Behind Closed Doors - Part 2
Summary: Children have suddenly started disappearing all over England. When Komui gets wind of a possible Innocence relation, he puts his three best exorcists on the case… but his worst nightmares come to light when Allen disappears and all evidence points to Lenalee being next.
Warnings: Torture, pain, possibly gruesome descriptions and lots of angst… oh and slight possibility of Male x Male implications (only in torturous scenes though)
Authors Note: Yes this is Part 2. Let me explain; this is a combined story… Part 1 is a Full-Metal Alchemist story and part 2 is a DGM story… There will finally be a part 3 and possibly a part 4 which will have both the FMA and D.G-M worlds meeting.
If you're really confused, PM me and I'll try to explain it better to you personally.
Ch1; Of Parting Paths…
The battlefield was cold and bloody. The ruins of the village it once was, sticking out of the ground like disfigured pins in a pincushion. Mountainous mounds of rubble were scattered around in random places while tattered tapestries billowed gently in the sighing winds.
The dark sky above rumbled ominously, however, the rain remained elusive for now though it promised a shower soon. Flashes on the horizon predicted what was to come.
A sinister mood hung in the rancid air, the tension; taut.
Both parties had come to a standoff; six brave and noble exorcists standing awkwardly but ready to fight and two of the hateful Noah smirking gleefully at the destruction and carnage they'd managed to create. Both sides had equal strength… yet neither moved.
Kanda frowned; this was down to battle skill now and he had a feeling they were just as equally matched in that as well. He quickly took stock of where his fellow team-mates were stood, mentally calculating their attack range and power from their positions while thinking up a strategy that could help them all get out of this battle alive. Lenalee was stood not too far from Lavi a few hundred meters to his right while Marie (Noise) and Miranda were in the sheltered area behind them. Allen was on the frontline, about two hundred meters in front, with crowned clown glowing brightly in the dark gloom around him. 'Tch, trust the baka moyashi to be up front…'
Thunder growled softly above them; like a father reprimanding a pair of argumentative sons. It began to rain.
And Rhode's smile widened…
Just as a streak of lightening lit up the battlefield, she made her move. Kanda saw it too late.
"Moyashi! Move!"
Before he could react, a cartoon-like door shot up behind the youngest exorcist and he barely had time to dodge forward and out of the way before it swallowed him up completely. But the attack had only just begun. Kanda was forced backwards by another door, red this time, opening up in front of him while Lenalee and Lavi were split apart by a blue door opening between them.
They were being played. Forcing Kanda backwards, splitting up Lenalee and Lavi and pushing Allen further away from help. Looks like the Noah were winning on the strategy battle, now it was up to quick thinking and brute force to win this fight.
But before he could finish that thought, he was forced backwards once more as a horde of Akuma streamed through the now open door in front of him. 'Kisama! Could this get any worse?'
Apparently it could; Kanda jus happened to glance in the right direction and managed to spot an akuma creeping up a hill; towards an unsuspecting, defenceless Miranda who was currently holding a long and tiresome Time Record. 'Shimata!' He had too many wounds to fight equally without her power. And he was sure the Moyashi was worse than him.
He'd have to go back. He was the fastest and closest and there was no way he could allow this battle to end because of a stupid single Akuma getting lucky. 'Damn weaklings!' He cursed as he took off, leaving Lavi, Lenalee and Allen to fight on the frontline...
'Those baka's better stay alive 'till I get back!'
It was an ugly looking thing; spikes sticking out at every angle with a strange demonic clown face in the weirdest place. It was gone before it even managed to scream…
Miranda didn't even flinch. She was too absorbed in keeping Time Record alive, and her friends along with it. Kanda spared her a glance before turning back to the battle but before he could see anything significant; the world exploded in front of him.
Instinctively he dug Mugen deep into the ground and wrapped his other arm around the trembling Miranda to stop them both from being blown away. The blast hit them hard but it was bearable… He squinted through the rushing smoke and debris to look up at the other's predicaments… but where Lavi, Lenalee and Allen should have been, was a white hot light that was spreading faster and faster…
…and coming straight at them.
