Could it be? Yes it could! Something's coming, something good~! ^_^ And that something is the latest update of Allegro's Crescendo~!
I apologize for the late update; pretty much, life caught up with me, and refused to let go. That, and I also kinda-sorta got distracted by some other projects... I got stuck on the last part of the chapter, and that's the main reason why it took so long. I couldn't get out of the pothole 'til now...
If you remember last chapter, I had asked for you to guess the two allusions in it, and if possible, where they were from. Nobody got both of them, but the anonymous reviewer TNT did get one correct, so this chapter gets dedicated to them~!
The allusions were the ship Campania, which was the ship from the last Arc in Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji, and the song Adagio (for Strings). The second one was a bit harder, because it was sort of vague... The part where that is mentioned last chapter is the italics right under where Allegro introduces himself to Rhode.
Anyways, let's allow The Eleventh Movement to commence~!
Disclaimer: Still don't own D,Gray-Man...
Allegro's Crescendo
Allen was never found by Cross after attempting to bring Mana back. Neither did the Millennium Earl or the Noah's take him in. No, a third party found young Allen instead, and from that day on, he wasn't 'Allen' anymore. Instead, the Destroyer of Time gained a new name. That name was…
The Eleventh Movement: Fugue
"Marian disappeared." Komui was half asleep at this late hour, and as such, started at the sudden sound of a voice echoing through his office. He looked up from the paperwork he had been this close to using as a pillow to see Klaud leaning against the doorway to his office. Lau Jimin was perched on her shoulder, staring at him with eerie yellow eyes. "We had Timcampy with us for a time, but he took off at some point during the train ride back to Headquarters."
Komui sighed, adjusting his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"And the accommodator?" Please, please, he begged the Lord, let only Marian be the sole Exorcist they lost.
"Escaped." Klaud answered. "There was an Akuma attack, and the caretaker took off with him while Lenalee and Kanda were busy dealing with it."
Great. Just great. A chance at fighting against the Akuma and gaining another ally to collect Innocence, and it was gone. Slipped through their fingers.
"The Finders did nothing? And what about yourself?" Komui tried his hardest to keep his aggravation from slipping into his voice. He really didn't want to explain this one to Central.
"The Finders are with the Lord now," Klaud finally moved from her spot, moving into the office, shutting the door behind her. "May He bless them for their hard work. As for myself, when the Akuma attacked, it caused panic along the street, and I lost sight of the two and they disappeared into the masses."
Komui studied her for a moment. The general's face was impassive, belying no emotion. Yet… Something made him feel uneasy. As if he was being lied to.
"General," The light glared off his glasses making it impossible for Klaud to look at his eyes as he spoke, fingers lacing under Komui's chin, propping up his head. "Are you absolutely confident that that is what transpired?" She hesitated, but only the tiniest bit.
"Do you doubt my report supervisor?" Klaud challenged back coolly. She was tensed just a tad, and Lau Jimin's fur was bristled.
"Just remember, what is put on record can never be taken off record." Komui responded easily, tone carefree but something darker also laced behind it also. "Now, I'll ask you once more. For the record, General Nyne, is that what happened?"
There wasn't any hesitation this time. The words came easily out of her mouth, slicker than butter sliding across a hot griddle.
"Yes sir, Supervisor," Klaud's voice was stoic and she looked past Komui as she spoke, eyes fixating themselves on some part of the bookshelf above his head. "For the record, that is what happened."
"Alright then," He answered, unlacing his fingers, scribbling something in one of the files on his desk. He signed something, then pulled out a stamp, and stamped something in the file, before shutting it and pushing it off to a far corner of his desk.
Klaud watched as Komui relaxed a tad and leaned back in his chair, waiting to be dismissed. He picked up his coffee mug- a light blue color, with a pink bunny on it that had been given to him from Lenalee a few months ago as a gift -and cradling it in his hands. The coffee was almost cold, but it still held some remnants of warmth in the ceramic.
"Now then, General Klaud Nyne," His eyes glinted as he spoke, and the grandfather clock attested to the ever growing late hour.
"Tell me what really happened."
~~Series of rounds, all with the same start, but different endings~~
"What's troubling you, Lenalee?" Lenalee jumped; she had been so deep into her thoughts that she had forgotten about the General sitting next to her.
"Hmm? Oh… I-it's nothing General Tiedoll." Lenalee blushed, biting the inside of her cheek nervously. It wasn't nothing, but she really didn't want to tell him that. In reality, it had to do with her last mission.
The mission with the little accommodator boy, Allen Walker.
