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"Tyki?!"

Oh boy. Oh damn. Oh shit. Fuuuuuck.

"What are you doing here?"

Really. "I could ask you the same. Shouldn't you be in school right about now?"

Road just stared at him, still attached to the boy's arm like a limpet. Coming to think of itー "And what would your parents say if they saw you acting like that? They'd throw a fit."

And so would the Duke, should he ever catch wind of what Tyki was currently up to. Fuck.

So, this whole situation was bound to end very, very badly. Tyki was fairly certain of this.

Road simply narrowed her eyes at him and then turned her face back to Allen wearing a far more innocent look. "Allen," she whined. "Do you think I'm shameful?"

"I don't think anyone here's even remotely shameful," Allen said, keeping his face perfectly straight. "Now shameless on the other hand…"

There was a pointed look sent Tyki's way, and the man in question immediately felt his fingers twitch. The urge to strangle the brat was strong, and gradually becoming unbearable. Nevertheless− "Who's the shameless one, you little stalker?!"

Krory meanwhile had seen it fit to fade into the background. It seemed like there might still be some hope for him after all. Not that Tyki cared or anything.

"Stalker?" Road repeated in seeming surprise, looking back up at Allen now.

Allen meanwhile just smiled brightly. The smile was so fake it nearly made Tyki gag. But yeah, the stalker thing; Tyki could definitely use that – to muddy the waters if nothing else.

"This guy's been following me all over Europe," Tyki explai−Well, complained. "Like, I tried to cheat him out of some money once, and now he won't leave me alone! I go to a new place, he shows up, I go to another place, he shows up. I did manage to lose him for a couple of weeks and but like next thing I know, he shows up, hires me as a goddamned babysitter and drags me all the way to Germany!"

Road looked from Allen to Tyki and then back again. "Is it true?"

"It's true," Allen gleefully admitted. "Although he did leave out the part when he stripped for me."

That was back in the old timeline, but Tyki still buried his face in his hands, mortified. Also, it hadn't been like that!

"Also," the boy said, entirely too gleeful. "He kind of started the whole stalking thing. I mean, he sought me out with multiple dinner invitations, and then he took my innocence and broke my heart."

Tyki found himself the target of some very judgemental looks at that. "It wasn't like that at all!" he protested. "The dinner invitations came after!"

"Uncle Tyki..." Road began, in a quite dangerous tone.

This ended up prompting Krory – up until then blissfully silent – to abruptly burst out: "Pardon? Allen, does this mean that this man was never really your uncle? Did he really do... those things to you?"

Ah. And now the demure Krory was starting to eye him like he was something particularly unsightly and dishonourable.

"He sure did," the boy said. "He also kidnapped me at one point."

"Boy," Tyki said, because enough was enough. "Are you sure you want to start throwing around rocks in this glass house? Need I remind you of the fourteenth?"

Yeah, that did it. That sure did it. The insinuation obviously passed right over the fledgling exorcist's head, but it by no means passed over Road's. Because the look in her eye sharpened, and the grip on the boy's arm tightened considerably.

And the boy, the boy visibly blanched.

"I think," Road said, technically the eldest out of all of them. "We need to sit down and have a talk."

Yeah, a talk.

The boy made a seeming attempt to shake off the grip before apparently realising it was useless. "Okay," he said, managing to sound quite calm about it. "But do you think we could maybe do that after I've dealt with... a small matter?"

Road narrowed her eyes at him. Then, surprisingly enough, she relented, letting him slip out of her grip and away. "Okay, 'Allen'."

Saying this, she turned her attention towards Tyki instead, levelling him with a definite look. She also had Lero with her, Tyki numbly noted. Uh-oh.

Then again, the sentient umbrella and occasional sword had yet to start screaming murder, so maybe, just maybe, the thing was actually asleep, meaning that they were probably still safe?

"So..." Road said, twirling said umbrella as they kept an eye on Allen as the latter dragged Krory some distance away to engage in some quiet chitchat. "That's the reason."

Tyki didn't even attempt to deny it.

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A few minutes later, Allen returned, having ushered Krory off to who-knew-where. He returned wearing a sheepish grin as opposed to his shit-eating one.

