As I have been experiencing a few problems with a few of my other fics (t14A, NA, etc.), this decided it wished to be written instead (along with the following chapter, which is a tad more interesting and will probably turn up once I've had time to proof-read it…). Cheers.

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Amongst the Grey Ashes

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A huge pile of paper – presumably reports – is dumped onto his desk by the ever diligent Reever Wenham, who – relieved of his quite heavy burden – seems to be in no hurry whatsoever to leave the office. Presumably, the most diligent man lingers in order to make sure that the man at the desk actually processes the newest batch of paperwork and does not automatically add them to the vast sea of paperwork strewn all over the floor of the office the aforementioned would much rather leave to go work on any of his experiments. Truly, how devious of said subordinate.

With a sigh, Komui Lee puts his cup of coffee aside, glancing somewhat lazily at the pile currently lying on top of his desk. "Yes, Reever?"

"Take a look," the Australian says, gesturing towards the pile. "It's important," he adds, empathising the latter.

"Define important," Komui quips, snatching the file on top to rest his eyes upon it. It takes a few moments before the meanings of the words at top of the page finally begin to mean something to him – no doubt helped along by the caffeine finally getting to his brain and revitalising it, however temporarily – and his eyes snap up, his gaze levelling at Reever for a brief moment before returning to the page, reading with genuine interest this time around. "This… Has it been confirmed?"

"There have been rumoured sightings all over the place," Reever responds, shrugging mildly. "None of ours have seen it – yet, mind you – but the sightings are far too many to be passed off as mere coincidences; they merit further investigation."

"Says who?" Komui wonders out loud, somewhat rhetorically, as he is already very much aware of the answer.

"Says you," Reever says, sifting through the pile and retrieving a particular piece of paper and handing it over. "Now sign."

"Will you liberate me from this..." – Komui makes a slight gesture in the general direction of the pile along with the sea of paperwork surrounding his desk. – "If I sign it?"

Reever's overall facial expression doesn't change. "If you don't, someone might double it."

Komui tilts his head slightly to the side. "And if some of it were to perish in a little… accident?"

"Triple it."

"But…"

"Quadruple it."

Occasionally, Komui Lee – the supervisor of the European Branch of the Black Order – regrets entering this line of work.

"Brother?"

He looks up at the raven-haired beauty he has the honour of calling his younger sister. However temporarily, his grievances all melt away in the rays of her blinding smile.

"More coffee?"

Truthfully, he could do without the coffee. If he would have been able to see her smile each and every day, that would have been enough. However, one does not always yet what one wishes for…

"A new mission?" Putting the pot of coffee aside, she leans forward in interest.

He smiles reassuringly. "I was thinking about sending a few people to investigate an incident in an abandoned church nearby," he says, only partially truthfully. "It's probably nothing, but investigating it further wouldn't…"

She returns the smile. He merely hopes he isn't sending her into something dangerous.

"By the way," he says as she moves to leave the room. "If you happen to see Kanda on the way out, tell him that I want to see him. It's about a mission."

She leaves, and within a quarter of an hour, Kanda Yu appears, outwardly stoic. "A mission?"

Komui fishes the desired file out of the sea of paperwork and holds it out. "We've recently lost contact with the group we sent to investigate the rumours of the ghost in the abandoned city of Martel," he explains, straight to the point for once. "I need someone competent."

The raven-haired exorcist scoffs, but there is a hint of amusement to the motion. "You need me to deploy now?"

"I'm not telling you to get out right now," Komui responds. "I would be happy if you could deploy today though…"

This time around, a fleeting smirk crosses the other's face. Then, the young man pulls the most essential papers out of the folder, folds them and sticks them into his pocket, already headed for the door. "I'll leave within the hour."

Komui frowns lightly in response. Then again, it isn't as though he himself is completely oblivious to the fact that some – Kanda included – have little or no love for headquarters and get highly irritable whenever stuck there for long. Then again, with Kanda being Kanda, there's also…

"Kanda," he calls after him, and the young man actually pauses in his stride, already halfway out of the door. "Don't forget to buy me a few-…" – He looks up, finding that the doorway is already empty. – "…-souvenirs…"

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"How dare you?!"

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"How dare you?!"

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"How dare you turn me into an akuma?!"

