Disclaimer – I do not own DGM or Bleach
Chapter Thirty-Four – Confession
"What is this place?" Allen questioned as he gazed around the starkly white room. Were it not for the piano that occupied space there he would have thought that this was a room straight out of an asylum or something.
And he might not have been that far from the truth, in a figurative way.
Hitsugaya was silent for a moment despite having heard the question that was directed toward him. He had known all along that this was going to spawn questions that he wasn't going to want to answer but it wasn't as if there had been another choice in the matter. This was the only way that they were actually going to get out of this mess and Hitsugaya knew that.
He knew that all too well.
Things were not unfolding the way that he would have wanted them to but that was another thing that was to be expected and there was no fix for it. This was just going to be an unpleasant experience all the way around.
Both for him and for Allen.
"Toushirou?"
The sound of his name…or rather the name that he had been using…served to snap his thoughts back to the present and Hitsugaya finally turned to look at the other white-haired youth.
"It's the control center for the Ark," he said in a quiet voice, gesturing toward the piano. "That's the Heart."
Even though he had asked Hitsugaya where they were Allen hadn't really expected for the other youth to know the answer. It was more a rhetorical question but now that he'd actually gained an answer that just served to spawn more questions.
Clearly there were things going on here that Allen didn't understand and he wanted to know exactly what those things were.
"How…how do you know this?" Allen questioned as he focused his silver eyes on the smaller boy, a strange look held within. "And how did you get us here?" At first he'd just thought that it was a coincidence that the gateway to this room had appeared but now he was thinking otherwise. Now he thought that Hitsugaya had summoned it and he wanted to know how in the world the Shinigami had even known how to do that.
It didn't make sense.
And it was starting to give Allen a headache.
Reaching up he gripped the sides of his head with both hands, moving over to the sofa and sitting down as he felt suddenly overwhelmed by things.
Hitsugaya watched this and couldn't help but think that this reaction was a bit premature considering everything that he had to tell Allen but he didn't say that. Instead he just walked over to the sofa and sat down beside Allen.
"This is all my fault," he said quietly, taking the blame for things for the first time. "If I'd been stronger then none of this would be happening now."
There was a faint tone of remorse in his voice as he said these words.
The statement from the other white-haired youth served to effectively recapture Allen's attention and he looked over at Hitsugaya with a look of confusion in his silver eyes. He had no idea why the Shinigami was taking responsibility for this but he was getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he just couldn't explain.
Allen felt like something bad was about to happen.
And that feeling terrified him.
"I don't understand…" Allen said in a quiet and almost tentative voice, hesitating ever so slightly as he spoke and giving hint to just how anxious this whole thing was making him right now.
"I was able to bring us here because I was once the master of the Ark," Hitsugaya confessed quietly, his gaze focused on the floor rather than on Allen. As much as he had argued with the Exorcist he couldn't bring himself to face him as he gave the confession that had been a long time in the making. "I was once… a member of the Family of Noah."
This revelation gained a shocked gasp from Allen and for a few moments all he could do was stare at the other boy.
In disbelief.
It took him several long moments to regain his composure and at that point he just sort of shook his head, sinking down into denial. "No…there's no way that you could be one of them," he said, having decided in his own mind that this was all some sort of joke. A cruel one to be sure and one that was completely misplaced given the current situation but still a joke all the same.
A really, really bad joke.
With a soft sigh Hitsugaya lifted his head and then turned his gaze to focus on Allen, taking note of the fact that the teen wasn't looking at him as he did so. "Allen…look at me." It wasn't an order this time, despite the fact that he had been bossing Allen around since the day that they met, but rather a request.
Which had the effect of surprising Allen so much that he actually did lift his head and turn his gaze toward the smaller boy.
Silver eyes met with gold and that elicited a gasp from Allen as the startled teen sort of pressed himself against the arm of the sofa, putting a little distance between the two of them as he tried to process this newest turn of events.
Hitsugaya was a Noah…
How was that even possible?
"The 14th Noah…the member of the Family who should never have been…" Hitsugaya said quietly, shifting his gaze away from Allen and not giving any hint as to how the teen's reaction affected him. "The traitor Noah…" This last statement caused his mind to flash back to the decision that had changed his life, and the lives of countless others, forever.
Allen was freaking out but all the same he shifted his gaze back to Hitsugaya as the Shinigami continued to speak.
