This chapter was very hard to pull out. Very hard to imagine, very hard to create. But I still managed something, right? Even though most of it is David-centric, explanation of Jasdero's 'death', their past and plot twisting.
The ending...I wasn't really expecting that, but it made me write it anyways. Mostly it was because this story had me thinking of revolution and new beginnings so I thought, why not create a new God matter that chooses the Noah instead of the Exorcists? I know, a bit cliche and mary-sue, but I had fun writing the description anyways. Just to be clear, the cube will kind of have Innocence, Noah, and unique qualities all at the same time.
Enjoy to the best! Give advice! Give me the new God Matter name, because I can't think of anything for it! Give me the specific name of the new God Matter installed in you-know-who (ha ha, Voldemort joke) because I can't think of anything for that either (though I'll think of an ability on my own)!
"How do you think the girl's are doing?" Cyril said again, for at least the fifth time that night. Tyki groaned and shifted over in his bunk, springs squeaking slightly as his weight moved. David quietly seethed and pulled his pillow over his head. Make the man shut up already!
It had been a few hours since the three of them had been lead to their rooms. Each of them had been lying in their bunks for hours, listening to the wind outside and Cyril's insistent question repeating itself over and over again. Frankly, it was getting quite annoying, and both of the younger men in the room would really like it to stop, thank you very much.
"Shut up Cyril. They're doing fine." That was Tyki, definitely Tyki. No one else would sound that grumpy at three o'clock in the morning. David really didn't blame him. He wasn't feeling too great himself at the moment either.
"But you don't know that! Something could be wrong without us even knowing it. What if an Akuma comes in and tries to kill them while our backs are turned?"
"With what? All three of them are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, Cyril. An Akuma is not going to make much of a difference to them. So there's no point in worrying about it like a maniac." David could hear Tyki pulling the quilt fully over his head and curling up like a cat. He probably got that from being a stupid vagabond, David thought, snickering silently. "So shut up and go to sleep so that I can sleep. Honestly, I don't know how I am even related to you in the first place."
Cyril still sounded agitated. David chewed his lip in irritation as the oldest of the men continuously began shifting his arms around in the bed as a sign of his worry. He waited as patiently as he could for Tyki to wake up and get Cyril to stop being so irritating.
Apparently, Tyki couldn't hear Cyril anymore, as he was already sound asleep, chest rising and falling in a slow pattern that rivaled a cat's.
Oh, hell no.
"Son," Cyril whispered, leaning over the bunk and peering down at him.
David repressed a scream. Without Cyril's hair tied up, it was now falling around his head like a dark, flowing cloud, and good God it made him look scary (scarier than usual, really). In addition, his Noah eyes were activated as they could see better than their normal human eyes could, and the gold was glinting in the poor lighting with a fervor that would have frightened the toughest of men.
So it was all that David could do from choking out a horrified yell at the monstrous sight. "Wh—what the hell is it?" he gasped wheezily, glancing at Tyki to see if he was going to wake up at the commotion. He didn't. David cursed his lazy, sleepy ass. "And I'm not your kid!"
"Son, go check on the girls." Cyril ignored his futile attempts at denying blood relation and continued to stare un-relentlessly at him. It gave David a sense of foreboding that he wasn't particularly enjoying at all.
"Why?" David hissed, covering his unease with his annoyed tone. "Just so you can satisfy your own curiosity? I don't think so." He brought the covers up more firmly so that they were now resting under his chin.
"Please? They could be getting into trouble."
David snorted loud enough for Tyki to hear in his far away sleep. The man rolled over a bit, exposing a bit of his backside. David smirked. The guy was so stupid. "Cyril—"
"Father."
"No! Cyril, they're probably fine. The most trouble they could get in to now is if they catch their hair in a ribbon too tight or something. I don't know. Now please go to sleep."
"Son."
"What?" David temporarily forgot to deny his blood relation as the annoyance crept over instead. "What is it now?"
"If you go over there, I'll make you omelets with all the egg still intact."
What? "What?"
"You heard me. Beautiful omelets, warm omelets, fresh omelets, yummy, yummy omelets with fresh eggs, with a siding of anything you want."
David's mouth watered, the action promptly reminding him that he hadn't eaten at all today. He then shook himself out of his daze, reminding himself that Cyril could be very manipulative when he wanted to be and burrowed deeper into the quilt, hiding the bottom part of his face.
Cyril smirked and dropped the final bomb. "And they'll all be for you."
A few moments passed. David got out of the quilt and stared up at the now leering face of his 'father'. "How many omelets are we talking here?"
Cyril smiled. His eyes gleamed uncharacteristically. "The minimum's one."
David stared.
