The last chapter was met with positive reception, which is quite pleasing. I'm glad all of you seem to enjoy this…because I am, too!
Dark. All was dark. She kept on running…she couldn't stop. She didn't know why, but she had to keep on running. The Dark Boots were ineffective; no matter how she tried, she couldn't activate them. Still…all she could do was keep on running, with no idea of what she was running to or from.
It turned out that she was running from something. As she ran into a clearing in a forest, a fat man with pale lavender skin, thick glasses, an enormous grin, a flowered top hat, and a pumpkin-headed umbrella suddenly fell from the sky, to land on his feet in front of her.
"You are mine, Heart~!" he laughed, reaching out to her.
She backed up in fear, but then the Dark Boots suddenly activated. She did not know why, but she moved on instinct, leaping high above the man before spiraling down like a meteor to double kick him from above.
He only laughed again before forming a mass of dark energy in his hand. As she came down, he released it in a devastating blast, shattering her attack completely.
She landed roughly on her back, curled up with pain. When she looked up, the man was leaning down to look at her. The huge grin was still there, but his eyes reeked malice behind his glasses.
"You are mine…and that will never change~!" His cheerful tone belied the plans he had for her as he reached down. She closed her eyes, bracing herself.
"Crown Edge!" The fat man leapt away as white crown-shaped rings flew at him. They did not stop as the man landed, and he cried out in surprise as they struck him.
She saw it …Crown Clown, facing the man. "Why~?" the fat man asked.
"Because you are Auguste, and my job is to stop your idiocy!" Crown Clown growled, before rushing towards the fat man with his claw ready to attack.
The last thing she heard was the fat man laughing gleefully…
Lenalee erupted out of her bed, panting. Was that a dream? How did it end? Who was that man? All these questions swirled around in her mind as she put her hand on her head. It was coming back to her now. Crown Clown and his partner had defeated her and Lucia, and the last thing she remembered was being carried in Crown Clown's arms.
As she looked around, she realized that she wasn't in her room at the Black Order. The room that she was in had walls made of plaster rather than stone. It only had the barest furnishings: a desk, a chair, a mirror, a dresser, and a bed. The bed was larger than the one she had in the Black Order, but the sheets were white. There was absolutely no representation of the room's owner, if there was any.
As she got out of the bed, Lenalee blushed when she realized that she was wearing nothing but her undergarments. She panicked a little when she noticed that her Dark Boots were missing, but sighed in relief when she found them at the foot of the bed, and another look at the chair led to the discovery of a black lady's robe and her hairpins. It took her a minute to put on the robe, which surprisingly fit her well, before she found a fine-toothed comb on the desk. Another few minutes passed before her hair was back in its signature pigtails.
The door wouldn't budge when she tried it. It was locked. Lenalee sighed in resignation as she walked back to the bed and sat on it with her head cupped in her hands. If the thieves had captured her, they were quite courteous; she had expected a rotting jail cell at best. Even so, she couldn't risk breaking out with her Dark Boots; she imagined that neither of them would be too pleased after that.
A quick glance at window told her that it was early morning. She hadn't slept for that long, and she expected her captors to show up any minute. Until then, Lenalee contented herself with thinking about recent events. One of her main thoughts was Crown Clown.
Even if he was a thief, Crown Clown was rather polite and eloquent, as if he were a noble's son rather than a criminal. However, his power was not exaggerated. Lenalee recalled the relative ease with which he had beaten her, and the way his partner was grinning as he held the frozen Lucia meant that Crown Clown's partner was just as powerful. Not only that, but the partner could fly. What did Crown Clown call him? Requiem?
Her thoughts were interrupted when the door was unlocked and opened. Lenalee didn't know what she was expecting, but it was certainly not a handsome white-haired boy with silver eyes and a wicked scar that arced up to his left eye.
He smiled at her. "Good morning."
Lenalee could only nod dumbly. She would recognize his voice even if his scar weren't a telltale giveaway. This was Crown Clown, unmasked. He wore a gray vest over a white dress shirt, a red bow tie, tall black boots, and black pants. It was a gentleman's outfit, if not rather plain, but somehow it suited him. As she had thought, he was a boy her age.
He held out a folded bundle of clothes, and Lenalee saw that they were hers. "They're yours. I washed them as best I could; they were a little dirty from last night."
When she didn't accept them, Crown Clown frowned in concern. "Is something the matter?"
