Chapter 2: A Very Odd Poker Game
Location: The Port at Brighton, England
Time: 9:13 PM
Allen sat at the opposite end of the table, his usual semi-sadistic, you-should-have-seen-this-coming poker smile on his face. As he slid his cards across the table, eyes glinting at the pile of chips in the middle, he listened with pleasure to the cries of anguish rising up from his opponent. The man was probably five times bigger than him, heavily tattooed a clearly a mafia boss, but he was such a odd man that he had yet to point his guns at the white-haired boy who has such "luck" with cards.
It was actually how he had suckered the man into playing him in the first place. The boss apparently had a sick love for all things he considered beautiful, and the deal was that "snow-white", as he called him, would give up his freedom for the man if he could beat him in a poker game. Allen was hard-pressed for cash anyway, as his flight from the Order and Apocryphos had left him with so few opportunities to find work. Even so, making the necessary survival money was more of an added plus along with watching the man writhe in desperation. Normally, he might have felt pity for the boss, but his life had taken such a negative turn of late that it was worth beating out a lowlife every so often.
Besides, he had his eyes set on a more important prize, which was sitting behind the boss on a velvet display stand. It was a glorious statue made of up an enchanting blood red glass. At its base stood a trio of magnificent wolves, each looking up at the feminine figure standing among them with loving adoration. The woman's head was bent, her hands folded as if in prayer, but neither the statue's form, nor the unique material of which it was made, was what made me so determined to have it. Under the glass was some sort of translucent black-red substance that he had first mistaken for particularly deep garnet fragments. A closer look told him otherwise, and once he realized the truth, he knew he had to deliver the piece from its eccentric owner. It would be a pain to lug about, given that it was nearly six feet tall and over four in diameter. It would be certainly conspicuous, but it would be worth the risk of potential discovery in the end.
"Call" he said again, sending another wave of misery to the ceiling.
"Damn it!" the boss roared, slamming his oversized fists on the table. "I have to have you, though, my little white rabbit! Let's go again!"
Rather than address his being called a 'little while rabbit' Allen simply shrugged and took his turn to shuffle. "Alright, but let's raise the stakes a bit on your end" he said. "I'm risking my freedom on these games, and I think I deserve a little better than plain old cash."
"Anything for another shot" the boss said vehemently. "What is it?"
"That statue behind you" he replied simply, nodding to the structure. "Red's my favorite color you see, and I've just got to have it."
The boss paled, then seemed to struggle with himself until he finally threw his hands up in defeat. "FINE!" he blurted. "Now, let's go!"
With the final hand dealt, Allen left the bar pushing the sheet-covered statue on a flatbed cart. As he walked along the darkened streets, he hummed a little tune to himself and ignored the boss's cries for vengeance.
For the first time since fleeing the Order, he decided to stay in a hotel. It had been over a week since he'd last seen Apocryphos, and the hordes of Akuma that had also been chasing him seemed to be giving him a respite. Despite his exhaustion, however, Allen knew he had to have another look at that statue. If he turned out to be wrong, he had just pissed off a mafia boss for no reason.
Fortunately, there was no mistaking it; that shimmer off the strangely pure crystal, its color shifting and swirling like water underneath the glass. Yes, Allen was sure of it.
"Innocence" he breathed, pressing his left hand against the smooth surface. It was cool to his touch initially, then a pleasant warmth flowed from the dark red material. It seemed to hum slightly as it sensed his own fragment of the cube.
Timcampy flitted onto the statue, investigating it in his own little way. He too seemed to have recognized the powerful substance undulating beneath the clear hard shell. Allen contemplated what to do with it, how to get it to the Order without getting himself captured at the same time, wracking his brain for answers until he saw it. It was visible only for a moment before the waves of dark red covered it again, but the sight had been so shocking that Allen knew he hadn't mistaken it for something else.
A closed human eye, for that was what it was, delicately decorated with long black lashes, slipped back into view as the liquid within the statue suddenly began to undulate and the statue came to life. The wolves moved their heads to look at him, eyes glowing with a strange white light. One back away from him and huddled closer to the figure, lying down as if to protect whoever was inside. The other two crept forward and touched their noses to his still outstretched hand.
