A/N: Hi, guys! It's the tenth chapter! I can't believe this fanfic is turning out so be such a long one (I had originally intended for it to have stopped at the sixth chapter)! I'm so happy!
Thank you very much for everyone who has been commenting, favoriting, following, or simply just reading it! You guys are amazing!
I'd also like to make it clear, before anyone points it out, that Neah is good in my story, and that the plot will stray from canon!
Subtitles:
"Someone's thoughts."
Neah and Merina talking inside Allen and Merissa's minds.
Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know, and Misha!
Hope you like it! ^^/
Everybody's Got Their Daemons
by: GakuenAlicefan27
Chapter 10: Path of Goodness
Dinner was pretty dynamic: Allen and Lavi had been sitting together discussing the match they had had earlier, when Lenalee and Ryel arrived at the lunch hall with a blond boy in tow.
"Welcome back, Ryel!" Meri said, momentarily stopping the catch-my-tail game she had been having with Leon.
"Hey, Meri! Komui told us that things turned out okay for you and Allen! That's great!" He responded, happiness clear in his voice – Ryel was always worrying about others. He had, undoubtedly, been thinking about their ordeal while on the mission.
Meri nodded. Lenalee stopped by their table, smiling as Ry and the other two daemons started playing together.
"Allen-kun, this is Misha. I don't know if Lavi already told you about him, but he'll be joining the Order as an exorcist." She said, motioning the boy beside her.
She looked at Misha then: "Misha, this is Allen Walker. He's a good friend of ours, and an exorcist, just like us. His daemon, Merissa, is the serval one."
"It's nice to meet you!" Misha said, extending a hand and smiling. Allen got up, extending his own.
The boy looked nineteen or perhaps twenty at the max. He was taller than Allen, with a lean built and hair that fell just a little beyond his shoulders.
"Nice to meet you too, Misha! Welcome to the Order!" He said, sitting back down and making space for Lenalee to sit as well.
Misha sat next to Lavi, who eyed him not-so-discreetly, gaze falling on the jacket pocket he had talked about before. If Misha noticed, he did a good job pretending he didn't.
"Thank you!" He said, his blue eyes roaming the hall with curiosity, taking in the details. His English didn't sound British, but not American either – It most likely wasn't his first language. Allen guessed he was Russian, judging by his name.
"Have you finished showing him around, Lenalee?" He asked; the girl shook her head.
"Not yet, but we decided to make a pause for dinner." She looked at the line to get the food. It was still a little long; they could wait some more minutes.
"What do you think of things so far, Misha?" Lavi asked, taking Leon from Ry's back and putting him on his shoulder.
"The place is huge! I don't remember ever seeing a building this big! And there are such strange things here! The golems, for one, and that woman too…what's her name again, Lenalee?"
"Hevlaska." She answered.
Allen gave a small laugh; Hevlaska had kind of freaked him out when he first met her as well.
"How did the synchronization test go, by the way?" Leon asked.
"Fine…I think. Her reading seemed to be a little clouded, but she said that my synchronization rate is good enough to start. I definitely have some training to do, though. I mean, I'm pretty decent at self-defense, but not against those demons that you fight against. When I remember how they tried to kill me back in London…" He shuddered, his hand ghosting his pocket for some seconds.
Lavi looked at Allen as if saying: "See what I told you?" Lenalee nodded at Misha's words.
"You're going to have training lessons for some time; mainly physical at first, and only after that we'll move on to using Innocence, which asks for mental focus as well."
Allen agreed. "It's going to be very tiring for a while." He said.
"Oh, the line is shorter now. Come with me, Misha. I'm gonna introduce you to our cooks and then we'll get our dinner." Lenalee said, looking over to the frontal part of the hall.
Misha nodded, and off they went; Lavi giving them one final look before returning to his food. Allen stomped on his foot.
"Ouch! What was that for?!" The redhead said, rubbing his sore foot with his hand.
"Quit looking at him like that! You're gonna make him uncomfortable!" He responded, voice low so the other tables wouldn't hear him, then caressed Meri's ears as she put her head on his knees.
"Dude, look me in the eyes and tell me you're not curious too! Come on!" Lavi said, taking Leon off his shoulders and putting him on the table.
