The Devil's Symphony
Disclaimer: Don't rub it in. I know perfectly well I don't own D. Gray -Man. Hoshino Katsura does.
Chapter 3: Haunting Darkness (Part 1)
"Lenalee…"
A sky tainted red with the blood of the dead…
The bloodstained carnage, the bloodbath of a fierce battle…
No-one survived…
"No… Don't…"
A figure.
Two figures.
He sees her. He sees her crying, screaming.
But he can't hear her, can't hear her lamenting.
He can only see her.
Watch as she grieves for the dead.
"Lenalee…! Lenalee…!"
He can't breathe, overwhelmed by water.
He's drowning.
But she isn't the only one whose cries are muted.
She can't see him, and it's like there's an invisible wall of glass between them and he reaches out towards her, calling out to her.
"Lenalee! Lenalee!"
There is a painful jab in his eye and he hears it scream in pain.
But as his throat burns mercilessly, no sounds emerge from his mouth.
Nothing seems to be able to shatter the silence.
He feels strangled now, and his left arm is screaming, but he doesn't understand.
What is causing him all this pain?
"Allen-kun..! Allen-kun…!"
He looks to the portrait of agony and torment again.
He hears his name.
Someone is calling him.
Calling him from far away.
And it's her voice.
He is brought back to the nightmare by another excruciating blow of pain to his left shoulder, another sent to his chest, knocking whatever air that is left in it.
He lets out a painful gasp but is unable to inhale, sucking in only a liquid tainted by death.
Another scream escapes him.
He chokes as liquid fills his lungs.
His eyes widen.
Something's inside him, just dying to be free.
He can feel it tearing through his flesh, the monster within him.
It claws at his left shoulder, trying to break free and satisfy its intense craving for bloodshed.
"Allen-kun, Allen-kun, wake up!"
The voice is still far away.
And as he writhes in pain on the ground, he can't pay the fretful velvety sound much attention as the piercing pains continue to terrorize him.
His silent screams remain unheard.
"Allen-kun! Allen-kun, wake up!"
He feels his left eye being wrenched open from the inside and he shrieks in protest at the burning ache that ensues.
But again, silence as the blood rolls off his cheeks and onto the floor.
His right arm immediately shoots to his eye and he feels the warm, sticky liquid slimy against his fingers.
He breathes hard and bile rises in his throat.
But what emerges when he gags is something much more different; the liquid is dark red and sticky.
"Allen-kun…"
He's losing the voice now.
It's fading, muted in this dark, dark world and he chances a last glance at the Lenalee, whose screaming and crying he still cannot hear.
He feels the monster ripping through the flesh of his left shoulder.
He lets out a gasp as there is a terrifying tearing noise.
But he can't hear it.
Only feel it.
"Allen-kun! Allen-kun! Are you alright?!"
Her voice is back and she's practically screaming in his ear now, calling his name, asking if he's alright.
But her cries, full of the agony of death are still hushed.
He wants to tell her that he'll be fine, that everything is going to be alright, but asphyxiation still has his airways blocked.
A large metallic monster is in place of his original left arm and it starts to drag him away from Lenalee.
He looks at the image again for a moment, totally ignoring the burning sensation he feels all over his body…
And he feels himself going numb.
The pain evaporates and his eyelids are heavy, the black and white world of red skies fading…
He sees the blood-soaked ground beneath him disappearing out of sight but doesn't pay it any mind.
He reaches out to the Lenalee in all that remains of the distant portrait with his right hand and his fingers brush against something wet as darkness engulfs him.
"Allen-kun, Allen-kun! Wake up! You're starting to scare me! Are you-"
The ebony-haired girl stopped short, discontinuing shaking him as he awakened unexpectedly and stared at her, his mind blank as his eyes spilt tears of blood. He was breathing hard as if he hadn't been able to inhale nor exhale for a couple of minutes. And strangely, his right hand was at Lenalee's cheek, brushing away a small trickle of salty water.
"L-Lenalee…"
His vision was black and white on his left and in colour on his right.
Allen didn't know what to make out of it.
He saw the same shock and fear in the ebony haired girl's eyes as he had seen in the past and his heart tightened in pain.
But the boy wasn't given the time to think about it.