Allen fell to the floor with a silent cry as images began racing through his head. There was a desert, and a group of finders, and Marie, and… Kanda? He was younger, maybe fourteen or fifteen at most, and his hair was several inches shorter, pulled into a low ponytail. Like he had always been wont to do, he was arguing with someone. Marie was lying on the ground, looking ill rather than injured, but the third exorcist with which he was arguing was someone Allen didn't recognize. Whoever it was looked to be of eastern origins, like Lenalee or Kanda himself, with close-cropped hair and rather androgynous, though undeniably appealing, features. He wanted to say it was a boy, given the masculine style of the young exorcist's uniform and the sharp cut of his hair. There was no sound to accompany the images, so he could not make any assumptions base off of voices, nor could he fathom what they were arguing about.
The images shifted, revealing the nameless exorcist again, this time alone. He –Allen just decided to assume it was a boy- was surrounded by a horde of Akuma, to which he would soon lose if he did not manage to escape. As the monsters converged on him, he jumped into the air with surprising speed and agility for such a lanky kid. A bow materialized in his hand, and he let loose several rounds of arrows while taking barely any time to aim. The flaming deathtraps rained down on the Akuma, destroying several, but making hardly a dent in their ranks. The boy was quickly becoming desperate, and soon did the unthinkable.
A barrage of hellfire, black with crimson highlights, surged forth, claiming the level one and two Akuma as a wildfire would a field in the middle of a drought. The flames flickered and shot into the air, replicating the form of an enormous three-headed wolf that stood protectively over its master. However, it was a double-edged sword. The flames were causing damage to the host as the power of the Innocence began to consume him. The sand picked up around him as the various monsters exploded, melting into glass pellets as the heat of the Innocence reached the tiny particles.
Suddenly, a dune collapsed, causing an avalanche of sand to deluge the young exorcist. Everything ceased, and silence filled the cool desert night. As the images began to blur and fade to complete blackness, a two voices began speaking with one another. One was a woman's, the other sounded like some sort of ethereal being.
"I can't sit around any longer, I need to return to the fight" the woman said.
"Why?" The being asked. "For what reason must you return to battle?"
"To protect my friends, my second family, and to liberate my home."
The voices faded, and Allen's mind cleared, then he found himself back in the hotel room, staring at the statue.
It was glowing with a radiant light, strong enough to make him shield his eyes. He was just in time too, a loud shattering alerted him to the glass figure exploding, sending shards of jagged glass into his unprotected right arm. A gust of wind surged through the room, and Allen swore he heard something like a howl reach his ears before it all came to an end. Silence fell, but he remained still for several moments before carefully lowering his arms.
Confusion, that was the predominant thing Allen felt when he beheld the scene in front of him. Among the sparkling glass lay, not the boy he had expected, but a young woman. Despite his morals as a gentleman, Allen's curiosity got the better of him and he couldn't help but take in her appearance.
She was built for speed, a fact indicated by her long, slender, and clearly supple limbs as well as an equally proportioned torso. Standing, Allen suspected she might be a couple inches taller than Lenalee. Her jet-black hair fell over her gracefully sloped shoulders and slithered down past her waist. It looked as if the frontal locks had been cut or singed. for they had grown long enough to suffice as only bangs. The strands of these got progressively longer as they approached the main body of her hair, concealing the left half of her face completely. Allen assumed it matched her right, which possessed a high cheekbone and smooth jaw line, along with the carefully arched eyebrow and long, thick eyelashes. Her modesty was only slightly compromised, thought the rags clothing her covered little more than her gently curved hips and modest chest.
Of all the things to notice, however, it was the girl's back that particularly caught his attention. Between her shoulder blades sat a crescent moon surrounded by a ring of fire, with two characters interwoven in the design, but that was not all. Above the intricate ink sat the same mark he'd scene on the chest of none other than Kanda Yū. The flame-like halo dancing in the other image on her back reminded him a little of the jagged pattern he'd seen on Kanda's skin.
A small groan escaped from young woman's lips as she stirred. Her visible eye cracked open, revealing a flash of startling silver before closing again quickly as she winced at the light. Allen was just wondering how long it had been since she had opened those eyes when he noticed the accessories on her hands. A simple bangle sat loosely on each wrist while a ring wrapped comfortably around each of her third fingers. The bangles were of the same black-red hue as the crystal, and otherwise completely unadorned. The rings however, were black for the most part, but their edges were red, as were the edges of the cross-shaped cut outs.
"What… is this?" her voice was hoarse from lack of use, but still light in its quality, with a underlying note of distinction, as if the girl were from a high-class family. A thin cross was etched into each of her third fingers, framed by the similarly shaped openings in the rings and still oozing blood as she inspected them, finally able to open her eyes again. After a moment, she turned them on Allen, silver irises blazing with alarm and wariness.
