To Make A Wish

by Ibrium

Bound to a mission they don't want, Kanda and Allen find themselves tangled in a centuries old web of deceit. Can they find the truth before it's too late? KandaAllen. Strong themes and graphic material; use your own discretion.

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Images in the Mirror

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Deep inside Kanda something broke and tears, hot and stinging, rolled down his cheeks.

"Don't cry, Kanda, it's okay," the younger exorcist breathed against the swordsman's skin. "Don't cry, okay?"

Kanda didn't hear him—he was already gone, locked away in some corner of his mind, trapped in a whirlwind of razors—agony, betrayal, and fear. The tears kept flowing, bright and clear.

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Morning came slowly. The darkness lightened by minute degrees, the morning sun blocked out of the valley by its mountainous belt and its pale, watery rays smothered by the dark rain clouds. Rain was drizzling down in a miserable fugue and the water collected on the slate roofs, overflowing the gutters to splash down in dreary curtains on the flowerbeds below. In the strange, aqueous half-light, Allen drifted out of sleep sluggishly, lulled by the hypnotic noise of the rain and unwilling to move. His limbs felt heavy and cumbersome and his muscles were protesting their having been forced into unfamiliar activity the night before. He stretched and several of his vertebrae popped loudly. With the soft noise of releasing suction, his skin peeled painfully off of cold marble.

"Ouch," Allen muttered, sitting up and rubbing his back where the stinging was worst. His feet were still in the bath water, which had long since grow cold, and the skin on them had the pale, puffy look of drowned things. They dangled in the water, pale, wrinkled, and hairless as stillborn kittens. The white-haired boy winced at the sight and removed them from the bath, casting about for something to dry them with, something to hide them from view. A neatly-folded towel laying some way away caught his eye, and he pulled it over to the edge of the bath. Goosebumps prickled over every inch of his lightly-tanned skin: it was cold now that the warm water of the bath was no longer heating the air and he had not yet dressed after his ablutions the night before.

"Shit," Allen sighed as he stood. Being around Lavi had expanded his vocabulary, but it was still open to debate whether this had been a welcome development. His waterlogged feet were tender and painful to walk on, something the white-haired boy soon discovered as he took a few halting steps toward the bedroom. He grumbled and finished drying his feet, taking care not to press too firmly on the swollen flesh. He shivered and wrapped the towel firmly around himself. The huge bath towel swamped his slender frame, swathing him in soft cotton from neck to knees. Feeling a little better—a little warmer—Allen, ever the optimist, glanced around, hoping for a convenient set of clean clothing to present itself. No such luck. The pale teen sighed again and kicked lightly at the pile of dirty clothes he had abandoned in a heap the night before. The material quivered and toppled over in a spill of black and silver. He toyed briefly with the idea of wearing them again, but the image of silent rows of mutilated corpses rose in his mind. A shiver of revulsion raced down his spine. No, he would not wear that particular uniform again, not until it had been cleaned—and perhaps not even then. Something about the lingering smell of frozen flesh on the clothing made his stomach churn. No, this uniform would likely have to simply be incinerated.

The grey-eyed boy paused, staring intently at the heap of fabric. The queer sensation of having forgotten something of great import had grown strong enough to command his attention and he found himself searching through his memories for the source of the nagging feeling. It was like stumbling blindfolded through a crowded, cobweb-choked storage room: he was unsure of what he was searching for—relying on being able to recognize whatever it was when it appeared—but everything he examined brought up hundreds of related but irrelevant memories, all of which were shrouded in a confusing haze of half-recalled emotions.

Was I supposed to be something…useful? Something related to the mission, maybe? Allen figured that the answer to his pondering was likely an unequivocal yes given how much Komui had lectured everyone about the efficiency of the teams and how they needed to stay focused at all times. Still, something about that thought didn't seem quite right and so he stood, brow furrowed, and scowled at his dirty clothing as though they might be coerced into yielding up the answer he was looking for. To complicate matters, the word 'mission' had brought up an enormous pile of mental baggage, a large part of which was associated with Kanda. Allen could tell because the memories in this mind, perhaps responding to his subconscious murmurs of 'baggage, baggage,' had assumed the form of suitcases of assorted sizes and shapes. 'Kanda baggage' in his mind was black and silver with a single pale-pink lotus blooming somewhere on its surface. Bags relating to Kanda also were slightly odd in shape; not quite enough to create instability in the heaping mounds of luggage, but certainly enough that the eye caught the differences and recognized the slight wrongness of it. Allen sighed; it would figure that even in his own mind, Kanda would find some way to make trouble.

The sensation of forgetfulness changed and intensified whenever Allen brushed a 'Kanda bag,' so Allen, who had long since decided to simply run with the metaphor—even if it almost felt like someone else was directing his thoughts as he would certainly have never created such an elaborate world of baggage memories—started opening the Kanda bags in his mind. Jumbled, half-recognized images and emotions tumbled out of each bag in a relentless torrent. Pale grey eyes glazed over as Allen bent all of his cognitive abilities on locating that frustratingly slippery fragment of memory. It seemed as though each time he drew close to something that seemed important, an unknown force would whisk it away to the bottom of a different pile, obstructing his progress. It may, however, have been a benefit to him that he was able to focus so strongly on his search, else he would have no doubt been dismayed be the vast mountains of interlocking, Kanda-related junk that cluttered his psyche. Memories flitted by swiftly, becoming more and more recent, until Allen finally stumbled upon the one he had been looking for.

"Meet Kanda?" he puzzled briefly. Suddenly, everything jarred into crystalline lucidity. "Oh, blast! I was supposed to talk with Kanda last night, wasn't I? He's going to be even more angry than usual with me, too, because I was the one who set it up. Damn!" The white-haired boy flailed about ridiculously in a more thorough search for clothing, but soon gave up when the futility of the gesture sank in. All of his clothing was in his room, and Kanda's had been moved in there as well when the swordsman had requested—demanded, really, in that stubborn way of his—that he not be left alone. Allen felt a pang of shame and guilt that he had failed Kanda in something that had obviously been important to him: whether Allen had meant to or not, he had left Kanda alone for the whole night.

He glanced once more at his dirty clothes, but having already passed harsh judgment on them, he settled on using one of the huge white bath towels. Allen draped himself in it until he could have, with the addition of a beard, passed for an Ancient Greek philosopher. The exorcist ignored the odd sight he made, kilted up his makeshift toga around his knees, and dashed from Kanda's rooms.

Allen collided with the door of his own room, an unstoppable dynamo of embarrassed energy, and skidded into the bedroom.

"Kanda!" he yelled, slipping on the hardwood slightly, not seeing the raven-haired exorcist. His feet still hurt, but he ignored them.

There was an odd sound like a rope being pulled at a furious rate through a rusted metal pulley; the harsh, grinding howl of a tortured cat. The cursed exorcist froze on the spot, peering into the gloom of the room and trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden darkness after his dash down the brightly-lit hall. Something slender and sharp, black and silver, flashed through the air toward him, fast as chain lightning. Just as Allen's mind—already churning with ideas of how to apologize to Kanda for his failure to return last night—registered the motion, a sensation of pressure lanced through his torso. A red cloud bloomed in front of Allen's eyes, every perfect droplet intensely defined and perfectly delineated in his abruptly hyper-acute vision, followed by a sledgehammer of pain that crashed into him with terrible force. The sharp, ferrous tang of blood filled Allen's mouth and the pale teen slid to the floor as his knees buckled underneath him. Shocked into immobility, he stared down at his own chest with sick detachment, taking in the foot or so of cold metal that gleamed up at him in the dull light from the windows. He coughed and a gout of sticky scarlet splattered over the blade, over the hands he had raised to his chest, and over the polished wood of the floor. His towel had already dropped unnoticed to pool around his folded knees, its snow-colored fibers already stained and swollen with crimson blood.

Allen's pale grey eyes began to cloud over and he slumped further, shifting the blade that pierced him against his ribs. His brain, which had been working so rapidly just seconds before, jarred to a standstill. A shrill, bubbling whistle gurgled from the cursed exorcist's chest as the movement widened the hole in his left lung. Pink froth collected at the corners of his mouth and began to spill slowly from his nose. He could feel his heart straining harder with every beat to circulate the life-giving blood through his collapsing veins while it poured away before ever reaching its destination. He was having trouble focusing— what seemed so clear and defined only seconds before was now blurred, and swam dizzyingly, and everything was blurring into an ugly reddish-black—but his gaze trailed blearily up the blade, wandering over the gore-streaked hands that clenched around the hilt and up the heaving chest that was barely covered by a torn coat, to rest on his attacker's face.

Kanda's face—because it was Kanda who stood before him, covered in Allen's blood—was a bestial mask, his eyes blazing and wild, his lips drawn back into a feral, vicious grin as the swordsman savored each splurt of blood, each dying gasp. The black-haired man twisted Mugen sharply and Allen, who had though that he was beyond all pain, found strength enough to scream as the Innocence blade was dragged from the now-gaping hole in his chest, scraping along his ribs and shifting the fragments of his shattered sternum. Kanda hoisted the blade into position for an overhand chop that Allen had seen him execute a thousand times before: it would cleave him in two.

Ah. Some small part of Allen's brain—the last cogent bit—sighed to itself. So this is how I die. I had always wondered.

A last modicum of survival instinct surfaced in Allen's numbed brain, summoning up the final reserves of the pale-haired exorcist's strength and, just as Mugen began its apocalyptic descent, Crown Clown flared and activated. Mugen's diamond-hard blade ricocheted off the white tendrils of the billowing, wing-like cloak that materialized in midair and the sword rebounded with enough force to deaden even Kanda's strong hands for a moment. The dispassionate silver mask glowed coldly from behind Allen's head.

Allen could feel his Innocence flowing in what little blood he had left, shoring up the collapsing blood vessels, forming thin but impenetrable walls over the punctures, containing and mitigating the damage. It was as close to healing as Crown Clown's metal nature could allow. The fog in his mind cleared away as the unobtrusive presence of his Innocence settled at the back of his conscience, blocking out much of the pain, reducing the agony to bearable levels.

The grey-eyed boy looked up, meeting Kanda's deeply blue eyes. Something flickered around those ocean irises, something strange and hard-edged, but it vanished as soon as it caught Allen's attention, leaving behind no trace of its existence. He saw himself reflected in those eyes, his Innocence glowing brightly, pure white, in the azure mirror of their surface, and pushed himself to his feet. The long black claws of his right hand gouged the surface of the hardwood while he rose, the white-fleshed left hand already stretching out toward the Japanese sword wielder despite the trembling in his elbows and back from the strain of bearing up his own weight. The pale teens lips moved soundlessly as he tried to form a question, though even he wasn't sure what it was. Why? perhaps, or even what did I do?

