How I Met Allen

My first memory is of voices singing. Some, I know, are Mother and Father's voices. Mother had the most exquisite voice, and Father could have been a professional singer if he'd ever wanted to be one.

Most were disembodied. Or rather, he was disembodied.

When I was two, Father fired one of the maids. Mother's favorite rosary had gone missing, and the maid had been the last one seen with it. I found out later that she was pregnant and that she died in childbirth. Her son survived, but was tossed out on the streets for having a demonic arm.

The voices followed him. That was how I first met Allen. I was walking along the streets and I heard the voices that had vanished four years beforehand. Honestly, I'm surprised I still recognized them, but it was rather hard to mistake seven-thousand voices speaking in tandem, and they weren't very good at being quiet anyway.

The little boy seemed so fragile back then, and I couldn't suppress my anger at his so-called names. The only time Father and Mother had ever called me anything similar was when we were playing games, and I knew that they never meant them seriously. The voices seemed equally angry, but Mana was oddly quiet on the matter.

(Mana had never liked Allen. He had always looked at him like he was a monster, even when we had grown up together. I suppose that it makes sense that Mana cursed Allen in the end; 'raising' him didn't make his hatred abate any.)

How I Got Involved In The Holy War

I like to think that I got involved as soon as Allen was taken away, but that wasn't really the case. Two years after Allen was taken away from me, I awoke as a Noah. It hurt. A lot. The only thing that hurt more when it was over was looking at the Earl's outfit. As sad as it is his current day collection of top hats is actually really tame compared to what he used to wear.

(I guess that if there was one thing that I succeeded in doing, it was convincing him to wear something else. No matter what he seemed to think, lime green and neon pink were not appropriate colors for a pinstriped suit, especially not if he was going to sew canary-yellow polka dots onto it.)

Once I awoke and proved to have no idea what the other Noah were talking about when they asked me how I became a Noah, they took me with them to live in the Ark. At first I didn't have anything resembling a Noah Memory, so they stopped prying after a while. When I started hearing people talking about Destruction the way they remembered Noah talking about the focal point of their Memory, I had already discovered that my music lessons afforded me more control over the Ark than anyone else had. I told them that I thought my role in the Noah Clan was to be the Musician.

(I told them nothing of my thoughts on Destruction. When they took me away from my parents and brother, I told them not to let the Akuma kill them. I found out a few weeks later that they had deliberately ordered the Akuma to kill my parents. Only a stroll in the nearby woods saved Mana from a similar fate. If they were going to ignore my wishes, then they could stew in their ignorance of my real purpose.)

(It didn't affect their attitudes any. I suppose they thought I didn't know. But Mana came for me; did they really think that he wouldn't tell me what happened to our parents? Granted, I already knew but did they really take me for a fool? I was smart, I knew how to lie and how to learn from watching others; learning how to command the Akuma to tell me about anything my so-called family ordered them to do was easy. They never bothered to teach me to do that but they never stopped doing it in front of me, and they were so used to family members telling everyone else their secrets that it never occurred to them that I could and would lie to them about knowing how to order around the Akuma.)

(Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…well, they did it more than twice, so all the more shame on them, I suppose.)

How I Made My Dearest Friend A Walking Target

Allen alone knew my theories about myself. I met him two years after I awoke, by just as big of a coincidence as the first time. Like our first meeting, I heard Purgatory speaking and followed the choir of his voice to Allen.

This time, it was freezing out.

I had put up my winter jacket in the Ark and was about to close the Ark's Gate when I heard Purgatory's unmistakable voice filter through it. Immediately, all coherent thought had rushed out of my mind, all thoughts save one: that I had finally found Allen. I'm happy I found him then – even a few hours later and he would have left and been out of my reach, possibly for forever.

I told him all of my secrets in that tiny, thin-walled, chilly hotel room, and he accepted every single one of them. It was as though he didn't care that I was an enemy; that I could and should kill him. I was astonished and touched by his loyalty.

