I had to get him out of there. There was no way around it.

We had been with the Noah for only a week. But a week, as I've learned, is far too much time to be with them. They've done nothing to me except for treat me as a tool. But the way they've been treating the Bean Sprout is another story entirely. They saved him from being killed on the day that they crashed through the order only to treat him as an experiment. They didn't care about Allen himself, after all. They cared about the one who was currently sharing his body with him. With the one called "Neah."

"Just let go," I heard them say to him. "Let go and move on. Let Neah break free. He might be defective, but he deserves to have his body back." The Short-Stack muttered something of a retort in response to these words, only for his cheek to be met with the back of the hand of the Noah named "Road."

"You were never supposed to exist to begin with!" a blonde Noah, I never really caught his name, blasted out angrily. "Neah has just been too kind, letting you share that body with him!"

Allen was crying at this point. He already thought so little of himself – this was the last thing that he needed! And there was nothing I could do, unless I wanted them to cause even greater damage to him! I had tried, to no avail, to stop their onslaught of insults the day before that. And my reward was a knife in Allen's back. So I remained silent now, like a dog that was too afraid to utter a small whine in the presence its an abusive owner. The moonlight boy, however, was far braver than I. I was not willing to risk him. But he… He was willing to risk himself. He was willing to take the knife and continue fighting against them, willing to continue fighting against the creature that was growing inside of him. He was willing to try to keep living. He was willing to try to keep doing what was right.

But, most of all… He was willing to give up everything for the sake of others. Whether he knew them or not. Whether they'd wronged him or done kind things for him. That was the part of him that I envied the most. That was the part of him that I could never achieve or imitate. That was the part of him that bothered me the most. And yet… It was also one of the reasons why I loved him as much as I did. I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts as I heard his weakened, chime-like voice cry back to them. And it hurt me to hear, because I could tell, as could the members of the Clan of Noah who were present from the tone of his voice. I could hear it as plainly as one could see the light of the sun shining down upon a withering flower – a withering flower like the cursed boy. Allen… Allen was breaking.

"I'm not… I'm not a Noah…!"

This had to stop. Allen would not last much longer like this. He was fighting a losing battle…

After he had made his statement, the Noahs beat him senseless as the Millennium Earl held me in place to keep me from interfering with them, forcing me to watch as they stepped on him, kicked him, and punched him. "Stupid kid!" I heard one of them say, not caring enough to differentiate their voice from the others. "You need to learn your place!"

A foot to his sides, and he whimpered.

A punch to his face, and he cried out.

A stomp on his back, the sound of cracking ribs, and he screamed, tears rushing from his eyes, streaming down his face and onto the floor like river water down a waterfall.

A hand around his throat, and he stopped moving.

"Oh no, did we kill him?" the childlike Road whined, pouting.

"Naw, he's just going to sleep for a little while," the one called Tyki stated calmly.

"Oh, good. Then we can play with him again later."

"Yup. Hopefully for a bit longer, but I doubt it. The kid doesn't seem like he has much fight left in him. It won't be long before he gives up entirely."

The left, along with the Earl once he let me go, chuckling as he watched me run to the Shorty before he left to go and follow the others, closing and locking the cell door behind him. How they managed to take over an entire prison and use it for creating Akuma without ever being questioned or caught was my guess, but that didn't matter to me at the moment. What did matter was the broken, bloodied body that lay before me. I didn't even realize that I was crying until I saw a tear fall onto his unconscious form.

As gently as I could possibly manage, I had lifted him into my arms, carefully going to a corner of our cage and sitting there, getting him in a position where he sat on my lap and had his bleeding head leaning onto my chest. I held him, my touch as soft as silk against his broken form, trying to give him what little comfort and warmth I could manage to share with him, even though he probably could not feel it in his blacked-out state. I just wanted to do everything that I could to help him be okay. To keep him off of the cold and unforgiving stone floor.

The bleeding from his head was pretty bad, and eventually, I tore of one of my coat's sleeves to use as a makeshift bandage, wrapping it around his head and tying it to keep it in place, applying light pressure to the wound with my hand in an effort to stop the bleeding. Eventually, it worked, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

But Allen wouldn't be able to take much more of the abuse. What he was going through here with the Noah family was probably similar to what he had to go through in the cell he was thrown into back at the order by Levarrier. His body was barely starting to heal from the wounds given to him then…

Something had to be done. We had to escape, or the Short Stack truly would die. Before… Before he let the monster inside of him get the better of him. He was, after all, completely gray now… His bruises somewhat blended in with his new skin color, but I could still see the purple against the gray. There were so many...

After gently laying the limp boy against the corner that we were in and covering him with my coat, I looked around the small cell, finding that they hadn't locked all of the many locks on the iron-barred door like they did on the rest of the days. Luck, it seemed, was on our side, as they had only locked the simplest one of them. They probably figured that I had given up looking at them and trying to pick them since it hadn't worked the first couple of days and I hadn't tried since. The joke was on them now. I quickly opened the door after unlocking the cell, running back to Allen and lifting him up bridal style, fleeing silently from the prison and as far from it as my body would allow. If awake, Allen would have probably struggled against me out of sheer embarrassment. The thought made me smile.