After a moment, the harsh look softened as she took in her surroundings with only mild interest. "Not exactly the most preferable place for an exorcist" she said, sounding slightly amused. "Then again, you're not entirely an exorcist, are you?"
Allen blinked. "How did you…?"
"While you were gazing at fragments of my memories, I was forced to look at a few of yours, but I didn't gather much aside from your being an exorcist, but not an exorcist" she said dismissively. Gesturing to the small bundle in which he carried his clown gear and a few other belongings, she continued, "I don't mean to be forward, but I don't suppose you have an extra shirt I can borrow."
"Oh, yes!" he scrambled to his feet and dug out his long night shirt. The girl slipped it over her rags, clearly preferring to maintain her modesty even with dirty clothes. After a moment of relatively awkward silence, he asked, "um… who are you exactly?"
"My name's Kai" she told him. "I was also an exorcist of the Black Order until about three and a half years ago, when my mission in Israel went south." She shook her head. "I guess it was my fault, though, since I insisted on going on my own."
"You've been in that crystal for over three years?" he asked incredulously. Obviously the Innocence had not only helped her to survive, but mature physically and mentally. Even so, it was almost unthinkable that she could be this lively after so long without seeing the world. "How are you even standing right now?"
"I can tell you it's not easy" she laughed. "I have a high tolerance for pain, though, and after being inactive for so long, it feels good to stretch. However," she sank onto the second bed in the room, "I think I'm at my limit." Placing her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, she playfully batted her eyelashes at him and smiled innocently, saying, "so, tell me about yourself, Mr. Sort-Of-Exorcist."
"M-my name's Allen Walker" he replied awkwardly, taken aback by her eagerness. "As you say, I'm an exorcist, but I'm also a Noah… kind of… I guess."
Kai blinked uncomprehendingly. "Noah? Clearly I've missed a lot over the past few years" she said, her smile fading into a more serious demeanor. Leaning back, she asked, "can you tell me everything that I've missed? I can't go back to the Order without knowing."
Allen thought about her request. If he told everything of importance that had occurred since his arrival at the Black Order, she might very well turn on him and insist he go back. Still, Kai seemed like a nice person, and her three-and-a-half-year stint in a crystal probably had her dying for information. Plus, he'd sensed a hidden anxiety in her voice, as if she wanted to know something that didn't necessarily pertain to him. Maybe she wanted to know what had happened to Kanda and Marie? By now Allen had realized that she had indeed by the "boy" exorcist on that mission, during which Kanda and Marie had been her traveling comrades. Still, though he knew it was fair, he was very reluctant to tell her about the incident at the North American Branch.
She seemed to have guessed his thoughts, and a sad smile crossed her lips as she took his hands in her own. "Please, Allen," she said in a low voice. "tell me. I have deeper connections in the Order than you realize, I have a right to know what's been going on. Whatever tragedy has befallen you and the others, I can handle it." She paused, as if to deliberate on something, then continued. "If… if you tell me, I'll explain my situation to you in return. I get the sense that you, like me, know more than the average non-Marshall Exorcist should."
"You don't have to do that" Allen replied, shaking his head. Then he set about telling her everything that had happened. Dawn broke before he finished, and he did not reach the end until it was already past six in the morning. When he did stop, he felt drained, as if his entire life force had flown out of his body, leaving a weary empty shell. On the bright side, the Fourteenth had remained calm throughout his tale, and it didn't seem like he'd been surfacing anytime soon, meaning he'd be able to sleep without worries.
The Exorcist across from him was silent, her hands folded in front of her as she contemplated what he'd told her. Of all things, he thought she'd be distraught over Kanda's disappearance and Alma's death, for she admitted having knowledge of the latter at one point. However, only a slight perplexity marred her features, as if something in his story didn't make sense.
"That Kanda" she sighed. "I'll skin him alive if we ever cross paths again."
"I wouldn't count on it" he said quietly. "He's a free man now, why would he go back to being the Order's slave?"
"I can honestly say that I don't know what he'll do" Kai admitted, sitting up and gazing at the ceiling. "Still, I told him not to go to a certain place without my company, but apparently my 'death' lead him to believe that particular rule didn't apply anymore. I'll teach him to be reckless like that again."
