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Red and Black

The eerie smile did not fade from the face of the Earl, the First Millennium Yokai. He and every yokai in the country could feel the dissonance throughout their bodies, the marvelous ripples of raw energy being released as the Fourteenth awoke. Just like that time years ago, except he wasn't seeing it for himself. It would have been quite a spectacle to see, but he didn't want to rush things, like that time when the exorcist Cross intervened.

The Earl was far from the city, as he knew that an exorcist would probably sense what was going on. Come to think of it, it was probably that hot-headed disciple of Cross, that daughter of Edgar Chan Martin. She was the exorcist who had been most active recently. The Fourteenth might face a challenge when he completed his awakening.

Sighing in both happiness and resignation, he turned to look at the group beside him. "Road, Tyki, would go like to go watch dear Allen for me? Don't interfere with him. Just make sure that no one else interrupts him. I want to see him, but I don't want a repeat of last time."

Road, a short girl yokai with spiky black hair wearing a Gothic Lolita dress, grinned and hugged the Earl tightly from behind. "Sure, Earl! Anything for you and our cute little brother!" Her skin grew dark and seven stigmata showed up across her forehead. "I've been pretty interested in him since last time!"

Tyki smirked dangerously too. His complexion also changed to mirror Road's. "Yeah, I want to see him too. Last time, he was getting along pretty well. I think the Fourteenth is taking over much more completely this time. And it helps that he contracted with a guy who was in the war. It'll awaken his inner self pretty easily."

"All right, now go you two," the Earl ordered. A door opened before them and the two yokai walked casually through. It shut and the Earl longingly looked in the direction of the city, tears starting to flow down his cheeks.

"Master, you're crying," another yokai said. She had the same gray skin and stigmata, and long dark hair tied in a ponytail. "I thought you wanted to see the Fourteenth."

"I do," he said, trying not to leak any more emotion through his voice. "But it'll be so sad what happens afterwards, won't it? So many people will die. It makes me so happy I can't control myself. I can't wait to see him, my dear, dear Fourteenth Millennium Yokai, Allen."

Kanda felt the weird vibrations in the atmosphere and snapped his eyes open. Allen was different. Not just in appearance, but the impression around him was just too off. He stood next to Alma and Lavi. Suddenly a huge gust of wind started flowing around the kid. It formed a sphere around him and he started to laugh, jarringly. The earth itself seemed to protest the sound. It rumbled, spreading an aura of fear through the few people still around. Some of them tried to run, but their limbs refused to move, out of some natural reaction to such a wrong feeling.

"What the hell is happening?" Kanda yelled above the noise to Lavi and Alma.

"How should we know?" Alma shouted back. "Shouldn't you know what he's doing? You were the one who made the contract!"

"I don't think this is from the contract!" Lavi exclaimed. "Remember he said he was sealed? Maybe this is leftover from that!"

Suddenly the noise stopped. Allen stood on the ground about three meters away, still not looking like himself. "That's right, Lavi," he whispered, smiling like he was about to kill them in some sadistic way. "Cross sealed me twice. Kanda broke the first one in the ruins, but I needed yokai energy to break the second one, which was much stronger. To do that, I needed more power. It just so happens that when a yokai completes a contract, they absorb tremendous energy from nature, as a sort of compensation for helping a lower being and such." He chuckled darkly, which was very bloodcurdling coming from such a small, charming form. "That power was just enough for me to break it. And all of those humans I killed just helped even more. They made this awakening much smoother than last time, when I killed Mana."

Allen stopped smiling and broke into a frown. "No, it wasn't me who killed Mana. The Earl gave me no choice—"

"Oh, you killed Mana all right!" A new voice came from the direction of the doors. Everyone looked and saw a young red-headed woman in purple and black clothes standing on the giant doorway. "And about a hundred other people! AND it's because of you that Cross died!"

"Cross is dead?" Allen repeated. "Oh, that's nice. And it's nice to see you too, Fou. You've grown,"

"And you haven't changed a bit, Fourteenth," she growled.