He gasped and his left arm throbbed, numbing. His right arm followed suit, losing all feeling. It went limp abruptly, slamming lightly against the side of the couch.
"Allen-kun…"
Lenalee's fearful voice shrivelled his heart further.
The fifteen-year-old turned away from the girl kneeling beside his makeshift bed.
"D-Don't look… L-Lenalee…" Allen choked, coughing into his palm.
The sixteen year-old continued to gaze anxiously at the white-haired boy.
Allen guessed at the question that lingered, unspoken, in the violet orbs which were her eyes.
The answer was pretty obvious.
"I'll be fine… D-Don't worry about me… Go back to sleep… Sorry for waking you…" he gasped as a searing pain hit him in the chest.
He clutched it painfully, stifling a cry.
He couldn't worry Lenalee like this.
And that look in her eyes.
It would haunt him for nights to come.
"Baka!"
There was a light slap on his right shoulder and Allen quivered at the light impact.
He felt so fragile.
"I'm your friend! It's my job to worry about you!"
Allen coughed again and Lenalee's tone softened. She attempted to turn the scarred boy around to face her.
"What's wrong…?"
As he turned around and sat up, his hands went up and covered his bleeding left eye hurriedly.
"N-Nothing's wrong! Just a case of a weird dream… Eheheh…" he lied.
Lenalee's expression darkened perceptibly. Her bangs hid her eyes and Allen felt a bit worried.
"W-What's wrong Lenalee?"
"You were screaming, Allen-kun…"
There was that dangerous lack of sentiment in her voice again.
Said teenager looked away.
"I came to get a glass of water and when I unplugged my ears, I heard screaming."
She looked at him with fierce amethyst eyes.
"Why were you screaming?" she demanded, the stern look in her eyes ever present.
"I…I…"
Allen tried to change the subject.
"Uh, Lenalee, why did you have to unplug your ears?" he stuttered nervously.
"Don't change the subject, Allen-kun."
She was still staring at him ardently.
"There are people in this apartment building who are very noisy at night. They hold loud parties and such, and as a precaution to prevent complaining, the landlady ordered us to use earplugs when we sleep. I forgot to warn you about it."
'She told me not to change the subject but answered my question anyway?'
"O-Oh…W-Well, it's alright. Everything's fine now, so you can go back to sleep Lenalee."
"You haven't answered my question."
"E-Er…"
"Why were you screaming?"
Allen looked away guiltily, his hand still over his left eye.
"Like I said… I had a strange dream…"
He rubbed the back of his neck guiltily with his right hand.
"And…? What happened in your dream to make you scream so terribly?"
"I-It was just a bad dream…"
Allen drifted off.
Lenalee was reaching up to pull his hand away from his left eye.
"Is it your left eye, Allen-kun…?"
The throbbing in Allen's eye ceased as Lenalee asked this question, and Allen felt it deactivate.
She pulled his hand away from his face and Allen quickly wiped the blood in one swift motion as he brought his hand down.
He looked at Lenalee with his clear blue-gray orbs, locking gazes with her.
"Good morning the two of you!"
Allen jumped, startled by Komui's sudden entrance.
Lenalee gasped, letting out a startled cry.
The snow-haired boy tumbled off the couch and hit the floor hard, sending a shockwave buzzing through his left arm.
The teen groaned, rubbing his head so that Lenalee wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
Besides, he'd landed on his head too.
It didn't hurt as much though.
You get used to your head getting knocked into things with a barbaric master like Cross Marian.
-
"Three hundred and eighty eight, three hundred and eighty nine…"
As the counting mounted to four hundred, there was a yawn from the corner.
Allen almost lost his balance.
He flipped off the chair he had been balancing on.
"L-Lenalee!"
"G'mornin'…"
There was another yawn as the girl rubbed her eyes sleepily.
"Why're you up so early?" the snow-haired boy asked, wiping himself with a towel.
"I always get up this early… I need to make nii-san his coffee…"
She shuffled over to the kitchen doorway as Allen pulled on a clean shirt, leaving the towel draped over his white hair.
He grabbed the bottle of water he'd gotten from the refrigerator earlier and unscrewed the cap.