"So..." he said. "Let's go, shall we?"

The boy then proceeded to grab them both by the arm, dragging them towards the city gates. And they let him, yes, though meaningful looks were most certainly exchanged.

They exited the city gates just in time. Not even a minute later, Tyki snapped his head around, startled, and he was not the only one either. Road was also staring, though not so much at the barrier that had just surrounded the whole city but at Allen.

He'd known this would happen; that much was for sure. As such, this was undeniably some event the boy had been involved in back in the original timeline. It was still quite impressive that the boy had managed to get them all out in time.

"Innocence," Road noted, and her voice had a rather dangerous edge to it.

That Time Rewind woman, Tyki immediately guessed.

"It's not the Heart," Allen said, offering up a mild shrug. "Trust me."

The boy's behaviour didn't exactly inspire a whole lot of trust, but… with things having gone this far already, Tyki figured he might as well put in a good word for him.

"Trust him," Tyki said. "Failing that, at least listen to what we've got to say first, okay?"

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"So," Road said, pulling out another piece of candy and unwrapping it. "What's going on here, Tyki, 'Allen'?"

Ah, where to start. On one hand, Tyki would much rather dump this part on Allen entirely. However, seeing just how the boy had handled this responsibility so far, Tyki obviously thought better of it.

"He's a time traveller," Tyki said, nodding at the white-haired menace where they all sat in a booth at some mostly empty pub. "He's a time traveller, and so am I."

The look sent his way was... definitely a look. "Is that so?"

"Look," Tyki sighed, just tired, so, so tired. "I know how this sounds. I know how absolutely insane this sounds. But it's the truth."

She eyed him, clearly assessing him. Then she looked towards Allen, who flashed her a smile.

"It is true," Allen corroborated. "And his first course of action was to travel to India and abduct me."

Road looked back to Tyki, raising her eyebrow.

Tyki snorted, because while that had been one of his major actions since ending up in the past, it had by no means been the first.

"So," Road said, leaning forward. "Who's actually stalking who here?"

Tyki pointed to Allen.

Allen, grinning, pointed to himself.

"I'm the main stalker this time around," the boy admitted quite shamelessly. "But in the original timeline, he was the one stalking me. And yes, the stripping part is true."

Tyki did not grow red at that. He most certainly did not. Ah, he needed alcohol.

"How did that happen?" Road asked, and indeed, how did that happen?

"Poker," Allen responded quite sunnily. "He was a bit mean to a friend of mine, so I decided to teach him a lesson. And he did take my Innocence, as in try to destroy it, and broke my heart, as in poked a bloody hole in it and left me to bleed out."

It was quite impressive that he managed to put so much venom in that statement while smiling like that.

"Also," the boy added. "He did invite me to dinner more than once."

Well, technically, one of those times had been him inviting the other guy, but semantics, semantics.

"And he did help me break out of prison once," the boy finished, interlacing his fingers and leaning his chin against them. "So did you, as a matter of fact."

Road stared at him. Then she looked at Tyki, clearly asking him to provide further detail.

So, he did. Because why not, at this point?

"He got himself stabbed with Innocence a couple of times and was outed as the Host of the Fourteenth. Then... yeah, he got locked up in a cell, and we had to go and rescue him from Apocryphos."

"Apocryphos," Road echoed.

"Yeah," Allen said, looking more than a bit ill at ease from the reminder. "It was pretty bad."

It was. Enough said, honestly.

Road looked from Allen to Tyki and then back again. Then she got up, moving around the table.

Allen meanwhile sat up straight, which made sense. Because, in the original timeline, this was right around when Road had gouged the boy's eye out, no?

The current Road seemed to have no such plans though. No, no, she seemed to have entirely different plans.

The boy's look of utter incomprehension upon getting a lapful of Road was hilarious, yet undeniably sad all at once. Road threw her arms around his neck in a hug, holding on quite tightly from the looks of it, going by the wince and the slightly panicked look sent Tyki's way on the top of her head.

Tyki wasn't helping though. The boy had apparently sent off his resident guard dog to aid that fledgling exorcist on his quest, so this? This served him right, honestly.

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