Well... 2 chaps in one day... hm... anyway, enjoy! :)
Chapter 9
"Beansprout?"
Allen looked up, startled. A familiar blue-haired samurai stood in the doorway to his room. Kanda Yuu was probably the most exasperating character Allen had ever met in this life. He had been witness to most of the expressions Kanda had worn in different situations. But this was the first time seeing the shock and utter disbelief flash across Kanda's face.
"I'm not beansprout." Allen heard himself reply. He knew that he was not in control of himself… The Noah had awaken and was determined to be the dominant personality in his body.
"Why are you crying?" Kanda ignored Allen's reply. His dark eyes fixed on the tear-stained face of Allen Walker.
To tell the truth, he did not know why he was crying either. Ever since he had returned to consciousness, the tears had started to flow down his face. But that was not the main point. Kanda was in terrible danger. How could the man stand in the same room with a partially-becoming-Noah-Allen-Walker? Didn't he see the golden eyes and the grey skin with stigmas adorning his forehead? Why wasn't he running to get the rest of the Exorcists?
Who knew what would happen to Kanda if Allen lost control in the raging battle against the sadistic Noah?
"Get out of here, Kanda! You don't know—"
"I'm not scared and I'm not getting out of here." Kanda interrupted, staring at Allen resolutely but Allen detected a flicker of fear in his eyes. Allen himself was running out of strength. He could barely hold back against the Noah now…
"Liar." The Noah laughed softly, taking over the weak Allen.
Kanda blinked in surprise. Then, he gingerly licked his lips, choosing his words with care as he answered. "But you don't want to kill me."
"And how would you know that?"
Kanda looked stunned at the counter the Noah threw back, before he answered. "Because you haven't killed me yet."
The Noah laughed. "You truly are amazing, Kanda Yuu. It is not wonder that someone has a slight crush on you."
"What?"
Allen almost burst out laughing at Kanda's surprised expression. Almost. His lips twitched in amusement as the Noah stared at Kanda. While it had been true that in the months that they had spent together after Allen's arrival, Allen had developed a slight crush on the teen, Allen could not help but to try and deny the claims of the Noah.
"I said, that's why my… vessel— if you would put it that way—likes you." The Noah smirked. "It's rather annoying, watching the two of you dance around each other when it is clear that you're both interested in each other."
"I…I am not!" Kanda spluttered, his face flushing immediately.
"That's what he says, too." The Noah drawled lazily, studying Kanda with interest. Somehow, during their conversation, the tears had stopped coming, Allen noticed suddenly. The Noah scrubbed his face dry as soon as Allen finished his thought and then he turned to Kanda again.
"Well, so what are you doing here?" The Noah asked curiously, cutting straight to the point.
Kanda looked faintly uncomfortable as he replied, "I heard a noise coming from this room…"
"And you came to investigate?" the Noah looked faintly amused, but he had narrowed his yellow eyes. "That, in itself is extremely foolish. I trust you've heard the term 'curiosity killed the cat'?"
Kanda flushed again with embarrassment. "And no one would expect to find a Noah in the Black Order, would they?" he retorted heatedly. Much to his surprise, the Noah smirked at him.
"Well, if you exclude the people who hid me in here, I wouldn't be so sure about that." He replied smugly. "Who knew that Komui Lee and Bookman would be so lenient as to let a Noah like me live? Much less hide me down here?"
Kanda scowled in annoyance. It was well-known among all the members of the Order that Komui Lee and his Exorcist sister, Lenalee had a soft spot for Allen Walker. He was not surprised that Komui would try to help Allen when he was in such a situation. However, Bookman helping him out was completely unexpected and Kanda could not help but doubt that there was an ulterior motive behind Bookman's actions.
"Well?" The Noah's voice broke into Kanda's thoughts. "Have you finished with your brooding? Because I'd really like to get out of this room right now."
Before Kanda could do anything to stop the Noah, he swung his legs off the bed and proceeded to get out of bed when he suddenly crumpled to the ground like a broken marionette.
ANANANANAN
"Branch Head Komui," Reever called. "It's starting."
Komui nodded once and steepled his hands, staring at the very-much-neater-and-void-of-dusty-paperwork room. It was a surprise to the Science Department how he had managed to complete three-quarters of the much overdue paperwork in six days—not to mention, stage a rebellion at the same time.
It had been a strenuous six days of going around to convince the other Branch Chiefs to participate in this rebellion. A few of them had decided to remain neutral while most of them had agreed to help Komui. One such example was an eager Bak Chan from the Asia Branch. The moment Komui told him about the rebellion and the motivator for him to stage it—which was Allen, but Komui didn't admit it—Bak and eagerly volunteered his services.
The first part of the rebellion was to cut all ties off from the Vatican. Throw the guards and other officials who had allied themselves with the Vatican out of the Black Order. Of course, most of them had tried to stop the efforts of the Black Order, but they had been overpowered. The Black Order had then started to rearrange the system within the Order itself, promoting the Branch Chiefs to the official 'leaders' of the Black Order—the Board of Directors.
Once the Vatican found out that the Black Order was cutting off all ties with it—rebelling against it, it sent its private army to wipe out the whole organization. Unfortunately, their efforts to destroy the existence of the Black Order were futile because Komui, who had spent the past few days developing a robotical army with the other scientists after he had demolished the paperwork, had created a robot army. To add on to that, the other scientists had also come up with other useful inventions to thwart the Vatican army, setting these ingenious devices into the ground and causing the demise of half the army.
The Vatican, upon finding that violence was not working, resorted to negotiation with the newly-established Board of Directors. Pent-up tempers, verbal insults and threats were thrown around and the two sides finally concluded that the Black Order would become a private, independent organization and that the Vatican would not interfere in any matters of the Black Order. As for the Vatican, they would pretend that they had no hand in the founding of the organization, in return for a huge sum of money. The two sides left it at that.
