The Mask and The Care

by Animellow

Everybody has a mask. And everybody hides something behind that mask. Everyone cares. And everybody hides something because they care. Or maybe they show it. But what is it that each person conceals? Read on to find out. A four-shot with short chapters each told from a different exorcist's point of view.

4. The One Who Hates

She hated it.

She hated every second of it - being in the Order. Not because what they did wasn't good - it was. It benefitted the entire world. Rather, she hated it because of how the higher-ups chose to do it.

Experiments, torture, lies and excuses and whatever they could.

She hated it even more when they had threatened Allen to death, claiming that it was his fault and that he should die, that he was working with the Earl simply because a Noah lived inside of him, when it was not his fault. He hadn't asked to have a Noah to be implanted in him, he didn't say that he wanted to join the Earl, and he most certainly did not act like it. He wouldn't lie like that to everyone she knew he loved and cared about, because that wasn't Allen. But Lenalee loved the Order just as much as she hated it, because all her friends - no, family - were there. They were her home, and that would never change.

So in a way, she was a liar too - pretending to hate the Order when she loved it, pretending to love it when she hated it.

Or maybe both were true. Or maybe both were false. Whatever it was, those were her feelings. All the time she was either hiding it or not hiding it, showing it and yet concealing it at the same time. Did that make any sense?

She had no idea.