"Could someone tell me just what the fuck is happening?" Kanda shouted, not caring who it was, just as long as the weird conversation finally explained the situation.

Fou glared at him. "You're the one who made a contract with this yokai, didn't you? Well here's the basics of the basics, dummy: this is one of the most dangerous yokai you could meet, a Millennium Yokai. A few years back, he caused a lot of destruction and deaths and my exorcist master, Cross, sealed him to stop him. Apparently, you didn't know any of this and just let him free, stronger than before! And, even worse, this yokai is the one who's supposed to start a stupid yokai Armageddon. You know, hell on earth, you stupid fucker?"

Kanda was about to send her a heated retort, but was interrupted by yet another thing. A large red door materialized out of the air next to Allen, who looked at it in surprise and amusement. Two yokai emerged, both similar in appearance to the beansprout, but different. One of them was familiar: Tyki, that irritating yokai that showed up, dropped a few hints and left abruptly a few weeks ago. The two new arrivals glanced around the room, and seeing Allen, looked energetic.

"Oh! Allen! You remember us, right?" The girl with spiky hair exclaimed. Allen rolled his eyes.

"You know, I was just thinking of you guys. You know where the Earl is, right? I want to kill him, so tell me where he's hiding."

"You're not going to get that chance, yokai!" Fou cried, running at the trio with something in her hand. They jumped out of the way.

"Hold it!" Kanda roared, grabbing at his katana. "I'm the one who's going to talk with that kid. Hey, beansprout, were you just using me?"

"So what?" Allen said, still eyeing the exorcist. "You were using me too. Don't try to deny it, because I'm sure the others know the truth too. You just wanted peace and you weren't afraid to use any means to get it. Though it's pretty amazing how it's never going to affect your inner peace, Kanda. Just how many people have you had killed for your desire to live quietly?"

"Shut up!" Kanda snapped.

"Isn't it true? You didn't care about what was going on. You didn't want to know anything about me, because you just wanted to focus on your own selfish desires. And now, you're going to use the excuse that you didn't know anything, when before you chose that path for yourself! Live with your consequences, Kanda. And watch as I lead this world to destruction." The two other yokai looked pleased.

Kanda felt tortured. Everything the dumbass beansprout was saying felt true. It hurt. It felt like he had doomed everything in his world. It was all his fault that this monster was here before him. He had let this happen, because he was blinded by his own hatred. And there was nothing he could do now. Unless…

Kanda held his katana tightly. He could side with the exorcist and stop the yokai. It felt wrong, because somewhere inside him, he wanted Allen to be free. He wanted Allen to be happy, but he had no idea that the kid's idea of happiness included the world's demise.

But what if he could still be with the yokai? What if he could convince the beansprout to let him live, so he could stay with him? Would he really mind if the rest of the world fell for his own desire?

This was fucked up. He had already stupidly followed his desires once and this was where he had ended up. He didn't care about the world, but he did worry about some people. Like Alma, and the stupid rabbit, Lavi, and even Marie and Daisya. They were dumb, but somehow, he didn't want them to die. He didn't want to just watch as Allen killed people he actually knew.

He was probably being selfish again, but he didn't think there was a way out without being selfish in some way.

Kanda glanced at Lavi and Alma. They were both waiting for him to say something. He made eye contact with the exorcist girl, who looked annoyed, then finally Allen. Allen had a calm, expectant face. He was waiting for him to make the first move. You be white, his eyes seemed to say. I'll be black, and make the second move, once I see where you're going.

Kanda never did like chess. He might as well be stupid about this.

"Hey, exorcist," he shouted across the room. "I'll help you take down these yokai. You can reseal them, right?" She blinked, startled, and then nodded. "Great." Kanda looked again at Lavi and Alma. "You'd better help stop these freaks, unless you want to watch them start the end of the world."

