A/N: Starts just before the events of chapter 30, before leaving HQ to find General Cross.

Different Kind of Human
Chapter 2

Stirring

"A what?" Bookman asked, looking more curious than anything.

"An Innocence," Allen repeated, spreading his hands apart. "Could a Noah use Innocence?"

The old exorcist stroked his chin slowly, his brow furrowed in thought. "There is nothing that suggests they could not, young Allen, though admittedly records concerning the Children of Noah are scarce even in the vast archives of the Bookmen. In fact..." He looked down at Allen, who flinched and drew away from his gaze for some reason.

"In fact," he continued, seeming to take no notice of Allen's reaction, "I would wager that the most trustworthy account of an encounter with a Noah would be the one you told to me, not a week ago.

"According to your words, the Noah named Rhode was implicit in her insistence that she was as human as you or I - more human, somehow-"

"Different."

Bookman paused, disgruntled at being interrupted in the middle of his recollection. "Different?"

"Different kind of human," Allen explained, his eyes focused on nothing. "That's how she said it."

"Very well," Bookman said stiffly. "Different. But human, nonetheless, and thus it is entirely possible that a Child of Noah could be compatible with Innocence. However, there is substantial evidence which indicates that Innocence are sentient, and it is highly probable that it would reject any potential user who was allied to the Earl of Millennium." He paused for a moment. "Is there any particular reason you wanted to know?"

Allen's eyes widened briefly, and he forced a nervous smile. "Nothing... I was just curious." Before Bookman could say anything more, the white-haired exorcist made himself scarce, tossing a yelled thanks behind him as he disappeared around a nearby corner. The wizened old man stared after him for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before he too turned and left.

---

Allen forced himself to stop, telling himself that he was being a fool. There was no reason to believe that Bookman had suspected him of anything, and running away like he did could have created suspicion where there had been none before. Besides, it wasn't like he had a secret to hide. He was an exorcist, and even besides that, he had a better reason than most to hate the Earl of Millennium. Even if the night in his room hadn't been a dream, and Rhode had been telling the truth, it wasn't as if he was going to somehow turn against his allies for no reason save the blood that ran through his veins.

At least, he hoped so.

A sudden ominous rumble from his stomach alerted him to a concern far more urgent than the worry of perhaps being a Noah. Heeding the call of his belly, Allen worked his way deeper into headquarters, heading towards the cafeteria.

Minutes later, he found himself balancing several trays laden heavily with food on both arms, looking for all the world like a badly injured waiter. The lack of depth perception caused by his bandaged eye confused him for a crucial instant, and his hip bumped into a nearby table. It wasn't much, but in his unstable condition it was just enough to knock him off balance, making him lose a step.

With a sick kind of fascination he watched, helpless, as the world seemed to slow to a snail's pace. Two trays which had been balanced precariously on his left arm began slipping to the left. Slowly they tilted, the plates on them already starting to slide off, to the floor where they'd shatter in a cacophonous symphony of broken porcelain and china liberally sprinkled with various meats and sauces. A small part of him wondered crazily whether or not Jerry would make him any more.

A pair of hands appeared out of nowhere, smoothly receiving the doomed trays. The world started to move at normal speed again, and Allen let out the breath he just realized that he'd been holding. It appeared that the brazed chicken wings, deviled eggs and beef bowl had been miraculously saved from a fate worse than consumption.

The owner of the mysterious hands let out an exasperated sigh, set the trays down on a nearby table and pushed his bandanna up, clearing his unruly red hair out of his face. "Honestly, Allen," Rabi said as the white-haired exorcist set down his own trays, "you should at least have asked for some help from Jerry. If I hadn't been here, you would've ended up spilling this stuff all over the floor..." He trailed off slowly as his own stomach produced a sound which bore a distinct resemblance to a thunderclap, and his eye strayed to the food he'd just saved, as well as that piled up high on Allen's arms. "Err... You going to eat all that?"

In response, Allen just grinned and handed him a fork.

"So," Rabi said a moment later, around a mouthful of stir-fried rice, "what's General Cross like? Since we're going to be searching for him, after all..." He raised an eyebrow as Allen promptly spewed half of his orange juice across his chicken drumsticks, coughing violently. "That bad, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it," Allen muttered darkly, cleaning up the mess he'd made. "Some of the things he made me do..."

"Like what?"

"Well..." Allen paused, an involuntary shudder passing through his body. A dark shadow fell over his face. "Do you really want to know?"

Rabi started to look uncertain. "Err..."

"We should probably finish eating before I start."

Rabi paled. "On second thought, maybe not."

"I still can't forget the time with the bears..." Allen mumbled under his breath.

Rabi opened his mouth to ask just what the bears in question had done, thought better of it, and closed it. Seeing Allen fall into a gloomy silence, he searched for something to change the topic.

