~Epilogue~

Unsurprisingly, it took Allen several years to fully come to terms with the fact that she was no longer a man. Not many people noticed though, because, with the help of her devoted husband, she had adjusted enough to her changes to at least pretend to be fine in public. However, she continued to voice her displeasure with her situation in private. It made her hard to live with, as Kanda couldn't help but take her complaints personally, but it didn't change the fact that they loved each other.

It wasn't until she conceived a third child that Allen finally accepted that she was female and stopped trying to fight against it.

She may have disliked being a woman, but Allen loved being a mother, even with the difficulties that came from balancing her responsibilities towards her children with her duties as an exorcist. And as such, she was incredibly excited to tell her precious little girls about their new younger sibling. However, that excitement turned into despair when Addie, with the complete honesty that only a child that young could manage, told Allen that she wanted the new baby to be a boy because she knew that her mother didn't like girls.

It was in that moment that Allen finally realized that she wasn't the only one she was hurting by stubbornly clinging to the past.

As Addie continued to talk, repeating things Allen had said about herself and clearly thinking that her mother had meant them about her, Allen could do nothing but break down, sobbing and pulling her daughter as close to her as the little girl would allow. Learning that her inability to accept that she was a woman had damaged her baby's self-esteem cut Allen to the core. And when talking to Erika revealed that she also thought that being female made her inferior in her mother's eyes, Allen nearly lost her will to live. Kanda had to work incredibly hard to calm her down that night.

It took a lot of talking, but Allen eventually got her children to understand that she hadn't been talking about them and that she loved them regardless of their gender. However, it wasn't until Yumi was born, and Erika and Addie were able to see firsthand that their mother truly wasn't disappointed over not having a son that it finally sunk in. Fortunately, they were still young, and both girls would completely forget about the incident and grow into confident women.

Allen was slower to recover, but knowing that she had almost irreparably screwed up her daughters' lives helped her finally come to terms with the fact that she was female. She deeply regretted that her prior inability to do so had hurt her daughters, but neither her optimistic personality nor her husband would let her dwell on that fact. And when Erika hit puberty, Allen could only be thankful that it had happened, as she knew that if she hadn't been pushed into accepting that she was female, she never would have been able to handle explaining menstruation to her daughter.

Finally accepting her situation and having three beautiful daughters, Allen was incredibly content with her life the way it was, and so she did her very best to convince her husband that she wasn't going to bear any more children. Kanda however, would not let go of his desire to see his wife pregnant again, and Allen ended up being the one convinced to try for a son. But when the ultrasound revealed that Allen was not only carrying twins, but that they were both girls, things changed. Carrying twins was not a pleasant experience for Allen, and she made sure that Kanda was as miserable as she was until he caved and got a vasectomy like she had originally wanted.

Life at the Order went on like usual. It was a happier and brighter place now, as Allen's second pregnancy had sparked a change in policy and members were now allowed to bring their families with them to headquarters. Allen's five girls had friends their own ages to play and go to school with - when they weren't training or going on missions. Because however much Allen and Kanda may have wanted to prevent it, the girls were all accommodators, and that meant that they had to fulfill their duties as exorcists.

It had been a rocky twelve years since Allen had first learned that her life was going to change completely, but she found that she was actually happier than she ever was before then.

.x.x.

Aya and Naomi paced in front the ark gate, impatiently waiting for their mother and older sisters to return home from their latest mission; though to anyone watching, it would have looked more like the black haired three year olds were simply chasing each other around in circles.

They cried out with joy when the others finally stepped into the entry hall, but those cries quickly turned into screams of terror when they saw the condition their relatives were in. All four women were a mess, their uniforms ripped and torn and their faces smeared with blood and dirt. Allen was bleeding from a cut on her forehead, Addie clutched an arm that was clearly broken to her chest, and the other two weren't much better off. But despite their injuries, all four were grinning with the happiness that came from a successfully completed mission. Allen immediately set about soothing her youngest daughters, but before she got anywhere, their cries attracted others, and the entire family was whisked down to the infirmary.

Allen refused to let her wounds be tended to until her daughters were taken care of, supervising the nurses with a stern scowl that terrified them all. It wasn't until Kanda arrived and convinced Allen to turn off her mama bear side that she finally consented to letting herself be cleaned up and bandaged. It continued to resurface, coming out when the doctors set Addie's arm and again when they had to put stitches in Yumi's calf, but she calmed back down when Kanda reminded her that the pain they were inflicting on the girls was only temporary and would actually heal them in the long run.

But even with Allen being overprotective and the myriad of wounds the girls had received, the mood in the room remained light and joyful. It pissed Kanda off that they weren't taking their injuries seriously. "What's got you so happy? You all look half dead. That's not something to be celebrating."

Allen shrugged, never once taking her eyes off the doctor who was putting Addie's broken arm into a sling. "Maybe not. But the Earl's dead. And that's definitely worth celebrating."

Kanda could only blink stupidly at his wife's words. "The Earl's dead? ...How?"

Allen snorted and gestured wildly with her left arm, upsetting the nurse who was trying to wrap it in bandages. "Ask them."

Kanda turned his gaze in the direction the Moyashi was pointing, surprised to see that she was pointing at their three eldest daughters. The girls stopped their giggling and looked up at being mentioned, composing themselves into proper young ladies when faced with their father's stern gaze; they knew he loved them, but that look was one that scared them into being on their best behavior. That didn't wipe the proud smiles from their faces though.

Allen smirked at her husband's stunned expression and proceeded to tell the story. "The Earl showed up while we were fighting some akuma. I engaged him in a fight to keep his attention away from the girls, and I ended up taking a pretty hard blow. I was a little out of it, so I don't know exactly what happened next, but there was a lot of screaming from the girls, and that made the Earl focus on them. I tried to get up to stop him, but by the time I did, they had pinned him down. I only delivered the final blow."

When Kanda turned his attention on his daughters, the girls all started talking at once. It was difficult to decipher what they were saying, but it pretty obvious to him that they were corroborating their mother's story. All three girls had been distressed by seeing their mother get hit, but they had reacted the way they'd been trained to by their father; instead of crying over Allen's injuries, they had jumped to her defense and beaten off the threat like proper Kanda women.

When the news got out that the Earl was dead, the Order threw a party that lasted an entire week. At Allen's insistence, Erika, Addie, and Yumi were given all of the glory, but the girls didn't like being the center of attention any more than their mother did. At fourteen, Eri was the only one of the girls who really understood what was going on, but that only made her dislike the attention more, as it made her feel like she was stealing the credit that rightfully belonged to her mother.

But what the girls hated most about the party was the same thing they hated about all parties: the way it made their father act. Kanda had his hands full trying to keep the carousing partiers away from his daughters, and more than one man was seriously injured for trying to give beer to one of the underage girls. The samurai managed to keep his overprotective side at bay most of the time, but parties, especially ones with alcohol, always brought it out.

When the partying finally ended, life returned to normal. The Earl may have been dead, but the war was far from over. There were still akuma to destroy, and the Noah certainly did not take the Earl's death lying down. But for those exorcists who had lived through the worst of the war, this new war was more like a job than a war. They were no longer soldiers, forced to fight for their lives because of their compatibility with the Innocence. They weren't free yet, but for the first time in a long time, survival was almost guaranteed, giving them the freedom to pursue other interests.

And for Allen and Kanda, that meant spending as much time as they could with their daughters. Being a family had always been their top priority, but it was so much easier now that they weren't worrying for the other's life whenever they had a mission. They had actually gotten their happily ever after.

~Fin~