"It doesn't seem like nothing." Tiedoll observed calmly. Lenalee fidgeted- she didn't know whether or not she should tell the General. She and Kanda both had been told not to tell, and that Klaud would take care of the mission report and informing Komui, but still. Even though she had sworn she wouldn't tell, she still felt immensely guilty.
"You know," His voice was casual and calm- the sort of tone it normally held. "When Daisya came back from his first mission, he had been upset." Tiedoll wasn't looking at her anymore. Instead, he was looking down at his sketch pad, drawing something with an unremarkable steady hand what with all the wobbling the carriage was doing.
"Came back in tears, the poor boy- but don't tell him I said that, eh? He won't be happy with me telling a charming young lass like yourself a boy like him was crying alright?" He gave her a smile, his eyes twinkling a bit with mischief behind his glasses. She reciprocated with a small, nervous, smile of her own, which seemed to spur Tiedoll on to continue the story.
And, though she didn't know it, the smile had been all that Tiedoll wanted from the young Exorcist.
~~Fugue~~
His blood was boiling. Kanda wasn't sure why, but he was fairly certain it had to do with his last mission- his first failed mission. He just thought of the mission, and that brat's face popped into his head, and he could just feel his blood start to bubble and boil.
He back flipped, tucking his head down to his chin and holding his arms close to his chest. A hiss of air sliced past his ear as his heels dug back down into the ground.
That brat… He was so irritating!
Kanda couldn't pursue that particular train of thought for long, however, because a swish cut through the air quicker than he could blink, and a line of blood trickled down his arm. He stared at it blankly for a moment, not even wincing as a burning sensation ran down the appendage, the blood flow stopped before it was able to continue.
"Kanda, is everything alright?" Kanda snapped his head up from his arm to stare at his training partner. Well, technically, Kanda was his training partner, but eh, semantics. "You seem a bit off today."
"It's nothing Marie," Kanda answered automatically, lying.
"It doesn't seem like nothing," Marie prodded, sitting down on the floor and patting the spot next to him. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Kanda said dryly, but he took a seat next to Marie anyways.
"Does it have to do with your last mission?" Marie asked, and Kanda shook his head in another lie, before remembering and reminding himself that Marie was blind and that his head wasn't so hollow that the older Exorcist (by age, anyways,) would be able to hear his head rattle.
"No…" But there was an edge of uncertainty in his voice, and to Kanda's misfortune, Marie picked up on it.
"You don't seem so certain about it," Marie commented. "Is it because it was a failed mission you're upset?"
"Yeah," Kanda agreed immediately, forcing the image of the Moyashi's face and Lenalee's tears from his head. "That's it. I just can't get what went wrong out of my head."
"Do you want to…" Marie started, but his ears picked up Kanda standing and making his way across the room even as he spoke, the door of the training room slamming shut before he could finish. "…talk about it?"
"Well," Marie mused to himself as he stood, picking his way out of the room as well. "He'll talk about it when he's good and ready, I suppose."
~~Fugue~~
"I'll always love you…"
"Here, I'd like you to meet my fiancée, –."
"A song bird could never love a lamb!"
"Don't listen to what the others say. My love for you, – , is as deep and unending as the sea."
"I'm going out for a while Millennie!" Rhode shouted from the empty front hall of the family's 'house'. She was slipping on her shoes, and took about two steps towards the door before tripping.
Her skirt flared as she fell, and her legs splayed open as she made her undignified landing. Rhode glared at the cat who was sitting on the floor right in front of her, licking its paw.
"That was rude Lulubell!" Rhode whined as she picked herself up from the ground. "Shoo! I said, shoo, you dumb cat-thing!" She stomped her foot, heel clacking loudly against the floor, a little too close to Lulubell for the cat's liking apparently, as the cat raised her haunches and spat out a hiss before darting off down the hall, turning a corner sharply, practically walking on the wall before finishing the turn.
"Look, it's a kitty! Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Aw, it's so cute! Can we keep it? Huh, huh, huh?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't think we can. Your sister would most definitely get really angry if I told you that you could keep it. Don't you already have a cat at home, anyways?"
"Yeah… But she's so lonely! I'm certain if I brought this lil' fella home she'd not be lonely anymore!"
"Go… away…" Rhode growled as she pressed the palm of her hand harshly into her forehead, her eyes scrunching shut.
"No! Don't go away! Please, don't leave me here!"
"Stop it!" Rhode cried, her door appearing behind her as she took one, two, three stumbling steps back, before falling through it to her 'room', her other dimension. The doors slammed shut of their own accord, leaving her surrounded by floating candles, dolls and presents, sitting on a blackened floor that was invisible because of the black that filled all the blank space.
"You love her? You've got to be mad, –! She's just a child! You're an adult!"