"Have you packed your bags?"

Allen looked up from doodling little bears in his steak sauce. "Huh?

"Your bags," Rabi said, glad to be off the subject of General Cross. "We leave in an hour, remember?"

Allen's eyes widened and the speed of his fork slowed down from oh-gawd-I-need-food to merely frenzied. "I'd forgotten all about that!"

"Somehow, I can't say that I'm surprised," Rabi said dryly, eyeing the huge amounts of food Allen was shoveling into his mouth. The boy had the decency to look embarrassed, but he showed no signs of stopping. "I thought you'd forgotten to pack?"

"I don't have many belongings, much less any that I'd need to pack. It'll only take a little while."

Rabi found himself full soon enough, and he ended up sitting back, watching Allen eat as if he'd been fasting for days. "Didn't you eat breakfast?"

Allen paused in the middle of devouring a vegetable pie. "I always eat as much as I can. When I was learning under Master Cross-" He shivered again, his eyes becoming unfocused. "I never knew when my next meal might be."

"I... see," Rabi said, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. The remainder of the food disappeared in short order, Allen letting out a satisfied sigh as he patted his stomach.

"I love these fringe benefits," he murmured, then forced himself to get up. "I'd better get packing." He blinked as Rabi got up as well. "Hmm?"

"You look like you might need a hand. Might as well help, after I mooched off of your food."

"But the food is free-"

Rabi held up a hand, his face suddenly serious. "Allen, let me tell you a venerable old proverb of the Bookmen that's been passed down for generations."

Allen blinked. "Okay."

"Never refuse help from Rabi when he offers it freely," Rabi said shortly, and grabbed Allen's shoulders, turning him around.

"But-"

"No buts, ifs, or maybes." Before the younger exorcist could do more than raise his hands weakly in protest, Rabi carted him off to his room.

Half an hour later, Rabi fastened the last clasps on Allen's trunk, leaning on it. "That's the last of it, right?" He glanced at the clock and grinned. "Just in time, too. Come on, let me go and get my stuff."

---

The train station wasn't far from HQ at all, and they arrived in short order, soon joined by Linali and Bookman. The latter greeted Allen genially, showing no sign that anything was amiss. Linali, on the other hand, made a point of turning her head away from him. When Allen tried to talk to her, he found himself ignored in favor of Rabi and Bookman.

The ride passed in uncomfortable silence, broken only when Bookman briefly explained where they would be going. When the train made a stop a few hours later, Linali promptly left the compartment. After a moment's hesitation, Allen also got up and followed her.

---

"Linali?"

She didn't turn to face him from dealing with the lunch vendor, though her posture said that she wasn't surprised.

"About that time, I..." He stopped, uncertain. What was he going to say? That he regretted what he had done? That he wouldn't do it again? He was never good at lying, except when it came to cards. Faced with the same situation, he'd do what he had done back then again in a heartbeat, and they both knew it.

"I'm sorry," he finished lamely, his gaze shifting down towards his feet. When she turned to face him, he looked up and was surprised to see the beginnings of tears shining in her eyes. "Eh? Linali-" He cringed instinctively as she stepped forward, closing the distance between them.

"You still don't understand why I'm mad at you, do you, Allen?" Linali's voice did hold anger, granted, but far less than he'd expected, and her suspiciously wavering tone said that she wasn't far from tears at all.

"We're all exorcists, and we all vowed that we'd put our lives on the line for our cause. Even though your eye lets you see Akuma, you're still just as human as anyone else. You're not the hero in some fantasy story, Allen!"

Her words, harsh as they were, made him wince, but he didn't lower his eyes.

"We're in this together," Linali continued, her eyes brimming. She blinked twice, hard, and the tears retreated. "And if you think that you can just go off traipsing by yourself like some sort of knight in shining armor, you've got another thing coming. I'm no damsel in distress, Allen, and the sooner you realize that we're meant to work as a team, the sooner I'll start thinking about forgiving you!"

She whisked past him swiftly, leaving Allen bewildered and with the distinct feeling that there was something he was missing.

"Well," he said to nobody in particular, not sure at all whether he'd been forgiven or not. He hadn't really expected Linali to smile and say it was all alright, but on the other hand... "That didn't work out as well as I'd hop-" His monologue, together with his thoughts, were cut off by the high, shrill whistle of the train about to leave. His eyes widened and he whipped around, already eyeing the distance between the train and himself. He'd have to sprint.

His sprint was stopped before it had even started properly as a large hand grasped his arm. Allen turned to see a burly old man with frizzy white hair, staring at him with the sort of blank gaze he had, over time, come to associate with those who had been taken over by Akuma. Realizing his eye wasn't properly healed, Allen's mind kicked into battle mode, ready to activate his Innocence and jump away if the need came.

