He looked up at the sky. Or at least he would've if they hadn't taken his sight from him. Rain had begun to fall. He could feel it beat against his skin and run through a fresh wound on his face. This was it, wasn't it? They'd misjudged him, called him a freak of nature, scarred him, and left him in an alleyway to die. Those church-goers. They had it all wrong. This was all their fault.

He'd lost everything. He turned gray, his forehead suddenly bleeding. The world looked different, as if he could weigh everyone's worth simply by looking at them. He could see who was honest and who lied. It was horribly apparent most around him lied. He had attended Mass as anyone else would on a Sunday morning, wrapping his head with bandages, hoping that God would save him. Vague images had flooded his mind. He didn't understand them, and he was seeking clarity.

Yet the people at Mass offered no help at all. They turned against him, lashing out at him, calling him freakish and perhaps possessed. People simply didn't turn gray overnight. That wasn't how it worked. Maybe he was diseased. They wouldn't want him around. His wife Sara was the only one who wished him around, but he only wished to save her from the pain this odd transformation had caused.

He fled the church. They pursued. His wife found him and attempted to plead with the people to spare his life. They turned against her, tearing her from him and taking her somewhere. He attempted to pursue but someone took a knife and slashed his face from ear to ear. His sight suddenly gone, he was victim to their hatred, pushed into an alleyway, and left to die.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, just that it started to rain. He didn't know where Sara was. He wasn't even sure she was still alive, not that it mattered anymore. He wasn't going to make it anyway, all because of some swift misjudgments by people he'd known for years.

...

The Paris situation had finally settled when the locals drove the Exorcists out. The skirmish between the locals and the Exorcists had made headlines, labeling the Exorcists as agents of the Church returning to cause more harm than good. They were likened to the recent rebellion when the Illuminati had invaded the Governor's mansion and blamed it on the unenlightened. The populace only knew of what the newspapers had told them, believing that the ones who started the rebellion wished for oppression and injustice. They drew the conclusion that these agents of the Church sought to oppress the people once again and purposely killed Cyrille's cousin to secure control. The Illuminati didn't need to plant such ideas into their minds. They did it themselves.

The Exorcists hadn't returned since, perhaps withdrawing to find a new approach. The people of Paris were still in mourning, even when Cyrille made an official return to office. Cyrille cleverly assuaged the fears of his people, reassuring them they would always be protected from the deceitful agents of the false church.

Across Europe, a week later, Lavi stared out the window of the small teashop in Poland. The country had been in turmoil for over 100 years, being pulled back and forth between German and Russian rule. The borders were difficult to distinguish, though Lavi reasoned they were in German territory given the overwhelming smell of wurst wafting into the cafe from the restaurant next door.

It had started raining, first a drizzle then a steady rain heavy enough to obscure some of the features in the distance. Several church bells resounded at the same time, marking the hour. There was practically a church or cathedral on every corner in this town. It seemed like a risky place for the Earl to send him, Tyki, and Ronald, but they came here with a purpose. There was a new Noah somewhere within the city, and they had to find him before the Order could.

Ronald sat uncomfortably at the table. This place seemed far too upper-class for his tastes. Even after starting a new life with the Noah and living in the Earl's estate, Ronald still didn't quite fit in. He was a merchant, a lower-class man with lower-class tastes. Even the nice coat he'd been shoved into felt foreign. It was new and well-tailored, no holes or patches on it whatsoever. His shoes were new and shined, though he had modified the soles to be more comfortable. He was a cobbler, after all. He pushed his wire-frame glasses a bit up his nose as he stared down at the half-finished cup of tea in front of him.

"He's awakening," Tyki stated suddenly, his normal calm demeanor twisting into something slightly amused, a rather inhuman smile creeping across his features.

Lavi shifted his attention from the window back to the table. He knew that the Noah could sense each other innately. He'd seen it when Skinn died and when the rest of the family had awoken. He didn't know the extent of their abilities, but he knew they could at least identify each other. "Can ya tell which one he is yet?"

"Not until he fully awakens," Tyki replied, tilting his head sideways as he pondered the possibilities. There were only five Noah, counting the Earl herself, which left a great deal of options. Granted the newcomer wasn't useless as the previous Bondomu often was, this person could certainly help advance both the Noah and Illuminati endeavors and could tip the scales in a fight against the Exorcists. "It's also very difficult to locate him until then as well. Unless your akuma agents have located him already." He glanced at Ronald expectantly.

Ronald closed his eyes momentarily. It still fascinated him that he could simply tap into the akuma he'd planted about the city and see exactly what they saw. He silently spoke to them, calling for any information whatsover on someone who resembled a Noah or at least felt like one. No information returned just yet. He shook his head in reply. "Nothing yet. No signs of Exorcists either."

"Perhaps the little encounter in Paris served to discourage their travels," Tyki mused. "They are down one general, after all." The Exorcists had been quiet for the last week. Tyki wasn't dumb enough to believe they had simply given up. They were too diligent for that, and it just wouldn't be fun if they did. No they were definitely recuperating, quite probably seeking out new signs of Innocence that had previously gone unnoticed. They had some means to detect it, though how exactly continued to be a mystery. If there were some way to hinder their detection, it would give the Noah a huge advantage.