"I tried to fight against them…I managed to defeat all but the Earl and Road before I was murdered by them…" Hitsugaya said quietly. "But what they didn't know was that I had a backup plan…using powers that I learned from my brother I had sealed my memories and powers in the mind of another, to awaken and finish the job that I had started." Taking a deep breath, he once again shifted his gaze to Allen, guilt shining bright in his eyes. "That person was you Allen…you were meant to be the heir of the Musician."
Processing everything that was being said to him right now was a tall order to fill and for several long minutes after Hitsugaya had stopped speaking Allen remained silent.
Trying to process.
Trying to cope.
"So you were trying to steal my life…" Allen finally said when he regained himself enough to actually speak, his gaze still locked on Hitsugaya.
"It's not something I'm proud of, actually I'm pretty sure that was the catalyst that caused me to repress and bury my own identity after I died, but yes," Hitsugaya said, being completely honest in this moment despite how much that he didn't want to. "I did at least ensure that you were with someone that would take care of you…that would treat you right…"
His gaze flashed back to that meeting and once again a flash of pain appeared in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" Allen asked, seeing the pain but disregarding that for now because he was seriously irked and he wanted answers.
There was no pity in his gaze.
"Mana…"
The voice that he spoke this name in was barely above a whisper and had a reverence that could only come from someone that had truly cared about the person they were speaking of.
That more than anything captured Allen's attention.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Allen snapped, finally losing his composure and it was taking every ounce of willpower that he had not to grab Hitsugaya by the collar and shake the life out of him…or whatever he could manage to do to someone that was already dead.
"Mana was, is, my brother," Hitsugaya said, those memories probably the most painful that he was being forced to deal with now that his old self had made a reappearance. The fact that he had dragged his brother down with him and that it had inevitably caused his death as well was probably the hardest part of this for him to cope with.
He had never wanted something like that to happen.
Actually, he would have done anything to keep that from happening.
Allen felt as if he had been punched in the stomach as he heard those words and for a few painful moments he couldn't breathe. Mana, the one person that he had thought loved him for who he was, was the brother of the Noah…a revelation that caused him to question everything that he'd thought he knew.
"So he was in on it? Is that what you're telling me?" Allen demanded, once again having a hard time resisting the urge to attack Hitsugaya. It was growing harder and harder and Allen was pretty sure that his iron clad self-control was going to falter any minute now and he was going to do something that he might regret later.
Or then again, depending on what else Hitsugaya had to say, he really might now.
"No," Hitsugaya was quick to say, shaking his head as he once again turned to look at Allen. "He didn't know anything about it, I didn't want him to worry and I didn't want him to get involved. He never had any idea that you were the one that I chose to inherit my powers." There was a sincere tone in his voice as he said this, the white-haired youth wanting Allen to know that whatever he'd shared with Mana had been genuine.
Allen wasn't sure that he was willing to believe Hitsugaya but right now there were more pressing issues. His hatred, or whatever this feeling was, could wait until they had managed to get out of this mess.
"So now what are we supposed to do? For all we know the others are dead." Allen's voice was laced with bitterness as he said this, his gaze practically boring into the smaller youth that was sitting beside him on the couch.
As if daring him to have an answer to this.
"I can fix it," Hitsugaya said with a sigh, the slight boy rising to his feet and making his way over to the piano. He glanced into the mirror as he did so but turned away quickly, not liking what he saw there. "I can fix all of it…and I'm going to."
He had already made this decision while he was fighting against Road and nothing had changed once he managed to free himself from her cursed dream world. She had awakened in him memories that she had hoped would destroy him but in doing so she had given him the tools and more importantly the knowledge to be able to get not only himself but all of the others out of this place.
Allen looked more than a little skeptical as Hitsugaya said that he could fix it, the white-haired teen not thinking that there was any way that it could even be fixed. He had seen Lenalee fall through the floor and he was sure that she had to be dead now.
How the hell was he going to fix that?
These thoughts kept repeating themselves in his mind as Allen watched Hitsugaya walking over to the piano and that just caused him to feel more confusion and then more anger. Everyone was dead or else dying and he was going to play the damn piano?
Allen clenched his hands into fists and got to his feet.
It had happened.
He had finally lost his grip on his self-control.
A/N – End of another chapter and now Allen knows the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. LOL, sorry I couldn't resist. Hope that you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what you thought. Thanks for reading!