"Is that a cross on your chest?" the old man asked, his voice husky with hope.

"Huh?" Allen replied intelligently, his attention divided. On one side was the train, which, he now realized with a sort of calm panic, had gained too much speed to even think of catching up to, and on the other was the man, who, Allen was now keenly aware, could burst into a flagaration of guns and weaponry at any moment. He groaned as the train reached full speed and quickly disappeared from sight, remembering that the next one wasn't due to come until tomorrow.

The old man showed no sign of noticing Allen's plight, his death grip on Allen's arm not loosening in the slightest. "Are you a black monk?" he asked breathlessly, as if he barely dared to believe it was so. "Yes, yes. Of course you are. I have a problem, you see..."

---

It turned out that the man with white hair did have quite the problem. A very bloodthirsty problem, one that had apparently taken to sucking the life out of innocent villagers at random. For some reason, it seemed that it was up to Allen Walker to solve that problem, preferably in as quick and violent a manner as possible.

So it came to be that Allen found himself tied to a rickety wooden chair that had undoubtedly seen much better days, listening to the ghoulish tale of Count Aleister Crowley the Third - an eccentric and lonely noble who, a few months ago, had suddenly decided to show the villagers his newfound taste for human blood in an exceedingly up close and personal way.

"...so you must help us!" the vendor, who had turned out to be the mayor of the village, finished. He brought both hands together and raised them above his head. "You're our only hope! We stand no chance against the monster that Baron Crowley has become - a true vampire."

Allen felt a brief flash of anger against the people groveling abjectly before him. They had stood by and watched their neighbors murdered and devoured, and were now depending on him to save them, as if he would gladly lay his life on the line for theirs. They expected him to selflessly pit himself against a monster none of them dared face, just so they could go on living their worthless liv-

He stopped abruptly, shocked and disturbed at the alien line of thought. What had he been thinking? He'd known what he had been getting into the moment he'd chosen the road of an exorcist. Wasn't this exactly what he'd known - even anticipated - would be expected of him? He shouldn't have felt that way about these villagers, even if they were cowardly, unable to stand up for themselves. He'd been given a gift, to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.

"...black monk?"

Allen's eyes refocused to see the mayor's face inches from his own, peering worriedly at him. Surprise made him flinch back, and with a startled yelp he fell over, bound to his chair and unable to stop his own fall.

His head struck wood hard enough to make colored spots flash in his vision, and anexquisitely sharp and infuriating pain blossomed from the back of his skull. For a moment he saw red, irrational and overwhelming hatred clouding his vision. His Innocence swelled briefly, on the verge of activation, and it was only sheer force of will along with the piercing agony coming from his head that stopped him from tearing his bonds to shreds.

Someone hauled him upright again, running a hand through his hair to get the dust out of it. The haze in front of his eyes cleared and he found himself staring at...

"Rabi?"

The older exorcist gave him a lopsided smirk. "Hey. Linali and the panda made me come back to get you." He took in the thick ropes that bound Allen to his seat. "Vampires, huh? Sounds like a bunch of superstition and rumors to me. Why are you all tied up, anyway?"

"I-"

"It's another black monk!"

After the ensuing dogpile and subsequent hogtying, Allen gave Rabi a flat look, but said nothing.

"Oh."

Rabi sighed, tested his bonds, noted that they had been tied well, and settled back. "Wait a second. Why are you so sure that we're the ones who can take care of this... vampire?" He said the last with a hefty dose of skepticism.

"The priest who visited the village before Count Crowley went berserk said that someday, more of his kind would come to take care of things if anything went amiss." The mayor spoke with great conviction, but the way his voice shook said that he'd been under a good amount of strain until recently.

Allen blanched; he was starting to get a bad feeling about this. "You wouldn't happen to remember what that priest looked like, would you?" It couldn't be...

"Of course!" the mayor exclaimed, whipping out a piece of paper and a pen. Several quick scribbles later, he showed the two a rough rendition of a man. A wide-brimmed had topped his unkempt hair, and a queer mask hid half of his face from view. At the sight of it, Allen grunted and hung his head as if someone had punched him hard in the stomach.

Rabi blinked. "Allen... Isn't that..."

"Master Cross," Allen finished faintly.

"So you do know him!" the mayor exclaimed, overjoyed. Allen thought that the man might even burst into tears, or have an epiphany on the spot. "I knew that God hadn't forsaken us!"

Another flash of annoyance stabbed Allen; so quick to lose their faith, so quick to find it again when things looked as if they were taking a turn for the better. It passed in an instant as Rabi cleared his throat rather noisily.

"That's great, I'm sure," Rabi said, "but I don't think we'll be able to do any vampire hunting when we're tied up like this, right?"