He was falling. He could feel the wind rushing up from beneath him and yet he was too dazed to really panic. In fact, it was slowly lulling him to sleep…
But he couldn't sleep. No. For some reason he remembered he wasn't allowed to sleep. This was important… though he was having trouble remembering what was so important about it…
He knew he wasn't thinking straight because everything felt like a deep dream… perhaps he was dreaming? But then his body wouldn't be hurting so much…
Why was he hurting again? He couldn't remember that either…
"Allen!" Wha… someone was calling him…it sounded like Lenalee but it was so far away and so muffled by the loud rushing noise in his ears. He cracked an eye open but could only see a blinding light. He shut them tightly, his mind reeling and his body falling deeper into the sleepy stupour he'd found himself in. Was it morning already? Felt like he'd only just lied down to bed a few minutes ago…
"Allen! Look out!" Lavi? What was he doing in his room? And why did he sound just as muffled as Lenalee? He tried to feel his way to the edge of the bed but for some reason his fingers only felt cold rushing air slipping through them.
Oh yeah, he was falling…
"Baka Moyashi! Wake up!" Kanda? It had to be important if Kanda was yelling at him… "Use your innocence before-"
'Before what?' he wondered but a sudden silence engulfed him before he could finish the thought. He suddenly felt very cold and something was touching his hand. His eyes flew open and he found himself looking through a large doorway up at his friend's falling slowly in the bright white sky above. Lenalee holding onto two very heavy men with nought but her boots to keep them from falling too hard.
And the doors were closing…
He tried to move forward but that cold strange thing touching his hand suddenly became hard to wriggle out of… and then another one latched on to his left foot. Before he knew it, more cold snake like tendrils had hold of his clothes, his appendages, his belongings and still he couldn't see what they were… until one loomed over his head.
He stilled.
It was like a long smoky hand that flicked and swayed like a snake on the hunt. He could see it but could see through it as well, but what he saw wasn't the faint image of what was behind the hand; it was like he was looking through the hand in to another place… like looking through a crystal ball into another life or another world altogether.
But before he could ponder anymore, the hand shot forward covering his face with a grip he couldn't imagine a smoky hand ever possessing. It hurt. And he screamed. The things were invading his body; strong smoky hands scrabbling at his back, his stomach, his neck, his hands, his face… it felt like they were trying to push through his skin, to worm and scratch their way inside him…
But then, without warning, his innocence activated. The relief was like nothing he'd felt before; the warm white cape of Crown Clown enveloping him softly in a small cocoon, keeping the pesky hands at bay while he fell again. But this time it was a slow descent, as though he was passing through water instead of air.
He didn't understand it but as long as the hands couldn't get to him he didn't care…
Lenalee was struggling to hold the two men in the air. They were both heavy and even though both had said let go, she wasn't about to drop her family.
"Lenalee, there's a floor beneath us. You can let go now…" A floor? Well, in that case…
She let them drop; letting go without a moments notice before falling gracefully herself. She looked around and found Lavi jumping down from his activated hammer with a slight look of fear on his face as though he'd been afraid he couldn't catch himself in time and a straight faced Kanda who'd landed gracefully anyway looking at the closed doorway that had swallowed Allen.
She followed his gaze and wondered about her friend. Had Miranda fallen to the same fate? She couldn't remember seeing her pass as she struggled to stop Lavi and Kanda from falling. But she could remember seeing Allen fall past her, blood dribbling off his head where he'd hit it moments before the whole world exploded… he'd been falling to fast for her to catch. She couldn't get to him.
She had to watch as he hurtled down to certain death…
Only he didn't die.
Instead they'd been falling into a strange place that vaguely reminded her of the Ark. Where were they? And how did they get here?
"Where are we? And how the hell did we get here?" Her thoughts exactly… but not a voice she immediately recognised until Lavi and Kanda took up defensive stances beside her.