"What do you want? Why did you bring me here? Where's Lucia?" Lenalee asked, not being able to help feeling suspicious.
"Blake is watching her in another room. We brought you two here to recover," Crown Clown said.
"Blake?"
"Blake Phantasia. He's the other one you saw last night, and the wielder of the Innocence Fantasy's Requiem." He set Lenalee's clothes down next to her and bowed. "My name is Allen Walker. As you've probably guessed right now, I wield Crown Clown."
Lenalee leapt to her feet and aimed a roundhouse kick at his head from the left, stopping at the last second. As he felt the force making his hair blow to the right, Allen's eyes widened and he quickly put his hands up. "My name is Lenalee Lee. If you don't want to die, tell me why you are here," she growled.
"Please don't kill me, I'm only here to bring your clothes…" he whimpered.
Lenalee raised an eyebrow and slowly lowered her leg. This was the criminal who took her down? Allen sighed in relief. "That would have either sent me flying into a wall or taken my head off. Good thing you weren't wearing your Dark Boots. That definitely would have taken off my head."
He lowered his hands. "Now then, change your clothes. I had a doctor—female, mind you—treat yours and Lucia's wounds, so don't worry. I'll be outside." Allen turned to leave, but as he was opening the door, he turned around. "By the way, don't try to run. Blake and I can easily catch up to you, and you don't want to open your wounds. Also…" He looked her up and down. "Even through that robe, you have a very nice bosom."
"GET OUT!" Lenalee shrieked, throwing her comb at him and blushing with mortification.
Allen laughed and left her to change. Lenalee took a few minutes to do so, calling for Allen when she was done. When he came in, he gave her another smile. "If the lady will allow me to be so bold," he said, offering his arm and causing her to blush. Even so, she took his arm and allowed him to escort her through the hallway.
As they walked down the hallway of Allen and Blake's home, Lenalee actually found it difficult to ignore Allen's natural charisma. Despite the display of fear a few minutes before, he was a very composed boy, to the point in which Lenalee began to think that his earlier nervousness at being kicked by her was a trick. The way he treated her, however, was very different from what she expected.
He escorted her with a sort of familiarity, as if he had done it before. Whenever they came to a closed door, he opened it for her. Neither of them said a word, but the silence between them was not awkward. It was surprisingly comforting, even though she was an Exorcist trying to arrest him, the criminal.
But was he really as evil as he was played out to be? Lenalee remembered how he had defended her from the fat man in her dream. Even though it was a dream, she could easily compare that Allen to this one. Even now, as he escorted her through his house, Allen did not seem like a criminal at all. He seemed more like a hero that had fallen on hard times.
Lenalee's thoughts were interrupted when another boy her age stepped out from behind the door. Like Allen, he was dressed in rather formal clothing, only he wore a black vest and no bow tie. It was more similar to a servant's clothing, and Lenalee might have considered him to be such if not for his spiked hair that hung down like antennae, or his sharp, differently colored eyes. His left eye was ice blue, and his right was a deep, crimson red. Despite his servant-like attire, Lenalee quickly realized how dangerous this boy was. Unlike Allen, this boy wore his roguish persona openly.
Even so, he still knew the common acts of respect. When he saw Allen and Lenalee, he bowed slightly. Allen bowed and Lenalee curtsied with the same slightness, making the boy smile.
"Lenalee, this is Blake Phantasia, wielder of Fantasy's Requiem. Don't be fooled by his evil looks, he's actually a nice person. Blake, this is Lenalee Lee, the wielder of the Dark Boots. Try not to make her mad." Allen introduced them to each other, and Blake gave Lenalee a rather intimidating smile. Lenalee smiled back.
"I'm glad that you showed up. Your friend should wake up in a few minutes. To keep her from trying to attack me, I want you to talk to her," Blake said.
"And why shouldn't we attack you? I should be kicking your butts…literally," Lenalee asked.
"Because then you won't discover the truth about Innocence," Allen said.
That got Lenalee's attention. The truth about Innocence? Impossible. "You're lying."
"If we were, then we would have left you in the streets," Blake said.
"Why didn't you tell Lavi or Kanda?" Lenalee retorted.
"Those two would have attacked us the instant they woke up. You, as a lady, are less likely to attack on sight and instead try to assess the situation. We were counting on that," Allen said.
"So you try seducing me?" Lenalee muttered, half joking.