---
Lenalee stared at the woman in front of her, in a limbo of whether to laugh or not at the sight. Lulu Bell's hair was tied in several gaudy pink ribbons, as well as some purple ones. Judging from her expression, pink was not her favorite color. Nor was purple.
Road giggled conspiratorially and pulled some more blue ribbons into Lenalee's hair. "Isn't this fun?"
Lulu Bell finally looked at Lenalee. A silent message passed between them. We should get out of here.
But they couldn't. And Lenalee knew they were both doomed to being drowned in lacy ribbons by the oldest Noah who was acting like a little girl all over again.
She sighed and concentrated on the feeling of Road's fingers pulling through her tangled hair and on her scalp. It was actually rather soothing, and she felt herself growing more tired than ever today, reminding her about just how little sleep she had had so far.
"I suppose it is fun," Lulu Bell said, spotting the scowl forming itself on Road's face and quickly attempted to stop it.
Road giggled again, scowl vanishing, and took her hands out of Lenalee's black hair. "Done!"
Lenalee sagged with relief, opening her eyes. She then turned towards the door, mind fully intent on gathering a mirror and pulling out everything that Road had put in her hair. "We should probably go to—"
The door opened, and they all glanced up at the person coming in.
"D—David?" Lenalee stammered. She was trying her hardest not to glance at his bare chest now practically glaring at her from the doorway. "Wh—what are you don't in here?"
He smirked and leaned against the wall. "Coming to check in on you guys. What else?"
Road scowled and crossed her arms in sassiness. "Cyril bribed you, didn't he?"
His smirk promptly vanished and he scowled right back at her. "Maybe," he muttered sullenly, sitting with his knees propped up high next to his chest. "Anyways, what's with all the ribbons? You getting ready for a party or something?" His smirk looked ready to return when he looked at Lulu Bell's attire. Lenalee silently prayed that he wouldn't look at her.
He did. His eyes widened slightly and he flushed, promptly looking away.
Her heart plummeted to her stomach. Did she look that bad?
Road, thankfully, dropped in her answer at the last minute. "No. This is girl stuff. You're a boy, so you wouldn't understand." Then, she smirked a smirk that was almost as devious as David's. "Unless, of course, you've done this before."
His expression turned a shade of red that was so odd and adorable at the same time that Lenalee looked about ready to laugh. "No! Of course not! I'm a boy, you little—" He struggled with himself for a few more minutes before finishing his sentence. "Well, I'm a boy, so I don't do those things. So there!"
Road laughed. "You've used make-up before, so why not ribbons? You have done it before, haven't you? Admit it!" She pointed at his expression and continued to laugh while his face started to flush even further. "Admit it, admit it!"
"I never have!"
"If you never have, why are you blushing?" The little girl taunted. Lenalee suppressed a smile threatening to form on her lips. Lulu Bell remained silent throughout the whole banter, instead using the time wisely to pull out the ribbons in her hair. They fluttered to the ground like colorful butterflies dancing in the wind and Lenalee watched them, enraptured by the sheer simplicity of their own poetry before turning back to the argument taking place.
"Because it's stupid for you to even ask!" David retorted.
"Come on, it's so obvious! What, was it a passing habit?"
"Road, I've never done those things before and you know it!"
"Well I know that you did something that involved ribbons!"
David growled and shut his mouth, not even daring to look at Lenalee. Lenalee felt a bit miserable. It wasn't all that bad. She didn't really mind if he had used ribbons in the past—after all, she had seen Kanda once use ribbons in his hair (although, she had to admit, that had been disturbing. Very disturbing, in fact).
Road giggled and held out a bunch of black and gold ribbons towards him. She wiggled them in front of his nose teasingly. "Come on, you know you want to."
"No I don't!" David yelled and scrambled backwards and away from the offending accessories. "Jeez Road, what's your problem?"
"My problem is that you won't—"
The door flew open again, hitting David in the middle of his back and head. He tumbled forward, cursing loudly and angrily before turning tearfully to see just who it was that had just brutally hurt him.
"Hey," a familiar voice said. "Is everything all right? We heard screaming and—"
Lenalee paled. David paled. Hell, everyone in the room paled, especially the two people standing in the doorway in their sleeping attire.
Lavi looked nervous, still holding the door edge and glanced back at Krory, who could only stare at David with a look akin to complete and utter shock.
---
David stared at the exorcist in the doorway, his mind slowly attempting to work itself out in the process.
It was the vampire. The exorcist vampire. The very vampire that had driven Jasdero to death and escape in David's own body, who had given him an injury so bad that he could barely even use that appendage anymore without searing pain. The vampire who was then, and still was, a monster and murderer.
The man looked almost terrified. "A—ah," he stuttered nervously, twisting his sleeve in his fingers. He looked like he was going to say more, but he stopped and didn't, instead deciding to shut up and stand very, very still.
