for a bit more pocket money so you decided to help out?' he knew he was riling the kid up, that was the plan, plus it was how anyone else with the guts to approach would act, at least if they hadn't been watching him for the last two months like they had.
'I already said I don't need your fucking help, now fuck off!' his loud voice should have brought attention, probably would have if one of their members wasn't a Crow specialised in crowed control. The talismans had been up and activated seconds after he had given the signal through the golems.
'Come on, Kid, I just want to be nice, we can even grab some food afterwards, you look like you need it,' he was right in the brat's face now, his hand reaching over to put on the boy's shoulder…
He didn't want to know where the brat got the knife, but suddenly his hand was throbbing and metal glinted, aimed beneath his chin as that was as high as the kid could reach.
'I said back the fuck off!' the kid practically growled, but with enough force behind it that it still sounded like a shout.
Yeah, this was not going to be fun, but Crows were useful things.
The talisman hit the brat in the face less than three seconds later, the Finder used the little bastards distraction to grip his wrist, twisting it behind his back and squeezing it tight so he had to drop the knife, took hold of the innocence arm when he tried to swipe the paper off with that one instead while the Finder waited for the chant to take hold and the kid to pass out.
It didn't take long, but it was still longer than he would have liked, brat was strong, and the Crow was sweating by the time he had put enough strength into it to subvert the other's will. One of the two larger men in their group reached forward as he collapsed and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of kind of vegetable.
The Finder glanced at his hand and the surprisingly deep cut the brat had given him. He would be a good asset to the Order, once they broke his spirit enough that he would do as told and take out Akuma instead of humans.
TAKENTAKENTAKEN
Allen was gone.
Despite his deserved reputation for being insane and scatterbrained, Mana kept track of the things that were important to him. Allen was important to him, and so all it took was for his son to be a few minutes late getting back from handing out flyers (something he hated him doing alone, but the child still wanted some independence) for Mana to know that something was wrong. Allen was rarely late, the few times he had been were not good, so only five minutes after his child was supposed to be back Mana was already heading off to look for him.
He found were Allen had been easily enough, the flyers scattered and floating away on the wind, but his son wasn't there and hadn't been for quite some time for the flyers to have drifted about the way they had. Which meant that he had to keep looking, ignoring the worthless paper as he moved on in the hopes he would find his child soon, before anything happened to him.
Because Allen wouldn't run away. Oh, it had nothing to do with emotional attachment, Mana knew better than to expect so much from his poor child so soon, but Mana was a known source of warmth, food and safety, and Allen, who had grown up on the street, wouldn't risk losing that without good reason. If Allen wasn't home on time, if Allen wasn't where he was supposed to be, it was because something had happened, or someone had taken him.
Hours of frantic searching later Mana still hadn't found him, had found no trace of him and had no idea what to do. Allen was a smart kid, the last time someone had decided to do something about the "Demon Child" his son had made sure to cause a scene and make himself easy to find, even though this was before the child actually believed anyone would come looking.
He wanted Allen back, needed him back. His precious little boy, the one he had only just been able to officially adopt as his son, who was his to care for, was missing, and he had no idea on how to find him again. Outside of the thugs who were horrible enough that they would beat a child because of his arm, he could think of no one else that would try to take his boy, but this was too clean for the usual sort of riffraff.
Wait, Allen's … arm?
Something, something was there, slowly bubbling up to the surface of his mind and becoming clear, despite its usual chaos. Images were drifting past: a rose cross on black background, a green cube, people fighting, strange people in strange uniforms that covered almost all their skin but were otherwise really plain, others in a different uniform with talismans in their hands.
Glimpses of those people in the plain uniforms that he had caught of the last two months, and promptly dismissed as his paranoia even as he increased their travel rate to just that little bit faster.
The glint of a green cross imbedded in Allen's hand the very few times the boy had let his guard down enough to show him.
Children with the Rose Cross on their chests fighting for their lives against hulking metal creatures, the epitome of human corruption.
The Black … Order? Allen, his Allen, was an … Exorcist? Or at least, was supposed to be one? The people in the uniforms, had the Black Order … taken … his Allen? His poor, precious, Allen was going to be abused and broken and turned into nothing but a human weapon to die for a cause he wouldn't be given a choice in whether he cared about or not?
The Black Order had taken his son. Taken his child, stolen what belonged to him without a care to legal matters, or just who they were stealing from. How dare they, how dare they take something from him, he was … he was …
He was the person who had witnessed as several millennium passed him by, the clown who was nobility and the laughter at the end of the world. He was the creator of a weapon that manifested the darkness of the human heart, the person who would use that weapon to save the world by destroying it. He was the enemy of the innocence and corrupt Black Order who tried to control it, the Black Order who had taken his son.
He was one half of Adam, the millennium Earl, Mana D. Campbell and Mana Walker, the person who had killed his own twin.
Mana remembered. Remembered all he was and everything he had wanted to forget, and in doing so led to his madness. But he needed to remember it now because Allen needed him, Allen and Neah who he wanted back but couldn't be allowed to destroy his Allen.
He had a family and he had a son, a son he would do anything to protect, even face the past he had run away from for so long, even call together his family in order to take out that organisation even though that hadn't been the plan. He would tear the Order in two, crush it to pieces and salt the earth it was built on, if it would help him find his precious Allen.
The grin on his face was not human, it might even have scared Allen away from him had he seen it, but Allen was allowed to be scared and to go somewhere else so long as he was safe, which the Order was not. Eyes opened to the wonderful sight of all his little Akuma swarming around him, drawn to his aura as the Maker. A dark chuckle escaped him as he put on his suit, his battle armour, he was going to war against the Black Order after all, he had to be dressed for the occasion, in case any survivors tried to rebuild, they shouldn't know that he was once human after all, it suited him to have them think of him as the King of Hell or some other such rot.
Soon, the armour would be discarded, there wasn't a need for it, after all, when he was being truthful with himself about what he had done. But not yet, not until he had his Allen back and safe and away from that place that broke its apostles and won the war for him faster than even his Akuma could achieve.
The Black Order had finally poked the bear one too many times, and his patience had run out. Now they would see firsthand just what the Noah family was capable of.
TAKENTAKENTAKEN