(Looking back; I can see how naïve I was. Allen would have hung the moon for me had I asked and while I knew that he adored me, back then I didn't quite understand just how much he did. Sometimes I feel like I just took advantage of his loyalty to do things that hurt him in the long run. What happened next is Exhibit A of this theory.)

I had then asked to; in order to test my idea, do an experiment on his arm.

(On him, and how I did not see how dangerous that was for him, I'll never know.)

(The folly of youth excuse only extends so far, after all, and some things are just unforgiveable. Even – or perhaps especially – when I am the one doing them.)

Allen agreed to it.

(Of course he did. Allen was fearless when it came to me, and it would never have occurred to him to say no. The only time he feared something involving me was when his fears that I would one day abandon him reared their ugly heads.)

It worked, and Allen –

(Dear, brilliant, selfless, reckless Allen –)

Allen was thrilled for me. I was…delighted that my idea had merit; that it had produced a result when I hadn't fully believed it would…but that joy was marred by the pain that Allen had displayed during my song. I pretended elation for his sake. Inside I was horrified. What had I done? I had harmed Allen, willingly, enthusiastically no less.

I could feel how Hand of God had improved after my lullaby, but the eye's input is hard to deny. I may have been able to feel how much stronger Hand of God was, to hear how pleased Allen's Innocence was with his new form, but my eyes told me that Allen's hand had gone from looking like it was burned to looking like it was dead.

(I understood my mistake almost immediately. Unfortunately, I did not realize in time to stop it, nor did I understand just how badly I had messed up.)

('What have I done?' is a phrase often repeated in my mind, more frequently when I first learned of Allen's promotion.)

(Most frequently now.)

I had to leave soon afterwards, to avoid the CROW stalking Allen. We were lucky, honestly, to have had that much time together, and barely two months later, I learned the true consequences of my visit.

Allen broke the Critical Point.

I was delighted that he had survived that Akuma attack, of course. But…the Earl was furious.

(I had done more than I had initially suspected, when I had altered Hand of God.)

Hand of God, now renamed Purgatory, had gone from Allen's scaled hand to a pale cape and a masquerade mask. Purgatory was beautiful, the image of an angel playing dress up with mere mortals, and lethal beyond all imagining. Allen's bestial arm had transformed into an equally inhumane appendage, although this one resembled spider's legs more than a dragon's leg.

More importantly, Allen had gone from an unimportant exorcist with an easily forgettable piece of Innocence to someone with a highly recognizable one. And, oh, how recognizable Purgatory now was…

Beautiful, inhumane, and lethal all described Purgatory in his normal form. Once Allen struck the Critical Point; however, Purgatory's spider's arm became a sword. And it was this sword; snow white where Allen's arm was coal black, polished silver where Allen's arm was once a tarnished gray; that the Noah took note of.

(Like Purgatory's arm, it was delicate and deadly – but it bore my mark more prominently than Purgatory normally did. I suppose I should be more grateful that my detestable relatives did not realize why the handle of Allen's Symphony of the Lost was shaped like a treble clef.)

(Still, there is a part of me that is selfishly grateful that my handiwork was displayed so brazenly. Allen's rapier was a thing of beauty; that it functioned as a very sharp conductor's baton was the icing on the metaphorical cake.)

(It makes it all the more ironic that nobody realized I aided Purgatory's reforming. Music is and always will be my prime talent, my signature. Symphony of the Lost had a symbol used exclusively in music for a handle, was named after a form of music, and, depending on how it was waved, generated a range of different melodies. Choir of Angels, Requiem for the Damned, Lost Ones' Orchestra…they were all music related for a reason. I find it strange that my relatives never realized the connection between them and me.)

(Wondering about it is pointless now. With the passing of my Memory, Purgatory absorbed my Sword of Purification. Critical Point Breakthrough no longer prompts the summoning of Allen's once-famed Symphony of the Lost. Now, it is my Sword that appears.)

Allen's Critical Point rapier, Symphony of the Lost, was a wide-area weapon. In his normal form, Purgatory was fairly limited in how far he could attack. As Symphony of the Lost, his every move could massacre Akuma.

