Massive thank you to the following people for reviewing on the previous chapter:
xPandoraHeartx; crazycomedian; ninemine; pjunchai; Animeloverx175; midnighticelover; Cole; KingRabbit; BehindTheSky; moshimellow; Lord Kharl; silverXshadow; .Lollipops; hinata0710; sayuki09; kandaz; BlueStar1937; Kumika95.

And now… on with the chapter! Xxx

Broken Faith
Chapter 3 – Fourteenth Experiment

He woke slowly from his troubled sleep, memories flashing through his mind, reminding him of what had happened before he lost consciousness. The brief flashes were of the men who had chased and eventually cornered him in an alley. They had kicked him around some before finally shoving a rag that smelt funny to his face. The last thing he remembered was breathing in the strange stench and then everything became black. Now that he though back on the memory he realised that the cloth must have been soaked in chloroform to knock him out. This reminded him a little too much of the rumours of how so many of the other street kids had gone missing over the last month or so. Nothing was ever found of them and they never reappeared. Most of the other kids had moved on to different towns and cities in fear of being the next to disappear. However, he was - had been - too stubborn and refused to be driven out by a few untrustworthy stories. Now though he regretted his inflexibility on the matter despite his only friend trying to persuade him otherwise.

Now that he felt much more awake he dragged his eyes open to take in his surroundings. His eyes swivelled to take in all the details of the area he occupied. On inspection he found himself in a cell like room with no windows and just a single heavy steel door with no way of opening it from his side. He could clearly picture the bolts and locks that were sure to be in place on the other side. On the ceiling was a single bald bulb that was dim and constantly flickered, confusing his eyesight. Also in the corned to the left of the door was a camera mounted out of his reach, positioned in a way to record everything that happened in the prison room. The cell was square and around four foot in either direction, just large enough so that his young form could lie down and have his feet touch one side and the tips of his fingers the other. The walls, ceiling and ground were all a creation of solid cold concrete that was slowly sucking the warms out of him.

He had only ever made one friend in his whole life, mainly due to his oddity of a desire for information. He had an incredible memory, someone had once told him it was called a photographic memory, and had an eye for details, liking to know everything that was going on around him at all times. This had made him an outcast among the outcasts. Deak, his friend, had been the only one willing to approach him, and they had eventually befriended each other, finding comfort in the similarities of both their situations. Both of them had been dumped in orphanages by their parents at young ages, but not so young that they could not remember the event. Also both of them had run away from the orphanages within a month of their arrival, preferring to live on the streets by their own rules. Deak had given him the ultimatum of meeting him the next morning to leave the city together or he would leave without him. He would guess he had already missed the deadline and wondered if Deak had made it out the city safely on his own.

Looking down at himself he realised he was no longer dressed in his ragged yet warm layers of dirty clothing, but instead was in a vest top and three quarter trousers, both of which were white. As he pushed some of his red hair out of his eyes he also noticed it had been trimmed and was cleaned as it no longer clinging to his fingers from the grease. His feet were bare and cold from the freezing floor and he drew himself into a seated position, leaning against one of the walls and pulling his knees up to his chest in an attempt to conserve his warmth.

However, he was quickly startled out of his thoughts when the door suddenly screeched as the bolts that he had anticipated were dragged into the unlocked position and then the door slammed open. By this point he was already standing, his back pressed into the concrete wall and his arms raised ready to defend himself. But there was no way he could defend himself against the monstrosity of a man that stepped through the doorway and just reached straight past the spindly struggling arms and grabbed him by his hair, proceeding to drag him from his prison and down a white corridor on the other side. One of many, he later found. He soon found himself amongst a group of other kids also being 'guided' through the maze by their hair. The closest was a girl a little younger than him in looks, and with long dark hair that gleamed green in the right light.

Half way through their journey two other kids passed them, walking in the opposite direction. They had two men escorting them, one in front and one behind. The smaller of the two was tiny and had the palest skin he had ever seen with dishevelled brown hair framing his face. Two grey orbs sat in place of his eyes and they were overflowing with tears that ran down his cheeks leaving red wet tracks in their wake.

The other had longish hair, long enough to rest comfortably on his shoulders. It was just as dark as the girl's that he had noted earlier but had blue highlights. The boy's face was set in a scowl and his skin tone and the angle of his eyes proved him to be of an Asian heritage. Despite his seemingly cold exterior, his hand was holding the other crying child's and every now and then he sent a worried look in the younger's direction. His anger was obviously directed at the two men with them, and the not the other boy.

