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Synthetic Soldiers

2 – Third and last second exorcist

Six years ago

There had been great expectations for the Second Exorcist Project, so this failure rate was absurd. So many years of work spent into it, and they only succeeded in reviving two Apostles. One managed to synchronize with his weapon, only to die moments later due to the overuse of the Chang family's seal of healing. The other had been in the project for two years, but had yet to be able to wield Innocence. Meanwhile, his seal also deteriorated at an alarming rate.

The Black Order was very tempted to close the whole project, but reluctant to do so. They had spent an inordinate amount of money in research and construction, and ending it all would be admitting a terrible defeat. Moreover, the organization was in no condition to give up in any of its Artificial Exorcist projects. The Second Exorcist was one of the branches of the new ideal of the group.

Exorcists were becoming more and more scarce. Finding accommodators was becoming an almost impossible mission, and it got to a point where the Order became desperate. At this rate, they would lose the war. Because of that, they reduced their efforts in finding exorcists and started attempting something they could never hoped to do – create new ones.

Rebirthing dead exorcists by using their brains, that was the Second Exorcist project: an attempt to recreate them as young, powerful and durable accommodators, more apt even than those naturally born. There was also a Black Order branch that dedicated itself to finding the family members of exorcists and force a synchronization with the holy weapons. The most recent Third Exorcist project also seemed successful in creating unstable half Akuma people who weren't truly called Exorcists, but could destroy the enemy nonetheless.

That's why the whole team managed by the Chang family still existed and worked hard. There was too much at stake, and the other groups weren't faring much better. So they kept trying to resuscitate deceased warriors and also focused their efforts on the only successful case they had until now, the seemingly twelve years old Yuu. Dishearteningly, however, the boy seemed very close to a breakdown.

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It didn't happen all of a sudden. Instead, it was a truth that hung over their heads for the whole span of their short lives.

When Yuu finally became close to Alma and they started interacting without violence and screamed insults, he noticed the older boy would take longer than him to recover from their daily sessions. They usually didn't broach the topic, though. When it came to the aftermath of their torture, they just wanted to stay together and wait for the pain to pass, and for the wounds below their tight bandages to heal.

So there was no mention of it, no discussions. After months of the same excruciating routine, it wasn't hard for Yuu to understand what was happening: their seals weren't eternal. Very much like with one of those batteries the scientists talked about, Alma and he would run out of energy if used every day. That showed in the way that, little by little, their bodies took longer to heal. In the way that Alma was once unable to get up from the floor where he lay as the experiments proceeded, and had to be carried back to his room.

The crux of the matter was, the boys didn't know whether it was for good or bad. It was another thing they wouldn't speak of: the way that death sometimes seemed preferable to living a long life of suffering under the scientists' care.

So they played, and hurt. Laughed, and hurt. Cried, and hurt. Lived, and-

And then, Alma was dead.

The synchronization had finally happened, but it had taken too much of a strain in the boy's abused body, which had been relying on an already defective seal. Alma wielded his Innocence for the first time, only to breathe his last and fall in a bloody mess in the floor, never to get up again.

When the staff informed Yuu, they expected a great emotional outburst from the preteen, and were ready to try and console him, somehow. The boy, however, had only wide eyes and a silent, closed mouth.

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It was all very confusing, but Yuu knew there was something wrong with him. For now, however, he believed he was just acting normally. Yes, his friend had died, but wasn't that what they always wished? To have a chance to go and leave? Ever since they learned about death and the peace it brought, they started craving for it, somehow. So that's why he hadn't cried, and ignored the lab personnel's attempts at comforting him.

Alma was free, now, and Yuu was happy for it.

Or that was what he thought. Because, days after, Yuu went for his first test ever since Alma's synchronization, death and disposal.

After the torture was finally over, his mangled body was put into a stretcher and he was taken to his bed. The Crow members who carried him quickly left, closing the door behind them with a soft click, and leaving Yuu alone.

In that white room the boys had always slept in, filled with machinery yet so silent, he could hear his ragged breath and his troubled heartbeats. He could focus on the slow reconstruction of his flesh and the torturous mending of his bones.

Only in that moment by himself, alone for the first time in years and in a battered state, did the boy notice how utterly lonely he felt. How he was truly by himself, because yes, Alma had died, but that wasn't good. Because, unlike him, Yuu hadn't. There would be no more discussions with his thick headed friend, no more mock battles. No secret excursions to the kitchen, no reading together. No holding hands as they felt pain. Before he awoke, Alma had been alone. How had the other Apostle managed to endure it?

For the first time in a long while, he cried.

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Because of the abuse his seal suffered through the years, Yuu's sessions now couldn't be held once a day anymore. Months ago, they started making them once every two days. Now, they were once every three, because the boy would arrive still hurt to the tests otherwise. This was his second day of rest and thus, he would be put under the torture tomorrow. In the cafeteria, he slowly ate his meal, not even registering the taste.

"Yuu, are you well?" asked one of the scientists, sitting across from the boy in the table. They were lonely in the hall; everyone else already had breakfast, and the cook had returned to the kitchens.

The young boy could feel the man's stare, but opted to ignore it, focusing on slowly eating his bread, instead. They usually didn't even bother to try and talk to him, anymore. He had never, ever accepted any attempts at friendship from this place's personnel.