"Don't touch me!" the black-haired young man screamed, the delight that had shone from his eyes at the sight of Allen's pain vanishing and leaving behind fear and despair. Kanda lashed out with Mugen in a reflexive motion, a smooth shoulder-high swing intended to decapitate a man. Allen's black claw responded instantly, almost moving on its own and catching Mugen's two-toned blade in a mesh of long talons. The Innocence blade screeched against the unyielding hand, throwing pale white sparks that plummeted to the floor like dying stars. The other hand, snowy, the color of finest porcelain, reached out and cupped Kanda's chin, holding the swordsman's gaze locked with his own. Fine tendrils of Crown Clown's cloak fluttered around them in a nonexistent wind.

"Don't touch me," Kanda half-sobbed, tugging at his Innocence blade, trying to pull it free.

"What happened, Kanda?" Allen demanded, finally finding his voice and making his tone as low and as gentle as he could and still retain the force of command. The younger exorcist wanted, needed, to know why the man he had trusted with his life on so many missions had lashed out at him like this, striking him down. Kanda moaned like a dying animal and attempted to jerk away. The white hand held fast and the claws trapping Mugen tightened.

"What happened, Kanda?" the cursed exorcist repeated firmly, trying to ignore the sizzling pain in his chest that made his arms tremble slightly. Kanda shuddered and struggled and while Allen watched helplessly, a single saline drop welled up in the corner of Kanda's midnight eyes, shining with the light reflected from Allen's Innocence. It slid over on bronzed cheek, caressing the planes of the swordsman's flesh to cling momentarily to the sharp edge of his jaw, where it quivered and trembled before splashing onto the floor. Kanda shivered violently and closed his eyes just before his strong body went limp and he slid bonelessly from Allen's grasp, leaving Mugen dangling from the black talons. From his position on the cold wood planks, Kanda opened his eyes again and stared up at the pale-haired exorcist.

Allen was stunned. Gone was the terrible insane rage that had marred the Japanese man's visage. It was replaced instead by an overwhelming horror and sick revulsion—the greatest display of self-disgust Allen had ever seen. It was some time before the cursed exorcist noticed that the sword master's lips were moving with the broken cadence of fragmented speech.

"Inside…me…it was inside me, I could feel it…so angry and so hungry…it hurt, it burned, and it got stronger and stronger, and then it was you, it used you to use me…to use me…" Kanda's shivers grew stronger and more pronounced.

Allen, confused and too weary to stand any longer, knelt in front of Kanda and set Mugen down a short way out of Kanda's reach. Carefully, he reached out with both hands, his Innocence still activated out of necessity, and pulled Kanda into a loose embrace. Kanda swayed forward to rest his forehead in the juncture between Allen's neck and shoulder. The swordsman's soft breaths tickled the sensitive skin there while his black hair tumbled messily over Allen's shoulder to stick in the blood that coated Allen's body. They knelt together like that for some time, like two old pillars who must support each other or fall, Kanda seeming to be comforted by Allen's nearness and Allen too battered and light-headed from blood loss to be able to move or pursue his questioning. Allen could feel Crown Clown pushing back the drowsiness of bloodloss that had settled on him and after a while he felt well enough to try to make sense of the situation. He lifted his head just enough to get a good look at Kanda—and then felt his stomach give an unpleasant lurch. Kanda wore only his long exorcist's coat, which was shredded and tattered, and the remaining fabric did little to hide his body. New bruises and scratches stood out angrily on Kanda's flesh, which was splattered and smeared with blood, both his own and Allen's. Though Allen was sure that the blood that reddened the insides of Kanda's thighs belonged to the swordsman alone. The cursed exorcist groaned, the physical manifestation of his emotional pain.

"Oh, God, oh, God," Allen whispered as something clicked in his brain, a sharp ache blooming in his chest that had nothing to do with the raw wound there. "I'm so sorry, Kanda, I should have stayed, I should have just shared the damn bath, oh, God, I'm so stupid. I'm so sorry Kanda. He came again, didn't he? He…he raped you again?" Kanda said nothing, but burrowed his head more firmly into Allen's shoulder, hiding his face. When Mugen's wielder finally spoke, his voice was tortured and strained.

"It—he—never went away, he never went away. He waited until I was alone, then I wasn't me anymore and you weren't you anymore and he used me. Used me."

"You weren't you anymore? What…?" The cursed exorcist was floundering in the vagaries which, while they obviously meant something to Kanda, made no sense to the younger boy. Kanda shook his head vigorously, his black, tangled mane tumbling messily about his shoulders.

"No,no, you don't understand," Kanda moaned, sounding lost. "He was inside me, inside my head. He could see what I could, hear, taste, smell the same. Only he's stronger and he could make me think or do…things…" Kanda's voice dwindled away into nothingness and he ducked his head lower, nearly brushing Allen's chest. His hands remained limp at his sides.

The pieces of Kanda's story began to drop into place and Allen started to guess at what the obviously-shaken swordwielder had meant.

"You were possessed," Allen said wonderingly. "But akuma don't leave souls in the bodies they steal…"

"Do you see any akuma with that eye of yours?" Kanda snarled, jerking his head up to meet Allen's eyes, his mood shifting abruptly and his typical anger snapping out snake-like. The Japanese exorcist shoved Allen back to arm's length and glared. Allen, stunned into compliance, activated the cursed eye. The white of his eye was obscured as red and black swirled to take its place, the gear-like lens rotating into focus. Through the lens, everything that had been perfectly clear—or at least as clear as Crown Clown could make it—was a blurred shadow, smudged with grey-red and greasy black. The cursed exorcist's stare darted around the room, avoiding looking at Kanda, afraid of what he would see. A loud "che!" startled him and his gaze flicked onto the black-haired man kneeling in front of him. His uncovered grey eye widened.

Allen had half-expected, half-dreaded seeing the ghastly crimson haze that signaled possession by one of the Earl's metalloid creations, the chained soul made hideous by suffering. Instead, a pulsing, cold blue light crawled over the hazy form of the Japanese swordsman in fat, plasmic streamers. The tattoo over the sword wielder's heart blazed forth glaringly, its smooth loops and arcs burning bright. Allen realized abruptly that he was seeing Mugen. Sure enough, when he glanced at the Innocence sword to confirm it, it radiated the same eldritch blue luminescence.

"Mugen possessed you?" The white-haired boy leapt to the conclusion in one astonishing bound of faith. Allen couldn't make out Kanda's expression through the swirling miasma his cursed eye was picking up, but the sudden atmosphere of contempt and disgust, both still intermingled with emotional pain, told him clearly that he was spectacularly wrong.

Frustration was beginning to creep up on Allen as well; the heavy azure overlay of Mugen's aura made it extremely difficult to see any other lingering forces and he was tired and he hurt, damn it. For a moment, Allen was sure he had seen something glimmering at the edges of the blue aura intrinsic to Kanda's form, but as soon as he tried to focus on it, it slipped away to hide under the cobalt of Mugen's presence, vanishing like water down a drain. The white-haired boy nearly tore his hair out with exasperation.

"Do you see it?" Kanda demanded, his patience also running out. His strong voice was roughened by screaming and stress. "Can you see anything?"

"No, no!" Allen cried out, then regretted his outburst instantly when the sudden inflation of his damaged lungs with the extra volume of air needed to shout made him double over in a paroxysm of coughing that left him spitting up blood onto the floor between his knees and Kanda's. His broken ribs screamed in protest and a few more bubbles of bloody foam dribbled from his nose, only to be impatiently wiped away on the back of Allen's hand. When he had recovered sufficiently, the cursed exorcist continued in a much more subdued manner: "I thought there was something there for a moment, but it disappeared before I could be sure." He lifted the black-banded white hand from Kanda's shoulder to rake it through his pale hair distractedly.

"I can't seem to look at it or search it out without it hiding itself—whatever it is that I am looking for." Allen grumbled.

"I know." Kanda frowned, his aggression spent as suddenly as it had come. The black-maned man sunk down into a weary half-sprawl, supporting himself with his hands on the floor. When he spoke again, the words came tumbling out so quickly that Allen had to strain to catch them all: "I thought that maybe with your eye, but… It's as though he can tell when you're looking for him. He hides himself inside…but, maybe…come with me." The tall Japanese man stood, swaying slightly and slipping a little in the pool of Allen's blood on the floor, which was congealing into a tacky scarlet morass, and stumbled toward the bathroom. He left bloody footprints on the floor. His long black hair swished across his back and across the tops of his buttock. Allen's pale grey eyes followed the trail of his mane, his eyes lingering in horror over the bruises and marred skin and blood that marked the violated flesh and which the battered exorcist coat was not enough to hide. The rents in the black fabric just made the image worse. Kanda noticed Allen's inactivity and paused, turning his head to look over his shoulder at the white-haired boy and revealing bite marks that stood out lividly on his neck.

"Are you…are you alright?" the swordsman asked gruffly, unused to asking such a question. Allen stared back at him blankly from where he still knelt in a puddle of his own blood. Seeing the stoic sword wielder standing there still wearing all of the traces of his recent possession and rape and still asking him, Allen, if he was alright—an action so far removed from Kanda's normal comportment—something inside Allen broke. The pale boy started to laugh, a thin, hysterical laugh that ended in sobs that shook the slender exorcists slight frame. He started to cry and his lungs began to protest the jerky movements of laughter—the sobs turned to racking, wet coughs that sent more blood to splash onto the floor. The new blood was brighter in color than the old—a rich, bright scarlet against the darker carmine of the older fluid. Allen's tears traced pink lines through the blood on his face. Kanda shuddered again and made a half-step in Allen's direction before Allen forestalled him with a few words.

"No, Kanda, I'll be alright, I just…" he couldn't say just what he felt or thought at that moment, so he gave up and somehow got to his feet. The towel, which had been forgotten long ago, was left in a sodden, bloody heap where it had fallen. He felt so tired, so drained. He wanted to laugh again at the absurdity of it all: one man horribly damaged inquiring about another's health when he himself was in no better shape; he himself needing to maintain the invocation of his Innocence in order to keep from bleeding to death when the steady drain of his parasitical Crown Clown was killing him just as surely. Somehow he choked back the crazed laughter, swallowed the bloody saliva that filled his mouth, and dragged himself onto his feet. Allen could feel his legs buckling until Crown Clown's billowing filaments wrapped themselves around his flagging limbs and steadied him. He wanted to sleep, to do something, but it was all he could do to limp towards the bathroom in Kanda's wake. Kanda watched him struggle wordlessly.