Allen felt his jaw drop. "I just told you all about his tragic past, and his frustration at being the Order's dog, and now you're criticizing him for not obeying commands? You're harsh, Miss Kai."
"Don't call me 'Miss' anything, please" she snapped. "It irks me when a fellow Exorcist tries to be formal with me. We're comrades in arms, equals, so don't try to put distance between us." Moving on, she said, "I already said I knew about Kanda's being a Second Exorcist. I never met Alma personally, but Kanda did tell me plenty about him, thus I also knew about his 'tragic past' as you called it, so don't start pointing the finger of insensitivity in my direction."
"I still don't understand how you knew" he asked skeptically. "You'd have to have lived in the Order for a pretty long time to know all about that."
Kai smirked, in a way that reminded him unpleasantly of his Japanese rival. Stretching her hand up to her shoulder, she made a clear gesture to the mark he had seen on her back. "Did you honestly think the Order could come up with self-repairing bodies with only standard magic?" she asked him, dropping her hand again. "I'm sure you're aware that there are numerous families with the ability to pass down certain magical skill through the generations. The most obvious example I can give you is Bak Chan and his ability to control the spirit guardian of the Asia Branch. There were rumors that General Cross was a sorcerer too."
Allen nodded. "Are you from a magically-gifted family too?"
"Yes, my ancestor was a priestess at the Ise Shrine blessed with the ability to control the spirits of the moon" she explained to him. "Essentially, she possessed unique healing powers, and those with the most grievous afflictions would seek her out and come home good as new. The rest of my clan is magically-gifted as well, but only with the same type of abilities you'd see around the Order. Only the direct female descendants of the priestess will inherit her healing powers."
"So, like Kanda, you can recover from injuries with high-speed regeneration" he concluded.
To his surprise, she shook her head. "My abilities are far different" she said. "I can heal others by channeling the energy from the spirits into their bodies, and I can also heal myself, but not the way Kanda does. I need to apply the same energy and spells I use when treating the wounded when treating my own injuries, I don't have the ability to regenerate from mortal wounds. However, my blood can heal others as well, and that is what the Order took and twisted to create the perfect bodies for the second Exorcists."
Allen felt his stomach clench. "Twisted?"
"They manipulated the magical gene with their own spells to induce the kind of instinctive high-speed regeneration Kanda and Alma possessed" she told him.
"And they kidnapped you for this specific purpose?" Allen was disgusted that Central would go so far, but, then again, it wasn't totally surprising.
Yet again, Kai shook her head. "Though the Order knew full well of my ancestor's powers, I was the first born with the ability to survive the Akuma virus, though I could not eliminate it from anyone. They saw it as a mysterious phenomenon, and came after me to see if I was a potential accommodator. It turned out I was compatible with the cube, but, rather than the Parasitic Type they had expected to find, I was the accommodator of one of the fragments a Central agent was carrying when they came to investigate. It was simply my connection with the innocence which gave me my ability to survive the virus. I was, though, as you said, taken from my home by force. My clan is very protective of their own, especially of those born with the priestess's power, and they were determined to have me as both an Exorcist and an experiment."
"So, since your healing powers weren't really Innocence-related, you became part of the Second Exorcist project" Allen concluded.
She nodded. "There were some kinks in the process, however, so only Kanda and Alma ended up relative successes. I didn't meet Kanda until after Alma had lost it. He had already synchronized with Mugen, come to headquarters, and been assigned to Marshall Tiedoll's faction before I even knew who he was. You see, I had fully synchronized with my own fragment just weeks after recovering from the DNA extraction process, and was scheduled to begin my Exorcist training at the same time Kanda was."
Judging by the grimace on her face, Allen saw fit to comment, "I'm guessing you two didn't hit it off."
A mirthless laugh escaped her lips. "No, he hated me for doing so little to resist the Order's wishes and indirectly causing him so much suffering. I hated him back for blaming me when there had been no possible way for me to fight back. Eventually we reconciled, and took to being rivals, as we both realized there was something we could both learn from the other. I taught him hand-to-hand combat, stealth, and speed tactics, and he in turn taught me sword, strength, and head-on combat techniques. I showed him the calming effects of meditation while he showed me the benefits of morning sparring matches. We still had our moments, but we tolerated each other most of the time." She smiled.
Allen nodded, impressed there was someone in this world that Kanda actually "got along" with. A few things were still weighing on his mind, though, and he wanted to ask Kai about them before he slept and risked loosing them in the depths of his mind.