The villagers got the hint, and before long both Allen and Rabi stood up, nursing their arms and legs gingerly.

"If General Cross left orders, then we'll have to follow them," Rabi said to Allen, lowering his voice. The younger exorcist nodded, and turned to face the mayor.

"Err... We've decided to help you defeat the vampire." He blinked as a deafening cheer assaulted his ears, then continued. "So if you'll show us where this Count lives...?"

On their way out, they were greeted by a communications golem. No sooner had it lighted on Rabi's shoulder than Linali's voice came from it, sounding more frantic and anxious than anything else. As Rabi filled her in on the 'mission' General Cross had left them, Allen couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief; it seemed that Linali wasn't mad at him anymore, or at least she didn't sound like it.

"...so we've decided to see what the General left in store for us," Rabi finished, offering a reassuring smile. It turned into a frown as he remembered that comm golems didn't support visual transmissions. "Don't worry, Linali. This Count Crowley's probably just a little off his rocker."

"Still... they say that anyone who's bitten by a vampire ends up turning into one themselves," Linali's voice said, her voice carrying equal amounts of worry and misgiving. "Both of you have to be careful!"

Silently, Allen thought that the worry in Linali's voice was well-founded, although in his case the foreboding feeling had little to do with vampires. His misgivings stemmed from the mere fact that his master was somehow involved in the matter. Still, he forced himself to sound upbeat and casual, saying, "Rabi's right. At most he'll be a crazy man with vampiric delusions."

Linali still sounded doubtful. "If you say so..." She might have said more, but the golem took wing, having run low on power.

"So..." Rabi said after a good deal of walking. "Where does this Crowley guy live?"

The mayor pointed with a badly shaking finger. "There."

Allen and Rabi turned, and once they saw it, they wondered how they could have missed it.

Castle Crowley had all the aesthetic appeal of a train wreck. The main gate was styled in the design of a demon's gaping mouth, and strange sounds issued from behind the massive walls. Rabi took a step back despite himself, and Allen just stared.

Rabi found his voice first. "You first, Allen."

"No, no. You're older than I am," Allen replied smoothly, stepping back so that Rabi was in front of him. The older exorcist opened his mouth to say something, saw the expectant gazes of the villagers behind him, and shut it again. Shooting Allen an acidic glare that could have melted steel, he stepped forward hesitantly, setting a palm flat on the wooden door.

Almost immediately, the door swung open - with, Allen noted, an appropriately ominous and fearsome creaking of the hinges - revealing the gardens of Castle Crowley. Statues of horrible monsters and other deformed creatures littered the grounds like grotesque trees, and Allen found himself taking off the glove of his left hand. He noticed that Rabi also kept a hand close to the hammer hanging from his belt. For a while they walked onwards, passing strange sculptures and ornaments that left Allen severely questioning the Crowley line's tastes in garden decoration.

"It feels like something's going to happen," Allen commented, then stopped, surprised by the loudness of his own voice in the quiet. He narrowed his eyes as something in the trees shifted.

Rabi had noticed it as well. "Looks like someone heard you, Allen," he said, pulling his hammer from his belt and expanding it to battle size. "Get read-"

Before he'd even finished speaking, something incredibly fast flashed past both of them. Allen was only able to catch a brief, blurred glimpse of something black and white before it was gone again, stunned silence blanketing the area like newly fallen snow. For a few tense moments, Allen stood against Rabi's back, warily eyeing his surroundings. He could feel sweat starting to run down his forehead into his eyes, making them sting fiercely.

"It got Frantz!"

The terrified shout alerted both exorcists, and they turned to see just what had gotten Frantz. Allen gasped, and beside him he could hear Rabi mutter a short prayer under his breath.

For someone who was 'probably just a little off his rocker' and a 'crazy man with vampiric delusions', Count Aleister Crowley the Third was absolutely terrifying. The man's teeth were razor sharp, completely imbedded in the hunk of meat which had once been the villager named Frantz. Blood ran down from his mouth to drip from his chin, shining like black oil in the moonlight. Even in the dark of night, his eyes burned like twin coals, glaring at them both.

Logically, Allen knew he should be afraid. He told himself that he should feel fear, or rage at the sight of a cold-blooded murder, or even a sort of nervousness, a butterflies-in-the-stomach emotion that he had come to associate with an imminent fight.

But... for some reason, all Allen could feel was a grin stretching his lips, his blood singing in his veins as his Innocence flared with hungry light. A small part of him noted that he'd never felt like this before and that it was completely unlike him, but it was ignored in the heady rush of battle rage. Terrible, alien joy filling his being and power flowed through his veins, burning like fire. This was what he'd been born for, wasn't it? To fight - to destroy.

And before Rabi could do more than utter a startled yelp, Allen brought his sword-arm into position and burst forward, ready to strike.