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"I curse you!"

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"I curse you, Allen Walk-…!"

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"Ugh."

He wakes up in a quite familiar position, lying on his side in a vaguely familiar place. This time however, it is neither the floor nor some other uncomfortable surface. Instead, he finds himself in a moderately sized bed, curled up amongst silky sheets that certainly are not his own. They are red too, and Allen cannot help but think that it is a dreadful colour, as it reminds him all too much about blood, all too much about Cross and all too much about red wine, towards neither of which he holds any particular liking or affection.

A vaguely familiar – albeit anonymous – woman in her late twenties appears in the room's doorway, carrying a cupful of tea and stirring it slowly with a spoon. "You okay, honey?"

Though he barely suppresses a twitch at the rather unusual pet name, he shows no outward reaction, regarding her in silence for a moment before answering. "It's just a bit of a migraine." He raises himself into a seated position before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "Happens all the time," he adds, gratefully accepting the cup as she hands it over, taking a seat beside him.

He means to be reassuring – really – but judging from the mild frown visible to him even in the darkness, she is by no means reassured. It shows, not only on her face but also in her body language.

As he moves to sip his tea, she shifts closer to him, leaning slightly against his side. "My most recent benefactor gave me these," she tells him, running her fingertips over the silky sheets, a distant look on her face which gradually melts to something akin to bitterness. "But there is no telling as to how long it will last," she goes on to say. "One of these days, he will find himself some younger trollop and then it's back to the streets again…"

"Sounds like a pig," Allen casually notes, putting the now empty tea cup onto the bedside table.

She smiles bleakly, but shuffles closer again and opts to hovering worriedly around him as he lets out another hiss and brings his hands – one bare and one gloved – up to his head. Then, she moves so that she is behind him on the bed and gently pushes his hands away and puts her own there instead, fingertips massaging his scalp with practiced ease.

He still carries an aversion of touch – as she had discovered during their initial encounter – but allows it, as her touch is tender and honestly concerned; it is not devoid of underlying intentions, merely of harmful ones. He lets her go about her business, as it is beneficial for the both for them; for him because her expert fingers work their way through some of the unresolved tensions in his head and neck and for her as she yearns for company and a human touch which demands no submission. "Your hair," she finally says, playing around with a few tousled locks of it. "Would you like for me to cut it?"

She does not ask about the colour; neither does she ask about his scars, both those apparent and those hidden from sight, along with that peculiar left arm of his. Briefly, Allen entertains the thought as to whether she sees the traces left by hardship as he does in her, but he swiftly pushes the thought away, knowing better than to ponder such things. "I quite like it like it actually," he says, giving her a look out of the corner of his eye. "Even if it can be a bit high maintenance at times…"

She withdraws her skilful fingertips from his scalp and moves to sit beside him again, watching him with something akin to amusement. "I could braid it for you," she offers, and he scoffs softly in response. "Or," she continues, slipping off the bed and making her way towards a chest of drawers. "I'll just let you borrow a comb and something to tie your hair with?"

"Borrow?" Allen repeats, actually lifting his head slightly as she returns with the item in question. "Will you be expecting it back?"

She smiles bleakly in the darkness. "Somehow," she says, placing the comb into his hand. "I doubt that I'll be seeing either of you after tonight."

"Somehow," Allen responds a bit thoughtfully, twirling the item between his fingers. "I think you're correct."

She tilts her head slightly. Then, she walks up to the window, pushing the curtains aside to look out into the night. "It's a cold and ruthless world out there," she says. "You're still young. Don't you have any family to go back to?"

He snorts softly in response. "I'll go meet them when I'm ready," he finally says, not really bothering with the specifics, just as she carefully avoids making any significant references to her own. He rises to his feet, straightening his clothes out as they have become somewhat crumpled during his brief attempt at sleep. "And I still have a far way to go."

She turns, leaning her back against the windowsill, and watches him with eyes that are strangely bright. "Then what?" she whispers, her voice harshening somewhat. "Where are you heading? For what? What do you seek?"

He seeks a lot of things, but in the end, they are merely his excuses. "Nothing much," he eventually responds, making his way to where his worn-out coat is still on the hanger where he had left it. He puts it back on, sliding the comb into one of his pockets before stooping down to put his boots back on. "I don't really have much of a place to return to anymore, so… why not just wander around for a bit?"