Choir of Angels stripped every Akuma that heard the melody of their human shell and paralyzed them. Requiem for the Damned prompted every Akuma to detonate on the spot. Lost Ones' Orchestra temporarily took control of any Akuma in a five foot radius and with every swell of the music caused them to attack another Akuma. They could be blended together and used in tandem.

They were perfect for killing Akuma swarms in one go.

With Hand of God, Allen was safe in his anonymity. With Purgatory, he was the most dangerous of the Generals.

(No matter how much time passes, I will never forgive myself for making my dearest friend such a target.)

(The Earl wanted him dead almost more than he wanted to crush the Heart of Innocence.)

How I Doomed Allen To 35 Years of Misery

When I saw the Earl attack Mana, I protected him. How could I not? Mana was all that I had left of my first family. I would not – could not – let the Earl take him away.

I had always felt like the Noah did not want me around. This was understandable. They had lived for millennia as a happy little family of genocidal psychopaths. I was the interloper; the unwanted, unknown sibling they didn't know existed.

(It was, as Allen once said, like they were a family and then, one day, they were told that Daddy dearest had had an 'accident' and they had a baby sibling. Except that wasn't how Noah were made, and they knew it. It just served to make me all the more of an outsider.)

They had never bothered to teach me any Noah things. While I understood that my Noah skill was something that only I could do, and they wouldn't be able to advise me on how to use it based on how my past lives had done so since I was the first Fourteenth…I was fourteen when I awoke and I had no idea what was going on. Allen's briefing on the Holy War hadn't gone over anything pertaining to the Noah and an explanation beyond "We're the several thousand years old reincarnations of a biblical character who is not as nice as the Bible makes him seem" would have been much appreciated. I had had to teach myself everything, including how to control the Akuma. They had simply…not seemed to want me around.

So, when I attacked the Earl for trying to kill Mana, I did so out of desperation. Mana was the last family member that I had that still seemed to want me; was one of two people who still cared about me, since clearly, the Noah didn't. I refused to lose him to the people that had ensured that I only had two people who cared about me.

The other Noah came to the Earl's rescue. Or rather, they attempted to and I cut them down. I chopped them to pieces with my Sword of Purification – which I'm certain they didn't know I had. They seemed to be of the mistaken impression that I, like Wisely, was incapable of taking care of myself.

(My Sword…I do believe it was made of Innocence. It never spoke to me, despite my best efforts to converse, and I knew that they understood me. Never speaking does not mean that they did not respond, after all, even if those responses were mostly impressions I got of reactions.)

(I don't think that Purgatory could have 'absorbed' them if they weren't.)

When Allen came to aid me, it was to find that I was dying. He, despite my efforts to convince him otherwise, insisted on taking on my Memory. I made a deal with him when I failed to convince him not to take my Memory.

He would take my Memory, and I would be reborn in his body. In return, he would live as long – and as happily – as he could manage. And he would take my Sword of Purification. Two swords would be better than one after all, and I had no illusions about what would happen when my remaining siblings discovered what we had done.

Just before my vision went black, my darling little sister, Road, came careening around the corner to the alley I had hidden myself in. She was furious with me, and wanted to take it out on my dearest Allen.

Allen, for his part was in no shape to be fighting a Noah, even one as weak as Road was then. He had already mostly succumbed to pain by then, and had toppled over screaming. I feared for his life in that last moment. Then everything went black for a long time.

(I needn't have worried. Marian, that rebellious little brat that Allen had taught, had come back to find my Allen. He stalled Road long enough to take Allen and my corpse and run. He burned my body later on and left my dear at his brother's home.)

How Allen Died And I Returned To Life

My first stirring in Allen's body occurred so fleetingly that I am not certain that I did not dream it.

(Except, of course, I did not dream in the time between my death and my awakening. So it is most likely less of a fever dream and more of a very blurry memory.)