They too were almost surprised by his reaction, but they grinned and slapped his back. "We're with you all the way, Yu," Alma promised. "Trust us,"

"We can find out who's to blame once this is over," Lavi said grimly.

The three yokai laughed. "They think they're going to stop us, Allen!" Road giggled. "Hey, Tyki, you can have the one with the eye patch. I wanna play with the other one! He's cute! And I'm sure Allen wants the girly looking one, since he had so much bonding time. Make him miserable, Allen!"

They charged at their targets. Alma unsheathed his two wrist knives and blocked Road's strike with a purple umbrella. Lavi took out his iron hammer and ran to the side before the weird swarm of butterflies around Tyki came closer to him. Kanda waited as Allen came forwards with his claws, his katana ready. But the yokai stopped before he struck and danced aside. The exorcist, Fou, almost ran into Kanda.

"Watch where you're going, bitch!" he snapped. She glared at him again. Silently, Allen moved further away, towards the doors. Kanda and Fou both noticed and raced after him.

"Not quite as fun as the battlefields, right Kanda?" he whispered as his claws and Kanda's katana connected, sending small sparks flying. He continued talking as Kanda kept sending attack after attack, wishing the beansprout wasn't as good as he was. Now it was pretty ironic that the opponent he had been wishing for turned out to be the very kid who had been following around to grant his former wish for peace. "That was exciting, killing every human in sight like they were lambs at a butcher shop, until the whole ground was painted with red and black! You thought so too, right? That's why you're a warrior and not just a soldier. You're not like everyone else in this world. You're like me. You love killing people."

"Shut up," Kanda growled. Allen smirked and kept going.

"You say that because you don't want to think, right? You don't want to think about the past or the present. You forgot Corazón pretty quickly because you didn't want to think about the causes or effects of her death. You became a simple soldier because you didn't want to think about the causes or effects of the battles. You just want a peaceful life so you don't have to worry or think. You want to blindly eliminate everything in the way so you can live happily, isn't that right, Kanda!"

"You're not Allen," Kanda retorted.

"Not the Allen you remember," the yokai said, smiling that unnatural smile while aiming a vicious blow towards Kanda's head. "I'm the Fourteenth Millennium Yokai. I'm the other side of that Allen you thought was just a cute, little kid. But if you destroy me, you destroy the sweet Allen who followed you around like a human child and wanted to do anything to make you happy."

Kanda almost stopped. Allen cared about him too? He was about to fall back into another inner musing, and the yokai before him grinned triumphantly and brought his claws up for a powerful strike onto Kanda's body.

"Stop talking you damned yokai!" Fou yelled. She jumped in front of Allen and swung a glowing green knife at him. The yokai jumped back and she glanced back at Kanda. "And you wake up and stop listening to him!" Kanda shook his head to clear it of the thoughts that had almost returned. He charged at Allen again and they started clashing again, but as he came close again, Allen's eyes flickered over to the exorcist and Kanda saw something in them: apprehension.

So the yokai was afraid of something. And that something was getting sealed again. Kanda thought it was safe to grasp this one hope. All he had to do was give the exorcist time to do her work.

Kimiko: Huh, Allen is really OOC, isn't he? I feel like I've just pulled some insane Neah-like person from somewhere and forced it to look like Allen. Well, I do think what Allen says about Kanda is kind of true…Okay, so here's a sudden announcement: Next chapter is the end of this story, though I'm going to add another that explains the "time before" that everyone keeps talking about. I'm not going to talk much about what Alma, Lavi, Road and Tyki are doing, because I'd rather focus on Kanda, Allen and Fou. Sorry about all this. Also, next chapter might have some hints of Yullen, but don't expect too much from me. I had intended to lace the relationship between Kanda and Allen with more, but something went wrong…Oh well, I'll write a better Yullen after this one…

Please review! I live off reviews as I'm writing my chapters! I know it might take a bit of your time, but writers spend hours on their chapters, hoping that their readers will spend one minute telling them what they liked. Please?