"I. Said. Stop. IT!" Rhode howled, tears burning in her eyes as she slammed her foot violently onto the floor. The sound of something cracking echoed through the dimension, and barely visible cracks appeared along some of the candles and dolls.
She wasn't crazy, she wasn't, she insisted to herself as she curled her arms around her knees, hugging them tight to her chest. It wasn't her fault that it ached so much that she could see him in him, and they had the same aura, and he was a constant reminder, and that he had to be him and there was just not other way, was there?
At least, Rhode really hoped that they were one in the same.
~~Fugue~~
Allegro stood out on the deck of the boat, grasping the railing tightly as he looked out to the now black sea. It was evening now, the stars and swollen moon the only light to the otherwise pitch deck. He could pick out the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper and a few other constellations he had been shown out in the sky, with how clear the night was.
Allegro had never been on a boat before. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. There was a lot more people than he was used to being around, and that was saying something seeing as he used to be part of the circus. The ground below him rocked a lot as well, and it made him a little nauseous from time to time. But he was getting used to it- to being on a boat, that was –really fast! Miss Erika even said so; she said he was getting his sea legs faster than she did when she rode the boat over here to Britain.
He wondered what it was like, over in America, where she was from. She had told him that it wasn't all that much different from where they had been before, but something had to be different, right? It couldn't all be the same, could it?
His hand and eye throbbed with pain at that moment, and Allegro let out a small gasp. His knees buckled, and his right hand moved to cover his eye, which was throbbing.
"Allegro?" A voice echoed, quiet and tired, behind him. "Is everything okay? Are you feeling sick, does something hurt?"
The pain slowly subsided, and Allegro relaxed a tad.
"I'm fine," Allegro answered, turning a bit to give his caretaker a smile before turning to stare out at the ocean once more.
Erika mussed his hair a bit before moving her hands down to rest on his shoulders.
"If you say so," She said lightly, before deftly changing the subject. "The ocean is really pretty at night, isn't it?"
"Mm-hmm," Allegro hummed as he nodded his assent. "When we get to America will we be staying near the ocean?"
"Probably not," Erika admitted. "We'll most likely be staying with my parents for a time, or one of my friends, until we have the money and can find a place to settle down by ourselves. Maybe then?"
"I guess…" Allegro had a pout in his voice, and Erika couldn't help but give a small laugh.
"Don't worry," Erika laughed. "America has plenty of lakes and ponds that can be way more fun than the ocean."
"'Kay…" Allegro muttered, and Erika gave off another laugh.
"Come, we should go to bed now." Erik wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders as she turned him around, leading him back across the deck. "I don't even want to imagine the sort of terror you'll be in the morning if you don't get to sleep."
~~Fugue~~
It was a scream almost animalistic in quality. Underneath the screaming, as it tapered off, the whirring of a gear seemed to cover it up. The boy- the accommodator, Klaud suspected, -had fallen to his knees and was breathing quite heavily. Make-up that had obviously been covering his branding scar had disappeared, showing its uniqueness to the crowd. But, what was most interesting to the General, however, were his eyes. To be more specific, his left eye.
His right eye was the storm grey color it had been when she had come on scene. The left however, had changed- the cause, perhaps, of his screams. Instead of the eye being grey, it was painted like a bulls-eye, completely black with three red rings. No iris, and you couldn't tell if the black in the center was the pupil or not.
Immediately following the change of the boys' eye color, and Klaud had thought nothing of it at the time, but looking back now, she thought there might be some sort of connection between the two. Following the change of the eye, the presence of two Akuma had made itself known.
Attracted by the abundance of Innocence, no doubt, seeing as there was at least three, if not four, accommodators of the substance in the immediate area.
They were only Level Ones, so Klaud stayed put. This was technically Lenalee and Kanda's assignment, anyways. Fighting the Akuma would be a good training experience for the two. Klaud focused on the boy; he seemed to have combated the pain of his eye, but he was gripping his left arm as if he were in an excruciating amount of pain, trying to stop something from happening. A parasitic type, perhaps?
A flash of light alerted Klaud to the activation of Kanda and Lenalee's respective Innocence. Her eyes trailed over slightly to the spot where the two were, watching as Lenalee took to the sky to battle the one while Kanda took after the other. Klaud redirected her attention to the boy, who now had an older woman hovering over him with her hands resting on his shoulders. It only took a quick moment of deduction to determine that this woman was the allegedly 'unstable' caretaker of the accommodator.
Well, she'd determine how unstable the woman was herself.
She was light on her feet as she weaved through the screaming masses towards the target. Lau Jimin was tensed on her shoulder, ready to activate at her command. Klaud rested her hand on Lau Jimin's head in an attempt to soothe the monkey, but it merely sent a tremor cascading down the others fur.
