Hey, everybody! Sorry for the long wait! I really wanted to update this sometime in May, but school got in the way :P But hey, this is a longish chapter. Enjoy!

"What do you think that was?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"You're the movie shine."

"It's called movie buff, Ziva. And that has nothing to do with this."

"Shut up! He's waking up."

Allen opened his eyes to see the people who had been whispering—Ziva and Tony—looking down at him. . . . So he was lying down . . . but where was he?

Allen sat up, and Tony put a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa. Don't sit up too fast. It may sound cliché, but you were just in the battle of the century, and need to recover."

Allen put his hand to his head, and hit Timcanpy, who was clinging to Allen's hair. "Sorry, Tim." The golem pointed his wings straight up, as if stretching after a nap. "Where am I?"

A man stood up from a desk in the corner of the room Allen was in. He was short, had gray hair, and was wearing a bow-tie. Allen hadn't seen one of those in a while.

"The morgue," he said as he started walking towards Allen. "It seemed a better than finding a place on the floor upstairs. At least here we have beds of sorts."

Allen looked down at what he was lying on. It was silver, like the table in Abby's lab. There was also a black blanket thrown over Allen. And a black . . . frilly . . . pillow under where his head was.

He looked back to the man with the bow-tie.

He smiled. "You can thank Abigail for those. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Mallard, but most know me as Ducky."

Allen smiled. "Allen."

"I am well aware of who you are, Mr. Walker. You and your friend put on quite the show earlier. And I believe Jethro has said you are free to go."

Allen looked around the room. "Where is Lavi?"

"Waiting for you to wake up, Lazybones."

Allen turned his head to see Lavi standing in the doorway. Lavi walked up to the table, walking around Ziva and Ducky to stand on the other side of Tony. Allen smiled at his conscious effort to avoid Ziva.

"Ya feeling better?" Allen nodded at Lavi's question. "Ready to go?"

"What do you mean, 'ready to go'?" The Exorcists looked at Ziva, surprised by her talking to them . . . nicely.

"We need to get home," Lavi said in his all's-well-in-the-world tone of voice.

Allen enjoyed it here, but Lavi was right. They had to get home. They were already in enough trouble. Besides that, as Exorcists they couldn't get attached to places they went, even if it was intended for a vacation.

Ziva, Tony, and Ducky nodded, as though they understood why Allen and Lavi had to leave.

"How are you getting back," Tony asked.

"Where you first met us," Allen said. "There's a gate there that will send us back."

Tony nodded once. "Sure you don't want to stay longer, just to be safe?" It sounded more like a strong suggestion than a simple question.

Lavi shook his head. "We've probably been here too long as it is."

"Alright, then." Tony's voice was quiet.

Allen and Lavi walked towards the door to the morgue, followed by Ducky and the agents.

"You're sure you have to leave?" The Exorcists nodded at Abby's question.

There was a breeze at what Gibbs had called the crime scene earlier. Allen and Lavi had said their good-byes to Ziva, Ducky, McGee, and Tony at the office. A fast, quiet car ride later, they were saying bye to Gibbs and Abby as well.

The group walked to the spot where Allen and Lavi had landed in their pursuit of the Akuma. There was an awkward silence, as no one knew how to say good-bye. Granted, they'd only known each other for a day—less than that, actually—but the Exorcists had grown fond of Abby, and vice versa.

Abby sniffed, causing them to look at her. Before he could react, Abby hugged Allen tightly. He looked wide-eyed between Gibbs and Lavi, each smiling at Allen's dismayed look.

"I know you have a home to return to," Abby said, voice sounding choked. "And that you have important work, but promise me something . . .

"Promise me that . . . you'll live your lives to the fullest."

Allen nodded. "Okay," he said almost in a whisper. Abby squeezed him harder, to where he could hardly breathe. When she released him, she wiped her eyes. Was she . . . crying?

She turned and hugged Lavi just as hard, and when he tried to say something all that same out was an unintelligible squeak. She let go of him, and he made a dramatic sigh as he took a huge breath.

When his breathing was back to normal, Lavi turned to Gibbs. "So, do you believe us now?"

Gibbs tilted his head slightly, a smile barely noticeable accompanying the head-tilt. "Did I ever say that I didn't?"

Allen and Lavi stared at him in confusion. Earlier today, hadn't he said that he didn't believe them? . . . No, that's right. He said "Did I say I believed you."

How deep is this guy? They both thought.

Turning away from Gibbs and Abby, the Exorcists looked up at the Ark. It was angled in a position where if they tried to just extend the hammer, the handle wouldn't have a good landing spot for them to get off.

"How do you wanna do this, Allen?"

"Maybe I could use Clown Belt to get up there then you extend your hammer? I can grab hold of it and pull you inside."

"Worth a try."

Allen activated his Innocence, then extended his arm towards the entrance to the Ark. "Clown Belt," he said, commanding his Innocence. The belt flowed from his coat, wrapping around his arm before shooting off in the direction of the Ark. It went through the doorway, wrapping around something and pulling tight, as though to signal Allen that he could then ascend to the doorway. He leapt toward the doorway.

Abby watched as Allen was pulled toward the white doorway. It was sad that they had to leave so soon. She would have liked to get to know them better, even if she already considered them friends.

Allen was just about to go through the door when he gasped.

"Found you!" The voice was low-pitched. A purple string appeared from the doorway, wrapping around Allen's waist.

He reacted quickly, transforming his hand into a claw and slashing at the string. It broke, and he retracted the white rope-thing that had come from his coat. What did he call it, Clown Belt? He fell, his landing surprisingly graceful.

The Akuma floated to the ground, stopping to hover just before its feet touched the dirt. "I didn't realize when the Lord Millennium ordered me to find you I would have to leave our own time."

