He wasn't breathing.
Kanda wasn't breathing and Allen felt like she was going to die, the walls all covered in blood. Anita's home, the home she'd taken refuge in- it was gone. And Kanda wasn't breathing.
For that matter, neither was Anita. It'd happened so quickly, the akuma. Kanda hadn't even had the chance to turn around before he was on the ground. "Stupid Kanda, wake up." Allen mutters under her breath, activating her innocence.
Something inside her broke, the thrashed house and the akuma lurking in the corner of her vision. It broke badly at the sight of people she knew crumpled on the floor, bloody. People she cared about, though one only half remembered in the back of her mind. Her arm, the one with her innocence shredded when she couldn't move fast enough from the piano. She couldn't even move it.
She broke and she grew, the innocence inside her body grew with her. Shattered pieces of glass melding in the heat of fire. She screams as the akuma flees, the presence of her innocence taking over her body. It hurt dammit!A constant cycle that fucking innocence took her through in the half hour it took for a neighbor to call the ambulance.
By then she was gone, the tremors that wracked her body finally subsiding, replaced by pure fury. Fury she hadn't felt in a long time.
"Allen, keep walking remember?" Mana says, but Mana was dead. Like the rest. Because Mana was dead and so were Anita and Kanda. And she was running, instinctively toward who knows what, she just knew the akuma was at the end of it all.
It was lucky really, no- a miracle that the man was able to be revived. The woman? It was too late for her apparently. The paramedics took one glance at the scene and paled, they were used to this. Monsters, demons- whatever you wished to call them. They'd invaded slowly for the past month, leaving homes in ruins and humans in pieces. At first the authorities had thought it was the work of some serial killer or something. But they'd been proven wrong when it was apparent that the victims had been eaten. Like it was an animal or something, only much worse and gruesome than any animal they knew of.
They weren't quite sure how he did it, a glance in his wallet showed that he was a foriegner. His pulse was so slow though, and faint- they nearly missed it.
"Hey- he's conscious!" The parametric yells to the driver, as Kanda stirs with a muttered curse. "Okay Yuu, we're gonna need you to stay calm."
"Allen, fucking Allen... Where is she?" He was delirious, thrashing against the stretcher as both paramedics tried to hold him down.
Both of whom look silently at each other, then at the patient before slipping a sedative into the IV.
Each step felt wrong, this place felt wrong. The pretty little garden in front of the huge, plain concrete building felt wrong, tainted. It was too nice today, the sun shining too brightly, Allen would have been sweating if she hadn't felt so cold.
Her innocence had gained her a few stares as she'd made her way down along the three miles of street. She didn't want to look, she wanted to be done with this hellish life. Because apparently no one who met her ever was allowed to get out of it alive.
She forces herself to walk forward, subconsciously sweeping the cloak closer to her body. She was in bad shape still, probably. She felt fine, nothing- numb.
The door opens easily, thrown off its hinges by something, Allen was rather past the point where caring about such things wasn't possible.
She was Allen Walker, and this Akuma would pay. If it'd been even a year beforehand she would have been all about saving them, showing mercy and all that crap. Now? She was done. She was done living on the edge, she was done with this stupid top secret war that no one gave a fraction of a shit about. She was done having nothing but the fucking music in her head and fractured thoughts. Done with the fake smiles, the false cheerfulness. Done with the lies.
Kanda was trapped in a drug induced hazy sleep- and it hurt. Because each moment played out in detail, him drawing Mugen and being too late. The Akuma coming out of nowhere- Anita was dead before the moment was wasn't good enough, fucking hell. Damn it all to hell and back!
The last thing he saw, fucking Allen's face as she turned around, eyes wide. And dangerous, she'd stood Kanda thought, he couldn't remember. But Allen Walker was the only reason Kanda was alive right now, and he knew it somewhere deep inside.
He wasn't even sure if beansprout got out of the situation alive, but knowing her she did. With flying colors. It took more than an Akuma to kill the bastard. From the moment Kanda had seen her, everything laid bare as she'd had it there'd been a tiny doubt in the back of his mind.
And he had no fucking clue how to deal.
"Kanda!" Alma. Alma called from the distance.
"What the fuck Alma?" Kanda replies, even though on some level he was aware that this wasn't real, it was a dream and Alma was dead. Because of him probably.
"You're an idiot you know. Comin' so close to the edge. Had to keep ya from fallin' in the river or you'd end up like me." Alma was on the other bank, swinging his feet above the water.