Klaud reached the two just as the caretaker was heaving the boy to his feet. She made eye contact with the caretaker, who took a step backwards. Klaud was in full General regale, and it was obvious that the woman recognized it, thanks to Cross. Klaud simply snapped her fingers, and Lau Jimin leaped from his post on her shoulder, Innocence activating as he blocked their escape to the rear. The left held the Akuma, the right a wall. They were trapped.
"You're trapped." The redundancy was obvious, but Klaud stated the fact anyways. The caretaker scowled, and her fingers curled into the shoulder blades of the little boy.
"What do you want with him?" Her tone was sharp, but her voice was level. She was restraining herself, and the reason was obvious. The accommodator was spooked, trembling in her grasp, and Klaud had no clue what his Innocence was like. It could be benign, but it could also be something extremely volatile that upsetting him could put either him or herself in danger.
"To make a soldier out of him." Klaud cut right to the chase. She wasn't going to bother with semantics, she wasn't going to flower anything. "He's the type of warrior we need."
"A soldier? For what?" The other dared to bark a laugh. "An invisible war that no one knows about? With those 'Akuma' as enemies that you send children to battle?"
"It does not concern you," Klaud dismissed her. "It would be best if you just handed the boy over now. Neither you nor him have decision over his fate- God has already picked it for him."
When it seemed as if there was going to be no movement of the boy being released to join her, she raised her hand to signal to Lau Jimin to incapacitate the elder. However, before such order could be given, a melodic voice echoed through the chaos.
It was the boy.
"No." He said in both a surprisingly clear, and mature, voice. "I'm not going with you. I don't care what you say! I do have a choice in what I do with my life, God doesn't control it all! I'm making the choice that I'm not going with you! If God doesn't like it, he can fuck off!"
"It seems Allegro's made his decision," The caretaker had a Cheshire-like grin on her face. "Or are you going to kidnap a child for your army of God?" Klaud stood her ground.
"'Allegro' may have made his decision," She stared down at the young boy. The accommodator. "But what about Allen Walker? What is his decision?"
"Allen's decision…" The boy's eyes were starting to glaze, and Klaud wasn't the only one to notice. The caretaker did as well, and Kanda and Lenalee had too, as they stood off to the side, Akuma defeated.
"His decision is…" The air was pulsing slightly, crackling with some sort of unknown power. The color of his eyes almost seemed to be changing. Flecks of another color were starting to show through, but before Klaud could determine whether or not it was her imagination at work, a gunshot echoed through the empty square.
All company present was startled, but the caretaker and accommodator were the first to completely recover. They evidently weren't ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, and while Klaud and the others were distracted, took the opportunity to slip past them.
"Damn it," Kanda swore after he recovered. He held his sword tightly within his grasp. He made as if he were to pursue, but a voice stopped him.
"Don't." The clack of boots hitting against cobblestone and the smell of cigarette smoke entered the scene.
It was Cross.
"Leave them," He ordered, Timcampy fluttering anxiously at his shoulder. "If she wants to keep the brat, let her. It'll be her own fault when she winds up dead then." He flicked ash off the tip of the cancer stick casually.
"You know something about that boy, don't you Marian?" Klaud accused, Lau Jimin deactivating and returning to his usual perch on Klaud's shoulder. "Something that you aren't telling The Order."
Cross smirked.
"Plausible Deniability, General." Was his response as he took another drag of the cigarette. "Just remember that. As long as you understand that, you'll be fine."
He dropped the cigarette to the ground, crushing it underfoot. Cross turned and left; Timcampy went to follow, but he raised his hand in a similar silent command as what Klaud would give to Lau Jimin and the golden golem remained.
And in the swirling dust left over from the Akuma's victims and the machines themselves, Cross Marian disappeared from the lives of The Order members.
That was, until five years later…
~~Allegro's Crescendo~~
Yes, that last line does mean that a time-skip comes next. That means that we get into some stuff that may/may not have happened in the manga/anime and majorly different stuff as well.
I'm not going to guarantee the next chapter will come out next week, mainly because I'm going to be busy for a while. I have AP exams that I need to seriously study for if I want to have even an inkling of passing.
Next time:
The Second Piece; The Twelfth Movement: Five Measures Rest
No preview this time, I'm sorry. T.T
So, you know the routine- read, review, tell me what you think, yadda, yadda, yadda. XD
Thanks for reading~! I really appreciate all of your reviews, faves, and alerts. They really make me smile, and I appreciate that very much so~! ^_^
~~Paw-Chan Signing Out~~