Allen, I dimly recognized, was in pain. A great deal of pain and agony –

(Everything that I wanted to save him from – )

But there was nothing I could really do about it. I tried to help anyway. I am not certain if I succeeded, but I vaguely recall speaking to him.

It was strange.

We were in some odd dreamlike world, and I knelt at the banks of a lake and peered in. Instead of my reflection, I saw Allen. He was white-haired, scarred, and younger than I remembered him being. I spied Hand of God attached to the stump of his left arm, which should not have been possible since I knew what Purgatory looked like, having been partially his creator. In the background, I could just barely hear Purgatory speak; the words distorted by distance.

(Faintly, I thought I heard him beg for Allen to wake up – to survive.)

Allen cried when he saw me. I told him not to cry, told him to tell me what was going on, why was he in such pain…? but before he could respond, the dream fractured and I fell into the black abyss of my dormancy.

Moments, hours, days discarded like forgotten wishes, later and I stirred briefly at a thought. Music, I had thought, dizzily. The Ark is controlled by music. The most important song was – my mind faded again. For an instant, though, I was struck by an odd image – Allen at my piano, injured and half dressed, his clothing was so tattered. For an instant I heard him sing the lullaby I had written for the Ark.

The next time I saw him, I got a better look at my dearest friend. He was indeed white-haired and scarred. He was also much shorter than I recalled him to be. I had not seen him that small since he was fourteen or fifteen.

He was wearing the uniform of the Black Order again, although it did not seem to be the General's uniform I remembered so vividly. Tim was floating by his side; a young man with golden hair behind both of them, and…Allen's hair was short.

It was the oddest thing to notice, and the most inconsequential considering that Allen was about five years younger than I remembered him, but it struck me as the most important detail about him.

Allen wore his hair long. He had kept it long when we were growing up since he could not afford a trip to the barber's shop, and had kept it that way through the years. I could scarcely remember a time when Allen wore his hair short – he tended to tug on the strands when he was thinking and it always frustrated him when he could not reach them.

(He looked…incomplete, almost, without his hair long and a necktie draped over his shoulder. I missed those ties. It had started out as an inside joke in the years between when Purgatory evolved and when I died. After the conversation that started it all, though, Allen had kept using neckties as hair ties. I'm fairly certain he did it to annoy Marian, who would always complain that neckties were supposed to worn around one's neck, not in their hair. He had memorized a whole speech about why Allen should tie his shirt shut with his ties, instead of using them to tie his hair back.)

(I think I memorized that speech just by listening to it so many times.)

Allen was stunned to see me, and after a moment, when I tried to reach him, to touch him, to do anything, I realized that somehow I was inside a mirror. How I had gotten there I had no idea. Allen could see me, I knew that by his reaction, but it would seem that no one else could.

We could not interact. I followed him around all day and night, hovering unseen to all but one in the mirrors he passed by. I gave him as much privacy as I could when I could not stray from his side.

I witnessed his life in the Black Order. It was…interesting to put it mildly. Infuriating at times. Kanda was irritating, Lenalee barely better, and the less said about Komui, Krory, Miranda, Noise, and the rest, the better. I found Lavi tolerable and Bookman interesting. Marian, it seemed, had managed to devolve following my demise. My Allen was not even able to rein him in due to Central's interference.

The golden haired man, as it turned out, was a CROW spy who was under orders to not even bother with trying to be subtle about his stalking. I was not impressed. The only redeeming quality he had, as far as I was concerned, was his refusal to follow my dear friend into the restroom. Well, that and his insistence on making sure Allen was fine.

Honestly, I had told Allen to take care of himself after I died, but it would seem that he hadn't even bothered to try. My closest friend was miserable in the Black Order but stayed there anyway. Finally I asked him why.

Allen, predictably, did not understand what I was saying and didn't respond. Surprisingly, it was Purgatory who deigned to answer.

(Apparently, Purgatory had been able to hear me all along, but had decided not to respond. Neither Allen nor I was very pleased with him. He, of course, didn't care about our opinions on the matter.)