Tykki.
"I have no idea but please let me go, I don't want to die!" And that was Miranda! Lenalee spun around and saw Tykki holding a panicky Miranda in a bridal fashion and a slightly charred looking Rhode walking beside him. Tykki looked a little uncertain but put Miranda down anyway who immediately skittered over to hide behind Lavi.
That was when Tykki and Rhode noticed them too.
"Oh? Looks like they all survived…" He stated casually but quickly noticed the absence of a certain white haired boy. "Except one?" He queried but Rhode jumped in before anyone could reply.
"Where's my Allen-kun?" She asked bouncing over and hovering in front of Kanda's face, pouting.
"He fell into that doorway." Lavi replied, gripping his hammer in hands, "But you already knew that didn't you Rhode?" He growled, swinging his hammer slightly in threatening manner.
"Open your door and let him out now." Kanda hissed between his teeth at a suddenly pale looking Rhode.
"Ehehehe… why such a scary face?" Rhode asked, actually looking like a hesitant young girl for a moment. But Kanda had a cold heart to Noah's anyway and didn't even see it.
"Open your bloody door!" He roared, unsheathing Mugen and swinging it round in a complicated looking arc before stopping it mere millimetres from Rhode's neck. She jumped and squeaked before standing rigid with a scared look on her face.
"I don't know if you've noticed but in this place our powers don't work. I can't use my doors here so I don't know what you're talking about." She managed to say; all the while her eyes never left the sword at her throat.
Kanda's eyes narrowed. "Liar."
"She's not lying. Don't you think she'd have used her doors to help us escape that blast?" Tykki defended. "As it is, we wouldn't be alive right now if your friend hadn't used her time innocence to slow us down while we were falling." He turned to Miranda who was still hiding behind Lavi, "Which I never thanked her for…" He took off his hat and bowed regally at the poor shaking woman, who stilled at his actions. "Thank you Miss Exorcist. I am in your debt."
"It's true." Rhode spoke, her throat wobbling the blade that was pressed against it. "She saved us from a nasty death."
"And how does that stop me from slicing you two in half?" Kanda Asked, his voice low and even. "The way I see it, this is the most opportune moment to kill you once and for all…" He pointed out, but to Lenalee and Lavi he seemed to be giving the two Noah's the opportunity to argue for their lives. "So what's stopping me from killing you right here, right now?"
And Rhode only had to say one word in their defence;
"Allen-kun…"
Kanda closed his eyes and was still for a long time. No one moved.
Then the blade slowly slid away from Rhode's neck and down to the floor. It was a big thing for Kanda to release his prey once cornered and both Lavi and Lenalee could see that it had taken a lot of effort for him to do that. But Rhode was right. The two Noah's were probably the only ones who had an inkling of how the door that had swallowed Allen worked and so they were the only ones who could help him.
"So can Rhode see the door now?" Tykki asked, breaking the tension and focussing the frayed nerves on a puzzle that needed solving. It was Lavi who responded,
"Sure…" He sighed, as he let his hammer de-size and put it away. Lenalee stepped back too but kept her eyes on the young girl who tentatively stepped around Kanda and moved to look at the door.
Rhode stopped in front of the door and frowned nervously. In all honesty, she had no idea what she was doing. Sure she was the best option but she only knew about her doors… not someone else's. But if her Allen-kun was hidden away behind them then she was just going to have break through some how.
She took a breath, and placed her hands on the door. Instantly images flooded her eyes and she had to close them to see the images clearly. The door – no, the Gate was feeding her stories of its memories, people who'd passed this same place before, places it had opened up to.
And people who had a power over it.
One particular man stepped out prominently in the Gate's memories. He was a large, beer-bellied man with small beady little eyes, the kind that stared at you as though you were a hunk of meat ready to be judged and weighed. He had the air of man who knew how to think too, one with lots of contacts and knew who to manipulate others into doing what he wanted.