There was the sound of Lenalee boiling water, fire burning under the base of the kettle, as the white-haired boy gulped down mouthful after mouthful of water.
"So, what're you up this early for?"
She was leaning on the doorway, holding a glass of cold milk.
There was a thin sweater wrapped around her shoulders and she rubbed her upper right arm as she waited for Allen's answer.
"Morning routine, I guess. And… I couldn't sleep after…"
He shrugged, his expression imperceptible under the white fabric.
The ebony haired girl looked away from him and down at the floor.
"Well, Mr Bentley's coffee house opens at seven, so I'm going to make breakfast. It'll take a fifteen minute train ride, considering the temperature outside. We can't walk, so train would be the fastest way across these snow-cluttered roads. It would be best to reach early so we don't waste too much time in attracting customers," she stated, still not lifting her head.
Then she looked up.
"So what would you like to eat?"
"Oh. Uh, no, I couldn't possibly trouble you to make me a breakfast of my liking. I'll just have whatever you're…"
Allen didn't finish his sentence.
Lenalee was glaring at him intensely with a fierce look that portrayed more than the same irritation she'd shown when he'd first refused to accept her offer for a lodging; there was a hurt look in her eyes.
The white-haired boy sighed.
He was sure that Lenalee would be able to get him to do whatever she wanted him to do against his will with that look for as long as he was there.
"Pancakes? Do you have pancake batter?" he said from under the towel.
"Mm-hm."
"Pancakes would be nice."
Silence engulfed the room before Allen spoke again, posing a question to Lenalee.
"Hey, you know, you never told me you studied music…"
He watched as the girl turned away from him.
Lenalee was flustered. She could feel the blush creeping up her neck.
"W-Well, I… I didn't think it was important…"
"Oh."
She sensed the hostility in his voice.
But the moment she turned around to look at him, his expression proved the feeling she got from his words to be false.
His eyebrows were knotted in confusion and his mouth was set in a tight line.
He seemed to be thinking and was probably trying to determine the connection rather than be angry at her for not telling him her involvement in music.
Then his eyebrows shot up and he looked up at Lenalee abruptly, startling her.
"You're in the Latitude Music Faculty, aren't you?" he asked in a little less than surprised tone.
She looked down at her bare feet, wiggling her toes.
"Yeah…"
"No wonder you know so much."
"Mmn."
-
"So Allen, you're a traveller?"
Said fifteen-year old set his glass of orange juice down.
"No, not exactly."
He tapped a finger on his chin.
"I travel with my master to different places. It's been that way for three years now."
Komui smiled.
"Are you an apprentice?" he asked.
Allen didn't answer at first; his mouth was full of honey-slobbered pancakes.
Lenalee giggled.
"Well," he said after he had swallowed the mouthful of food, "yes."
"Oh? What do you study under your master?"
Allen gulped down the orange juice in his glass.
"Music!" he exclaimed happily.
He turned to Lenalee.
"These pancakes are wonderful!"
She beamed.
"Thank you. I'm flattered."
"Oho…"
The sound that had just emerged from Komui's lips made Allen and Lenalee turn in his direction.
"Ne, Allen…"
The boy almost backed up and out of his chair at the evil glint in the man's eyes.
"Y-Yes, Komui-san?"
He stole a glance at Lenalee.
To find she was sipping up her milk.
Allen controlled himself, containing the urge to smack his forehead, and turned back to the crazed looking man.
"Do you think my Lenalee is pretty?"
His eyes goggled.
And from the corners of those big, wondrous blue-grey orbs, Allen could see Lenalee almost choking on what she had just sucked into her mouth.
She coughed and excused herself, needing to use the bathroom.
There was a long pause and the fifteen-year-old thought that Komui had dropped the topic.
His gaze wandered around the room absentmindedly.
"Well, Allen…?"
This brought Allen to look at the older man straight in the face.
There was still an evil glistening spark in the man's eyes
And the reason he had pressed harder for an answer, was unknown to the boy.
He was flustered, utterly red in the face.
And lucky for him, Lenalee was still away.
"Sh-She…"
He looked around, and in his anxiety, he outright missed the footsteps that were coming around the corner.
But when he answered, his voice was certain.
He smiled as Lenalee appeared in the doorway.