"Don't leave Mugen behind," he ordered before resuming his slow, measured tread toward the bathroom. Allen over-balanced when he reached for the Innocence blade, nearly collapsing in spite of Crown Clown's efforts, but righted himself by the simple expedient of using Mugen as an impromptu crutch. Weaving and dragging his unresponsive feet, Allen managed to make his way into the cool, marble-tiled bathing room. It was a mark of how terrible he must look, Allen decided, that Kanda didn't rage at him for using Mugen for such a base purpose, but the swordsman seemed both unsurprised and unperturbed. Allen may have been imagining it, but he thought that a brief flash of regret crossed Kanda's face.

Allen didn't understand at first why Kanda had wanted to go into the bath room: he was too tired to think properly and Crown Clown didn't seem to be doing as good a job at blocking out the pain as it had been. Kanda didn't explain himself, he just grabbed Allen's wrist and towed him unresisting around the deep, empty pool and positioned him in front of the enormous mirror that hung over the double sinks at the back of the room. The cursed exorcist hadn't noticed it before; presumably it had been hidden by steam from the bath, which was now not in use. Kanda lowered his head and seemed to be steeling himself for whatever he was about to do, and then stepped in front of Allen and off to one side such that Allen could see past him into the mirror.

"Now look," Kanda instructed the younger boy softly. Allen nodded and once more the metalloid lens rolled into place over his eye, focusing in the more dimly lit bathroom. The world became grey and red and black, except for Mugen, which still crawled over Kanda's flesh in sinuous strands of electric blue. Allen was captivated by its azure tendrils as they looped across Kanda's shoulders and slid down his back. Looking down at the sword he was leaning on, Allen could see the same blue light radiating from the blade and streamers of Mugen's aura creeping up his black arm in defiance of Crown Clown's dazzlingly white glow.

"Look in the mirror," the swordsman directed, diverting Allen's attention from the fascinating interaction between the two pieces of Innocence, whose luminescent filaments had tangled together around his elbow. Allen obediently looked and, at first, the room was identical in the silvered glass, only reversed. Then something shimmered at the edge of Mugen's aura as it coiled around Kanda. The white-haired exorcist frowned and looked more closely and suddenly, like a beast flushed unexpectedly from a thicket, a new aura flared into brilliant display. It flickered in jagged arcs around the sleek curves of Mugen's power, flashing and sparkling. The light was a harsh, garish pink that bordered on red in places and faded to almost white in others, but always the unknown aura sparked and skittered as if it were trying to avoid Allen's gaze.

"Do you see it now?" Kanda's voice was low and intense. "It's still there, inside of me. I can feel Mugen holding it back, but…" The swordsman didn't continue, but he didn't need to; Allen's mind was already supplying the rest of the sentence: but for how long?

"What is it?" Allen asked, still staring at the shocking pink whorls and spikes that slashed through the air around Kanda.

The Japanese man just lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I can't see it, can't see him."

Allen frowned. "I don't see a person, either." Kanda glanced at him askance and the white-haired boy hastened to explain. "There's no one there with you, just some sort of weird pink energy. I can see Mugen, too, as a sort of blue light, but I don't know what it is exactly that I am looking at. It isn't hiding from me anymore, though; I don't think that it can tell that I am watching it unless I look at it directly."

Kanda slumped in on himself, making himself look smaller, and tucked his chin toward his chest. Allen continued to watch the play of colored lights in the looking glass, finally discerning a pattern in which the pink would shoot arms toward Kanda's flesh only to be repulsed again and again by a shielding tendril of Mugen's blue energy. It was pretty, in a disturbing, uncomfortable sort of way, and the cursed exorcist stood transfixed, leaning ever more heavily on Kanda's sword as Crown Clown sapped him of energy.

After some time, Allen broke the silence by settling himself cross-legged on the floor, too weary to stand any longer, and asking Kanda in quiet, tired tones: "You stabbed me. Why?" It was a question that had been bothering him because Kanda's attack had radiated hate and killing intent, an entirely different attitude from the trusting, need-you-here behavior Kanda had shown the night before. The pale teen turned his attention from the mirror to Kanda's face as he asked, noticing in passing that as soon as his focus shifted onto Kanda, the pink lights vanished from sight, hiding again under Mugen's aura.

A spasm of frustration darkened Kanda's neutral expression for a moment before the swordsman resumed his blank poker-face—the one he always wore when he was feeling something particularly strongly and was not inclined to share it—and replied, "When you came in…it was the same as before, when he came. I thought he had come back. He wears your face sometimes and…when he does, I can't really tell."

Comprehension dawned. "So when you said that he was me…?" Allen wondered. Kanda nodded.

"Ah," was all Allen could say for a moment, then he grinned suddenly—he felt no mirth, only great relief that it wasn't him that the swordsman had hated so intensely. "At least you didn't chop my head off like you started to. Crown Clown couldn't fix that." The white-haired boy giggled to himself, sliding down to lay on the cold marble tiles.

"I was going to. Then you activated Crown Clown and I knew that it wasn't him; I think that he can only replicate what he has seen before, so he couldn't have mimicked your Innocence like that." For once, the stoic and reserved swordsman seemed to find some solace in talking and Allen, lying sprawled on the floor naked, drenched in his own drying blood, and wrapped in a haze of bone-weary tiredness, was content to let him continue for as long as he liked and simply absorbed the other exorcist's words in silence. Kanda spoke faster and it sounded as though he was trying to explain his attack on his younger companion to himself or to Allen; the white-haired boy couldn't begin to guess which.

"When I stabbed you and you invoked your Innocence, I realized that he had been using me again…He was feeding my anger and making it harder for me to think…if you hadn't caught Mugen, I would have killed you." He sounded almost…remorseful, guilty, ashamed.

Allen managed to gather together his scattered wits long enough to comment in a soft voice that was mushy-sounding from the blood that still pooled in his lungs: "It wasn't your fault, Kanda." It was odd how many times he seemed to be repeating that line to Kanda on this mission. "You said he could control you, manipulate you, make you do things…I don't blame you. It's not your fault."

From his position on the floor, Allen couldn't see Kanda, but he heard the soft rattle of buttons as the sword wielder shivered and the quiet shushing noise the fabric made as he drew the remains of his exorcist's coat closer around his body. There was silence again for a few moments and then Kanda spoke in a gruff near-whisper: "Shut up…Bean Sprout."

Allen craned his neck so that he could see the swordsman. Kanda was looking away, but Allen could still make out, even in the dim bathroom, the blush that stained the Japanese man's cheeks and reddened the tips of his ears. Kanda, blushing? Allen thought idly, starting to fall asleep. Wonders never cease. Stubborn ass, too proud to say come out and say he's sorry, and then too embarrassed to accept forgiveness gracefully. Typical. The pale teen relaxed back onto the tiles. They felt warm all of a sudden, and comfortable, and he was just going to take a little nap right here and…

Crown Clown wavered, partially disappearing and flickering like a candle in the wind. Kanda was crouched at Allen's side in an instant and, seeing the cursed teen start to slide into unconsciousness, slapped the younger exorcist across the face. Hard. Allen blinked up at him groggily, a mumbled protest on his lips, and Crown Clown's form solidified and settled.

"Don't go to sleep, idiot!" Kanda snarled. "Do you want to die?" Allen made no response beyond a few garbled murmurs, so Kanda slapped him again. The pale grey eyes focused on the swordsman's face questioningly. Kanda pulled the smaller boy upright, propping him up against his shoulder. Allen's flesh was cold, too cold. Kanda left Allen for long enough to find something to cover the other boy with and returned seconds later with two fluffy white bathrobes. The sword wielder pulled one on quickly over the tattered remnants of his exorcist's cloak and dragged the other onto Allen's too-still form, shoving the limp arms into the sleeves roughly. That done, he shoved Mugen through the belt of his bathrobe, hooking the hilt onto the fabric to that the blade wouldn't cut it away, and hauled Allen up against his chest. The white-haired exorcist's arms dangled over Kanda's shoulder in a parody of an embrace. Allen's head dropped and Crown Clown shivered out of existence again, only to jolt back into view when Kanda shook the teen in his arms.

"Stay awake," Kanda hissed at him, wrestling the limp body into a position in which it could be carried. "You need to stay awake and you need to eat—you damn Innocence is killing you. I'm going to take you to the kitchens, but you can't go to sleep."

"Food?" Allen mumbled, sounding vaguely interested.

Kanda didn't bother to answer the younger exorcist, instead making an attempt to rise. Agony shot through him, starting from between his legs and tracing a line of fire up his spine. His muscles, which had been honed and hardened by years of grueling exercise, quivered with pain and failed. The Japanese exorcist sank down onto his knees. Allen's body, slight as it was, was too heavy for him to carry in his current state—the swordsman could barely walk on his own, let alone bear the weight another person of another person. Kanda wanted to scream, to rage, and tears of frustration welled up in his eyes at his own helplessness, but an inner core of pride—the bedrock that had allowed him to carry on for so long—kept him from crying out for help. He bit through his lower lip as he clenched his teeth, at war with himself, needing assistance but unable to ask for it.

In that desperate moment, there was a startled shriek from behind him. Kanda whipped his head around, trying to shift Allen in his arms and draw Mugen from his belt at the same time, failing in both attempts. Lilith's laundry basket hit the ground with a soft wicker thud and tipped over, leaving a trail of clean laundry as it rolled to a halt. Her face was white under her sleek bun and starched cap and she was pressing her hands to her mouth in astonished horror.

"I saw the blood in the bedroom, but, oh, goodness, child, what happened?" She wavered in astonishment, but soon enough her sensible nature won out over her shock and a brisk, matronly side appeared en force.

"I'll be right back, I'll get a doctor and send Lane to heat some warming bricks…" She had already turned toward the door when Kanda found his voice.

"No!" The shout echoes in the bathroom and probably could be heard through the whole house. "No," he repeated more quietly. "He needs to eat. Crown Clown, his Innocence, the white thing around him, is devouring his life energy. He must eat or he will die."

Lilith nodded understanding and rethought her plan quickly.

"You're in quite the state too, aren't you? You can't lift him?" she asked swiftly. Kanda nodded and Lilith descended on him in a flurry of skirts, pushing him gently out of the way. Then, with an ease born of years of moving furniture, kneading bread, and lifting anything and everything around the house, she hoisted Allen up into her arms, ignoring the silver-white tendrils of Crown Clown and the blood that was staining her crisp white apron where Allen's hands brushed across it.

"Come along, Mr. Kanda," she ordered as calmly as possible given the situation, then turned and swept out of the room, carefully handling her burden in order to avoid slamming him against the doorframe. Kanda rose from his kneeling position, pushing the sharp stab of pain through his lower back out of his mind. He staggered in Lilith's wake, mentally cursing the weakening of Mugen's healing power that had begun when they had set foot on the grounds of the estate. As it was, the effort of trying to lift Allen had reopened the wounds from the night before, which had barely been covered by a thin layer of new, sensitive skin. The swordsman gritted his teeth, feeling a trickle of blood trace its way between his buttocks and down his left thigh as he limped along.