He had potential to be a Noah but his ideals were probably his falling. The man seemed too headstrong in his way. But if he was the one who could somehow control this gate, then he was the one they'd have to find…
But how?
"This is a dimensional gate." She explained. "There's a man who found a way to control it so it's linked directly to where he is at the moment." She took her hands away from the door and turned around to face the expectant faces of the Exorcists and her Tykki.
"And what does that mean?" Lavi asked, his feeble human mind not comprehending but his bookman curiosity urging him to learn. Rhode sighed…
"It's like the Ark. One can control it to link a door to a certain location and step through. But this one is a wild one that has a consciousness… a being in its own right. But someone has been able to control it some how." She explained which made it a little clearer, she could tell.
"And what of Allen?" Lenalee asked, stepping forward with a hopeful frown upon her pretty features. Rhode felt a stir of jealousy but stamped it out quickly.
"He's probably passed through to the dimension the gate is locked to. We could follow but I'm not sure the presence inside the Gate is willing to let us pass through." She explained further, already trying to think of a way to appease the Gate to let them pass.
"So how do we get it to open?" Lavi asked, stepping up to the gate and putting his hand to the door. It was still and quiet for him, Rhode knew.
"I'm not sure… perhaps your innocence will awaken it somehow?" She suggested, hating the fact that she was having to rely on innocence to find her beloved Allen-kun… but then he was an innocence user and her feelings for the boy couldn't be explained either.
"Kanda stepped forward next and without warning, drove his sword into the seam of the door before prying it open with force. To her amazement, the doors clicked open quickly and just as quickly found the sword at her throat again. Anger boiled beneath her skin,
"Hey! You need me to-" She was cut short as the sword pressed against her skin.
"You've fulfilled your purpose…" The samurai's voice was low but she could hear every word. "Why should I spare your life now?" Thankfully, the red head came to her rescue. And not a moment too soon either.
"Yuu, we may need her help getting through and then getting back home." He pointed out. The blade fell from her throat for the second time and she felt ready to collapse after all these near misses with deaths scythe.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Lenalee asked, as she stepped up to the door and pulled it open properly. Several gasps found her ears before she too gasped loudly at the sight before her.
It was a roiling mass of spirits that had been trapped since the dawn of time in this little passage way through time and space. Millions of souls all squashed together into one existence and at the heart; there was the presence that was undeniably the gates power source.
"What is that thing?" Lavi exclaimed, his hand itching closer to his hammer. Lenalee activated her boots too but said nothing.
"That is the being I was talking about." Rhode replied and stepped forward a little to touch the door again. She closed her eyes and mentally asked how Allen had managed to get through. The gate replied.
Innocence.
Rhode seethed. Once again, she was forced to work with innocence to reach her goals. This was turning out to be a bad day after all.
"How do we get past it?" Lenalee asked tentatively, her desire to go after Allen and her fear of facing an unknown power warring inside her. Rhode barely got the answer out through her gritted teeth,
"With innocence…" And before she could finish the sentence she was grabbed harshly by the upper arm and was marched forward. She looked round and found that Kanda had grabbed her and was forcing her into the doorway. "Wha! What are you doing?!" She cried out as she tried to free her arm.
"You are not leaving my sight." He simply said before plunging into to mass of shadows dragging Rhode with him. She squeaked and closed her eyes, expecting to be met with force, but she felt nothing. It was as though nothing was there.
She dared to open her eyes and felt her jaw hit the floor… Kanda had only to wield his sword with just a flick of his wrist and a path had opened up for them to pass though safely…
Apparently innocence was a big thing here. Which only soured her mood further.
"Well that was unexpected…" Lavi pointed out who was closely followed by a slightly unnerved Tykki while Miranda and Lenalee brought up the rear. The red head smiled brightly. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go get Moyashi-chan and head home!" He cheered as Kanda started dragging her forward. The party followed closely behind as they began their slow adventure into the unknown.
Little did they know how long it would take before they'd see their home again…