Allen wanted to respond in the negative, but his eyes betrayed him, quickly looking at Misha as he talked to Jeryy.
He felt a shiver run down his spine at the sight of the boy standing there, seemingly alone. Despite how he had reprimanded Lavi for being too curious, it did feel wrong to look at the scene – A sense of wariness overflowed him.
"Is this how you feel when you see Meri and I wandering apart?" He asked, and this time the low tone of his voice had nothing to do with not wanting to be overheard by other people, but everything to do with the sense of being different that he was all too familiar with. It didn't matter that he now knew why he was like that; he doubted that this feeling of standing out would someday fade completely.
He just hoped that Neah and Merina weren't listening in on his thoughts at the moment; he knew how guilty they felt over this.
Lavi's eyes softened: "…A little, but not so much; because we know Meri, and we know that when she's not with you she's around somewhere." He began; Leon continued:
"But this guy is different. We just feel like we can't know any solid shit about him 'cause we have no idea what his daemon is like. It makes us wonder why he's so guarded to the point of not coming out in the open. As in, does he have confidence issues? Does he feel unsafe in here? Does he have social anxiety? Is there something he doesn't want us to find out? We are not saying that he is a bad person, but there is something very off with his behavior, Allen."
Meri shook her head. "I'll give it to you that it's strange, but you two rely way too much on daemonology. If you can't see his daemon, then just try to figure out his personality by the way he acts with you and others." Lavi scoffed.
"Hey, daemonology has never failed us!" He said. Meri rolled her eyes.
"Just give him time, I bet he'll come around." Allen said, shrugging. Lavi raised a doubtful eyebrow.
"Say what you may, he's weird." He stated. Allen gave him a blank stare.
"Hey, don't think that!" Lavi said, pointing his finger at Allen.
"You don't know what I'm thinking." He replied.
"Right, but I can bet it's something along the lines of "Well, he's sitting at the right table, then: with the boy that has no limitation and the boy with the male daemon".
"Okay, you kind of do." He said, trying hard not to laugh.
"Allen, don't be mean!" Lavi exclaimed, though anything else he had to say was silenced when he saw that Lenalee and Misha were coming back with their food.
Once they were seated, the conversation reverted back to light chattering.
"The food seems delicious!" Misha said, eyes going over his dinner.
He paled upon looking at Allen's giant tray, though. "But I don't think I could ever eat this much…" He muttered. Allen sweat dropped, bringing a hand to the back of his head.
"I have a good appetite." He said.
Lenalee giggled. Lavi laughed, then changed the topic by asking:
"Anyway, where are you from, Misha?"
"Saint Petersburg. I lived there during my whole childhood and some years into my adolescence." The boy answered, taking his first bite of the food.
"What was life like in there?" Leon asked. Misha finished swallowing before answering:
"Well, I was raised in a Christian orphanage – My parents abandoned me when I was just a baby; seemed to be just a few weeks old, according to the priests."
He paused to drink some of his juice. "Even so, I had many happy years in there. The people that I lived with: the priests, the nuns, the other kids; they became my family."
He paused again, this time putting his fork aside and using one of his hands to support his chin. There was a smile on his face, like he had just remembered a thousand good memories.
He started telling them details of his routine at the orphanage; from the games he played with the other kids to the lessons he had with the adults. He talked in a way that left no room for doubting how much those people meant to him; joy and tenderness were clear in his voice as he described them.
Allen was surprised with how talkative the boy was; he had expected him to be way shier, probably because of what Lavi had told him before, but Misha didn't seem to have any problems with actively interacting with other people.
He knew Lavi had noticed this too by now, and was glad that, at least for the time being, the redhead had stopped eyeing the boy without discretion and was just listening to what he was saying.
He probably thought that, if he couldn't analyze Misha through his daemon, he could figure him out based on the things that happened to him in the past; it was not the deep, symbolical research that the boy was used to, but it had its merits nonetheless.
"And what brought you to London?" Lenalee asked after a while.
"Well, I just couldn't stay at the orphanage forever. By the time I was fifteen, I started getting the feeling that I had to figure out what to do with my life, so, when I reached sixteen, I left." He said, taking the last bite of his food.