Rage burst inside his chest, blossoming huge red flowers as his mind went blank. At his first instinct, he lunged forward for the man's throat. His fingers barely brushed the man's Adam's Apple before he was tugged backward by Lulu Bell, all her ribbons now successfully out of her hair. She glared at him reproachfully from above, her face tense and stern as ever.
Road was only staring at them both, her little body tense and wary of the outcome of the situation. Her eyes began to flicker between the boundary of blue and gold, and her skin darkened and lightened with each little lunge that David made for the man's throat. Not that he saw all of this. He was much too preoccupied with attempting to murder the man in front of him for his brother.
He had been waiting for this for so long that he could taste the burning desire on his tongue. The desire to kill, the desire to murder this man who slew his brethren, who injected them both with the Innocence virus was burning inside him. Nothing was going to stop him now. Absolutely nothing.
"David!"
Except maybe that. Swiveling his head around, he turned to find Lenalee standing up from her sitting position, eyes indignant and flaring. Through the haze in his mind, he could hear his inner voice remark on how nicely the ribbons were floating around her face. "David, stop!"
He snarled back, an automatic reflex not quite gone from his old days. "Why should I? This guy—" He struggled for words before finally shouting out, almost screaming with frustration and old rage bursting out in a final stand. "This guy killed Jasdero! Why should I stop, huh, Lenalee! Answer that for me!"
The room became still. Lavi and Krory momentarily became forgotten as Lenalee and David stared at each other, both of them feeling wronged and angry and (in Lenalee's case) a bit frightened of what might the other say next.
Lenalee looked about ready to have either a seizure or a shouting session with him. David couldn't help but feel a bit stung. The stupid vampire had attacked him two years ago, right? That gave him rights to attacking him back, no matter what the day or year. Those were the rules of battle.
"David," Lenalee managed to get out. "David, you're now in a treaty with us, the Black Order. It won't do much good if you attacked him now." Her eyes were flaring, just daring him to contradict her.
He couldn't. Finally relaxing only slightly, he loosened out of Lulu Bell's grip and stormed out of the room, knocking past the redhead and the vampire and down the hall. He just needed to get out of there. He didn't care what Lenalee had said. He didn't care that Lenalee had just reprimanded his actions, those words she had just said stinging more than he had thought it would.
He didn't care at all.
Stomping down the hall and ignoring the openings of multiple doors and whisperers, he eventually found a room and locked it, sighing and leaning against the bare doorframe. Growling, he punched the door in frustration, sending a small shudder throughout the wood.
Damn it, what was wrong with her? He could attack that stupid vampire, so what? It shouldn't matter to her what he did. It shouldn't have, because that guy was a monster. He needed to be dealt with. He needed to be killed.
You say that I'm a monster, but what about you? Haven't you been treated similarly in the past?
David growled, louder this time and clamped his hand over his ears. He slid to the floor, banging his head against the door. The noise reverberated inside his skull, the vibrations shuddering his body violently. "Get out!" he hissed. "I don't need you telling me what I did wrong and what I didn't do wrong."
Haven't you been treated similarly in the past?
"Yes I have you stupid vampire!" he shouted in the darkness. "We have and he was and god damn it, I don't need your life lesson. Get out, get out, get the hell out!" He slammed his head against the door one last time before he heard a faint splintering in the wood. He stopped, looked back at the damage done. There was now a small crater where his head had smacked in, splinters peeling off and dropping to the floor.
David cursed and stood up, pacing around the dark room in anger and frustration. It just wasn't fair! Just because he was different, just because they were different didn't mean that they had to be treated like that, like a bunch of hypocrites! It just wasn't fair! And it wasn't fair for Lenalee to treat them like that either!
Wait, wait, the voice said, interrupting his rampage. What do you mean 'us' David? Are you trying to insinuate Jasdero's still alive?
"He is!" David growled, and clenched his head so hard that he felt a little dizzy when he let go. "He's inside of me, isn't he? In my left arm." He looked down at the arm, watching it stay loose and limp in the dim lighting. "The Earl saved us by doing that. So really, he's still alive."
He's not David, and you know it. David, by doing that the Earl practically made you into a living Akuma. The theory, the method, hell the idea was practically the same. The Earl maybe didn't mean for it to be that way, but it was. Jasdero's a dead soul now. His body's a parasite inside ours, just staying here inside us, living and feeding off of our body. We're a half human, half demon, not really either anymore. You know it's true.
"It's not."
