Story Telling
(This isn't the most interesting chapter. It's more of an explanation for those who haven't read Infernal Devices about Jem's silver hair; and an explanation about Allen's own white hair for those who have neither seen the anime or read the manga. P.S. Sorry for Kanda being OOC – he's a hard character.)
"How could you say that BaKanda?!" Allen yelled out across the table toward the Japanese man who only scoffed in response. "They are nothing like the Noah Clan! Why would you even say that?"
Sighing, Jem stood from where he had taken a seat next to the other light haired boy. "If I am to think that I am correct, then this 'Noah Clan' is a bad thing."
"Very," Lavi stopped his glare at Kanda to look at Jem. "I'm sorry about him. He acts like this to everyone, even his friends."
"It's fine. It's not the first time someone has called us evil," though Jem was hurt that someone had once again called him and his family evil, he still smiled at Kanda. Lenalee couldn't help but see the hurt behind his smile and jabbed Kanda in the ribs. "I shall be right back with the food," he made his way out of the dining room.
As soon as Jem was out of the room, everyone turned their attention back to Kanda. "Really Kanda," Lavi sighed, running a hand down his face. "These are the people we are supposed to be working with. They are part of the Black Order."
"That's just the thing," he snapped at Lavi, making everyone jump. "They aren't truly part of the Order. They're some other thing. They don't deal with Innocence like we do and they fought a fucking vampire. There's supposed to be no such thing! The only one that's close to being a vampire is that Krory guy back at the Order but even he's not really a vampire!"
"Well we've been proved wrong before," Lenalee pointed out calmly, trying to help the situation. "There could be such things and these people have been dealing with them so they wouldn't get in our way."
"It's true," came Jem's voice from the kitchen, the door opened and the silver-haired boy stepped through holding plates of food. He set down a plate next to each person and continued to speak. "We may not truly be a part of the Order but we do help them. If the Shadowhunters weren't here, you guys would have to deal with both your own problems and ours. Our problems may not be as large as yours are, but they do put up a fight."
"So vampire's are real?" Lavi wanted to make sure that what he was getting out of this little speech was true.
"Yes. As are warlock's, werewolves, and anything else you can think of. We call all of them Downworlder's and fight them so that the higher-ups can deal with the main problems."
"See?" Allen hissed at Kanda, his glare returning. Kanda just scoffed at the boy and turned his head away from the group.
"If you don't mind me asking... Jem," Lenalee blushed at being so informal, but she wanted to change the subject. "How come your hair and eyes are that color?"
Suddenly, the door to the dining room opened, revealing a worn out Will with Sophie following close behind, yelling to him that he should go back and rest. He ignored her and stood at one end of the table, looking at each of the members there, his eyes lingering on Jem. "He may not mind telling you what happened but I do," he growled out as his eyes bore into each of theirs.
Sighing, Jem rolled his eyes. "Will, you cannot stop me from telling people the truth of what happened. You may be uncomfortable with people knowing but it is my life and it's what happened to me, not to you."
Will's eyes softened as they returned to meet Jem's. A silent moment passed before he spoke. "Fine. But I'm not going to be here when you tell them. I despise people's pitying looks."
The dark-haired man stormed out of the room, Sophie scuttling behind him, trying and failing, to get his attention. Once the door closed behind them, everyone – except Kanda – looked to Jem expectantly.
"Please," he looked up to meet their eyes. "When I tell you this, do not look at me any differently. I beg of you."
Lenalee, Allen and Lavi all gave him a nod, Allen more than anyone understood what it was like to have something bad happen to them.
"When I was younger, my mother fought and killed the offspring of a Greater Demon called Yanluo. Yanluo never forgot about this and found a hole in the wards of the Institute I had been born in, the Shanghai Institute that was run by my parents. It tunneled into the Insitute, killed the guards and captured me and my family. It tortured my parents by feeding me demon poison in front of them and making me delirious to the point of hallucination. The entire time I could hear my mother call out to me, using my birth name, Jian." A long pause settled for the moment.
"What happened next?" Lavi questioned quietly from where he sat.