"For how long?"

His hand is already on the doorknob, but he humours her, turning his head to look at her where she stands a bit of a distance away, arms wrapped around herself, watching him. He smiles bleakly, twisting the doorknob. "Until I grow sick of it."

He leaves quickly, turning back only once when he has made his way down to the street to give her a slight wave where she now stands in the window, watching him go. Once he has finally made it beyond the reach of her gaze, he reaches into one of his hidden pockets and liberates a much ruffled and rather upset Timcanpy, who bares his teeth at him. "Yeah, yeah, sorry about that," he says, smiling apologetically whilst holding his hand out. "It's better now, so…" He leaves the sentence hanging in the air, pulling off his glove to reveal his left hand, which had up until then been wrapped tightly in ofuda to keep his curse from acting up.

It had taken a lot of effort – along with a significant amount of cunning – on his part to make Cross teach him a few spells for the sake of convenience, especially so since his Innocence – and the curse alongside it – did possess the nasty habit of acting up without consulting him about it. Then again, there had also been a point in time when his sleep – be it in the day or in the night – had been so constantly disturbed by his curse acting up that it had reached a point when he had threatened either self-mutilation or homicide lest some kind of remedy was imminently provided.

Then again, back then, his range had been significantly smaller than in the present, so if he had not possessed the means to at least temporarily hamper the effects once his range had increased, then he would with all due likelihood have been forced to resort to desperate measures. After all, even though he more often than not chooses to respond to the calls of trapped souls as they reach him, he too is a human and humans need to rest occasionally, because otherwise they get sleep-deprived, deteriorate and die even sooner than they would otherwise.

Admittedly, he did not use such means all that often, both because they lost their efficiency if he used them long enough for his Innocence to become habituated to them and because he did no one any favours and temporarily put himself at risk by dulling his senses to the presence and possible approach of akuma, even though it was highly unlikely that he would become the target of any specific attack at the present time. After all, whilst he could track them even at a fairly sizeable distance, they did not possess any known ability to pinpoint his location lest he intentionally called their attention to himself. In turn, this did provide him with an advantage, though it was not an advantage he would have all-year-round, day after day, all the time if it came at the cost of his mental stability.

In the end, he wasn't even powerful enough to restrain his Innocence entirely; at best, he now possessed the ability to calm it and to keep it from acting up lest he ended up in any greater amount of danger. In other words, if he was attacked, the Innocence could easily break the seal, as had already been proven to him through the means of trial and error.

Regardless, he finds magic – sealing techniques included – highly convenient, though he also knows his own skill in it is severely limited in general. Then again, as he is now – at least technically speaking – on his own, there is a limit to the things that can be accomplished in the aforementioned field. As for experience on the other hand, he might lack a great deal of it, but with trial and error comes results, and with that comes experience.

Admittedly, he did have a general policy not to make his failures known regardless of whether they were of the greater of the lesser kind; ultimately, it only made sense to keep one's cards as close to one's chest as possible, because even though he had become quite proficient at fighting, it still made sense to keep at least one – if not several – cards up one's sleeve at all times. Speaking of which…

"Akuma," he mumbles softly to Timcampy and turns his head slightly. "Level Twos… Southeast, 200 metres… Northwest, 150…"

Taking a deep breath, he collects himself. Then, activating his Innocence, he takes off.

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"The White Demon?"

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The female exorcist known to the world as Lenalee Lee sits by a table of a cramped apartment in London, processing what she has just been told. "The White Demon?" she repeats, sounding both sceptical and intrigued as she lifts her gaze from the steaming cup of tea and levels it on the face of the brown-haired woman whose apartment they currently occupy.

The woman – whose name had briefly been mentioned in the file somewhere, but at the moment, it escapes her – scoffs mildly, putting her own cup back down onto the table with just a tiny bit more force than necessary. "The Angel of Death might be slightly more appropriate," the woman finally says, pushing her glasses further up her nose. She looks tired – weary – and Lenalee wonders just what she could possibly have been through as of late. "It wears a mask and a large cloak which at the first glance looks like wings to some," the woman goes on. "Some even say that it has a set of long claws, or that there are long blades sprouting from its fingertips, and that those slashed by them are reduced to dust…"

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. There is a word on her tongue, and it slips from her tongue and out her mouth before she can stop it. "Akuma…"

"A demon?" The woman is looking out the nearby window, a somewhat wry yet dejected look gracing her features. "Had you claimed the same thing before all of this, I wouldn't have believed you. Now however… after what I saw… I really don't know what to believe."