By the time Kanda managed to get to the door that led from the bathroom to the bedroom , Lilith had already skirted around the pool of blood that had poured from Allen's chest. A sharp stab of guilt assailed him, but he shoved that aside like the pain: Allen had already forgiven him and there would be time later to forgive himself.

Lilith halted for the briefest of moments at the door, half-turning to address the Japanese exorcist. "Can you find the dining room on your own?" Kanda hesitated, trying to remember the way, but his usually-keen memory was failing him, just as his body already had. The maid noticed the pause and sighed sharply.

"Keep up as best you can, then. I would take Mr. Walker here down and then return for you, but it really is best if no one is alone if things like this are happening." Her words were clipped with stress and Kanda could see that only habitual efficiency was keeping her from falling all to pieces. She was trembling with the effort of repressing the terror that was welling up behind her eyes. Lilith moved on with quick steps, pausing only when Kanda lagged too far behind. On one such occasion, Kanda managed to spit out a few words between teeth clenched against the pain.

"We should go to the kitchen, not the dining room," he half-panted, half-growled as he caught up. Lilith started moving again, speaking over her shoulder.

"No," she said. "The dining room is where Master Harrison is. He'll be having breakfast at this time, and Lane can bring food from the kitchen. Mr. Harrison will likely be able to tell you why all of these things are happening, but why, after all these years…?" The fear in Lilith's voice was more pronounced now and her stride had quickened without her noticing. Somehow through the pain of moving, Kanda found enough energy to be angry.

"The old coot knew what was going on from the beginning and he didn't see fit to share it with us?" the sword wielder snarled, enraged by the maid's disclosure.

The maid was on the verge of tears, so she spoke with a choppy, hiccupping rhythm: "It is different from before…it wasn't like this…that's why we thought that maybe…maybe it was the akuma those men were talking about, we don't know much about them, but…" Lilith trailed off, shaking her head. Wisps of chocolate brown hair escaped from her tight bun to frizz around her head in a disheveled wreath.

Apparently Lilith wasn't the only one who saw sense in her decision. Allen stirred slightly in her arms and he managed to rasp out a few faint-sounding words. "Kanda, if Mr. Harrison can tell us what is going on, we don't have time to waste harassing the maid in the hall."

Kanda's ill temper was hardly improved by being reproached by the younger boy and the swordsman's response to the rebuke was to snap at Lilith, "Move. I want to talk to that senile idiot." It would likely have been a more impressive display of wrath if he had been capable of moving with even a fraction of his usual ease. Lilith, however, seemed to understand that fury was Kanda's response to stressful situations and she started off down the hall again at a good clip, her brown skirt and starched white apron swirling around her legs.

Silence, broken only by Allen's occasional mumble and Kanda's short, sharp gasps of pain when he took an injudiciously long step, descended upon the trio as they proceeded down two flights of stairs and through several corridors to a familiar door.

They must have looked terrible when they burst into the same wood-paneled dining room they had been in the night before. Mr. Harrison, who had been eating breakfast at the head of the table, leapt to his feet at the sight of them. The table was jostled by the motion and the delicate crystal goblets laid out for the morning meal toppled slowly and shattered. Orange juice began to seep into the snow-white linen of the tablecloth. Samuel was there, too, and he looked just as horrified as Mr. Harrison, though he made no attempt to rise from his seat

"Oh, God, I had hoped--," the elderly man began, then, seemingly overcome by some great and terrible pang of emotion, sunk back into his seat. He looked old and careworn; fragile.

"Is everything alright?" Lane asked, appearing through the door from the kitchen.

"Lane, bring food, lots of it, right now. Something easy to eat," Lilith ordered the manservant almost before he had gotten out his question. Lane took one look at the bloodied boy in her arms and fled back into the kitchen. There was a tremendous clatter that could only have been caused by the sudden fall of several pots and pans to the floor, then Lane reappeared, laden with platters of hastily-plated food. He set the trays down on the table and made as if to leave again, but Mr. Harrison waved him back, gesturing to an open seat.

Lilith set Allen down in one of the other chairs and set a small plate of soft, warm scones down in front of him.

"Eat," she urged him.

It was a measure of the depth of Allen's exhaustion that he did not at first respond, but the tantalizing smell of the scones managed to rouse him into greater consciousness and the pale exorcist began to eat, slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was practically cramming each mouthful in before he could ever hope to swallow. Each bite was an agony, and Allen was entirely certain that he shouldn't be eating anything when there was such an enormous hole in his chest—Komui had once spent an afternoon ranting at him about contaminating his wounds—but it felt so much better when Crown Clown began to draw energy from something other than his own vital force. Lilith moved a pot of jam and a crock of cream closer to the gorging teen and added a few more plates of breakfast food—scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, and biscuits—to the edibles within Allen's reach. Meanwhile, Kanda eased himself down into the chair next to Allen. It hurt to sit, but less than it did to continue standing, so the swordsman just ignored the discomfort that the chair's cushioned seat was causing.

Lilith's gaze swept over to the slumped black-haired man. "You should eat, too," she admonished, and much as Kanda would like to have protested being treated like a child, he hadn't the energy, and he accepted the toast and eggs the matronly maid pressed upon him with ill grace and began to eat in small, quick bites. Satisfied by the two exorcist's compliance, Lilith sat down as well, taking a spot across the table from Allen and Kanda so that she could continue to add to the meal in front of them.

"God, I had hoped that it was over, that it would not happen again," Mr. Harrison groaned. His voice was weary unto death, so soft and broken as to be nearly impossible to make out.

Samuel divided his stare between the two exorcists he had been assigned to serve, who were in worse condition than he had ever seen them before, and the old man who sat bowed with grief. "Do you know why Allen and Kanda are in such a state?" the Finder inquired. Mr. Harrison flinched as if he had been struck.

"Yes, yes," the aged gentleman spoke in pained tones. "I will try to explain, but…oh, you shall have to bear with me, for this is a very long and very old story, and it must be told from the beginning." Here he looked up and surveyed the faces of the others seated at the table. They gazed back at him with an air of trepidation and expectation, clearly waiting for him to continue. Even Allen paused in his ferocious devouring to look at his host. The old man did not seem surprised or alarmed at the sight of Crown Clown glowing around Allen. The Innocence, Kanda noted with relief, had begun to solidify again, and the pale, flickering version of Allen's Crown Clown had been restored to a stronger, more vital radiance.

Mr. Harrison bent his wizened head and fumbled with the flatware in front of him, clearly lost in some dark memory. When he spoke, his voice was cracked with pain and distant, as though he spoke to them across a vast chasm and under the weight of thousands upon thousands of regrets.

"I was a foolish young man of thirty-four when this began for the first time. I was very much in love with a woman younger and even more foolish than I: Evangeline Graciér. She was to turn thirty only a few days after our wedding date, a fact she reminded me of constantly. We were, I must admit, rather unorthodox about the whole business; I had a fairly large fortune left to me by my parent upon their deaths that I had enhanced through wise investments in ventures and companies in London and throughout England. Trusting my money to protect us from all but the basest of slanderous tongues, we purchased this manor and set ourselves up as husband and wife long before the marriage vows were spoken. Her parents, strict Catholics, were outwardly appalled, but I do believe that, in their hearts, they were happy that their daughter had secured for herself a safe and comfortable future, even if there was perhaps some sinful behavior in the process. I am quite sure that they trusted in God to redeem Evangeline's soul and absolve her for all of her sins, for, despite her engagement with me, she remained a devout Catholic as well. The carriage we rode in yesterday was actually purchased so that she could go to Mass and confession every Sunday regularly and any other day besides."

Here a fond smile curved the old man's pale lips and Mr. Harrison paused as though savoring one of the long-past memories he had recalled, like a vintner enjoying a bottle of fine wine from the cache in his cellars. A cloud of pain darted across the lined face and the smile faded as Mr. Harrison resumed his story.

"However, it seems that Satan had other plans for us. Our groundskeeper, a fine old chap called Mr. Parker, grew ill suddenly and died. We were saddened, naturally, but illness had been ravaging the country for some time before then, so we thought nothing sinister of it. In retrospect, I should have thought it odd that only three days after poor Mr. Parker's funeral, a man appeared at the door and presented himself as a Jack-of-all-trades seeking a job. He had fine credentials—one letter even written by the Baroness de Marke—which was quite odd given his occupation. I hesitated to offer him work, but I placed a call to the Baroness, who assured me that she had indeed recommended the fellow. And so, God help me, I hired him as the replacement groundskeeper."

Mr. Harrison's eyes closed tightly and his face screwed up in a rictus of agony and hate. He drew a deep breath and exhaled, hissing between his teeth. His eyes opened and his hands tightened on the armrests of his chair.

"Sylvester Jennings. That was his name. Even at the beginning I was uncomfortable around him: he was very handsome and he had an air of impish good humor about him that the women seemed to find charming. He flirted with and teased the maids, something I frowned heartily upon, but I was willing to forgive him such indiscretions given my own and also having seen each Sunday that he bent to prayer and was truly repentant at confession. Life continued this way for some weeks until we settled into a pattern. By this time, Evangeline had made fast friends with Jennings, and that was when strange things started happening." Nigel paused, sighed, and continued again.

"It was nothing very terrible at first; sometimes there would be an accident on a small scale—a maid would drop laundry in the dirt coming back from the clothesline and have to wash it again, a cook would lose a utensil—small things, irritating things that only harmed through frustration. But, over time, the incidents became more frequent, more dangerous. One day, a stable hand was kicked by a horse of exceedingly gentle temperament. The next, a cabinet tipped over on a housekeeper and broke several of her bones. Boiling water was spilled on the cook, the servant doing laundry was burned terribly and inexplicably by an iron she swore had not been used. The list continues on, each time with the hazard becoming greater and the accident more harmful. Discontent grew, fed on whispers of suspicion. Servants started to leave and the villagers stopped visiting. They truly believed that we had been cursed. I was at my wits' end.

"Jennings was the only one of the servants who seemed unaffected. Evangeline, too, was not frightened by the incidents. Indeed, she positively glowed with joy. She would spend hours in the chapel, praying mightily, and when she returned she seemed happier yet, but her smile had an edge of secrecy that I had never before seen and that alarmed me so, God help me, I took to spying on her.