Lavi pulled out his hammer. "Fire—"

The Akuma made the motion of snapping a whip, and the end wrapped around his wrists. A bright purple light flew down the string, causing Lavi to yell in pain and drop his hammer. Once it hit the ground, the glow disappeared and the string was pulled away from his hands.

Lavi dropped to his knees, staring at his hands. "They won't—I can't—they can't move!" The look in his eyes went from confusion to realization, now to fear. He raised his head, eye wide, as he yelled to Allen, seemingly at the top of his lungs. "Allen! Don't let the strings get near you! They'll paralyze you!"

Allen nodded. The Akuma swung his arm, and a string flew towards Allen. The mask on the front of his jacket came over his face, and the jacket stretched out to resemble a cloak, and covered Allen's body. The strings bounced off of it like a bouncy ball off a building.

The Akuma tried this several more times, each time aiming for a different spot, but each attempt was unsuccessful.

It smiled, as though it knew what it needed to do to win. It activated another string so it had one in each hand, but stopped attacking. It simply stood there, as though waiting for something . . .

The cloak protecting Allen moved to behind him, revealing his right hand holding his left wrist, and his left arm turned into a sword, as it had done in his battle earlier. He ran towards the Akuma, raising his sword above his head as he did so.

The Akuma's smile widened as Allen drew near, and Abby's eyes went wide.

"Allen! Stop!" But he was already moving too fast to be able to stop in time.

The Akuma tried to hit Allen with the string in its right hand, but Allen sidestepped to his right, so he was right in front of the Akuma's other hand. The Akuma made the other string head straight towards Allen's face. He tried to skid to a halt, but, unable to do so, fell on his back, his momentum still carrying him towards his enemy. He rolled out from under the string, keeping his chin tucked in.

He raised his head to look at the Akuma. This was what it was waiting for: Allen to be in a position where he wouldn't be able to react fast enough. It snapped the string, as it had done to Lavi, but the string fell short of Allen's face. The light travelled down again, and Allen yelped as he fell back on his elbow, rubbing his eyes.

He tried to put the end of his sword against his shoulder to transform it back into a hand, but couldn't seem to find where his shoulder was in relation to the sword. Couldn't he—

He couldn't see!

Abby looked desperately to Lavi. "Lavi, you have to do something! Help him!" She didn't mean to be pushy, but she couldn't do anything to help if she wanted to.

"I still can't move my hands! I can barely move my arms!"

A green glow made Abby look Allen's way again. He was able to transform his sword.

The Akuma flew over to him, shortening the two strings to where they barely dangled under its hands. Allen must've heard it coming, as he furiously started swinging his clawed hand around. The Akuma grabbed it, slamming it down on the ground, as the string attached to its other hand wrapped around Allen's neck.

Allen grabbed the string with his right hand and pulled, trying to pull it off.

The Akuma tilted its head slightly as something though something were hitting it, but the impact wasn't enough to do damage. Abby looked at Gibbs, who had his weapon drawn. It completely ignored the bullets, its focus on Allen.

"Your Innocence is in your body," the Akuma said in a malicious tone. "If you can't move your body, you can't activate your Innocence."

The string lit up, and Abby cringed at the scream that Allen let out before his hand fell to his side and he stopped moving completely. Her eyes went wide.

"Allen! No!" She tried to run to him, not thinking about her actions.

Lavi raised his arm slightly, from the way it was shaking, as far as he could. "Wait."

"But Lavi—"

"If Allen and I couldn't do anything, what makes you think you could?"

Abby looked back at the Akuma, who was throwing Allen over its shoulder. There had to be something she could do!

Gibbs fired several more shots at the Akuma, all hitting it either in the head or torso, but it wasn't hurt at all. It turned toward the white doorway, but before proceeding turned its head to face Abby and the guys.

"Were it not for the Lord Millennium's orders, I would have great joy in killing each and every one of you. Including this useless traitor." With that, it flew into the Ark.

Abby ran forwards, this time with no one to stop her.

"Wait, Abby!"

She turned to face Lavi as she skidded to a halt. "We have to go help him!"

"We will, Abs, but—" There was a rustling sound behind Gibbs as he stopped mid-sentence, an annoyed look coming across his face. "I already know the answer to this question, but who's bright idea was it to follow us out here?"

Ziva, Tony, and McGee emerged from the bushes as Gibbs turned. The trio stopped, and when Gibbs was completely facing them Ziva and McGee pointed to Tony.

Tony didn't try to act innocent. "They wanted to see, too."

"Well, since you're here now—"

"We're going with you," Ziva said in her "you can't tell us no" voice.

McGee picked up Lavi's hammer as Tony and Ziva helped him stand up, and the group ran towards the Ark entrance.

Sorry if the fight scene's not all that great. I'm not used to writing fight scenes XD

So yesterday when I heard there wouldn't be a new chapter of D. Gray-Man this month I kinda went into the Tamaki emo corner for some time. But this morning I decided that I wanted to read Zone because I'd heard about it and Googled it some, but couldn't find it. After an HOUR I finally found it, and must say that I thought it was pretty good. Then again I've been told that I'm not critical enough when it comes to other peoples' works. I'm overly critical of my own stuff XD

If you are like me and wanna read it, you can go to my YouTube channel (link on my profile) and it's near the top in my favorites

So, yeah, now that school's out for the summer I can write more. b^_^d And I ask, if you have time, that you check into my other fanfic so far, Should I Die Before I Wake. There's nothing really bad in it, it's only rated M because the first chapter is a birth scene, and I wasn't sure if that qualifies for mature content or not . . .

As always, review! :D