"She's not just 'pretty'. She's beautiful."
-
Lenalee stopped short.
She grabbed the doorway so tight her knuckles turned white.
The girl backed up as quietly as she could and clamped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence her haggard breathing.
'W-What? He thinks I'm beautiful?'
Lenalee almost started hyperventilating.
The words echoed in her head and her all her thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind.
'She's not just 'pretty'. She's beautiful.'
The sentence just kept on ringing, and everything was nothing.
-
Komui looked shocked at first.
Allen grew anxious.
"K-Komui-san?"
He waved a hand in front of the older man's face.
"Hello?"
Still, nothing happened.
Allen sighed.
"Okay, uh…"
He thought for a moment.
Then, he reached across the table and snapped his fingers a few inches away from the man's eyes.
Instantly Komui was out of his stupor.
"Sorry, what?"
Allen just stared blankly at him, wishing hard for the same sense of knowing he had encountered the previous night again.
"Oh, right!"
Allen slumped back against the chair.
'Thank god I don't have to tell him again.'
"You said Lenalee was beautiful?"
The scarred boy flushed a deep red.
He watched as Komui took a swig of coffee.
"That's good…"
He laughed, and the white-haired boy watched quietly.
"Almost all of the guys who've come by here in the last few years have all said she's 'hot' or, that she was just 'pretty'. Not one of them has ever said she was beautiful."
Komui continued eating his breakfast as Allen got up to clean his plate and put it in the cupboard.
"Right, moving on, what were we talking about before Lenalee left?"
Allen shrugged at the question the dark-eyed man had just posed and replied, "Pancakes and my master, I think."
"Right."
"Mm."
There was a momentary period of silence as Allen moved back to his seat.
"So, who's your master? Is he famous?"
"His name's Cross Marian. He studied at the Latitude Music Faculty and has been a mentor and teacher there for quite some time. But, according to him, the mentors are supposed to go around the world looking for apprentices. But, I don't know if he's famous."
The boy watched as Komui's mouth fell open.
"Cross Marian is your master?!"
Allen raised an eyebrow and nodded.
"Holy cows are flying."
-
Lenalee turned as the last few words escaped her brother's mouth, knocked out of her stupor.
She'd never heard her brother utter such nonsensical words in her entire life.
"Cross Marian is your master?"
She heard her brother speaking again.
"Uh," Allen stuttered from behind the wall, "well, yeah, I guess. If by master you mean that you have to travel around with him, and train by paying off his obnoxious debts for him."
There was a brief pause in the conversation.
Then, Komui laughed loudly.
"What? So that's what he got an apprentice for?"
There were loud gawking noises, as Allen looked on in shocked silence.
Lenalee chose that moment to enter the conversation, seeing it as a good avenue to enter the room.
"Nii-san, stop being so noisy. You'll wake the neighbours. It's a Sunday. People in this apartment sleep in on days like this, you know that," she said, feigning a sense of unknowing, "And Allen, please get ready. We're leaving in five minutes' time."
-
The red of whatever leaves were left from autumn flashed by with the world around them.
There was the soft rumbling of the train sliding along on the train tracks.
This was getting pretty intriguing.
How come no one here seemed to care neither about his white hair, his scar nor about his deformed left arm?
They made a very negative impression elsewhere, and no one here seemed to notice?
Allen shook his head, attempting to clear the distressing thoughts that plagued his mind.
He decided to focus on something else.
"Ne, Lenalee."
"Hm?"
"Who exactly is Cross Marian in the Latitude Faculty of Music?"
Lenalee stared at him.
"What?"
"Cross Marian? How do you know about him?"
She wasn't exactly lying, just keeping the truth about her awareness of the situation from her newfound friend.
Allen too, pondered at the question.
Should he tell her?
He decided that, just in case, he'd tell her the truth.
He didn't want to lose her trust.
"He's my master, so..."
Lenalee stared at him momentarily again.
She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"Well, in that case..."
Her tone changed, and her face was distorted in irritation.
"He's the loudest, meanest, most flirtatious person I've ever met!"
She narrowed her eyes.
"And I really don't like him that much. He's always smelled like alcohol and beer the few times we've crossed paths."