"I had at first suspected that which every man does when the woman he loves seems inexplicably joyful: I thought that she was dallying with Jennings. He was certainly pleasing company to her and I hated the thought of how far that companionship might go. And as I watched, I felt that my fears were confirmed at every turn: they were always together, she always radiant, he always solicitous. But no matter how long I watched or how deeply I pried, I could not ever catch them in a truly damning situation. No kisses, no touches, no trysts. I imagined that perhaps I had trapped her in a relation that she no longer desired—her engagement with me—that she had fallen out of love with me and in love with Jennings, but that she felt obliged by her own moral principles to remain faithful despite her change of heart. With that conclusion, despair and fury grew in my heart.

"I ached at the thought that I, however unwittingly, had caused harm to my beloved—for she was still beloved to me—and I burned at the thought that the despicable Jennings had been the one to take her away. However, I swallowed my pride and approached her one night after dinner. She was sitting in the sitting room, playing chess against herself—rather skillfully, I might add, when, before Jennings' arrival, she barely knew the names of each piece. She seemed surprised when I entered as it was my habit at the time to retire to the library after dinner, but she smiled at me and, seeing the welter of emotions running across my face, bade me to speak.

"I confessed to her my suspicions and told her that, if she did so desire, I would release her from our engagement so that she might pursue her relationship with Jennings in peace with her conscience. I was stunned when she began to laugh."

Mr. Harrison stood abruptly, bumping the dining table again with enough force to set the remaining unbroken crystal rattling. His chair screeched back across the herringbone-patterned wood floor as the old man strode to the sideboard and jerked open a cabinet with fumbling hands. He got out a heavy crystal tumbler and a matching decanter half-filled with amber fluid and poured himself a generous three fingers of the liquid into the glass. The rich smell of Scotch whisky filled the room. Lilith's eyes widened in surprise when the frail-looking old gentleman tossed the alcohol back without apparently noticing the mellow heat of the expensive vintage. Mr. Harrison refilled his glass and, lifting the decanter slightly, offered his guests a drink. No one accepted the offer, but Mr. Harrison refilled his glass and returned to the table.

"Evangeline, when she regained control of herself after her fit of laughter, assured me that she was as likely to be involved with Jennings as she was to fly to the moon. She took me by the hands and drew me down to sit in the chair opposite her, across the chessboard.

"'Can you keep a secret?' she asked me, but she did not pause for an answer. Instead, she continued to speak as though there was someone else with us who I could neither see nor hear. 'Yes, of course, and he is to be my husband, you know, so I must tell. Yes, this is how it should be.'

"I tell you that I was now convinced that Evangeline had gone quite mad. She leapt to her feet and began to pace 'round the room, talking with such passionate conviction and wild gesticulation that, if not for her words, she could be taken for one smitten by the Rapture of the Lord. But, oh! Such words, such poisoned words fell from her lips: 'Can you not see, my love?' she raved. 'Can you not see that this place is a den of iniquity and sin? How low have we fallen? But I have found a way back to God, a way by which we all might hear His voice again; by punishing the sinners, the flock will understand the way and will not stray from the path of righteousness!'"

Mr. Harrison stared down into the last dregs of amber whisky that he held in his crystal tumbler. He shook like a sapling in a gale as he hurriedly swallowed the last few drops. When he continued his tale, his voice was hoarse and choked with grief.

"'I have found a way to punish the sinners,' she cried. 'It was shown to me by my dear friend Sylvester, who, like me, sees the corruption of the world. Together we will purge this place of evil and make it worth of the Kingdom of Heaven. Would you help me, beloved?'

"It was then that I realized the true magnitude of the mistake I had made in hiring Jennings. Poor Evangeline had finally fallen victim to the terrible combination of her sweet naïveté and her passionate love of God. It was clear that Jennings had overthrown her reason and perverted her gentle nature in the months that he had been employed here. He had manipulated her expertly, creating a monster of terrible power whose actions seemed to it to be righteous and good; what, in her eyes, could be more just than punishing the wicked for their sins in order to save humanity from damnation? It sounds so absurd to us, so self-serving and evil, but Evangeline believed with all the fervor of her heart. And yet, I had not even begun to plumb the depths of her madness, nor could I discern Jennings' motives for twisting Evangeline about as he had. I did, however—feeling that I really had no other choice in the matter, agree to assist her as best I could so that she would take me further into her confidence—from which I had been excluded shortly after Jennings had first arrived—and share with me what I was certain she and Jennings had brought about on my estate. And so she told me to meet her in the chapel at the stroke of midnight."

"All that evening, I hatched wild plans on how I could remove Jennings, but the only two feasible solutions seemed to be to either kill him—which I could not bear the thought of, no matter how much ill he had done—or call the police. But I feared what he might do to Evangeline if either of those came to pass. I wanted to protect her from harm more than anything else. As it happened, I had resolved nothing by the time I crossed the grounds to the chapel that night.

"I was promptly on time that night, the clock had just begun to strike the midnight hour when I entered, but she and Jennings had already been working for some time when I arrived. They bade me to sit in one of the pews at the front while they laid out an assortment of things on the altar: a large bowl of some black stone, a knife, a few candles, a cloyingly sweet incense that burned in a censor taken from the chapel stores, a heavy tome—the Bible, and a few sheets of paper that lay alongside a quill pen. What followed would have been laughable under any other circumstances, but there, watching as they chanted in stentorian tones and drew figures in the air with candles and the knife and burned more and more of the sickening incense until the air hung heavy with its stench and the greasy feel of evil, there I felt no cause for laughter. Evangeline and Jennings believed, and believed with such force that their madness began to creep up on me and I had to restrain myself lest I join them in their chilling display. Old superstitious rituals, mountebank tricks, poor impersonations of necromancy: all of these made their appearance that night. Evangeline and that man—evil cad that he was—finished after some time; I know not how long. By now the entirety of the altar had been scribbled over with strange devices written in a dark, unpleasant color.

"'We have warded ourselves from the beast,' Evangeline informed me. 'Now we may call out for aid in the punishment of the sinners.' I asked her then for the name of the person they were seeking to punish, their so-called sinner, but she just giggled, a horrible, insane titter so unlike her normal laugh, and she refused to tell. I began to question again, but at that moment Jennings produced a cage from under the altar.

"Inside the cage was a cat, an orange tabby tomcat. It was one of the scruffy ones that hung about in the barn and stables, living off the rodents that sought the grain. It screamed and clawed and bit at Jennings as the man dragged it out of the cage and ripped at Evangeline when he handed it to her. Blood streamed from Evangeline's arms and I could see curls of skin hanging from her forearms where the cat had raked her with its claws, but she did not seem to notice. Her eyes were wide and vacant and her expression was as one excited, like a child at a carnival. She pulled the cat's head back and Jennings cut its throat so deeply that white bone flashed sickeningly through the rent before showers of blood fountained past. The poor cat struggled mightily in its death throes, spraying both Evangeline and Jennings with crimson gore, but they managed to wrestle it into position and caught most of the blood in the black bowl. When the cat was dead and the streams of blood slowed to steady drips, Evangeline dropped the limp body to the floor like a dirty rag.

"Jennings put the Bible in the bowl and began to chant in a language I had never before heard. If all the malice in the world was given voice and hatred and fury were its grammar and syntax, those would have been the words those shape all the evil in the world would assume. They tumbled over each other, harsh and oily and insipid, filled with undertones of insanity and rooted deep in destructive rage, spiraling higher and higher, building to a fevered pitch until finally, as the Bible became fully saturated with blood, Evangeline bent over the altar and wrote on the cover, just over the cross, so that her writing and the symbol became one in an unholy unity. Jennings spoke a word, a name, and the air trembled and filled with the stench of burned feathers and rotting flesh.

"Ash and burning shreds of what looked like paper fell from somewhere near the ceiling in a strange silver-grey rain, fine and even, that filled the whole chapel. It vanished before it touched the ground, but the smell of burning became even stronger. A shape began to appear, writhing out of the bowl and the book, covered in a thin membrane that bulged and rippled with the movements of the creature inside. It grew larger and larger until it was the size of a man and then the fleshy envelope was ripped apart, sending bloody pieces of tissue scattering through the air. The thing had spread its wings. Even then, though it should have been clearly visible in the light of the candles that were clustered all around the place it had appeared, it was difficult to see. It was as if my eyes couldn't focus on it and my gaze kept sliding off to the sides. But Evangeline stepped toward it, holding out her hands welcomingly, and the form that had been so nebulous suddenly became perfectly clear.

"It was an angel, beautiful and terrible, his great wings spreading out to tumble over the edges of the altar in a snowy froth. There was not a trace of blood or filth anywhere on him even as the ashes continued to fall; he was luminous with some inner light. The angel took Evangeline's hand as he stepped down off of the altar and she cried out with joy. She began to beg the glorious presence for divine aid in punishing the wicked.

"In that moment, my heart wavered. I, who believed in the sanctity and purity of God and his angels—even if I was not so devout as Evangeline nor so scrupulous in my following of the Bible's teachings and the precepts of the Catholic Church, was confronted by a sick reality: an angel summoned and strengthened by sacrifice. My mind rebelled; I would not—could not!—accept such a reality. The very foundations of the belief that had been a part of my character from early in my childhood were shaken and I did the only thing I could to protect the core of my basis for judgment: I rejected the vision of the angel. It could not be. I could no longer sit as a silent observer in the pew. I jumped up and began to back away simultaneously, knocking the pew over in my haste to be away. So startled was I by the loud clatter of the pew on the flagstone floor that I jumped again, this time tumbling backwards over the very pew I had just upset. My head struck the floor and my vision darkened. Blindly, I laid my hands on the nearest object and hurled it with desperate force at the impossible angel, all the while consumed with a sense of wrongness of horrible apprehension. The winged being caught the book I had thrown—a Bible that must have tumbled off of the pew I had overturned—with one hand and laughed a laugh like a thousand silver bells ringing in harmony. The sound swelled to fill the chapel. It sounded mocking to my ears.

"'No!' I shouted. 'You are false, you cannot be!' Suddenly the laughter fell into dissonance and the angel shrieked terribly, whether in rage or pain I could not guess. He flung the book away. His form was changing and, for the briefest of instants, his hair, once palest blond, flashed a deep red and the six pristine wings that adorned his back—seraphim's wings—appeared tattered and torn, even as I watched their edges curling away into smoke as worms of fire crawled through the grimed feathers.

"The once-angel's new visage was terrible to behold and almost immediately I was seized by the desire for the beautiful seraph to reappear. Evangeline, too, cried out against the alteration in the creature's form. As if responding to our wishes, the angel's form, which had been shifting alarmingly between a vision of celestial glory and of infernal fury as if the creature could not remember what its countenance should be, settled—the seraph had returned. I lay there on the cold floor, numb with shock, as Evangeline began to speak."