"On the second day, I only heard my mother, as my father had been killed by the demon. By that time, the Shanghai Enclave broke into the Institute but they found both of my parents dead," he took a breath, trying to calm himself as he could feel himself start to shake. "They rescued me and brought me to the Silent Brothers who tried to cure me, but they couldn't fix my body's dependence on the demon poison. I became addicted to the demon blood and without regular doses of it I will die. But this only prolongs my death, it slowly kills me from the inside out. The drug itself is what makes my hair and eyes silver and what makes my skin so pale and makes me so thin. Before all of this happened, my hair used to be black and my eyes a dark shade of brown."
About halfway through his explanation even Kanda began to pay attention. Once done, they all stared at him; Lenalee's eyes misting with tears while Kanda and Lavi were dumbstruck. Allen put a hand on Jem's shoulder before bringing him forward and putting his arms around the other light-haired youth. "I'm not pitying you, Jem," he stated before releasing the other. "I'm giving you my condolences for your loss." Allen paused before continuing. "It's difficult to lose people you love and even worse when you have something to carry with you after the fact." He knew, he had something to that effect happen to him.
"I was abandoned by my biological parents because of the 'deformity' of my left arm," Allen started his own explanation. "I was eventually found and adopted by a traveling performer named Mana Walker on Christmas Day. Some time later Mana died. I was tormented with grief; with this grief the Millennium Earl was able to manipulate me, causing me to turn Mana into an Akuma in the hopes that my beloved surrogate father would be fully resurrected. But the Mana Akuma cursed me and sliced through my left eye, leaving the 'Pentacle' – the mark of the Akuma. This enabled my left eye to see the souls trapped within the Akuma from then on. It was at this same moment that my left arm first invoked as an Anti-Akuma weapon, which instinctively destroyed the Mana Akuma. In the course of this, my hair turned from a red colour into this white."
Everyone had remained quiet for Allen's own explanation. A few moments passed before there was a gentle knock at the door. It creaked open, revealing a wild haired red-hed standing at the opening. "Hello there!" He greeted, a puff of smoke coming from his lips as he spoke.
"Henry!" Jem exclaimed, getting up from his chair upbruptly and heading over to the older man. "What in the Angel's name happened to you?!"
"A little experiment went awry," he shrugged nonchalantly, using a rag from his pocket to clean his face a little. "No need to worry James. I wasn't hurt."
"And you need'nt scare me like that. You know how much you mean to me, to Charlotte... To everyone in this Institute."
The red-head sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I apologize, Jem. But you must know, the little ball of light I had shown you and Will earlier is glowing once more."
Four pairs of heads quickly turned to look at the two at the door. "A little ball of light?" Kanda questioned, getting up from his seat but not moving. "What does this 'little ball of light' look like?"
"Well," Henry stammered, looking completely confused but continued anyway. "It's... uhh... green, circular and looks like it has metal cogs in the middle of it."
"Innocence!" All four voices shouted at once, the screeching of chairs on the wood pitched by the amount of chairs moving at the same time.
"We need you to take us to the ball... Henry was your name?" Lenalee made her way over to the two boys, keeping her eyes on Henry.
"Of course," he nodded, gesturing for the group to follow. "Jem, would you be so kind to get Will so we could all discuss this together?"
The silver haired boy nodded and ran off to get his friend from wherever he had gone. He could hear the other group heading the opposite way to Henry's crypt as he thought over where his dark haired friend could have gone this time. With Sophie Collins on Will's heals, it was likely that he had gone somewhere she wouldn't think of looking for him in.
Jem made a sharp turn as he headed toward the Institute's grand library, pushing the large doors open once he got there. "Will, are you in here?"
The voice of his Parabatai shook Will out of his thoughts as he looked up from his spot hidden in the library. Blue eyes wandered through the stacks of books that he could see through to find Jem searching. "How'd you know I'd be in here?"
A smile graced Jem's lips when he heard Will. "It's the last place Sophie would look which meant that you had to have come here," the boy made his way over to where he had heard the voice.
Will stood and made his own way toward Jem, meeting him halfway. "What is it that you want? Did that group pity you like I had thought? Or worse; leave because they felt too bad for you?"
"Neither actually. One of their group had an interesting story himself so they know how it feels. At any rate, Henry came bursting in saying that the ball of light that had gone out while we were in the crypt with him had come back on."
Blue eyes sparked with curiousity when he heard the news. "How interesting," he put his hands on Jem's shoulders, bringing him close. "Let us go find out what's going on, shall we?" Will stretched out his arm like a man would do to a woman when leading them around London, making Jem snicker but accept the arm at any rate.