Yet there remained another problem. Dagrun. That Bookman Exorcist no doubt put two and two together and blabbed to the Order about possible connections between the battle with Tyki, Cyrille, and the incident in Saint-Maur. Tyki was pretty certain that the Exorcists would return to the governor's gates, but even a week had passed and they still hadn't shown up. Perhaps the scuffle with an angry mob of locals did serve to deter them. At least for now. And if it hadn't, Cyrille could take care of himself given that Tiedoll didn't show up among them.

Tiedoll continued to be the largest threat in the Order's team. His power wasn't understood, and his personality was at best confusing. He withstood the end of the previous war and probably had only gotten stronger since. Memories failed to serve Tyki with any useful information on how to counter him, and Lavi's encounters with him were mostly nonviolent. Lavi's biggest problem, Kanda, was long-since dead.

"For the better." Ronald hadn't directly encountered any Exorcists, but his creations had. He knew they were capable of things that both fascinated and disgusted him. He much rathered fighting from the sidelines than direct combat. His creations could do the fighting for him.

Ronald turned suddenly, glancing out the window at the street and the rain. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to one of his agents roaming the streets. He could see the visions of a gray-skinned man badly wounded, lying in an alleyway. "I think they've found him. A new brother. He's only a few blocks away in an alley."

Taking umbrellas to hand, the three trecked out into the chilly rain. The akuma in man's clothing met them one block down. Despite being ordered not to attack or consume, the akuma-man was hungry. He fidgeted as he stood before those he served, shifting from one foot to the next. He seemed rather ordinary in appearance, pale skin, blond hair, green eyes. He wore an overcoat reaching past his knees and a hat to shield his face from the rain. He beckoned for the three to follow, silently leading them down a narrow alleyway.

"My my." Tyki stepped forward first, staring down at the form lying in the alleyway.

The man looked as though he'd been through hell and back. His clothing was torn and a large gash spanned nearly ear to ear across his eyes. The rain had washed away much of the blood, revealing a large chain of stigmata across his forehead. His dirty blonde hair was caked in mud and his clothing was soaked and torn. "Just... leave me here. Haven't ya done enough? You've already taken Sara from me."

"Come now, dear brother," Tyki chided him. "We aren't here to persecute you like those ignorant fools. We are one in the same, successors of the new world with the same hatred for the lying, unenlightened Church and their ignorant Exorcists."

He strained to see the strangers who had approached him but the wounds across his eyes had taken his sight. "Brother..." He turned the word over in his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The more it made sense, the more his mind was flooded with ideas, images, memories that weren't his own. Ancient Egypt. Scales. The war against the Innocence. The true line of succession from Noah.

"That's right, Toraido," Tyki grinned ear to ear, pleased the Noah had finally awoken within him. Toraido, the judge, certainly would be a useful and welcomed addition to the Noah and the Illuminati. He had only played a small part in the previous war, mostly staring at people as he judged the truthfulness in their ways.

Lavi remembered Toraido well. Tamiz was his name, an arabic man with memories of Ancient Egypt. The two had on several occasions played Senet, a game which supposedly was driven by one's destiny and the truth within their souls. Tamiz had spent quite a bit of time within Cyril's estate, following the latter around and warning him not to have traitorous thoughts. Lavi had heard the conversation through the walls, spying on them out of sheer curiosity. He'd fled as soon as the two exited the room, though Tamiz offered Lavi a look as if to say, never forget this encounter.

The Bookman had reasoned Tamiz blind. He'd never asked nor did Tamiz ever tell. Lavi found it ironic that the Noah representing the judge was blind. Fitting in a way, and as he stared down at the new Toraido, he was quickly realizing there were trends among the Noah, a trait all seemed to inherit from one to the next. Lavi once pried out of the previous Earl that certain traits represented the first apostles and tended to carry through each incarnation. Toraido the judge, was he always blind?

"Toraido?" the man echoed. "But my name's Tobiasz..." But as he spoke, the name felt right. Memories continued to fill his mind, detailing events both good and bad. Other people with gray skin, determining who tells the truth and who lies, pains of betrayal. He curled up a bit, taking his hands to his heart as he recalled his previous incarnation's death in the final battle in the Earl's backyard.

"Come, Tobiasz," Tyki knelt down, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could reason what Tobiasz was recalling. Tyki himself felt the same memories when he awoke, feeling the pain his predecessor held onto and the anger at the Exorcists accompanying it. "Let's take you home. All will become clear soon enough."

….

Author's comments!

Been some time since we've had a new Noah! I really liked Toraido from the previous rendition, so I thought, why not make an aftermath version? Like with the other Noah, I chose a name similar to Toraido. I like the name Tobias. Been a fan of it since there was a character on Unico with it. I looked up a few versions of it and found a Polish version that interested me. I thought about having him be English, but the Earl and Rhode are both English, so let's have variety. I debated on Greek and Polish variations of the names, but ultimately settled on Polish when I went and did some research about religion in each country. The setting here is probably over dramatized, but pretty much every location in this story is overdramatized.

The basis for Tobiasz and Sara comes from an apocryphal Old Testament book called Tobit, apocryphal meaning that it isn't included in the Old Testament as we know it but in a bunch of books that were left out by the early Church. In the story, Tobias, with the help of Michael protects a young woman named Sara from demons. She ends up marrying him in the end.

Here, the roles are reversed. Sara is trying to protect Tobias from the demons of the Church.