"It was an angel?" Samuel interrupted Mr. Harrison, unable to restrain himself any longer. Mr. Harrison steepled his fingers over his glass and sighed, frowning at the Finder in a contemplative manner.

"Yes and no. I will try to explain. You must forgive me if my story seems roundabout and poorly connected to the events which brought you here, Finder Samuel," Mr. Harrison said slowly, clearly choosing his words with care. "However, I believe that knowing the whole of the truth as it pertains to me and this estate will help to clarify, among other things, the question you have just asked." The old man allowed his troubled green eyes to rest on each of the people sitting around the table with him.

All of them were tense, but the pale-haired exorcist at least looked much improved in comparison to his prior condition. There was an incredible pile of empty dishes stacked neatly in front of him and he was still eating, nibbling on a muffin. Crown Clown was glowing brightly and steadily. Kanda's face was blank, unreadable, but his rigid posture spoke to Mr. Harrison of pain endured. The Finder was troubled and unhappy. Lilith and Lane were quiet and their heads were bowed. Mr. Harrison felt seep sympathy for them; they had been very young children living with their mother, the housekeeper, on the estate when the trouble had begun and the fear and superstition that surrounded the events of some fifty years ago were still strong.

"If you had any suspicion that those past events were recurring, why didn't you tell any of the Finders that were sent here what you are telling us now?" Samuel sounded frustrated and on the verge of tears. "If we had known, we might have been able to prevent so many Finders from being killed!"

The elderly gentleman's face crumpled and a few tears squeezed out from under his wrinkled lids. "You will have to forgive an old man for clinging to the hope that has sustained him for so long, that the thing that destroyed my wife would never return. I suspected, when the attacks on the villagers began, that the events brought about by Evangeline and Jennings were repeating themselves, but then a young man in white showed up on my doorstep, asking me about the attacks and speaking of these…akuma. I leapt at the chance to believe the precautions I had taken, the sacrifices I have made were sufficient, that these new horrors were unrelated. Too, the nature of the attacks was different; I will tell you of the first, but understand that what has happened here in the last few weeks showed a level of brutality and bloodlust that was unlike anything I had seen before. There were deaths before, as well, but…I think that I must continue with the story before the anomalies I am trying to illustrate become clear. Would that be acceptable?"

Samuel had become sullen and Kanda remained perfectly still, but Allen nodded for Mr. Harrison to continue. The cursed exorcist would have spoken his assent but was afraid of spraying muffin crumbs over the table. Their host settled himself deeper into his chair and ran a finger around the lip of his glass absently as he resumed his tale.

"As I said, Evangeline began to speak to the angel, pleading with him to help her strike a blow against the sinners. The angelic being was agitated and grew angry with her when she caught at his arm; he shoved her away.

"'More of your petty little tricks? More little accidents?' the creature mocked her. 'You cannot even imagine true punishment; what right do you have to speak to me of dealing out retribution?' Evangeline was distraught and burst into tears, sobbing that she would do better if only he would guide her. Jennings was curiously silent, but he seemed somehow satisfied as the creature turned back to Evangeline.

"'You wish for my guidance?' the creature asked, spreading out his wings so that he could drape them over her and pull her closer. I could see only her feet; the rest was shielded from view by the pure-white feathers. I heard her say yes, and the angel nodded.

"'Then you shall have it.' He sounded triumphant as he bent his head down under the canopy of his own feathers. He must have kissed her—I could see her arms as she reached out to clutch at his shoulders—and then she was lying crumpled on the stone at his feet. The creature folded his wings away behind him and smiled at me: 'Behold,' he commanded, 'for I have made her anew.' And when Evangeline got slowly to her feet and raised her head, I could see that he had spoken truly. Evangeline was gone. Her expressive face was still and expressionless and her eyes, which had once sparkled with life and happiness, now had a malevolent intelligence gazing out from behind them.

"'Go,' the angel-shaped thing ordered her. 'Go, and deliver divine punishment unto those who have strayed from salvation.' Evangeline turned woodenly, an unfamiliar doll in the hands of a puppeteer, and picked up the knife that Jennings had killed the cat with from the table. Holding it before her and moving without moving her gaze from a single point, she walked down the aisle to the doors of the chapel, pushing them open. The draught from outside cleared some of the fug from the incense and set the falling ash swirling. I called after her but she either did not hear in her current state or she did not care to respond. She walked out into the night and the doors closed behind her. I was alone with the false angel and Jennings.

"The angel was standing next to Jennings on the low dais under the altar and they were both looking at me. I pulled myself up and tried to run after Evangeline, both to escape the chapel and to try and prevent whatever diabolic act the creature had sent her off to perform. I had made it only a few steps when I could no longer move. It was not that I had no control over my limbs, but rather as though I had been encased in glass; I could feel my tendons and muscles move in response to my urgings, but my limbs were held fast by some outside force.

"'Now, now,' Jennings scolded me as if I was some naughty child caught with their finger in a pie. 'We can't have you running off and getting into trouble, now could we?' I wanted to scream but found that my jaw would not open, so my words became only an incoherent howl. I was turned about by unseen hands and found myself facing the pair on the dais. The creature stood behind Jennings, his arms wrapped around the man's neck and chest, murmuring in his ear. Jennings smirked and, turning his head, kissed the thing he had summoned. It responded by caressing him and pressing closer, moving in a way that left no doubt as to its desires. Jennings said something to it, too low for me to hear, and glanced in my direction. The angel-shaped thing straightened, looking put out, and glared at me. Whatever is was that had held my limbs now crushed my chest as well and stopped up my mouth and nose. I was suffocating in clear air.

"As block spots popped in my head, Jennings spared me a moment's attention to tell me, 'How unfortunate for you that I am not one for voyeurism—I'm afraid that I have no desire to share. You'll just have to wait there until we're all done.' I passed out."

The story was interrupted by the groan of overstressed wood. All eyes sought the source of the sound, falling upon Kanda, whose knuckles were white on the armrests of his chair. Mr. Harrison regarded him sadly.

"It showed a proclivity toward sexual actions all those years ago. When you were…attacked, Mr. Kanda, I lost all hope that these events were occurring at the hands of the akuma. I did mean to tell you, but the opportune moment never seemed to present itself."

"But you are certain that the same creature is causing all of the attacks now?" Allen wanted to confirm. "Why would the thing disappear for half a century only to turn up again now?" He was feeling well enough to participate more actively since Crown Clown had ceased draining him of vital energy, drawing instead on the chemical energy of the food he had consumed. The old gentleman nodded.

"For the first question, I am sure beyond any doubt. As for the second…as I said before, some things are best explained by simply telling the story." The dapper old man seemed frustrated by his own obscure responses, but Allen hastened to assure him that if he felt that such a method was best, it likely was. Mr. Harrison accepted the frail-looking exorcist's reassurances with a grateful half-bow and cleared his throat.

"So then. When I awoke, it was late in the morning; I could tell from the way the light slanted in through the chapel windows. Jennings and the beast were gone, as were all of the accoutrements that had been used in the summoning. The altar cloth had been removed, likely in order to hide the blood that stained it, but the altar itself had not been wiped clean and was still smudged with dried blood. I righted the pew I had knocked over and left the chapel in a state of trepidation, meaning to return to the manor house.

"When I entered the gardens on the way to the back door, one of the servants who had chosen to remain in my service came running up, out of breath and yet trying to speak. She plucked at my sleeve and directed me into the house, recovering enough to speak as she did so.

"'It's horrible, sir!' she reported. 'Someone's killed Marie, but we don't know who, and there's an unholy mess all over the place. We didn't clean up on account of thinking you might want to call the police, sir, so that they could have a look, too.'

"Marie was the cook here at that time. She was very popular, very friendly. She had been engaged to marry a village man, but it was supposed to be a secret and their frequent meetings were to have remained unnoticed. Needless to say, they did not; every member of the household knew and, as far as I believed, they all wished her well in her upcoming marriage. I mention this because I am fairly certain that Marie's relationship with her beau was what brought Evangeline's wrath down upon her, and I have no doubt that Marie's trysts with the villager were the sin that Evangeline cited when she called Marie a sinner. The hypocrisy of the situation was not lost on me as I entered the room in which Marie still lay—and found that Evangeline was already there, grieving alongside the rest of the household. I will speak of that shortly.

"Marie's death had not been an easy one. She lay in a storage room just off the kitchen in a litter of upset shelves and scattered ingredients, half-draped against an overturned table. She had been strangled with the ribbons on her own apron. The police were called—I could see no way to avoid it without drawing suspicion that might bring about harm to Evangeline—and, after examining the scene and the body and doing all of the things detectives like to do at crime scenes, they declared that the murdered was most likely male and familiar to Marie. They cited the strength it would take to strangle and restrain a struggling victim, especially one as strong as Marie, and the fact that Marie could have escaped through the second door that led outside, which was used for taking deliveries of foodstuffs, if she had felt threatened. The police collected the alibis of the various members of the household and I soon realized that I, who perfectly fit the broad categorization of the murdered, had no means by which to prove my innocence without giving away Evangeline's involvement.

"She herself delivered an alibi for both of us: she told the detective that she and I had gone to the chapel the night before to pray for absolution from our sins and that, given the late hour at which we had gone to ensure our privacy, we had fallen asleep there. Several of the servants were able to confirm that they had seen both Evangeline and myself returning to the house from the direction of the chapel that morning and that neither of us had been seen in the house late the previous evening when the murder was presumed to have occurred. Jennings also provided an alibi, telling the policeman who questioned him that he had been visiting with a friend that night. The stableboy and one of the maids who lived nearby both said that they had seen lights in the windows of Jennings' house—the groundskeeper has always been given a separate house as part of their payment—and had heard two voices, one Jennings', one belonging to someone else, talking. The police left without having made any arrests or pronouncing anyone suspect.

"There were two weeks blessedly free of all incidents and I heard no more from Evangeline until, late one evening, I overheard a conversation between her and Jennings. They were in the library, arguing. Evangeline had been growing noticeably distressed over the course of the last several days, unable to find a task that held her attention for more than a few moments, unable to sit or focus or attend to a conversation. Jennings had been surly and it seemed that their new dispositions had kindled the sparks of contention between the two. She demanded that they begin summoning the creature again; Jennings agreed, but could not seem to feel the same desire for delivering divine retribution as burned in Evangeline's soul. He balked and tried to dissuade her, but she was adamant. Finally, he gave in.