I was ridiculously exasperated with Allen when Purgatory was finished. I told Allen to take care of himself and his solution to that was to go back to the place he hated with a burning passion, to interact with people who could easily blow his cover and whom he also hated, just so he had access to medical services, food, and money? He went back to place he would have gladly torn apart with his bare hands…because it conveniently took care of his basic survival needs?

Allen, I knew, was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Having access to medical services was really the only benefit to going back to the Black Order. Everything else Allen was perfectly capable of getting for himself.

After a lot of prodding – or pleading looks through the compact mirror, really – Allen quietly confessed that he hadn't dealt with my death all that well, and had decided to rejoin the Black Order so that he could at least pretend to be General Allen Black, my secret exorcist comrade.

Both Purgatory and I told him that the fact he had not dealt with my death very well was perfectly obvious and that we thought that he should leave and go somewhere that would make him happy. We also informed him that change of name or not, he was still Allen, the boy that Purgatory had raised and I had named and grown up with. Allen's surname did not really matter; especially considering that he only went by Black since the people in the Black Order were not very creative and needed a surname for him, and Mana was completely out of his mind when he picked up the surname Walker.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to continue that conversation. The CROW spy soon returned to our corner of the library and asked to know why Allen was taking so long to get to the dining hall when he was normally the first one there.

I silently fumed. Did that cretin not know how hard it was to get Allen to respond honestly to questions about his health? Purgatory and I would have to restart all over again now that we had been interrupted!

(We never did get to finish that conversation. The Earl decided to wake Alma Karma back up – and why my most loathed relatives decided to 'adopt' an exorcist is beyond me; it may have been 35 years but I still knew them well enough to know how very intolerant they would be to that unconscious exorcist – and Allen was soon thrown into a cell to rot and wither in.)

(How dare they? Some part of me is furious and raging and a hair's breadth away from storming over to the Black Order and killing the foolish humans inside – the humans Allen, my aIIeN, bled for and suffered for – but yet; those same humans are the ones my aIIeN nearly gave his life for. He would never forgive me for killing them.)

(I do not want Allen to die hating me for this – for killing the CROW spy he feels he failed somehow, for killing the son of the man and woman who cared for him in those long years after my death. I cannot do anything to anger him now because we are at the end of the line. I do not know how I can tell this but I know that it is true.)

(Allen's life will end before daybreak.)

(I will never forgive myself for this.)

I raged when Apocryphos arrives. I had been hearing its discordant song for days now, but hadn't thought anything of it. Many times in my travels I have heard its voices speak, giving the vague illusion of voices singing each word in a terribly off-key manner. I had foolishly assumed that it meant nothing – that the cruel fragment was simply passing by as it had so many times before, but clearly that was not the case.

It had come for Allen, for Purgatory. Secretive jerk that he may have been, I did not wish for Purgatory to be separated from my Allen. Purgatory had been with Allen since before my dearest friend had even been born. Allen may have been my confidant and closest friend, the younger brother I had always wanted, but he was all but Purgatory's son and I remember the horrified grief I felt when my parents died well enough to want to spare Purgatory the grief of leaving Allen.

More importantly, I knew Purgatory's presence was all that was stopping my Noah Memory from killing Allen. I did not want my Allen to die because of one Innocence fragment's arrogance.

In the end, Apocryphos was not the death of Allen, but I was.

This outcome was…expected, but I had never, ever, ever wanted it to happen.

(Allen. Purgatory murmured. Allen. It is all he has said since I had felt Allen's presence flee our shared body entirely and I awoke alone in our body.)

(I have never resented myself more for something technically out of my control, and that includes the incident that resulted in Allen being discovered by the Black Order.)

I take a deep breath, and peer into the mirror Allen had held in his last moments. I am peripherally aware of the fact that Allen would not want me to grieve, that he had died exactly the way he had wanted to.

I do not want to think like that. I will wallow in my grief as long as I can, and will hopefully never come out of it.

aIIeN deserves nothing less than my eternal remembrance.