Gnats buzzed in the air around Lavi's head as he walked up to the doors of the order, head down. The hat he wore helped block the sun, but his shoulders had long since started burning. Lavi had been unable to find a secure connection to call the order with, and he doubted that any aid from the Bookman clan would come for him, so he'd risked the travel alone.

It had been a relief to discover that the Noah stronghold was apparently a good distance away from the Order. It had been a hassle figuring out how to get there without money or even a proper shirt.

Still, he'd made it. He looked up to see some finders started approaching him so he straightened his back and forced a small smile. One of them looked confused, but the other grabbed his arm, looking very alarmed. They both backed up a bit and Lavi stopped walking, watching as the alarmed finder started talking into a small radio. Odd.

Lavi took another few steps forward, raising his hand in greeting, but the finders scurried back some more. They looked at each other, then at Lavi, and at each other again, whispering frantically. Lavi was too far away to hear what they were saying, but close enough to the end of his patience that he didn't care to wait for them.

"Hello?" Lavi called, approaching again. They held their ground this time, shaking slightly.

"H-Hello, um. This is a restricted area…" The confused finder stammered out, making Lavi raise his eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm aware. I'm Lavi." The finders stared at him for a long few minutes in silence and Lavi shifted a bit under their scrutiny.

"Lavi."

"Yes?"

They went silent again, then something crashed into the earth beside him and Lavi staggered back in surprise. A red boot appeared where his head had been a moment before and he gulped, jumping back.

"Lenalee?!" He called, and she leapt up into the air again, fire in her eyes as she swung her leg at him. Lavi ducked the kick that would have surely removed his head had he not been a moment quicker, backing off immediately and putting a hand over his heart, "What are you doing?"

"Who are you." She snarled, pulling herself up to her full height and glaring at Lavi so savagely he felt a shiver go down his spine.

"L-Lavi?"

"Don't lie to me. Are you Lulubell? How dare you come here and take Lavi's form."

"Whoa, whoa, Lena, hang on-"

Lenalee did not hang on, launching herself at Lavi and swinging her leg at his chest in a roundhouse kick. Lavi did not have time to dodge and took the hit with a gasp. He was sent flying and hit the ground hard, rolling twice and coming to a stop on his back.

The click of Lenalee's heel on the ground as she approached him made him scramble up. She lunged at him again and Lavi grit his teeth, summoning his hammer just barely in time to block the attack. A shock went through the hammer when Lenalee's boot made contact and she let out a surprised shout, immediately backing off as Lavi pulled himself up.

"Holy fuck, Lena, I'm pretty sure you broke half my rib cage." Lavi wheezed, grateful that Lenalee's kick had landed on the side of his chest his heart rested in. He hoped it had minimized the damage.

"What… is that?"

Lavi leaned on the handle of his hammer, glancing down at the head, "What, this? It's my innocence, I guess."

"You guess." Lenalee was still on guard, her eyes darting between Lavi and the red hammer.

"Shit happens," Lavi flashed an exhausted smile at her, and she seemed to relax a bit, "Why the hell are you attacking me?"

"... Bookman said Lavi was dead."

Lavi stilled, swallowing thickly and frowning at Lenalee in confusion, "Dead? but…"

"Prove you're Lavi." Lenalee said, but her voice was shaking a little. Lavi raised his eyebrow a little and lifted up his innocence, spinning it around in a few shaky circles.

"That could be an illusion. Why is it red? how did you keep it from the Noah?"

"One thing at a time, Lenalee." Lavi sighed a little, deactivating his hammer now that the immediate threat of Lenalee putting her foot through his chest seemed to be gone.

"Are.. you a crystal type now?" Hope pushed his head up through Lenalee's voice and it made Lavi want to shrink away.

"Yeah."

She took a step towards him, eyes shining a little, "You're really Lavi?"

"Yeah…" He smiled a little and Lenalee took another few steps towards him, clearly wanting to believe him, "I mean, I guess your brother could x-ray me or take a blood sample or whatever else he wants to do to prove it but… Right now I just. I really want to rest."

She nodded and put her hand on Lavi's shoulder tentatively, leading him inside the order. The rest was a bit of a blur for Lavi- People happy to see him alive, being tested to prove his identity, eating something that Lenalee put in front of him, and finally getting carted off to his room.

He hadn't expected his master to be there.

They stared at each other for a moment, and the Bookman gestured for him to sit. Lavi glanced at the bed, sighing and taking off his boots before walking around the table and sliding into the chair across from his master. Looking at him made Lavi taste acid in the back of his throat, but he waited for his master to start.

"What did you see?"

Lavi sighed, shrugging one shoulder, "A lot of what I saw isn't usable. I was suffering from dehydration, starvation, and exhaustion through most of it."

"Tell me what you do remember."

Lavi fidgeted, staring at the table and beginning his story as the Bookman took careful notes. He tried to be brief and uninvested, but every time Bookman glanced up at him, he knew he was getting further and further from any sort of redemption.

"And… Then Lenalee Lee nearly destroyed my ribcage and I was then escorted here." lavi traced a pattern on the wood of the table and looked at the Bookman who was already rolling up the notes he had taken.

"Well. I suppose that wraps that up." He said shortly, making Lavi frown. He waited a beat, but neither of them moved.

"So… I guess I'm not an apprentice any longer." He said finally around the dryness of his tongue.

"No."

"What do I do now?"

The Bookman considered that, "If you survive the war, your memories of your time as a Bookman Apprentice will be erased. As such, it would cause too much change in your personality to erase them now, and thus would upset the current trajectory of events."

Lavi nodded, getting up and going over to his bed with heavy feet and a fog in his mind, "I'll put in for a room change tomorrow." He knew his voice sounded thick, but he didn't care. Allen's words echoed in his mind as he pulled off his shirt, He curled up in the bed with his back to his master, who sighed with disappointment and began work on a new scroll.

It was the next summer that Bookman ended that scroll, labeled with nothing but "Lavi - Deceased" and put it beside the other pile of scrolls he had been working on in the wake of the final battle of the Black Order.