At the moment they passed, deep midnight blue eyes momentarily locked with his own, but then they had gone by and were out of sight.

Lavi jumped from his dream at the sudden pain in his head. With a yelp he straightened to find he was at the centre of attention of the whole class. He, along with Lenalee and 'Yuu-Chan', had headed back at the lesson changeover to go to chemistry, and upon arrival and with the lack of a teacher he had folded over to rest his head on top of his desk and fallen asleep. Now looking around he realised their teacher had arrived and did not look too impressed to have found one of his student sleeping during his lesson. From the fact that the board eraser was lying on the desk beside where his head had been, he realised the teacher had thrown the block at him, explaining the bump he could feel forming already on the back of his head.

"Oooooooooooooow! Komuuuuiiii!" He whined, earning a general giggle from the other students.

"No sleeping in my lessons, Lavi-Kun." Lavi received in a sickly sweet and therefore a contrastingly threatening tone.

The rest of the lesson was rather dull in comparison to Komui's normal lessons, something about Lenalee threatening not to bring him any coffee later if he did not behave himself on the first day back. So two hours later it was lunch break and Lenalee, Lavi and Kanda all headed to the lunch hall to meet up with Allen and a few others to eat together. They all occupied the average sized table next to the exit of the room and then each in turn went up to the hatch to grab their food.

Kanda was the second to go up and found himself standing before the gayest looking man he had ever met. His hair was pink, contrasting greatly with his dark skin, and tied back in many intricate plaits. Also he wore thick sun glasses, despite the dim lighting in the dining hall and kitchen beyond the hatch, which completely blocked out any view of his eyes.

"Che, soba." He ordered with no doubt or hesitation in his voice. The eccentric man blinked down at him for a second before a huge grin spread across his face and Kanda found himself half pulled through the hatch in a tight hug, practically being smothered by the cook's chest.

"Sooooooooooooo cute! I'll cook some up for you right this minute! Wait right there!" And with that the man let go of the slowly suffocating Kanda and dashed out of sight to complete the order leaving transfer gasping for breath. Chuckles from behind him caused Kanda to swivel on his heal to find Lavi sitting at the table laughing at the scene that had just taken place. His hand inched towards his hidden sword and the red head's single green gem, set into the grinning face, eyed the movement. The joyous sound soon came to an abrupt halt as the meaning behind the hands progress was processed by the boy's brain.

A few minutes later the cook, Jerry, returned with Kanda's meal and the boy sat at the same table as Lavi and Lenalee but as far from the red head as was possible.

-x-

"Hmm. I wonder where Allen-Kun is. He's usually one of the first ones here; he loves his food so much!" Lenalee pondered out loud as each of them finished their meals.

"Yeah, little Moyashi's gonna have to get here quick if he wants to eat. The kitchen stops serving in five minutes and lunch finishes in ten…" Lavi said trailing off. "Maybe he brought a packed lunch today? …No, he can't have, or his bag would've been the size of this room! Hmm…"

Whilst Lavi pondered over this Kanda put down his chopsticks as he had finished his soba, and moved on to drink his herbal tea that he had brought from a vending machine on the way to school that morning.

"Well why don't you go check in the student council room, see if he's hanging around or sleeping in there?" Lenalee suggested. "I need to leave early to get brother's coffee and then help set up the training room." She paused with a thoughtful expression for a moment before continuing still looking a little distracted. "Unless…" She shook her head as though clearing it of thoughts and returned her attention to the two boys. "Take Kanda-Kun with you Lavi, you can show him some more of the school on the way there and bring him to the training area when the bell goes. You'll need to guide Allen there anyway if you find him." With Lavi's agreement, Kanda was forced to follow the two out of the mess hall, where Lenalee went one way and he continued to follow the red head in the opposite direction towards the student council room.

-x-

"No, I couldn't find him anywhere." Lavi said soberly, and Lenalee chewed on her lip, glancing around the underground gym, reserved especially for class X. No luminous white hair stood out amongst the other students and she felt her worry quadruple.

"But where could he have gone? You don't think…?"

"No!" Lavi quickly stepped in. "He's got good control over him now, nothing like that will happen again."