^o-+-o^

Allen awoke to find himself in a place that he was unfamiliar with. He sat up, though his aching body protested against this action, the throbbing in his head the most notable, the screaming of his cracked ribs being the second most unbearable of the many pains that were yelling at him. He groaned, looking around, though moving his head even a little made him feel dizzy.

It appeared that, rather than the cell he'd been in with Kanda, he was in a cave. He didn't know how he had gotten here, but he was glad to be away from the people of gray, though he clearly was nearly done with his transformation into becoming one of them.

Then, the white-haired boy looked around more quickly and frantically, though his entire being screamed at him for doing so, the burning hurt his body felt nearly unbearable.

"K-Kanda…?" he barely managed to rasp, his voice a windy whisper. "Kanda?!" It hurt to speak, his throat dryer than a desert. "Kanda, where are you?!"

"I'm right here, Bean Sprout." Allen tensed when he heard the voice of his beloved, but upon recognizing it and turning to see the crow feather-haired man, he relaxed. The taller male walked over to him and gently laid him back down, calming him with soothing whispers as his head rested on the shirt that Kanda had shed in order to provide him with some comfort.

"Don't move – you're not in great shape after everything that everyone has done to you.

The dying moonflower laughed lightly at this. He knew that all too well. He was the one who felt the abuse that had been done to him, after all. He was the one that had to go through it. He was the one in the center of this whole damned thing. The one who was the cause for all of the troubles that the two were facing now, and the one who was the cause for all that was to come, though none of it was truly his fault.

"Kanda," he barely managed.

"What is it, Dork?"

"I… won't be around much longer."

^o-+-o^

I had taken off my shirt after finding a rather secluded cave for Allen and I to hide in, folding it and carefully laying him down so that he could use it as a pillow. The cave's mouth was small, and hard to spot because it was hidden by drapes of ivy and large boulders. Not to mention that it was in the middle of a large forest. It had been two days since I had taken Allen and fled the House of Noah, and I was proud to say that I had managed to get the two of us rather far from everything, since I spent each waking moment running to get us away from it all, only resting when my body couldn't handle it any longer. It was during one of my breaks that I stumbled into this little cave, deciding that it would be our temporary home.

I had gone out to find some firewood and food, making sure to gather the driest sticks and logs that I could find to minimize the amount of smoke that would be created by a fire. The less smoke, the better, since I didn't want us to be found. When I returned, wood and my beloved blade with a couple of fish speared at the end of it in hand, I could hear terrified sounding murmurs coming from our would-be home. Believing my love to be in some sort of danger, I rushed inside, only to find him panicking and hyperventilating over me not being there. I found it adorable, but also worrying due to his condition. I lightly pushed him back down, shushing him and telling him that everything was alright, that no one would hurt him anymore. I told him that he was safe here, and that I was with him. I warned him about his condition, which earned me a heart-wrenching smile from him.

And then, he said it. I couldn't believe my ears when he dropped the bomb on me.

"I… won't be around much longer," he had stated, his eyes tired and resigned to some fate that I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around. I didn't understand – what was the Short Stack implying? What did he mean by those words that sounded so final, so sad?

I stared in shock at the stomped flower that lay before me. "What do you mean…?" I ask carefully.

"I'm losing, Kanda… I'm… It won't be long before I truly become-!" I shushed him, trying to stop him from saying it. I didn't want to hear it.

"No," I growled, looking down at him, anger, determination, and love mixing in my eyes as I glared all at once. "Don't you dare say things like this, Allen. You won't lose to him. You're strong, you can win this fight! You're not a Noah, dammit!" He just kept smiling at me and he shook his head.

"Kanda, listen. I… I don't know why, but… I can feel it. The war is going to start very, very soon… And, when it does… I'm going to lose. I… Kanda, I need…" Don't say it. Don't you dare say it. Don't say it, dammit! I won't let you wither! I won't let you, my precious butterfly, lose your wings! "Kanda, you… You have to kill me, before he takes over. You need to kill me so that I can die and still be me. You need to kill me before he'll have the chance to kill you. I'm fighting as hard as I can against turning into that monster, Yuu… But…"

"But it's a battle that I can't win."

I apologize in advance for this taking so long. I also apologize for any mistakes, as I didn't have time to proofread it much. I've been very busy with my college work, so please do not hold it against me.
We are nearing the end of this tale! I will warn you again, as I have in the past: this will not be a very happy fanfiction. So beware.
Thank you so much for reading to this point and sticking with me – This chapter is much longer than the previous ones, and I hope that you enjoyed it! And, as always, please review, or just let me know your thoughts!
PM me with story requests! I am welcoming them now! Give me a prompt, characters, and where they're from, and if I like it, I may end up writing it in the future, as a thank you for reading this story!
I love you all very much, and again, thank you!
~Lucylyles