"Spent two years and something traveling from place to place, doing odd jobs. I had learned a bit of English back at the orphanage and learned a little more on the road, so I ended up coming to England; got a job at the antique store you found me working at – Had been there for a little less than a year before you came by."
Lenalee and Lavi nodded; Misha made a thoughtful face, as if going through the story on his head, then added:
"I guess that's all…oh, wait! I still exchange letters with the orphanage at least once a month – Can I tell them that I became an exorcist, or is it a secret?" He asked.
"You can tell them about being an exorcist." Lenalee said. "But…if you die, they won't be notified, because we can't risk one of them trying to bring you back and turning you into an Akuma."
"Oh." Misha looked as if Lenalee had just slapped him in the face. "It makes sense, I guess." He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of these thoughts; his hand going to his pocket once more.
Silence fell on the table for a few minutes until Misha himself broke it by saying:
"Lenalee, now that we've had dinner we should continue the tour, right? You haven't showed me the upper floors yet."
Lenalee immediately smiled, getting up from her seat with Ry right beside her in an instant.
"Right!" She said, then turned to Allen and Lavi once again "Which reminds me, Misha's training starts tomorrow. Would you help with it?" Both boys nodded.
"Okay, we'll be going now, bye!" She said, making to leave. Misha followed her, waving his hand to them. They waved back.
After a few more minutes of the boys talking about trivial things and their daemons playing with each other, Lavi asked:
"Are we gonna continue that match? I'm heading for the training room again." Allen shook his head.
"Perhaps another time; I have to go to my medical evaluation in forty minutes."
Lavi looked surprised at that; Meri made as disgusted a face as a serval could make upon being reminded of that fact.
"Already? Your trial was just a few hours ago…" Allen shrugged.
"I consented to it; and I guess they just want to have the results as soon as possible so the people from Central can see them before leaving Headquarters." Lavi made an irritated grunt.
"These guys are a pain…"
"I'm well aware..." He got up "I'll see you at Misha's training tomorrow." He said, making his way out along with Meri.
Allen called out for Neah and Merina on the way to his bedroom: "Are you listening?" He asked, feeling both of their presences flickering in his sub consciousness.
We are. Merina replied. What is it? She asked.
Merissa, who was walking just behind Allen, answered:
"We'll be going to the medical evaluation soon. Are you absolutely sure that they won't find anything suspicious?" She thought, anxiousness lacing her voice.
It's going to be alright. Neah replied The only things that could physically give you away as members of the Noah clan would be the accelerated healing and the stigmata. Since none of these two have developed yet, there's no way for them to find out.
Merissa breathed out in relief. Allen went on:
"What about the Innocence? Won't it give anything away?" He knew for sure that if one little thing was out of the line they'd have the Central breathing down their necks in no time.
Mer was quick to ease his worries: Your Innocence is acting normally; it's getting used to the changes slowly happening in your cells as it perceives that they don't mean you harm. It's recognizing us as a part of you – The fact that your mind has accepted us as a part of you helps a lot as well. She said.
"About that…" Allen started "I even used it as an argument in the trial – That my Innocence hasn't forsaken me – And I'm definitely glad about that, but I don't exactly understand how this is possible. I mean, regardless of you being no threat to me, shouldn't all pieces of Innocence be against the Noah clan first and foremost? Shouldn't mine have stopped being loyal to me?
Wrong. Neah said.
Most people think that this is the way Innocence works, but there are more subtleties than that.
All Innocence is solely loyal to God; not their host, not the Order, and not the Church either. It decides how it's going to behave based on the intentions of who is wielding it, and not on who this person is. If said person is fighting for God, then the Innocence will support them; if they turn on God, Innocence will forsake them. It won't care if you're a Noah as long as your goal is to fight akuma and do whatever you can to protect this world from those who want to inflict terror in it. Do you understand?
"I see…so that's what applies to us…" Meri thought.
To us, to Cross, and to all those who don't stray from the path of goodness, even if how they walk through it differs from how the Order does. Merina pointed out.