"W-what do you mean?" He didn't understand.
"What'd ya do that made ya almost die. Cuz you totally almost did. Some white thing kept you above the water. Just hoverin there all ghost like." He was just like Kanda remembered, down to the quirks in his speech.
Kanda looked down, at the odd black river and his feet on the bank. "I'm not dead." He says, more to himself than anyone.
"Course you aren't. That's me." Alma replies before fading away into the dark.
She was done and she kicked open that fucking door and ha, her innocence slams it closed behind her. Neat. She wasn't even interested in exocizing the bastard, bastards rather- Allen wanted them gone forever. She felt them, somewhere below. God, this place felt so familiar- in the worst way possible.
Familiar as in her feet knew the layout without thought, familiar in how she knew exactly where the akuma were now quaking, waiting. That she knew instinctively that the place was empty- only her and the akuma.
They'd remembered her.
Not that she knew that, or remembered for that matter. Allen was too busy trying not to empty her already empty stomach while passing a room. She didn't even want to look inside. Everything about it screamed wrong, repulsive. But she did anyway, and gagged. The sugical table, surfaces scrubbed perfectly clean. It hit some chord in her and she didn't want to agknowlage any of it at all.
Another break, this one more noticable to the point where somewhere inside Allen was able to pinpoint the exact point that other part pushed her aside.
She fought this time around, unlike the other times she never did anything and let it take over. No, she'd do this by herself and by God she'd win.
The Akuma were exactly where she thought they'd be, in the basement, a bloodstained enclousure. The iron and salt barriers broken and useless they were there in the corner, each obviously strong.
One pounced, and Allen kicked it aside as she strode in the room, head held high.
The fight was almost too easy, though perhaps it was the sheer adrenalin and fury that pushed her to past her normal limits.
Quickly and instinctually she beat each Akuma down before destroying it. It was odd to be truthful, that her obviously evolved innocence just allowed her to do that. Just a tap of the long claw-like fingers on the severely weakened Akuma and it was gone.
She wasn't even panting when it was through. Allen took one last look behind her, deactivated her innocence and left.
Kanda opens his eyes with a start, realizing that he was in fact alive and he was in fact also in the most pain he'd ever experienced.
"Hey- its good to see you awake." Lenalee says quietly from the side of the bed. Wait- Lenalee? What the fuck was she doing here.
"Fuck? Lena. Why're ya here?" His speech was slurred, and it annoyed him. No helping it though, a glance toward the rest of his body told him that he was probably in extremely bad shape. Another pulse of pain confirmed it.
"Emergency contact in your records. The Order adds it in for the rare international mission." She looked tired, dark circles under bloodshot eyes. "Kanda, can I at least ask you what happened? Please?"
"Beansprout wanted to check some shit out, went to that lady Anita's house. Some Akuma attacked while she was playing." Kanda answers, mumbling. Allen would kill him if she knew he told.
"Wait- Akuma?" Lenalee sits up, "And why didn't you tell me you were in contact with Allen! She's been completely off the radar- and you're telling me she was there when an Akuma slaughtered someone and almost KILLED you?"
Oh. He'd get slapped by Lenalee too the moment he was well enough to be discharged, wouldn't he? "Beansprout asked and I did. No story to tell Where is she? Beansprout anyway." Frankly? He was worried, he'd never admit it though, schooling his voice into one of complete uncaring.
"I don't know where Allen is! That is the problem Kanda, you're the only one who has any clue at all!" Finally, tears fall from Lena's eyes.
So the search for Allen Walker would start all over again, wouldn't it. And Kanda had the feeling that for all Allen knew he was dead.
The security tapes from the abandoned base of operations made the Earl seethe. That person, that person in white slaughtering-not exorcising but actually slaughtering the Akuma that had grown so strong after so many human lives taken?
He couldn't even follow their movements in the grainy video they moved so fast. But he turned toward the camera once long enough for the Earl to see that curse and those eyes and he paled.
She'd disappear again. Like Cross always did. She'd disappear in the woodwork- at least she told herself as she gathered her things from the hotel room. She didn't glance at Kanda's things. It hurt too much and she'd leave them behind. Bastard.
Allen hardening to the point where she looses that bit of humanity that dude allen in the manga/anime had really honestly interests me. Because there aren't human souls attached, and basically her life has been hell up to that point. Of course she's gonna harden.
Also, i'm really sorry this took so long. Shit happens.
Aariah out.