Allen smiled. "Oh, no, that was all me," he laughed. Lenalee groaned. These two were becoming less like thieves by the second.
Allen looked at Lenalee, genuinely imploring her to come. "Please. You need to know what Innocence is, and what it's meant for."
Lenalee considered this, and then nodded in agreement. "But if I think you're lying, you're both going to the Black Order's jail."
"Trust me, when you hear the truth, you'll think it's a lie, too, until you see it for yourself," Allen muttered. Lenalee didn't like the sound of that.
Blake led them to another room, the perfect mirror image of the room Lenalee was in. Lucia slept on the bed, covered in blankets. "I defrosted her, but she was still shivering violently, so I did as the doctor suggested and covered her with as many blankets as possible. Good thing, too…I took a huge risk with freezing her."
"I told you not to risk their lives," Allen growled.
"It was the best way to knock her out! Did you expect me to half-drown her or hit her on the head with a rock?!" Blake protested.
"I think this would count as half-drowning her…" Allen muttered.
Lenalee walked over to Lucia's bed and shook her a little. "Lucia…Lucia, wake up," she called.
Soon enough, Lucia's eyes slowly fluttered open. "Lenalee…where are we?" Suddenly, she sat up and nearly headbutted Lenalee. "Where's Crown Clown?! Where's Fantasy's Requiem?!"
"Hi!" Allen and Blake both caught Lucia's attention by sheepishly waving. Lucia's eyes widened when she saw Blake.
"You!" Lucia roughly shoved off the blankets and activated Shining Gloom. "Ready for Round 2?" She was confused when Allen and Blake quickly turned around, and even more so when Lenalee gasped. "What?!"
"Half-naked…" Blake murmured, with a very red face. Lucia looked down at herself, and when she saw that she was dressed in only her undergarments, she turned even redder than Blake before screaming in mortification.
"GET OUT!"
Allen and Blake both ran out of the room dodging a thrown chair.
Later…
Neither Blake nor Lucia could meet the other's eyes. Both of them were too embarrassed. The comfortable silence that Lenalee had enjoyed was now an awkward one, especially considering that it was at a breakfast table.
Lenalee thought that Lucia, as a Parasitic-Type, could never be matched in the amount of food she consumed; their cook, Jeryy, prepared enormous quantities of food just for her. However, Lenalee had never expected the same behavior from Allen and Blake; each of them ate as much as Lucia did by himself. When the girls saw the thirty-course meal on the table, they nearly fainted, but were even more shocked when Allen and Blake began to wolf down the meal. Lucia practically had to fight the two for food while poor Lenalee just sat there, content with four slices of buttered toast, two cups of tea, and a deep wish to avoid the food fight erupting around her.
Now, the four of them had just painstakingly washed the dishes, and were sitting around the table, waiting for Allen and Blake to speak. However, with the recent mortification that Lucia had suffered, the situation was…tense at best.
"Let's…cut to the chase. As you might have noticed by now, both Blake and I are Parasitic-Types," Allen said.
"As if the food didn't make it obvious," Lenalee sighed.
"Yes…what you don't know is that both of us were born with Innocence," Allen said.
Lucia looked at them, shocked. "Just like me!" Then she met Blake's eyes and looked away again, blushing. Blake sighed.
"What we're about to tell you will be hard to believe. It mostly concerns the purpose of Innocence and the "people" we've killed. The thing is, they weren't exactly people in the most literal sense of the word," Blake said.
"What do you mean?" Lenalee asked.
"They were Akuma," Allen said.
"Demons? They don't exist!" Lucia refuted.
"Not demons. Akuma. They're mechanical weapons specially designed by the Millennium Earl to kill humans," Allen explained.
"Millennium Earl? Who's that?" Lenalee asked.
"A bastard who wants to take over the world and destroy every single human living on it with his Akuma." Blake took out a sketchbook. "The Akuma alone are a problem; they have several known levels organized by number, each one more powerful than the last."
He opened to a page depicting a strange ball with gun barrels sticking out of every direction and a monstrous human face that depicted malicious, demonic rage. "The Level 1s are the basic level. Those guns shoot out bullets made out of Dark Matter, the only thing that can destroy Innocence. At this stage, however, their bullets aren't strong enough to cause any harm to Innocence, so instead, they have to kill through fatal wounding. A shot from an Akuma bullet is enough to corrode any human to dust, except Parasitic-Types like Allen and I. An Equipment-Type like you, Lenalee, is more vulnerable to these bullets, but most Exorcists like you are too powerful to be harmed by such things, so you should be fine," Blake explained.