Her expression darkened.
Allen couldn't see her eyes in the shadow of her bangs.
The world outside disappeared as they entered a tunnel.
"What's wrong?"
"He took someone away from me."
The white-haired boy knew exactly what she was talking about.
Well, almost.
Lenalee suddenly let out a startled cry.
"Oh dear! I'm rambling."
She flushed deeply.
"Sorry, Allen-kun."
Allen shook his head, smiling.
"I want to hear it. So go on."
He definitely did want to know about this. It would confirm his doubts on whether or not she was the Lenalee from the memory that plagued his dreams every night.
She shook her head furiously. Allen figured she was trying to clear her head of the scary encounter they'd had with Cross all those years ago.
"No, I couldn't possibly…"
Storm grey eyes gazed deeply, ardently into deep violet ones.
"Please."
Lenalee looked away for a brief moment, unsettled by the intensity of his gaze.
"I-"
The sixteen-year-old was cut off as the train shook violently. Allen almost lost his footing.
But he didn't. Instead, along with a lot of other people, Lenalee did.
"Whoa!"
Arms flailing, she let out a startled cry as she slammed into Allen, resulting in him jerking backwards and crashing into the glass of the window behind them. And, unluckily, the transparent surface shattered upon impact, sending shards of it flying all over.
The white haired boy shielded the girl with his arms, where some of the crystalline shards bounced off, others, digging into the fabric and carving their way into Allen's skin.
They were falling now, but being unfazed by his painful contact with the small object, he grabbed a random pole within reach just in time.
Then the world stopped spinning and the lights flashed, some broken.
Allen blinked wildly, trying to grasp the situation.
The ebony-haired girl was squashed against him.
When she looked up, she could see Allen rubbing his head with his free hand.
"Ow..."
He drew it away from his head, looking dazedly at the red liquid smeared over his palm.
Apparently some glass had found its way to his head.
Lenalee gasped.
"Allen-kun! Are you alright?!"
Allen mouthed a silent 'fine', and continued to stare at his bloodied hand, astonished.
"No wonder it stings..." he mumbled.
Hearing this shocked Lenalee despite its mild volume, and she made a fretful sound, definitely misbelieving what the boy in question had just told her.
"I'm so sorry!"
Her shrill apology snapped him out of his stupor.
He looked at her, eyes a little confused.
"Relax Lenalee, it's just a little cut."
He looked behind him, noting the fact that the train hadn't been modified for a case of emergency crash; so of course the glass hadn't been shatter-proof.
When he turned back to Lenalee, he was greeted by a terribly worried face and teary eyes that just about broke his heart.
"W-What?"
"Allen-kun... Your hair... The back of your head... It's going red..."
He blinked, the fact that would normally incredibly unnerve someone lacking in effect on him.
"Oh."
He scratched his cheek, looking around them. There were people sprawled all over, the majority being the people who had been standing in the moving train. Most were attempting to get up and Allen could see no injured people. He turned to the girl who was still squashed against his chest. Her eyes were shut tight as if deep in thought.
A tear slipped past Lenalee's eyelids just then, and the white-haired fifteen-year-old became nervous.
"Are you alright, Lenalee? Did any of the glass get to you? Do you hurt anywhere?"
She perked up at his string of worried questions, the contained sobbing noises from her throat stopping.
She pressed in closer to him and he flushed.
"No, I am not! Your head is bleeding, and your hair is going red, but you don't seem to care!" she whispered angrily.
She frowned, her eyebrows knotting together.
The light pink on his cheeks faded, and he decided to change the subject, more than a little determined to get rid of the tense atmosphere that had accrued between them as he averted his eyes to the violin case that was lying flat on the floor.
Besides, he didn't really care about a little cut.
It was, after all, just a little cut.
"What was that anyway?"
Lenalee gave him no answer, and remained silent.
The boy was slightly unnerved by her reticence, but attempted ignorance.
He turned to look out the window, only to find an endless mass of black outside.
'Crap. We're in a tunnel.'
Allen bit his lip.
'If we're in a tunnel, and another train comes in, this'll get ugly."
A/N: Hello~! I updated early 'cause I might be sleeping in really late tomorrow, so. I hope you liked it.
Review? Please?