"They decided that it would be foolishly risky to commit a murder again—it seemed odd, but even in the depths of their depravity, they retained a sort of animalistic instinct that ensured their survival. They could not draw further attention from the police, who were obviously dissatisfied with leaving the murder unsolved. As it was, nothing untoward happened for a further few days, then, quite suddenly, a child from the nearby village disappeared. It was not a common occurrence, so it drew some attention from the police, especially as there had been a murder so recently, but disappearances were not unheard of. It was approaching midwinter and in that time these woods were still wild enough to be prowled by wolves and other large animals. A child who, by his mother's own words, was not given to paying attention to his surroundings and who frequently wandered off and was lost would have been easy prey for such creatures. I, obviously, had my suspicions as to the true nature of the disappearance. There was a great hubbub and a mighty outcry: search parties were formed and they combed through the woods incessantly; police lurked everywhere, swooping down on everyone and asking thousands of questions no one seemed to know the answers to; the boy's mother was distraught. They finally found the little boy three days later. He was dead, his body partially eaten by wolves and half-hidden in the debris left behind by one of the winter storms.

"The incredible tension ebbed away like water from a broken vessel. That something so tragic could come as a relief should be some indication of how terrified the villagers were at the thought of some sort of unnatural, arcane force. We here had known wolves and had lost livestock and children to them for years; losing another child now seemed far better to another murder. I, too, was lulled by the boy's death. It seemed so unrelated to the murder that I knew Evangeline had played a vital role in that I was able to convince myself for a time that she had ceased her activities. It was in that happy frame of mind that I continued for the next two months.

"During that time there were several more disappearances, all attributed to the wolves. It was soon a pressing matter and it was decided in the villages that something must be done to stop the ravages of the animals: they set up a great hunt for the wolves. It was no small task that they undertook; winters here are long and harsh and linger long past their welcome. However, loss had made the villagers keen on their task and they set out into the deep snow and icy winds well-armed and thickly-insulated. Nearly twenty of the beasts were brought in, all told, a surprisingly large number as packs tend to be smaller. I dismissed that anomaly as well, thinking that they must have simply found enough game in our flocks and families to survive the winter. Soon there was not a single wolf left in this valley or the surrounding areas. We felt safe once again and we welcomed the spring that came bursting from the frozen ground with the daffodils that almost everyone had around their houses. It was March.

"As I said, after the hunt, we enjoyed a fairly long respite from the loss of friends and family. So it was much consternation that we found another body on the first Sunday of the month. I was among the first to see the body. It was just after Mass and the congregation, which included Jennings, Evangeline, and myself, was beginning to move outside and disperse. Those of us who were first out of the doors were met by an appalling sight. I was among those first few; Evangeline was with me and Jennings was just behind us.

"A young woman—a girl really, no more than seventeen—lay out in the snow next to the flagstone walkways of the churchyard. She had been eviscerated and torn, with great gashes splitting her pale flesh. Even as we watched, her blood oozed from the gaping rents and steamed in the cold air. It was painfully obvious that this atrocity had occurred just as the Mass was ending. She was close enough that her screams should have been clearly audible within the church, but not one person had heard her as she had been murdered. Wolves were not a plausible explanation and now, presented with a situation in which I could no longer explain away the occult forces with which I knew my fiancée was associated, I turned to Evangeline and Jennings.

"Evangeline uttered a half-smothered scream when she saw the body and pressed a hand to her mouth as if to suppress the urge to vomit. She was pale, her eyes wide and horrified. Jennings as well looked shaken and the two stared at each other, each shaking their heads in denial, at which their faces became even more sickly and drawn. I suddenly understood: they were no longer in control of the beast they had summoned all those weeks before in my presence."

"How can that be?" Samuel interrupted, looking irritated. "The summoned creature should only appear as it is bidden by the summoners; they must have give it instructions to act while they were in the church so that they had an alibi—you told us earlier that after the cook's murder, nobody else was killed. They must have been biding their time until they could act without being suspect—" he trailed off as Mr. Harrison shook his head with a short, jerky motion.

"No, no, Evangeline and Jennings had been acting all along. I confronted Evangeline as soon as we reached the estate after we and everyone else at the church was questioned by the police. We spoke in this very room. She was agitated, upset, and quite clearly suffering some sort of mental breakdown. Evangeline paced and clawed at her clothes and face with her nails until I had to physically restrain her. She muttered wildly and refused to answer my questions for so long that I felt that I would never gain the information I sought. Then her words spilled out in a great torrent, her tone hateful and vicious and crazed. She spoke of long talks with Jennings after the cook's murder, when secrecy became of even greater import. They decided to divert attention from themselves by committing their crimes in a guise that would be dismissed as no more than a terrible unplanned tragedy: they used their black magic to call the wolves into the valley and ordered their summoned beast to take on the shape of one of them. They controlled the pack, directing its attacks. That's why there were so many; the beast was feeding, gaining strength as Evangeline and Jennings ordered it to attack their 'sinners.' Finally, it grew strong enough to shake off the bonds placed upon it by the contract with its summoners. It was free."

"If it was free, why did it attack that girl in the churchyard?" Allen asked, looking down at the table.

The old gentleman sighed wearily and rubbed one hand against the knuckles of the other, trying to sooth the ache in his joints. His lips tightened into a grimace as he responded: "For many days after the murder at the church, I asked myself that. Evangeline locked herself in her room and refused to open the door, barricading it against all entry. I had ordered Jennings to remain within the groundskeeper's house, a command which, as far as I know, he obeyed. They were terrified, waiting for their beast to return and devour them, You see, it wanted to continue to attack: it fed on the negative emotion of its victims and what better way to prolong its feast than by maintaining the terrible uncertainty that clouded our eyes. The cocktail of fear, despair, and anger that the two murders and the many disappearances had created in the heart of every person in the valley must have been a heady drink for it indeed. So it waited and devoured our pain, delaying its next attack to prolong its banquet."

"So it did attack again?" Samuel wanted to know. The Finder was toying with the utensils before him absently, pushing them around on the table with his forefinger. He stopped long enough to gaze searchingly at Mr. Harrison. "Once you knew all of this, why did you not go to the police?"

"And have them do what?" Mr. Harrison yelled, his voice cracking with pain. He slammed his fists down on the table and made the flatware jump. "Do you think that they would believe a story about a self-righteous cult of two summoning some sort of devil to do God's work? No! It would only have made the situation worse, like throwing sparks into a powder keg. Already every man, woman, and child suspected another and every villager was walking on eggshells around every other person, fearing attack and hoping to avoid drawing attention. Fights broke out as people accused each other and the rumors floating about grew wilder and wilder. To invite the police into such an environment would only convince the villagers that one of their number was behind the attacks and they would fall on him like wolves upon a wounded deer. Such chaos and fear-fueled hate would only feed the beast more."

Allen glanced over at Kanda, who had been silent for some time. The dark-haired exorcist's eyes were closed and his broad shoulders slumped forward. The swordsman's strong hands were folded into the soft white sleeves of his robe, but the sleeve of his right hand twitched spasmodically as the older exorcist suppressed the habitual grab for Mugen's hilt. Mr. Harrison's gaze slid over Allen's pale face, then followed the boy's line of sight to stare at Kanda. The aged gentleman heaved a weary sigh and scrubbed his gnarled hands over his face, speaking from behind them, his voice much calmer though it still trembled with remembered pain.

"For two days I pleaded with Evangeline through the door of her rooms; still she refused to see anyone, denied herself food and drink, and kept silent. Then, when I could no longer bear the self-imposed isolation she maintained, I summoned two of the stablehands and together we broke down the door. I entered Evangeline's rooms and found that my fiancée, who I suspected already of being of imperfect reason, had gone quite mad. She was unkempt and frightened, darting around the room like a little bird throwing itself against a window, and when I began to speak to her of her summoned creature she cried out and collapsed to the floor.

"I tried to calm her, to reason with her, but to no avail. I tried to ask her of the creature's abilities, its nature, for all I knew was that it fed like a parasite upon emotion. But after several hours, the only words she had spoken were "diary" and "it's here." I searched her room. Evangeline didn't move, didn't protest what she normally would have considered the basest invasion of privacy. Her diary had been wedged between the wall and the nightstand beside her bed. In it she had written everything. Despite the awful situation, her diary made me laugh because only Evangeline in her sweet naivety could believe that her diary was sacrosanct and was a safe place to write all of her secrets. I used that to my advantage and spent the rest of the day closeted in my study, reading her diary and sending the servants to retrieve books form the library as needed. By nightfall, I knew enough about the creature that I was confident I could combat it."

"That's terribly convenient," Samuel interjected, suspicion coloring his tone. "If I were that creature and had so much power over her, I would have made her write complete rubbish in her diary. That way any challengers would be armed with erroneous information and false confidence. How could you believe anything she had written about it?"

"It does seem strange that it would give away it position so easily," the pale-haired exorcist added softly. "Only a fool or an egoist would think that it would be safe for information about them to be written down where essentially anyone could read it."

Mr. Harrison nodded. "I can understand your doubts," he said, "but you must remember that I was young and foolish at the time. And, looking back, the diary did prove to be an excellent and accurate source. I was willing to believe what was written there for precisely the reason you just mentioned, Allen. The summoned beast had already shown itself to me and had demonstrated its power that night in the chapel. It had overwhelmed me completely with its strength. I knew that it was proud and I hoped that its pride would induce it to make such a foolish mistake as to allow a guileless woman to record its actions."

"What did the diary say, then? What did she write?" Allen's voice was intense; here finally was the information he had been waiting for, the pivotal data he needed to fight the creature that had attacked Kanda and the Finders and so many other before.

"I told you that the creature fed on negative emotion, didn't I?" The tired-looking old man mused, looking down at the table as though he was gathering his thoughts from the polished grain of the wood. Allen nodded as vigorously as his condition would allow; even with Crown Clown's intercession on his behalf, he still felt a little faint from blood loss and rapid motions made a kaleidoscope of stars burst behind his eyes. The pale teen was once again grateful for his inhuman endurance. Even with the vast meal Lilith had been feeding him as Mr. Harrison recounted the history of the estate, he still felt drained and tired, but he no longer felt the deathly lethargy that had weighted his bloodless limbs as he had been carried into the dining room. His grey eyes darted in Kanda's direction and he was relieved to see that the sword-wielder's pallor was less pronounced, though Allen suspected that the Japanese exorcist was relying on the combination of his reserves of stubbornness and his tattoo to maintain his fierce concentration on the story.

"Well," Mr. Harrison continued. "That is not entirely correct. Such a statement would be an understatement of the beast's capacity to feed: it devoured every emotion possible from the spectra, though Evangeline wrote that it loved fear and hate and suffering best for their potency and flavor. Lust, too, was a favorite. She knew a surprising amount about it; apparently it had been one of the many creatures she had studied during her childhood—she had always had a fascination with the beasts her Church declared evil; it was the child's interest in the forbidden—and she gave it its proper name: incubus."