Neither Lenalee nor Lucia could believe it. Akuma? Corrosive bullets? The Millennium Earl? This was like a children's tale, but both Allen and Blake looked dead serious.
Allen took up the explanation as Blake turned a page to reveal several drawings of strange monsters. One was like an overgrown immature frog, another was a strange hawk-like warrior, and the third looked like a demonic clown. "When a Level 1 kills enough people, it evolves into a Level 2. The ones you see here are just a few of the forms a Level 2 can take. Level 2s are less common than Level 1s, but they are far more dangerous. When an Akuma becomes a Level 2, they can literally become anything, and their abilities become amazingly varied. They can't fire Akuma bullets anymore, but they can do anything else."
Blake pointed to the hawk warrior. "You'd expect this one to be a wind-controller, right? Chances are, you'd be wrong. It could control wind, but it might instead control fire, its screeches could cause volcanic eruptions, it could summon water out of nowhere…you get where I'm going with this? A Level 2's abilities could be anything. They're just like Innocence in that way. Very annoying to deal with, but dangerous as well. Still, they pale in comparison to the last level."
He turned another page to reveal a group of bipedal, human-sized creatures with demonic faces. Their armor and slim but muscular physiques could only place their description as demon knights of some sort. "This is the final level, and by far the most powerful. This is a Level 3 Akuma, which is formed when a Level 2 kills enough people."
"Level 3s are highly intelligent, humanlike in their behavior and form. However, don't be fooled by their size. They dwarf all other Akuma in power, and can outclass even an experienced Exorcist in combat. The few times they have appeared throughout history have all ended in the deaths of hundreds of people and almost any Exorcist that went to stop them. Their abilities rely solely on Dark Matter, but they use it much more efficiently than Level 1s, and they are just as versatile as a Level 2. Neither of us have ever seen one before, but I don't doubt the rumors," Allen said.
Lucia threw her palms down on the table. "That's enough! You guys haven't seen any Akuma because they don't exist!" she yelled, furiously. "How could they?! If they did exist, they would have appeared around the grapevine, right?! And how could Innocence be used against them if this Dark Matter is so effective against it!"
"It goes both ways. Dark Matter is the only thing that can destroy Innocence, but Innocence is the only thing that can destroy Dark Matter and its users, the Akuma. Do you know what Innocence's much more unknown name is?" Allen asked.
"The Anti-Akuma weapon," Blake said.
Lucia now seemed much more cowed. "Anti-Akuma…weapon?"
"The title of Exorcist is given to anyone with Innocence for a good reason. They're the only ones who can stop the Millennium Earl and his army of Akuma, especially since the Earl controls the Akuma completely. Even the Level 3s are subservient to him. It shows just how powerful he is, and how narrowly Blake and I both escaped death," Allen said.
Lenalee and Lucia quickly connected the dots. "Allen…you two met the Earl, didn't you?" Lenalee asked.
Allen and Blake looked at each other before turning back to the girls. "Yes," Allen said.
"Or rather, he met with us," Blake added, turning another page.
"What do you mean?" Lucia asked.
"The Earl doesn't create the Akuma spontaneously. Whenever someone dies, he visits them and offers a deal: he will bring back the soul of the dead if a mourner who desperately wants to see that person calls out their name. However, he reanimates the dead person in an Akuma's skeleton, and by the time the soul and the mourner realize what has happened, it is too late. The Earl then orders the new Akuma to kill the one who brought them back and wear their skin, therefore disguising itself in the guise of a human. It's an endless cycle of sorrow, and that's where the Exorcists have to step in," Allen explained.
"The Exorcists have to use their Innocence to kill the Akuma and the human soul along with it. That way, we save the soul and allow them to rest in peace. Being an Akuma may being the dead back, but it curses them to a life of complete servitude under the Earl. It is not a blessing, but a punishment, and that's why the Exorcists have to kill them," Blake said.
"Who taught you all this?" Lucia asked.
"Our master. He was…is…an Exorcist with complete awareness of what that title means. I think you know who he is," Allen said.
"The Black Order General, Cross Marian," Blake said.
And this was the most shocking fact of all.
That's it! As I said, this is an AU, but there will be elements from the real story incorporated into this one.
Please leave a comment below. And Merry Christmas 2013, everyone!