"Michael!" Emily hissed at the bookman exorcist as he caught up with the rest of the group, "We're not really considering staying here, are we?"
"Manna'll probably come after us as it is; this place is safest." Michael reasoned, "Well, except for the attack that's probably going to come any day, heck, any minute now. But besides that-"
"What?" Emily demanded in a loud whisper.
"According to the records, sometime soon the Earl will launch an attack to try to get the Akuma egg back. A number of people will be killed, and the Black Order will end up finding a new base." Michael explained calmly.
"And don't you think while staying here we might be in a ton of danger?"
"No more so than anywhere else."
"Besides, how could Manna come after us?"
The boy silently cursed his reckless tongue. He knew no one would approve of his plan to kill Manna; and he had never told anyone of the prophesy. But to explain about it here… he'd be inviting too much trouble; the Black Order wouldn't be able to win without Manna's great grandfather, he was sure of that. But if they knew about the Centennial Witch, they would probably kill Allen, thus dooming humanity anyway. There really wasn't an easy answer here, was there?
"We knew she could summon the Ark, and it's become very clear there was a real reason as to why that was forbidden by the Walker family, besides just bad memories. We don't know what she can do now. For now, I'm assuming she's something like a new Millennium Earl. She'll probably know the Innocence brought us here, and she'll probably try to find us so we don't get in her way. That's my best guess at least. And if not, we can at least learn to use the Innocence to try to stop her.. as soon as we figure out how to get back to our own time, of course."
Emily stared him down, and for a second, Michael feared he hadn't convinced her.
"I still don't like this." She hissed at him, "I don't like being in this time period either. You know what history says about this time, sure the world was saved from destruction, but the blatant disregard for human life! This is why I'm an atheist."
"I don't know if I'd say that so loud around here; from the future or not, I don't think they'd care if they wanted to try someone for heresy." Michael cautioned nervously, looking forward to make sure no one else had heard her.
"They can try." Emily replied darkly. She too looked forward, to make sure she was still following everyone, "Shou and Yuu both have the same attitude, it seems." She noted with slight amusement in her voice, easily changing the subject.
"That's another thing; it seems it's probably a very bad idea to call him Yuu." Michael said, pointing to the elder Japanese man.
Any other comments were quieted as they all entered Komui's office. The boy named Alex, still passed out was laid on a couch, and everyone else found places they could sit down.
"So, I believe we would like some explanations from you. I'm sure you can guess, we'd like to know a lot about what happens in the future." Rouvelier said, bringing his fingertips together.
Emily and Shou immediately looked at Michael.
"Why me?" Michael demanded.
"You're the one who read all of it." Emily pointed out.
Instead of arguing more, the boy decided to just give up, "Fine." He muttered under his breath, and then looked up, "Well, long story short, the Heart was used to defeat the Millennium Earl and turn all the Noah back into normal humans. However, this used up all of the Heart's power, and so all the innocence was destroyed. However, considering there weren't any more Akuma, that wasn't too much of a problem."
"Where is the Heart? Who has it?" Rouvelier demanded, "I want more details!"
"I'm sure you do." Michael shrugged, "But, in what I've read, no one bothered to record who the Heart belonged to, and I don't know how much more I really should tell anyone; after all if I give you guys knowledge from the future, how will that affect our time? We could really mess up a lot of things if we're not careful."
Michael was rather proud of that response, but Rouvelier looked less than happy. "How about this," Michael replied, trying to not cause too many problems, "As I'm technically a Bookman, I'll confer wit the Bookman of this time to determine the correct course of action; that way we'll have a third-party a totally neutral decision, if I get the okay, I'll tell you everything, but if I'm told no, you have to respect that."
Rouvelier was silent for a long time, until finally he growled his reply. "Fine, but we will be speaking to Bookman right after this."
"If all of the Akuma are gone, what problems could there be, that would make the Innocence pull you from your time?" Komui asked.
"Well…." Michael trailed off, trying to put his thoughts in order.
This time it was Emily who got annoyed in the pause, and filled in for him. "Just because there aren't any Noah or Akuma doesn't mean there are any problems. There are some people who show the absolute worst of human nature, and our school got caught in one of those displays.
"There are big crime gangs; and one of them, for whatever reason decided to do a massacre of our school. We were all hiding out in one of the classrooms, but it didn't sound like any help was coming anytime soon. So, we talked one of our friends, into summoning an entrance to the Ark."
"The Ark?" Allen echoed, sounding surprised.
"Yes. Even after the war ended, the Walker Family still had the ability to summon the doorways to the Ark. But, for whatever reason, doing so was determined forbidden by the family; we always figured it was just to prevent bad memories of this time period, and it was never really so important, so none of us had ever brought it up before. But now… It was a way to get out of a situation that we were probably going to all die from." Emily continued. "At first, Manna, our friend, didn't want to; the restriction, you know? But we ended up convincing her in the end… she's a really kind person, always willing to help if her friends are in trouble. Well, we convinced her, and then we found out there had been a real reason the Walkers had forbidden summoning the Ark."
Allen suddenly felt very uncomfortable; as if for some reason Link and Rouvelier were staring a hole into the back of his neck. He didn't know how he played the song for the Ark! If he could just ask Master Cross or something! All he had heard was from that one time from Link; that he was being watched as a person 'relating to the Fourteenth' whatever that meant.
The reason for forbidding summoning the Ark; whatever had befallen Manna Walker would not be spoken of for now, however, as the white-haired boy's left eye suddenly activated. He lept to his feet right away.
"Walker!" Link demanded, racing after the boy.
"Akuma!" Allen shouted back over his shoulder, in explanation "Back where Reever and the others were! There are so many of them!"
Kanda was already gone, and Komui and Rouvelier stood to follow. "You've only just received your Innocence; stay here where it'll be safe." Komui told them; noticing that Emily had become very tense at Allen's explanation.
Rouvelier, however hung behind, eyes fixed on Michael. "It has something to do with the Fourteenth, doesn't it?" He asked in a dreadfully quiet voice.
Michael returned the stare evenly. "Yes; and I'll tell you this too; The Black Order doesn't have a hope of winning without Allen Walker." The teen felt a wild surge of pride seeing the elder man flinch and leave; now that they were alone, however, gave Emily a free hand to continue to harass him.
"Except for the attack in a couple days, huh? How about today!?" She demanded of him in a strained voice.
"Hey, I didn't ask for the exact date, I was guestimating." Michael defended.
"Guestamating?" Shou asked, raising his eyebrow ever so slightly.
"It's somewhere between a guess and an estimation." Michael explained.
"So you mean you were making an educated guess." Shou corrected.
"I don't think grammar is something to be debating on right now." Emily interrupted. "Michael, you're sure the Order will survive this?"
"Yeah." Michael affirmed, "There'll be some deaths, the Akuma egg will be destroyed; the Black Order will discover the first Level Four Akuma, but everything will turn out okay for the most part."
"If we know someone's going to die… Aren't we supposed to try to help them?" Shou asked, "Or could that whole changing the future thing actually happen if we interfere too much?"
Michael shrugged, "Depends on what movies you trust. I have no idea. But, I sort of want to make sure that Manna; or the Centennial Witch, whatever she wants to call herself won't be able to destroy our own time before trying to alter the future."
"Do you think there's a way to change her back? Get her to start being Manna again?" Emily asked in a quiet voice.
"I don't know." Michael replied, laying back. There was nothing to do but wait for the Black Order to meet this current ordeal…