Allen's eyes widened and words sprang unbidden from his lips: "I've read about those! They're supposed to be demons, but," his brow furrowed, "they're just a story. Right?" Kanda glared at him and Allen abruptly realized how ridiculous it was for someone who had spent years of his life chasing akuma and dealing with creatures most would dismiss as mythical to be balking at the thought of a demon. God only knew he had faced enough demons before, what was one more?

Mr. Harrison, though, took the question quite seriously, perhaps because he couldn't know what the Black Order really had been created for, and answered in a gentle, thoughtful tone. "I wish very much that it had just been a story, but the beast is indeed real. I gave up a great deal to combat it all those years ago, but I fear that my ability to hold it at bay and nullify its powers has finally slipped away. I have grown ineffective in my dotage."

"How did you fight it?" Kanda's voice was rough and strained, but his typical brusqueness was obviously either unaffected or amplified by his current condition and was particularly startling after his long silence. The silence following the question was incredible: all motion was stilled, all noise ceased, a feeling of pressure building up in the already-tense atmosphere. The older exorcist scowled at the others in the dining room.

"Tch." Kanda huffed out a breath from between his teeth, making even the innocent puff of air sound scornful and derisive. "Were you all planning on sitting around and having story time, or are we actually going to fight this thing?" Suddenly, Allen understood why Kanda had been silent for so long: he had been biding his time, searching for information he could use to battle the thing that had attacked and humiliated him; but now his patience had run out and the slow fire of rage that the pale teen knew had to have been burning in his mercurial compatriot since he collapsed in the forest and even before had finally reached critical pressure. Despite the atrocious situation he was in, Allen found himself giggling quietly at the image of Kanda's head blasting off his shoulders as all of his pent-up rage came erupting out. He stopped immediately when Kanda fried him with a blue-eyed glare that clearly said that Kanda needed to do something to ease his fury and that lopping off a cursed white head might be just the ticket. Down the table from the pair of exorcists, Mr. Harrison was taken aback; the quietly suffering, dispassionate exorcist had suddenly revealed himself as a firebrand. The dapper gentleman fought the urge to look away when the burning, fever-bright cobalt gaze of the black-haired man settled on him.

"I will explain how I learned the method by which the incubus could be contained—" Nigel began, but he was instantly halted by Kanda's harsh-spoken interruption.

"I don't care how you figured it out. I want to know how you defeated it." Samuel reached out a hand as though he meant to restrain Kanda from his sudden turn to aggression, a remonstration starting to spill from his lips. The Japanese swordsman glanced at the Finder and rested one hand on Mugen's hilt. Given Kanda's reputation among the Finders, it was not surprising when Samuel backed down, falling silent and allowing his hand to fall back into his lap.

"Very well," Mr. Harrison began shakily, one liver-spotted hand fumbling for the rosary about his throat that Allen had seen before in the carriage. The old man drew lifted it over his head and held it out in one hand. At the end of the smooth, polished beads dangled the odd rune that had niggled at Allen's memory before—and the cursed teen knew where he had seen it now. It was the same as the one he had seen on the fireplace of the Bookman's secret room he had stumbled into while chasing Timcampy.

The glyph became the center of attention as it spun unconcernedly on the end of the rosary. Its sharp, silvery edges glinted in the light as it rotated, little sparkles of radiance dancing off of the points and planes of the metal. It was something like a cross between a sickle and an anchor, Allen decided. The top curved into a point with a descending arm and the shaft of that arm was pierced through by a cross-bar. The point of the top was directed toward the end of the crosspiece, so the eye naturally traced a continuous circular path across the glyph. It was distracting and made thinking difficult.

"You probably saw this above the gates as you entered—the main gates are unused, by the way; the gates on the way to the village are the only ones that remain unlocked, though the locks did not seem to pose much of a problem for you." Mr. Harrison actually sounded amused, but Allen blushed. "Its purpose it to provide a means of emptying the mind entirely, thereby denying the incubus the material it needs to mount its most dangerous offence. Kanda has already seen what the incubus is capable of, as have I: it can mould its shape as it wills and frequently assumes the form of whatever it believes will hurt us most. When it last tried to kill me some fifty years ago, it wore the shape of Evangeline and very nearly succeeded. I was able to resist that image for one reason alone: on that same night as I felt myself capable of destroying the incubus who had made my fiancée a murderer, Evangeline left her rooms and, in what I believe was an attempt to flee the horrors her mind created in her madness, hanged herself from the railing of the great staircase. Still, seeing her before me again shook me to the core and gave the beast enough time to strike me."

Allen glanced at Kanda, wide-eyes. So this is why he said that I could stay, that it was alright because he knew it was me. An agony of guilt ripped through him. That thing must have looked like me at some point when it raped him. He must have thought that I had betrayed him—his own teammate and another exorcist! The pale teen could hardly begin to think that there was a deeper meaning in the incubus's choice of shape since it had also worn the form of Mr. Harrison, but even the odd, fluttering sensation that Allen felt briefly was soon crushed under the weight of remorse and anger.

"That was the last time I faced the incubus directly, but in the short span of time I engaged in open battle with it, one thing became abundantly clear: to fight the beast, you must empty yourself of everything that stirs any feeling and do battle with the same cold calculation as a machine. It can be trapped, if your will is strong enough, by creating a wall of void about it, a place of where it has nothing on which to feed because not only are emotions its sustenance, they are also the medium in which it exists. This is what I have done here, on this estate; the boundaries of my land are marked by two walls: the first is the physical wall which you have seen, the second is the curtain of nothing I have stretched out and maintain. It has now weakened and is failing. There is no other explanation for the attacks that have occurred outside of this estate. It must have found weak points and battered through them in search for new sources of energy, escaping from the lands in which I have held it captive for half a century."

"If you knew how to fight it, old man," Kanda snarled, "why haven't you killed it? Only a fool would keep something like that locked up for fifty years without doing something about it."

Nigel inclined his head and responded, "And fool I am, and weak besides. I have never been able to strike down the incubus, though I have had many opportunities. For that sin, I have seen my wife slain by madness and my house plagued by ruin and despair. My only comfort is that the incubus's last outright murder was the slaughter of Jennings: I felt that it was somehow just that he died by the hand of the beast he had summoned and rutted with. But my offence against the beast is imperfect as well, and each time I confronted it, Evangeline would appear before me and I would waver. I do not have the strength within me to attack even the illusion of my precious things; I can only defend. And now, I can hardly do even that."

"And why is that?" Kanda's voice was dangerous now, his hand clenched around Mugen's hilt in a white-knucked grip, his eyes intense and narrow and fixed on the old man.

"Because I am afraid!" Nigel's words came out in a scream, then the gentleman slumped brokenly and started to weep softly. "I am old and I am dying, but I have no one to pass my burden on to, no one will be left to protect this land and the village when I am dead. And yet I cannot kill the beast. I am shamed by my weakness and my shame weakens me more, feeds the beast more. It has grown strong on my despair these last few years, and I cannot hold it back any longer. I am breaking down my own defenses…" his words were lost in sobs and gloom seemed to gather about him. Lane, who had been sitting quietly and almost-forgotten, sprang to his master's aid, reaching out to grasp the old man's shoulders, but no sooner than he had touched the shaking gentleman, the servant screamed and dropped to the floor in flames. Lilith's shrieked and grabbed up a pitcher of water, splashing it across her fellow servant and the room erupted in chaos. Samuel and Allen shouted in consternation, casting about for the enemy, certain that the incubus must be lurking nearby, but it was Kanda who stepped up to the old man.

Nigel looked into Kanda's eyes and in those tortured depths, Kanda saw the faint shimmer of sickly pink power.

"Old man, it has possessed you," the swordsman said softly, in tones that were gentle by his standards, too low to be heard by anyone else but the elderly gentleman in the uproar as, behind the swordsman, Lilith, Allen, and Samuel strove to put out the flames that danced merrily over Lane's body. The servant was still screaming, even as the room filled with thick, greasy smoke and the stench of burned flesh. "It uses you to break its bonds. You will be its bridge into this world, as your wife was before."

"I know," Nigel whispered back. "I cannot fight any longer. I cannot trap it within me any longer. Please…please…end this." The proud man was pleading through the tears that poured down his face, agony in every line of his wrinkled cheeks. His hands shook. "I…I am sorry…" His old body jerked suddenly, and there was a loud whumph! as Lane was consumed by a white-hot pillar of flame. His screams stopped abruptly as the choking smoke curled through the room, stinging eyes and lungs. And in Mr. Harrison's eyes, Kanda saw only pink malice and the reflection of flames.

"You have lost, old man." Kanda said calmly as the gentleman's old flesh began to crackle and peel away, revealing fresh, young skin beneath. The white hair was growing and giving way to a luxurious red and the man's body began to grin, his lips stretching into a vicious smile under his violently pink eyes. The Japanese exorcist drew Mugen unhurriedly and activated it, his eyes still locked onto the beast's. "Go, and find your peace."

Mugen sliced through the air in a beautiful, deadly arc. Mr. Harrison's head toppled to the ground and the torso to which it had so recently been attached followed it. Lilith howled and threw herself against Kanda's back, pounding on his shoulders with her fists, and Allen and Samuel both appeared before Kanda, screaming and spitting remonstrations. Kanda remained impassive and pointed with Mugen's tip to the body of Nigel Harrison with one word: "look."

Arcs of magenta lightning hurtled upward from the dead man's body and lit the smoke of Lane's pyre with an eldritch glow. A figure coalesced, standing above Nigel's fallen body. It laughed and swept open its great feathered wings. The smoke billowed aside momentarily and the three who had been berating Kanda choked into silence.

"Well, well," laughed the incubus, tossing his long, red tresses back from where they were caught on delicate, pale-gold horns with a jerk of his head. His smile revealed even white teeth and long, curving fangs. "Now wasn't that fun?"

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Author's note: Hello, all! Happy Valentine's and New Year's Day! If you actually made it to the end of this rather long chapter, I offer you my congratulations and my sincerest thanks. I would also like to express my appreciation to all of you who encouraged me to keep going. I have always intended to finish this story, and I will, but it was very difficult for me to find the motivation it takes to write when no new chapters of D. Gray-Man have been forthcoming in so long (and even now that its back...). I can't write D. Gray-Man stories without regular doses of Kanda! Anyway, I hope this chapter will somewhat make up for the long wait. It's not my favorite chapter, though I do like parts of it. I also really hate some parts, but couldn't think of a better way of presenting the necessary information. If something doesn't make sense, just ask. You all are welcome to tell me what you though as well; I would be happy to read your comments and criticism. Thank you for sticking with me for this long! –Ibrium