Why are you being so stubborn about this? The voice sounded frustrated. He's dead. We saw him die David, right before—
"He's not dead!" David took in a shaky breath and sank back down to the floor on his knees, gritting his teeth soundlessly. "Damn it, I know I thought he was too, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Two nights ago, when Lenalee and I were dancing on the floor—don't you remember? There was a voice. It was telling me not to forget about it, never to forget." He gulped in a few more breaths of air, panting slightly from his pacing. "I think that was Jasdero. He's not fully dead yet."
The voice was silent.
David didn't wait for it to come back and stormed around the room, looking for anything to distract himself with.
Two seconds later, he promptly tripped over a box and fell flat over his face. Cursing, he looked back, wincing at the tear now in his pants. "Shit," he swore, sitting up straight and looking back at the object in question. "Why the hell do I keep tripping over things? It's not—"
He stopped.
In front of him, unlike what he had originally thought was a box, was not a box. It was, instead, a cube, colorfully decorated with stars, blue and black shading over the sides in a pretty pattern. He squinted at it, picked it up and turned it over in his hand, gazing at the pattern with an unnerving concentration.
The pattern, he thought blearily, looks a lot like stars on a sky.
Isn't it pretty, Jasdevi?
He started, dropped the cube. He let it clatter to the floor as he breathed heavily, sweat beading on his forehead and clasping his hand to his mouth.
"No—" he choked out, practically retching. "No, I don't want to remember you now."
It's pretty, right? This is so pretty. The woman's voice laughed softly, her voice echoing in his head. Thank you for finding it for me, Jasdevi. You are such a good boy. Such—
"No!"
A wonderful—
"Stop!"
Son.
He clawed at his head in anger, in frustration. "Get out! You and that vampire get out!" David growled, half in anger and half in surprise at the fact that his human side, not his Noah was coming out at the moment. "You abandoned us. You left us to die there. You have no right to call me your son."
David knew it wasn't particularly rational to be yelling at a dead woman, but he couldn't help it. Ever since then, so many years ago, he had wanted to ask his mother about why she let their father kick them out. Why had she just let their father take them away, put them somewhere their bodies would never be found and let him attempt to shoot their heads in?
Of course it hadn't worked because fortunately their Noah had activated right before that, but their father would never have done it if she had objected.
She hadn't.
In essence, she had abandoned them for death.
And you have the nerve to come back in my head?
The voice still wasn't saying anything, merely keeping silent. David wished that it would speak up already. That way, he wouldn't have to feel this idiotic and angry.
Damn it!
He glanced back at the cube. It was sitting quite upright on the wooden floor, softly glowing with the white paint and black and blue behind it. Somehow, even though it had brought back painful memories to him, it was still comforting, almost a sign of peace.
David stared at it for a few moments, and it seemed to stare right back underneath his gaze.
He reached out and picked up the cube, clutching it to his chest. Strangely, it gave off a sense of warmth, of happiness that he couldn't explain. Involuntarily, his hand slid down to his left arm, resting the cube on the upper part.
David only stared at it, bemused. It seemed as if the cube, still glowing faintly, was trying to tell him to do something. What do you want? He asked. What do you want me to do now?
A little shudder came from the cube, and a little probing in the back of his head emerged. Accept me, it whispered, accept me, trust me, love me, and let me in.
David stared at it. He knew that this was definitely not just an ordinary cube—he would have to be a complete idiot not to know that. But he also knew that this was not Innocence. No matter if the Noah and Exorcists were getting along, Noah would still be injured by the Innocence. So this was an entirely new kind of matter all together.
It was safe.
And so David did. Closing his eyes, he let the cube seemingly breathe and cool down. The touch of its smooth surface vanished and David opened his eyes, staring at the empty space where the cube had once been. He blinked a few times, making sure his eyesight wasn't failing him before the look of his arm make him glance sharply at it.
The bandages from his arm seemingly disappeared into thin air. The Innocence from the vampire slowly began to rise and merge with the blue and black of the cube, white and gray floating together. Blue and black rose and turned to face him, a little pair of wings sprouting from its back and a circle of crosses in its center. David only stared at it, unnerved and bewildered.
Its tiny wings fluttered at him in wondering and curiosity. Slowly, acting from an instinct inside his mind telling him to do so, he cupped his right hand and held it out to it, letting it use it as a leverage to soar up and rest on the base of his neck. It fluttered its wings once, twice before melding into his neck.
Pain and shock flooded throughout his spine and he cried out. His Noah form appeared, vanished, appeared, vanished before appearing once again, the black crosses peeling off and facing him before soaring down towards his chest. It seared inside, melding with his bones and blood as the cube was doing, mimicking the body's new host and finally wielding inside him.
The pain wasn't stopping all that soon and David writhed on the floor, clutching his neck with his hands and screaming hoarsely in the dark.
He could hear absolutely nothing as his mind slowly went blank.