"Would you two stop being so damn cryptic! You're doing my head in!" Kanda barked out. He had been taken on a wild goose chase all around the school looking for this Allen character, only for Lavi to give up and lead him to the gym for their 'PE' lesson. He was thoroughly pissed off, to put it lightly. Lenalee and Lavi jumped, having completely forgotten about the transfer's presence in their worry. Lenalee turned to the swordsman and seemed to choose her words carefully before beginning her explanation.

"We already told you about Allen's… erm… condition?" She said, seemingly in want of a better word. At Kanda's irritated sigh accompanied by a curt nod she continued. "Well he has a total of four personalities. His first and main personality is just Allen. He's always innocent and really friendly. A real sweet kid…" She seemed to lose herself in thoughts and Lavi took over.

"Yeah, well, all of Allen's personalities as a whole aren't so innocent really. One of them we even nicknamed Dark! I'm telling you, I have nightmares over his laugh! And just so you're pre-warned, never, and I mean never challenge him to a game of poker!" Lavi finished dramatically. Lenalee took over the explanation again.

"Well you don't really need to worry so much about dark any more, as we said before; Allen's managed to combine with Dark, so now they're one personality. Of course there comes in the fact that Allen isn't so innocent anymore."

"Allen's personalities, in a way, were a coping technique. He has so many bad memories that only certain aspects of his personality could deal with some of them, so they split. The main personality: Allen was left free of all the bad memories as a sort of camouflage to fit in with normal people. However, when he combined with Dark, as well as gaining Dark's qualities, he also gained the memories that personality had been keeping hidden."

"It took Allen nearly two months to talk again, let alone look us in the eye." Lenalee whispered.

"Some of the things they did to him were simply… Monstrous." Lavi said, disgust lacing each of his words heavily. "But that aside," he continued after the moment of gloom had passed, "his third personality is… erm, well; we never really came up with a name for it. Not properly, anyway. It refers to itself as Allen's mask though."

"In all our time with Allen, we have never seen an emotion pass across his face when 'Mask' is in control. Something to do with N.O.A.H. training him not to show emotions and that particular trait got passed to the 'Mask' aspect of his personality." Lenalee's voice wobbled a little over the other organisations name, but her voice was steady enough by the end of the sentence.

"You can always tell him apart from the main personality too. Allen constantly wears a ribbon around his neck. His mask, on the other hand, takes it off at the first opportunity it gets. 'Mask' also has the majority of the bad memories in him, and seems to be the personality with the best idea of the situation Allen as a whole is in. He's always berating us for something or other when we push Allen just that little bit too far…" Lavi trailed off with a guilty chuckle.

"Che, that still doesn't explain what you're so worried about, and what he needs to keep such tight control over." Kanda stated, his stance demanding an answer.

"Well those three personalities aren't the problem… It's his fourth that we are so worried about." Lenalee mumbled.

"As we said before, Allen survived the 14th experiment, and it seems that what it entailed was creating an alternate personality for the subject. His fourth personality refers to itself as The Fourteenth. It is everything that NOAH dreamed about. Just one problem though, the personality betrayed them. Their own creation turned against them, and, as you can imagine, they weren't exactly thrilled." Lavi said. "The Fourteenth killed all but two of NOAH's heads before being severely injured himself and having to retreat. After he got out of there, he went dormant for about a year, in which time Allen, Dark and Mask were left to defend for themselves. About a month into living on the streets, Allen was found by one of our Generals: Marian Cross. Cross took him in, with the promise of a home and training to become strong. Of course at that point he didn't know just how strong Allen already was. He lived as NOAH's pet for the three years from after the experiment was a success until he was freed from them." He sighed heavily before continuing further. "After he was deemed a success the NOAH took him under their wing, training them themselves to make him the best of the best of their agents, even going to the extent to consider him a family member. A reluctant family member, but family all the same. This is probably why they are so adamant on getting their revenge for the betrayal."

"Wait a minute; you just said he killed all but two of the NOAH heads! If that was true it would have been all over the news. Plus I know for a fact I saw just recently three of the old heads, they were all looking pretty good considering at least one of them are supposedly dead!" Kanda jumped in, getting extremely frustrated as their explanations only brought up more questions than answers.