"Officer Moa Hesse, was it?" Lenalee is still uncertain about the name, so she decides to ask.

"It's Moor actually," Miss Hesse corrects her, but does so without spite, levelling her with a brief look before once again looking out the window, something distant in her eyes. "But you can just call me Moor or Hesse if you want," she goes on to claim, some hint of bitterness entering her voice. "I'm not a police officer anymore."

Lenalee knows that she shouldn't ask, but does so anyway. "What happened?"

"A lot happened, in a lot of ways," Moor Hesse responds, staring down at her teacup as though she has temporarily forgotten what to do with it. "Besides, since the investigation is still pending, I'm…" – She pauses briefly, biting her lower lip. – "My partner Charles and I were investigating a number of disappearances having taken place in this church," she then reveals whilst continuing to observe the aforementioned building, as it is located right across the street. "It has stood abandoned for some time now, and travellers who lack the funds necessary to stay over at an inn occasionally stay there; the local strays know better than to venture anywhere near it…"

Lenalee waits for her to elaborate, torn between whether to keep silent or to offer up some sort of vocal cue or encouragement. Meanwhile, the former officer looks indecisive, frowning down at her rapidly cooling tea. "It's… difficult to describe it…" – She pauses briefly, still frowning. – "But I do know that I saw a boy in there."

"A boy?"

"Everything's a bit blurry, but I clearly remember as much," Moor explains, lifting her gaze slightly. "There was a boy there, in a worn-out coat, really pale… I did try to get a better look at him, but I only really caught a glimpse of his face…"

Lenalee says nothing, waiting simply for the other to continue speaking.

"There was something running along the side of his face," Moor explains. "And I clearly remember seeing this…" – Moor draws the outline of a symbol on the table in-between them. – "On his forehead."

The symbol along with its supposed location causes her to barely refrain from shuddering. Her throat suddenly a lot drier than usual, Lenalee swallows instead and asks the question which answer she both dreads and eagerly awaits. "An inverted pentagram? Are you certain?"

A noncommittal shrug answers her. "Fairly," Moor eventually yields, braiding her fingers and leaning her chin onto them, elbows propped up against the table as she in turn looks at Lenalee with clear – sharp, but admittedly weary – eyes. "Does this hold any particular significance?"

Privately, Lenalee wonders just what kind of info she ought to make the other privy to and what would be better off unknown. "You could say that…" she finally yields after a brief moment of hesitation. "You could say that it is the mark of an akuma."

"The mark…" The earlier frown returns to Moor's face. Then, the strange intensity of her gaze diminishes, and she is once again looking out the window. Lenalee finds it mildly unnerving to say the very least. "Um, Miss Moor?" she tries instead, hoping her persistence will not add to the other's underlying ire. "Do you remember anything else?"

Moor Hesse's eyes snap back to her immediately, looking surprised for a brief moment before softening noticeably. "I'm sorry," she says, and she sounds like she actually means it. "I got a bit caught up in my thoughts."

"It's okay," Lenalee assures her, because it is. "It's perfectly alright." She pauses, sorting things out momentarily before formulating yet another question. "The boy, can you tell me more about him?"

Moor untangles her interlinked fingers and takes a sip out of her now lukewarm tea, looking thoughtful. "He was holding a cat."

Lenalee herself isn't entirely certain as to what to make of that. "A… cat?"

"Yes," Moor affirms, continuing to sip at her tea. "He was holding a cat…"

The lack of understanding must have shown on her face, because Moor decides to elaborate without prompting this time around. "There was a mist," she says. "A thick and suffocating one that made it really hard to breathe. I think I must've blacked out for a bit, because the next thing I remember is coming to on the floor… with that thing standing over me."

"That thing? The White Demon?"

Moor puts her cup back onto the table. "It just stood there, looking down at me," she says. "I could not see its eyes very clearly, but it was clearly looking at me. And then it tilted its head and-…"

"And?"