Allen and Meri stopped in their tracks after hearing that last part. Allen used one of his hands to support himself against a wall, feeling a sudden sickness to his stomach, like it had just contorted into a knot. Merissa didn't look any better than him.
"What do you mean about this applying to Cross?" He asked, dreading the answer that was coming. He had thought about a thousand and one things during the last few days; Cross had been one of them, but a fleeting one among all the more urgent others.
Perhaps he had even avoided thinking about it on purpose, afraid of dwelling on it and finding out that his mentor had always known way more about him that he'd let on. Now, he felt that this fear was going to concretize.
There was no response for a while; Neah and Merina seemed to be carefully choosing their next words. By the time they started to talk, Allen had already sat on the floor, hugging his Meri and still feeling awful.
I met Cross for the first time shortly after joining the Noah clan. He already was very powerful back them, though he definitely is even more powerful now.
At the beginning, our confrontations were really nasty; battles that lasted long and left both of us feeling drained.
"Please, just get to the point." Meri thought; voice pained.
Hearing the whole story is important, Meri, even if it's a very long one. The more details, the more you will understand. Besides, we don't know when you'll get these memories back; it's better to clarify some things now. Merina replied. Merissa kept silent.
Can I continue? Neah asked.
"Yes." Allen conceded. Somewhere in his mind he felt Neah nod.
However, whenever I fought against exorcists I did whatever I could to avoid inflicting fatal damage. I had come to love many of my Noah siblings, but still disagreed with a lot of their ways and, as subtle as I tried to be about it in battle, Cross caught on after a while.
Allen tried imagining the scenes – Playing them out in his head to see if the actual memories of that time would come back to him, but it didn't work.
Then there was one day, in a city somewhere in Sicily that was rumored of having strange occurrences, when he didn't attack me upon noticing my presence.
Instead, he questioned me about how I acted. Can you imagine it? Someone just sitting down while facing a Noah and questioning them about something that they'd found weird? He'd always been different from the other exorcists; way less inclined to believe in everything the Order said – A strong believer that every side of the story mattered, even if it came from the enemy.
I didn't see any reason not to answer him, so I simply told him that I preferred not to kill humans, but didn't elaborate any further.
Why should I tell him about my qualms with some of the normal Noah behavior? Why should I tell him about the human brother that I still visited? My response was short, especially because I didn't understand why he'd bother with it.
Now that I think about it, he was probably curious about me from the very start because of my lack of limits with Merina – Something that, among the members of the Order, he was the only one who knew about.
"How come?" Meri asked; the fact seemed strange.
I didn't show my abilities to the other exorcists because I liked knowing that I had a card in my sleeve that they didn't even dream about. Besides, I saw my ability as something fun, so why should I use it in boring face-offs?
I only ever used it around him 'cause his were the only battles that were straining enough to push me into doing so as a means of getting advantage…
Anyway, back to the topic: I didn't run into him for months after that event, so, by the time I saw him again, I had even forgotten that conversation.
He didn't, though. As I found out, he had been doing some research…on me. He had – Still has – A lot of contacts and, using my human name, was able to reach Mana and Lika.
He told me all that, and I got defensive immediately, thinking he was trying to find something to use against me in a fight; perhaps planning on harming my brother to get to me.
But he laughed. He just laughed, loud and clear, obviously amused at something I wasn't seeing – He seems to enjoy irritating other people.
Neah's voice sounded extremely bothered, as if that particular event still puzzled him.
When he said that he wouldn't use any of it against me, I asked him why he would even bother researching those things then, and he just responded that it was because he had merely wanted to.
Allen thought that this really did sound like something Cross would say. It looked like the Cross from that time already was very much like the Cross from now.
"What did you say to that?" He asked.
I told him that this wasn't a valid reason, and he replied that it was the one true reason why people should do most things they did.
I was silent after that, so he asked me another question: This time, he wanted to know why a member of the Noah clan would regularly visit his human brother. I responded that it was because he was my brother, and he was the one who kept silent then.
I didn't find the silence to be awkward. I was too busy thinking of any ulterior motive he could have; I deduced that he was going to try to recruit me for the Order.