"You kept mentioning your 'Clan' earlier" he said. "and hinted that you have something of a militaristic background. Is you family part of the Japanese military?"
The reply was negative. "We're actually fighters for hire, but by no means are we mercenaries" she told him. "I'm from a group known as Kagesōsha Clan, and I'm from the main residence. The head family is part of the nobility, but not in the traditional sense, as the Kagesōsha have outposts in almost every province in Japan outside of the main residence. We're assassins, to use the simple term, though we're also hired as bodyguards and escorts. A lesser known fact is that we keep an eye on the black market trading area in Nagasaki to make sure Japan's economy doesn't suffer too much from its isolation."
"Wow, that's… intense…" he couldn't really think of any other response. "So are you from the head family or something?"
Kai nodded. "My full name is Kirihara Kaida, or Kaida Kirihara if you want to westernize it. I prefer to be called Kai, though, so that's how I usually introduce myself. My father, Kirihara Juken, became the head after my mother, Ayame, gave her life to bring me into this world." At his confused expression, she expanded. "The Kagesōsha is a matriarchal society, and both men and women maintain equal status in everything."
"Then… doesn't that make you the heir?" Allen asked hesitantly.
Again she nodded. "This is why it's better that my family thinks I'm dead" she said in a low voice. "If I do indeed die in this war, as difficult as that may seem for me –difficult, but not impossible, mind you- my brother, Ren, will take my place. The clan has had patriarchs before, but that is a rare condition."
Her resolve struck him as painfully profound. Yes, it was wise not to give her clan false hope of her return, but it was still sad that she had to abandon her family like that. Then again, it was probably the same for all Exorcists who still had homes to which they could return. Now wasn't the time to think about that now, though. He still had one more thing to ask before he passed out from exhaustion.
"What was the order you gave Kanda that he disobeyed?"
This time, Kai looked away from him. "My request was that he not go to Japan without me, for his own safety. If word got back to my family that a man with strange healing abilities reminiscent of mine was in Japan, they would not rest until he was secured in the interrogation chamber and gave up my whereabouts. After that, they'd probably do their best to kill him, or imprison him for life." After a pause, she also confessed, "I think my brother saw me being taken away ten years ago and, knowing him, he'll want revenge on the Order in its entirety. Kanda would face worse than any other Exorcist because he's Japanese, which would make him a traitor in Ren's eyes."
It was Allen's turn to grimace. Somehow, even though it would be Kanda, being tortured by assassins just didn't seem like a pleasant experience. To keep himself from dwelling on it much, he asked, "what does Kagesōsha mean?"
Kai blinked, then started laughing. "It's a rather cliché name for a group of assassins" she said through her mirth. "but no one dares to question it because we're held in such high esteem. Kagesōsha literally means Shadow Runners."
Now Allen frowned. "I should have guessed as much" he said, scratching his head. "What are you going to do from here? I hate to say it, but you can't travel with me, it's too risky."
"I'll disregard that afterthought entirely because you could have no idea how patronizing it sounds to me" Kai said in one breath before replying. "I had a lot to think about in that crystal; the Order's treatment of me, my place in my family, and so on. My main goal before had been to just get my way through the damn war, then, if I didn't die, I'd finally go home and prove to my father that I deserved to be part of the clan's activities and not locked up in a shrine. I decided to view the whole thing as an unpleasant nightmare that I'd eventually escape. That was the whole point: to escape."
"And now?" he prompted.
"Hearing what you've had to say confirmed my new resolution" she said, gazing down at the crosses on her hands. "Regardless of my background, I was born to fight in this war, to follow in the footsteps of my ancestor. More importantly, winning this war is the best thing I can do for my clan and country, and I will protect them no matter what. That's why I've decided to return: to protect those who are important to me and to liberate my country from the Earl's influence." She clenched her fist and held up to Allen with a determined smile. "Cerberus seems satisfied with my resolution, so I'm taking that as the okay to go ahead with it."
With a wink, she added, "don't worry, no one has to know we met."
Allen smiled too. It was good to see his fellow Exorcists still picking up the torch. It was that crystal-type-inducing spirit that would keep the Order alive, not cracked experiments with Akuma DNA or abuses of power. It was also that spirit that drove Allen, and gave him hope that he would find a way to maintain his consciousness despite the Fourteenth's influence. That hope soon gave him comfort, and comfort soon gave him sleep. Tomorrow was a new day, and he and Kai would discuss how to best to part ways when a new dawn came.