She sighs, some degree of weariness once again evident in her posture. "The next thing I know, I wake up at the police station to the sound of my superior yelling at me, demanding that I'd tell him what had happened…" – The wry and somewhat bitter smile returns to her face. – "A pretty difficult thing to do if you don't know very well for yourself, don't you think? Telling my superior I'd seen a demon is not the way to do it. There are better ways to get fired."

"But what about-…?" It is highly insensitive to ask, but since it is an investigation, she still needs to know.

Moor gets up, leaving the table and returning with the tea kettle, pouring herself another cup and offering Lenalee a refill, the latter of which is politely declined. "The only thing they found of Charles was his clothes… lying in a pile of ashes, and it wasn't the only one," Moor finally explains as she reclaims her seat at the table. "We've found ashes here earlier, along with clothes. A bit strange, yes, but hardly unexplainable. But…" – She pauses, taking a deep breath before continuing. – "Seeing Charles… along with finding what was left of Marc… I can hardly ignore things anymore."

"Marc?" Lenalee inquires, because the name is new to her.

"My brother-in-law," Moor explains, stirring the tea inside her cup. "He was wheelchair-bound, so it isn't as though he could have just walked off without it and his clothes and all. And then, there were the ashes…"

"I'm sorry." She is, truly. Moor on the other hand remains dismissive.

"It's hardly your fault," Moor says, giving a helpless shrug. "Besides, whatever it was, it's not around anymore…" she goes on to claim, clearly referring to the suspected akuma. "I went back, and I searched every nook and cranny I could reach, and there was nothing. But…"

"But?" Lenalee repeats, unable to help herself.

Moor levels her with another look. Then, she pushes the teacup aside and rises to her feet anew, heading for the door. "It's probably easier to show you," she says. "One can only hope no one has turned up to vandalise it yet."

Following along, Lenalee knows that she could have just about anything waiting for her. However, having steeled herself for the possibility of coming face to face with something positively gruesome, the scene before her seems strangely off and a tad unreal as it lies before them in a kind of orderly disarray, and within it are several piles of ashes, and in each and every one of them, there are…

"Crosses?" she blurts out before she can stop herself, overlooking the eerie scene.

"One each," Moor says, looking like she is about to shudder. "For all the disappearances that we know of, and then some…" – She pauses briefly, trailing off. – "It's a bit strange, don't you think?"

Calling the scene strange is a grave understatement. Still, Lenalee finds that she has a hard time imagining just what would be a better arrangement of it all, strangely enough. "Who on earth could have-…?" she begins, but goes quiet as there is the sound of shuffling somewhere off at the farther end of the church. She instinctively turns her head, trying to locate the source of it. Hearing it again, it takes her merely moments to place it, and once she does, her eyebrow climbs slightly. She looks towards Moor, who returns the look. "A cat?" she says, her voice barely rising above a whisper.

Moor steps forward, moving in direction of one of the corners, and then motions for her to come. She does, and Moor gestures towards it. "Kittens." Lenalee finds herself crouching down to look at them – along with their mother – more closely despite also knowing it is hardly the time nor the place to wonder at such things.

"It's the same," she hears Moor mumble behind her. "It's the cat that I saw – the one with the boy."

The boy?

Lenalee immediately directs her attention back towards the cat, finally taking note of something, her eyes widening slightly at the realisation. "It's been treated…" she says, and although that in itself is hardly anything to make much of a fuss over, she can still tell that there is something distinct about this; something remarkable. Then, she startles slightly as Moor's hand lands on her shoulder, grasping it firmly. She looks back at her, and then – taking note of the sudden pallor of Moor's face – in the direction which she is pointing, following it to one of the broken windows, landing on the cloaked figure sitting there. For a moment, she freezes. Then, as a sudden sense of realisation finally dawns upon her, her heartbeat rapidly picks up even though she strives to remain calm, despite it all.

Moor is already reaching for her gun; Lenalee hadn't even known she had had it on her prior to this, but seeing it causes her to snap out of it all rather quickly, and she takes a step back, trying to shove Moor behind her. "Get back," she says, her senses rapidly shifting to battle mode. "Guns won't work. Let me handle this."

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"Is this really an akuma?"

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