The last part of the plan—which Komui was currently carrying out—was the reevaluation of the Exorcists and promoting them to their proper ranks. It had been a long time since the synchronization of the Innocence of any Exorcist had been checked—the last time being when Chaoji had been admitted into their ranks. (Timothy's not here yet) Lenalee's Innocence had undergone some changes—an evolution, General Tiedoll had suggested—and she was close to 100% synchronization. Lavi's had remained the same, as had Kanda's, Miranda's and Chaoji's. The only difference was that Lavi's Innocence's synchronization rate had increased by 1% and they had surmised it to be because Lavi's physical container for the Innocence had broken once after all the events it had gone through—proving that the hardships Lavi and his Innocence had gone through together, thus increasing their synchronization rate. As for Krory, it was because he had managed to synchronize with the Innocence far enough that he could use his blood to fight the Noah. Komui would never admit it but Krory's Innocence reminded him of Lenalee's.
And then, there was Allen.
Komui couldn't help himself but he constantly worried about the child—the youngest among them and also the most important one. It didn't matter that Allen was a Noah and could harm them, but the teen was still a growing child, he had yet to recover from the death of his foster father and rarely spoke about him. To everyone, Allen was important because he was family and the fact that he had lost his family once made everyone worry constantly for him. Allen had faced enough hardship in his past, he shouldn't be handling this kind of burden—he should be happy, like Lenalee or Lavi, not throwing those empty smiles around every day. The day Allen had started to recover emotionally in the arms of the Black Order was the day everyone grew to treasure him.
Komui thought back to the past days within the Black Order. The happy memories would remain in his mind forever—everyone was happy and content with life, despite the constant hardships of collecting Innocence, destroying Akuma or working to their deaths at their desks. Those times were the best moments of his life.
It was a pity everything good had to end.
Allen would go away. He had to. With the Millennium Earl targeting Allen, he had to hide Allen away until the teen was more prepared to deal with the Millennium Earl. He didn't think that Allen was mentally prepared yet. Then, there was the problem of Allen's rank. Komui remembered the day when Hevlaska had announced the coming of a Critical Point. According to Lenalee, the only change she had seen was in Allen's Innocence—when the boy had pulled a sword out of his left arm, using the Innocence to battle the Noah. However, he had yet to see proof as Allen was still undergoing the process of becoming a Noah.
Despite the lack of solid evidence and identification, Komui was certain that Allen was a General. How could he not be? He was easily the most stubborn within the group of Exorcists who were not Generals and he would have strived to reach over 100% if he deemed it necessary for the sake of anyone else. His intentions were so selfless that Komui found it hard to believe that he could not have been the Critical Point Hevlaska sensed.
"Komui."
Startled from his thoughts, Komui looked up to meet the solemn dark blue warrior standing in the doorway to his office.
"Yes, Kanda?" Komui probed gently, surprised that Kanda was taking the initiative to talk to him. The normally stoic teen seemed to be concerned about something. Worried about what? Komui wondered to himself as he studied Kanda, waiting for a response.
"Allen."
That one word was enough to make Komui widen his eyes and his heart clench in fear and worry. Had Kanda found out about the younger teen? Had he entered the room? What had happened?
"What about Allen, Kanda?" Komui tried to keep his voice light and the emotions from showing on his face.
Kanda frowned at his reaction but he continued. "I found him. He's just reverted back to his human form."
With his message delivered, Kanda left the room, leaving Komui shell-shocked. He knew, Komui repeated to himself, Kanda knew that Allen was a Noah. Why? Why was he doing this? What was his motive? What happened?
But no matter. He couldn't worry about this now. He had to get to Bookman and make sure that Allen was safe and undiscovered by the Black Order—except for Kanda. Allen was going to have to leave the Black Order for somewhere else.
"Bookman?" Komui knocked on the library door before he opened it.
And came face to face with Howard Link.
"What are you doing here?" Komui let his thought slip in his moment of surprise. Link smiled in amusement at Komui's reaction.
"Is this how you greet visitors, Head of the Board of Directors?" Link bantered back. "I am here to offer my help to the Black Order, of course."
"But—"
"The work we have done under the service of the Vatican was all for the purpose of defeating the Noahs, Head of the Board." A new voice interrupted them. Komui turned slowly to face the new speaker in astonishment.
"Inspector?" Komui stared at Leverrier with disbelief etched on his face. "What is the Vatican think they're doing—"
"No, you're mistaken, Komui Lee." Leverrier interrupted. "We have left the Vatican to help the Black Order."
Komui could only continue to stare. He had not expected this sudden turn in events. "Why?" he finally managed to ask.
"We've been working on the Black Order for a long time, Komui," Leverrier gestured around him. "Link and I have an interest in helping the Black Order to develop and prosper."
"In fact, we were hoping that the Black Order would separate from the Vatican because the Vatican was doing a poor job of managing the affairs of the Black Order. So, we came back after settling several matters straight in the Vatican." Link told him. "Now, where's Allen Walker? I'm told that we are to head to America today and the flight is in the late afternoon. If he has not prepared by now, we must rush."
Komui cast a look at Bookman who was behind them. "You know…?"
Bookman nodded. "Kanda came by earlier."
Komui sighed quietly as he pondered the situation for several moments. "Bookman, take Link to Allen. Inspector Leverrier, we have some catching up to do. Shall we continue this in my office?"
Link inclined his head and left after Bookman. Then Leverrier turned to Komui with a serious expression on his face. "Let retire to your office. I have something serious to discuss with you too."