I'd be lying if I said I had never thought of joining the Order; my uneasiness with the Noah clan's methods was getting stronger with time: The only things keeping me there were the affection that I had developed for my family members and the fact that I didn't know what to do if I left them – I knew for a fact that they would track me down, most likely threaten Mana…
Even so, I quickly discarded the thought of joining the Order. Just like the Noah had some positive traits, the Order had negative traits that could be just as vicious as my family's. Not to say that, in there, I would only be used; at least with the Noah I felt cared for.
However, Cross just made to leave without another word and I was so stunned by that action that I was the one who voiced the question: "Aren't you going to ask me to join the Order?" I asked.
He merely looked me in the eye and replied: "You shouldn't do that. That place is corrupted." Then he left.
Allen got up slowly and started making his way to his bedroom again; he was feeling a little better and people would find it weird if they stumbled upon him sitting in the middle of a corridor.
Are you okay? Neah asked.
"Yes." Allen responded "Go on." He added.
It took Neah a few moments, but he spoke again:
After that, there wasn't a time when I visited Mana that Cross wasn't there. Brother didn't understand either; said he visited even more than me and spent the whole day just talking about mindless subjects. He was wary at the beginning, but after a few months he started finding it funny.
I didn't know what to make of it, but, as time went on, I became less suspicious and more annoyed than anything else.
I know I already said it before but he was really irritating; I wanted to strangle him half of the time.
Merina, too, constantly wanted to bite Maylia to see if she would just shut up. That coyote daemon of his managed to be even more riling than her human, always with a snarky or joking comment on her mouth, though I have to give it to her that she was very observing and tended to give good lessons; even if you didn't realize it was a lesson at first – Besides, she was deadly in the battlefield.
Allen remembered his days with Cross when Meri would get extremely pissed off at Maylia.
She definitely wasn't an easy daemon to deal with; hard to impress, sometimes too harsh or too critical; though, like Neah, Allen had to admit that she was pretty accurate on some points if you paid attention to the undertones in her words.
Sure, we did talk about serious things as well; things that happened on missions, things that happened in the Order, things that happened in the Clan…in the end, we were just two people unhappy with the situation of the places we were in.
Years went on like this, and I realized that I couldn't just let the Noah keep doing all those horrible deeds, even if they were my family.
I started planning: Considered running away and creating a middle ground; switching locations constantly so they wouldn't find me, taking Mana and Lika somewhere safe…
I was much more powerful at that time than I had been at my first Noah years; I was sure that it was possible to do it, if I focused on it, and I had reached a point where I was desperate enough to try.
I told very few about my plans: Mana, Cross…, and also my past selves: They too had been uncomfortable with the family ways during their time, but unlike them, who had been convinced that they could change the Noah from the inside, I had seen enough to know that it wouldn't work.
By now, Allen already was in his room, lying on his bed. Meri, who was lying next to him, perked up at that.
"You could talk to more than one previous self? Why can we only talk to you?"
It's much easier to talk to your immediate past incarnation; the presence of the others tends to be a little bit duller, but you'll be able to actively talk with them after some years, if you seek them out. Merina replied.
"Oh, okay." Meri said. Neah continued:
But I never got to executing anything I had prepared; the Earl had been suspicious of my actions for some time, though I had been cautious.
He had his informants, and found out what I planned to do. In his rage, he blamed Mana; said that he was the one who was leading me astray.
He tried to kill him, but Road intervened; she was very close to me, and protected him because she knew how much I loved him.
There was no time to flee; the only thing I could do was fight. I had been exploring the finer details of my powers in secret for a long while – But with much more cautiousness and patience than I had when I was young; I would never make the mistake of letting my power get out of control again. Because of that, I had attacks that my siblings didn't know and strategies that they didn't have time to figure out.
One by one, I killed them when they tried to prevent me from getting to the Earl…
He stopped abruptly, as if his throat had constricted. Some seconds passed in silence before he went on:
I hated it! I hated it! I HATED it! I didn't want to do it! I had planned on leaving so it wouldn't get to that! But I had no choice…
A deep pain was engraved in his voice; Allen could feel it in his bones. He thought of the first few times he had interacted with Neah inside his mind, back when their conversations still happened with Allen tied to a throne.