"That's easily explained." Kanda's frustrated glare redirected towards the speaking dark haired girl. "It's another of their successful abomination of an experiment. They've found a way to make themselves artificially reincarnate. Through their Dark Matter Magique they've found a way to stop their souls moving on to whatever happens after death, and force it into a new body. We believe the body then takes about six months give or take, to adjust to the soul, and during that time it also reforms to take on the same appearance as their original body took." Kanda spat out an ugly curse and glared at the floor.

"I take it what this Allen has to keep such strong control over is The Fourteenth then?" He muttered.

"Yeah… Around a year after Cross brought Allen here, he lost control." Lenalee whispered just as quietly, shivering at what Kanda could only presume to be the memory of what had happened.

"It… wasn't pretty. Let's leave it at that." Lavi said firmly. Kanda was not happy with being left hanging like that, but could tell from the rabbit's face he would not be getting any more out of the red head. At least, for the time being.

Silence ensued for a few minutes as Lavi and Lenalee regained their composure. Then a boy around their age, with thick glasses that reflected the light, blocking his eyes from view, walked up to them from across the gymnasium.

"Lenalee-San, Lavi-San." He said cheerfully in greeting. "You haven't seen Allen-Kun around, have you?"

"No… haven't seen him since this morning, when I dropped him off for his first lesson." Then seeing the boy staring unsubtly in curiosity at Kanda, Lavi grinned at the opportunity to cause some mischief and lighten the mood. "Ah Yuu-Chan this is Johnny, he's in class X along with us, but sits at the front, that's why you haven't been introduced properly yet! And Johnny, this is dear Yuu-Ch-" Lavi came to an abrupt stop. He didn't move a muscle, and a single bead of sweat formed on the back of his neck and then slowly trickled down his back beneath his clothing. The urge to shiver was immensely impulsive, but he refrained in fear of cutting himself. After all, a blade as sharp as the katana currently being pressed against his throat would not need a lot of force to slice through the soft flesh of his neck, and just a little more pressure to pass swiftly through the bone and his spinal cord.

"Don't. Call. Me. By. That. Name." Kanda enunciated with incredible care, but the dark tone to his words was in no way missed by those present. "Do I make myself clear?" He continued. Lavi did not respond, and the swordsman slowly became aware of the strange stillness of the room around him. Glancing up with glaring eyes, he found that the whole room had their undivided attention fixed on him and the sword in his hand. All of them also had their own hands gripping their own weapons of various types and forms. Their narrowed eyes took in his scowling form, and they all slowly approached him and Kanda seriously considered retreating for a second before his face hardened further and he removed the sword from the red head's throat and stood his ground, sword at the ready.

"H-hey guys, its fine. Yuu-Chan here was just showing me the importance of always being on guard. Isn't that right Yuu-Chan!" Lavi stuttered out throwing a desperate look to Kanda, practically begging him to agree. The swordsman was just about to let the red head know just how little he needed the teen's pathetic help when suddenly a shrill shriek filled the air and with the initial shock everyone present threw their hands over their ears. After a brief second the sound stopped and then repeated. Kanda became aware that it was some kind of alarm.

Everyone in the gym seemed to gather into pre-organised groups of threes and fours and stood below one of many numbers printed onto the far wall. In the rush, Lenalee grabbed his arm and took him over to the number one where Lavi was already standing.

"You can come in our group for now." She called out over the alarm. "Allen's part of our group too you know…" She returned to her nervous habit of chewing on her lower lip.

The shrill notes of the alarm was suddenly cut off causing the eerie feeling of deafness, before the door slammed open and Komui strode in with Reever and Hevlaska running behind him to keep up. He came to a halt in the middle of their lines and turned abruptly. To face them.

"Teams one to four are needed for immediate back up for Exorcist General Allen Walker. He's a few miles from here, and is currently facing three NOAH branch leaders. Identities: Rhode Kamelot, Tyki Mikk and a third yet to be confirmed. Team one is to go ahead, teams two, three and four are to head to the garage; the vehicles are already prepared. Dismissed." The resounding 'Hai' of all the teams rang through the air and everyone rushed to get to their specified locations or get out of the teams in action's way. Glancing in the direction of Lenalee, Komui noted the slight tilt of her head indicating Kanda who stood next to her. With the nod of his head he confirmed that the swordsman was fine joining their team for the time being. With this consent she ushered the two male members of her team out the door towards the outside.

Thanks again to those who reviewed on the last chapter and hope everyone reviews again!
xxx