This includes my interpretation of what is known about Allen's mind so far in the manga (haven't seen Hallow, don't kill me), so is probably not strictly canon as such, but this is an AU any way so whatever.
Neah wakes to a broken world.
Ruins scattered, and trees shattered, with tears in the earth leading to a crushing nothingness waiting to swallow you whole. A high pitch keening echoes through everything, and Neah isn't sure if it's wind whistling through what's left of the branches or if there is actually a human voice capable of sounding like that.
He hopes it's the former, because he doesn't want to know what would have to happen to result in the latter.
This isn't what he expected, not what he expected at all when he finally woke to start taking control of the body of a friend that had a heart too big for the rest of the world. This should be the mind scape of one of the most important people in his world, second only the other half of his soul. It should be a study or library, maybe by the lake in that green forest his friend use to reminisce about, not …
Not a wasteland, not a wasteland that's been ripped apart by some monstrous beast, not this poisoned wreck. Looking up, he sees the sky the colour of fresh blood, the moon black as tar, before realising that at least some of this place is taken up by the same reflection on a lake, though the water looks oily on closer inspection, thick and viscus like a tainted version of the liquid represented above. Remnants of buildings and stone stick out at odd angles, and even as he watches one crumbles to dust and sinks into the water as if it never existed.
Neah shudders, losing even the pretence of confidence in this isolated place, and prays to a god he abandoned long ago that there has been a mistake. That this isn't the mind of his friend, that Allen hasn't been broken so far beyond belief that his very sense of self has been destroyed.
But he knows, knows it's not a mistake, because there is the lake and the forest, though the Lake is poisoned, and the trees are burned out husks with limited, twisted, branches and their remains hacked, cracked, crushed and shredded to near nothing.
He needs answers, and unfortunately, he can tell there is only one place he is going to get them.
He follows the voice.
Because despite what he wished, hoped, prayed, there is no wind here, the crumbling fragment has proven that.
The voice is a trembling, echoing, wail, hard to find the source of as it bounces around the remains of the ruins. Every now and then it would dwindle away, leaving nothing but a silence even eerier that the wail and echoes that refused to fade, then it would start up again and Neah would have a few precious seconds to find a direction before the echoes hid it once more.
He finds a throne, carved from stone with a high, straight, back that might have once been magnificent by now just looks threatening, like it will swallow up anyone who is stupid enough to sit on it. The chains don't help.
But it's the person sitting on the throne, the person chained to the throne, that takes his breath away.
It's not Allen, it's not Allen. It's a child, a tiny broken child who screams in pain and agony of just about every kind imaginable. White hair glows almost pink in the strange light of the sky, shifting as the child rocks and shivers and shakes and Neah can only stare at the child whose mind he's ended up in.
And gently, oh so gently, he's removing the chains and pulling it into his lap, carding fingers through it's hair and crooning, softly, calming words.
It would be so easy to take over it's mind like this. It's so broken, so empty as it crumbles to pieces and tears its self apart, it would be a simple matter to lift this tiny creature in his arms, place him in his own mind scape as he reorders this mind and watch as it fades away. There would be no fight in taking this mind, this body, for himself so that he could finish what he started.
But …
But this is not Allen. This is not his friend who meant so much to him it hurt, this isn't the only human he would ever willingly form any sort of alliance with, this is not the person who knowingly and willing took his mind and soul into his own body even with the knowledge that it would slowly corrupt and erase him.
This was not the adult who made the agreement for thirty-five years' time so that Neah could rest and Allen could live a life and grow old.
This was a child who hadn't lived at all and was so shattered that it was reaching out to anything, waking him up early, in order to try and keep the crumbling pieces together.
And, Dear Lord, Neah was going to help him.
Because it was a freaking child curled up and hurt in his arms and, surprisingly, Noah actually did have hearts, twisted and broken as they were, and this child needed someone.
AN: this is a one-shot what if AU were Neah started awakening because of the damaged done to Allen's mind by what happened with Mana. I just wanted to write something from Neah's perspective where he was a semi decent human being and suddenly got chucked into that kind of situation.
once again, this is a ONE SHOT, it will not be continued, so please don't ask.
a ONE SHOT.