Neah seemed so unbreakable then; so cold and proud – So very different from the Neah he knew now.
Finally, when it was just the Earl and me, I already was incredibly tired. I had a last trick up my sleeve, but I didn't want to use it. The same trick I told you about in our last face-to-face encounter – The one thing that I'm still hesitant on using even now.
…In my hesitation, the Earl dealt his strike, killing Meri and I. Several years later, you were born, reinitiating the cycle.
The rest: being abandoned by your parents, finding Mana, losing Mana, joining Cross, joining the Order…you already know about.
This brings us back to the original topic of this conversation: Cross and what I meant when I talked to you about Innocence's loyalties.
Allen kept silent.
Allen, by what I told you, you must have already figured out that when Cross found you he knew that you were the current Fourteenth.
The exorcist nodded unhappily.
Don't ask me how he knew that fact beforehand; I have no idea.
Perhaps Mana told him, or perhaps he used Timcanpy to get to you, I don't know. I was very surprised to see that he was with you when my conscience started coming back; waking from the deep slumber it had been in since you were a baby.
I have to say that I never expected Cross to seek me out after I was gone. I had thought about it when I was still alive: About what Cross would do if I died, and I had concluded that he would merely forget about me.
I couldn't have imagined that he would stick by me and, up until today, I don't have a clue why he did it. The fact is: he was specifically looking for you; it was no accident that he found you.
During all these years, he knew exactly who he was training and, as dubious as his methods were, protecting. If Innocence merely condemned the Noah clan and those who associate with them, then his Grave of Maria, as forbidden as its attachment to him is, would have forsaken him.
However, it knew that the Noah he was aiding was not like the other Noah – This Noah was determined to save akumas and loved humanity – Therefore, Cross was not betraying God, and Innocence didn't have a reason to turn against him.
"But why did he direct Allen to the Order? Didn't you say he believed it was corrupted?" Meri asked.
The situation was different, Merissa. Now, the Fourteenth had Innocence, and it was probable that the Order would find him sooner or later.
Besides, what better place to hide Allen from the Earl than in the Order, where no one would look for a Noah?
Meri's eyes widened; she hadn't thought about it like that.
…I'm sorry about how I mentioned it so recklessly while talking to you earlier, though. You didn't seem to have a very good relationship with Cross, so I didn't think it would affect you this much.
Allen shook his head, turning around in his bed and petting Meri's ears.
"Our relationship really wasn't the best but…first I found out that Mana knew I was your reincarnation, and I never really had the time to properly digest that; then, you tell me that Cross knew as well…it just felt…like the last straw." He sighed.
"…It made me wonder if it was always just about you; if any of them ever cared about me or if they looked at me but saw you." A tear rolled down his face; Meri licked it.
Neah was silent for a while. When he spoke, he sounded absolutely truthful and, for that, Allen was grateful.
I can't tell you that this wasn't the case. I don't know what was going on inside their minds – From what I saw in your memories, Mana's mental health suffered after my death, and Cross' mind was always an enigma – so it could have been.
Even so, you shouldn't just assume that it was the case either. You must feel hurt and lied to, and I guess you are entitled to feeling that, but that doesn't mean that Mana and Cross weren't thinking of you when they didn't tell you the truth.
I sincerely believe that they cared for you and knew, just like you should know, that you and I converge in a lot of points, but diverge in just as many.
I'm dead, Allen. There's nothing anyone can do to change that. I never was the Fourteenth that lived before me, you will never be me, and the next Fourteenth will never be you. Every two beings are different from each other, even reincarnations; don't you ever forget about that.
Allen knew that the hurt wouldn't fade just with these words; perhaps it would never really fade completely. But it was a start, and the sincerity in Neah's voice made him feel better.
"Thank you, Neah." He thought.
With his eyes closed, he saw Neah smile while holding Merina, then disappear back to the depths of his mind.
There was quiet for a few moments, until Meri nudged his shoulder, catching his attention.
"Five more minutes until the medical evaluation." She said. Allen groaned, but nodded.
"Let's go to the infirmary." He said, getting up from his bed and leaving his bedroom with Meri.
A/N: See you next chapter!