"I just wanted to say," started the researcher, since he realized he wouldn't be getting any response from their Apostle number two, "that… you aren't going to die, alright? I know it must have been hard on you, what happened to Al-"

Red. The boy saw red, filled with strong rage that had been absent from him for a long time, while it had been drowned by sorrow and an attempt at acceptance. He kicked the heavy wooden table towards the scientist, who screamed as it hit him, pressing his body against the hard wall. Tempted to continue attacking the man but knowing he would be punished for doing so, Yuu ran away from the room, limping slightly because of a still aching leg.

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It was ironic, and had a tone of punishment to it, thought Yuu, as he walked aimlessly through the corridors. Two years ago he had awakened to this hell. Back then, he had made sure to disdain Alma and to avoid him like the plague. Now, however, he wished nothing more than the boy's company.

Lately, he realized that this could very well be what his life was going to look like, from now on: loneliness through constant agony, where his body was mutilated frequently until a moment where it also reached its limit and broke down, like Alma's. Yuu thought he had been growing strong through these years, that he had learnt to deal with this painful reality. But, as the weeks passed and he drowned in solitude and longing for his only and first friend, he started to understand Alma was what had been keeping him somewhat sane until now.

His steps faltered when he noticed where his subconscious had brought him to. The boy had been wandering around without thinking, and ended in front of familiar double doors that he used to visit with his friend every morning.

The place was terribly cold as per usual and, even with his heavy clothes and bandages, he felt the low temperature paining his still mending flesh and bones. He trembled, sitting in a corner and watching the glowing, water filled circles where the others like him were sleeping right now.

Two days ago, Yuu went through his usual session of synchronization testing. Ripped apart and kept from falling in pieces only by the tight bindings keeping his limbs together, he didn't find the will to get up, and had been dragged by the scientists from the Innocence and back to his room. There he laid unmoving, taking much longer to heal than he used to two years ago, when he had been 'born'.

Not long after opening his eyes for the first time, Yuu had decided that the other Apostles were better off not awakening at all. This life wasn't one worth living, so he stopped hoping they would have more companions like Alma did. It was selfish to want others to go through this just for the sake of more company, he had thought. He wished to drop back in his pit and go back in a coma, now more than ever. Alma had always been there, a friend in his most difficult moments. While Yuu had learned to value his friend, he never expected being left behind would be so terribly painful.

This was the first time ever since Alma died that he sat in this place's floor. Leaning heavily against a wall and stretching his legs in front of him, he watched the shining depths in what used to be the two friends' morning ritual, and imagined Alma by his side. The friendly boy would be greeting everyone by their names by now, telling them tales about a surface world they knew only through the scientists' stories, and trying, in a so selfish hope, to convince them to wake up and become a part of this torment.

So egotistical, so cruel.

So why was Yuu, like he never had before, doing the same, staring desperately at each birthing pit and hoping to see some sort of movement, some signal of life?

Getting up and ignoring the constant ache in his body, he walked towards the middle of the chamber, and took a shaky breath. He always felt like the people inside the water were actually conscious and staring at him, only pretending to be comatose. It was silly and, logically, he knew it was untrue. He had, after all, been sound asleep there once, too. But the eerie sensation wouldn't go away. That was one of the reasons he rarely ventured amidst the sleeping boys and girls, choosing to stay in a corner and watch his friend interact with them, instead.

"Hello… Yuri," he greeted uneasily, staring down at the circle from which Alma always started. He then walked to the next one, to the right. "Hello, Anna."

Yuu never cared to learn everyone's names, always sitting in a corner and watching the other boy talking to them, instead. But after watching the morning ritual every day for almost two whole years, he ended up memorizing who everyone was, anyway.

"Hello, Marie," he said to one that had been added months after he first woke up. "G-good morning, Allen," he continued, trying to change his greeting a little. What would Alma have said? "How are y-you, Lucy?" his voice trembled, from cold and from emotion, and echoed loudly in the large, empty space. This was so terrible. Alma was gone and, if no one else woke up, he would be by himself forever-

"Hi, Mei," he continued, trying to get a grip on his emotions. It wouldn't do to fall apart here. What good would it do? So the boy continued the process, until he was reaching the last one. "Hello, Ri-," he said, already out of creative greetings, when he heard a small sound which interrupted his words. He jumped and looked towards the direction where it came from.

It had truly been a very small sound. He had only heard it because this place was so terribly silent. It could be a breeze from the air ducts that kept the area's low temperature, or maybe a noise from one of the many pipes inside the walls, but Yuu's heart started pounding loudly anyways, his trembling worsening as he tried to identify where that sound came from. Please, please…

Another sound. This time, he could identify it – the sound of water moving. He quickly ran towards the center of the chamber once more, staring at one of the first circles he greeted. The water was rippling, its peace disturbed. The boy quickly knelt before it. "Allen?" he called in hope, remembering the name of the one inside the deep, freezing water. Impatiently, he shoved a hand inside of it, wincing at the pain that came from the deep cold. He should, as per usual, reach nothing, as they were always many meters deep down.

His hand touched something.

Something that quickly grabbed his hand, and then his arm. Still weakened, he struggled to avoid being pulled down, pushing the other up instead. A pale and small arm came out, followed by the rest of the body. It was a boy, smaller than him, with white skin and long, red hair…

…who was trembling, freezing to death.

"EDGAR!"

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