- 3 -

When Tyki stepped off the Ark, he felt dizzy from the colors and smells of the city around him. It was difficult to keep track of time in the Ark because the rooms were either too dark or too bright, as if the Ark were frozen in time, with different parts of it plunged into perpetual darkness or bathed in unrelenting daylight. The streets were bustling with women in bright summer dresses, lively children, somber-looking men in dark suits, quiet youths in school uniforms, and modestly dressed workmen. The main roads were crammed with horse-drawn transport of all sizes, ranging from light carriages to fruit carts and enormous dray wagons that emitted a terrible sound resembling a cannonade when their wide-rimmed wooden wheels connected with the pavement. Tyki hopped onto one of the covered wagons that belonged to a tobacco company and rode it to the docks where he had hoped to find his recent acquaintances, Momo and Clark. He didn't know anyone else in the entire city and had but a vague idea of what to do with himself.

The Tobacco Dock encompassed an impressively large plot of land the size of at least several fields girt round with a high brick wall for the protection of valuable goods from thieves. The wharfs were situated in the center of the Dock while the warehouses ran along the inner perimeter of the wall on one side and along the stone embankment erected across from the shipping berths. This way, the cargo ships were marooned at the very heart of the Dock, protected by the impregnable defenses of the wall, the basin of water, and two rows of gloomy buildings of nearly identical design. A tall gate with a thick grating opened into the inner courtyard which, in turn, led into the warehouse area. Palls of dust perpetually hung over the Dock, raised by the thousands of hooves, feet and wheels trampling the earth like thunderous footfall of the gods.

A small crowd of workers in short-sleeved shirts and overalls on suspenders had amassed by the gate. When an overseer in a slick suit came out, he shouted a combination of numbers, and nearly all hands shot up in the air. After he selected several volunteers, the group disappeared behind the fortress-gate.

It didn't take long for Tyki to spot Momo and Clark in the crowd.

"I thought I might find you here," Tyki called out to them, waving his arm.

"Tyki, is that you?" Momo asked incredulously. "We thought something happened to you."

"There was an incident at that inn," added Clark. "Bad stuff. The owner was murdered. Know anything about that?"

"Nah, I overslept everything."

"We heard a rumor that a woman also went missing from that inn. It's like that place is cursed."

"Let's catch up after we get in."

'I overslept a murder?' Tyki mentally berated himself. 'I have to get better at making up cover stories.'

The overseer emerged again and called out: "Three, ten! Three, ten!"

Momo stood on his tiptoes. "What's he saying?"

"Three, ten," replied Clark. "It means he needs three workers for a certain job in ten-hour shifts."

After the overseer picked out the three of them from the throng of workers and the gate closed behind them with a heavy clang, Tyki looked around. A couple hundred yards ahead of them, three piers cut into the river. Two piers were empty, but at the third was berthed the largest ship Tyki had ever seen, more elegant than it was heavy, with three masts, a sturdy stern, and a proud bow.

"It's a merchant ship from Vatican," said the overseer. "We've begun unloading the crates into one of the warehouses. This will be your assignment for today."

Tyki scratched his temple. The Earl said something important about Vatican and the Black Order, but if he were honest, sometimes he had paid little to no attention to his lessons.

The job of a dock worker entailed alternating several simple tasks: carrying wooden barrels and crates from the ship to the warehouse, placing them in appropriate sections—tobacco had to be kept in dry places and wines were stored in cellars—and sweeping the floors. They set to unloading the crates at once, and Tyki was grateful for menial work which relieved him of a pressing obligation to explain his mysterious disappearance from the inn or his recent whereabouts.

At noon, they were allowed to take a short break, but Momo and Clark were so exhausted that they ate and smoked in near silence. Tyki didn't feel nearly as fatigued; on the contrary, with each crate he carried, he seemed to discover hidden inexhaustible reserves of vigor.

"You have some stamina, lad," Clark mumbled with undisguised envy in his voice.

Tyki picked up a crate and pretended that he didn't hear Clark's remark.

After an uneventful day, the three of them headed to the barracks where Momo and Clark lived. These barracks occupied a large part of the Eastern slums not too far from the inn where Tyki met the Millennium Earl. The poorest among the dock and factory workers who couldn't afford a small apartment lived in the barracks in crowded rooms lined with rows of bunk beds where sickness festered and despair. Yet, Momo and Clark kept their cheerful dispositions even though they were reduced to the same poverty and ruin as the rest of the lot in the slums.

On their way back from the docks, they stopped at a pub near the barracks. After they were seated at their table, Clark and Momo shared a mug of beer, and Tyki who wasn't much of a drinker lit a cigarette.

"How do you feel?" asked Clark. "I've never met anyone who could work for ten hours straight without breaking a sweat."

"The overseer will give us more work tomorrow, for sure. He was mighty impressed, too."

"It's not a big deal," Tyki said, racking his brain for an explanation that would not spook his acquaintances.

"It's a big deal in our line of work. Anyone can carry a few crates or work a pickaxe. So, no one will give you work if you're sick or weak from hunger."

"Look, we'll be able to afford medicine for Tam," added Momo with a grin. "But enough talk about our troubles. Wanna play poker?"

"Sure, who's dealing the cards?"

They retired for the night after a few friendly games of poker. Tyki was in a good mood because he won most of the games and he almost forgot about the Earl. There was something about a brazen gamble that came as close to fairness as he could imagine it.

Before they headed back to the barracks, he slipped into the washroom to tidy up. Tyki splashed his face with cold water and when he reached for a towel, he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror. He took off his magic glasses without a second thought, and his true face taunted him with all the savagery of amber eyes and cross-shaped stigma.


On the third day of his carefree life with Momo and Clark, Tyki began to suspect something was amiss. The Noah in him grew restless, pushing him to work to his limits, but as it turned out, those limits far surpassed the physical demands of a thirteen-hour workday. He volunteered to take the longest shifts, but couldn't get a wink of sleep afterwards, or if he slept, he dreamed about the Earl and the girl who promised him candy if he dropped by for a cup of tea. The bizarre dreams seemed harmless if not for the irksome realization that every moment he spent dwelling on his intruders was proof that they held mysterious sway over him.

Then the payphones near him started ringing. The first phone rang during Tyki's break when he went to the dock gate for a smoke. He leaned against the thick grating, struck a match against the matchbox, and nearly dropped it into the mud when a shrill, persistent ringing filled the air. A payphone by the gate rang for several minutes before the caller had finally given up. Tyki dismissed it as a coincidence at first, but he was haunted by the ringing of payphones wherever he went save for the barracks because the workmen were too destitute to afford replacing a broken phone.

One time Tyki nearly got himself in trouble at the docks. They unloaded the upper decks of the merchant ship and began working in the steerage, and Tyki could tell that the crates he was carrying were not filled with tobacco or spices. The sturdy wooden boxes were often bound with strips of iron, and one of them was dotted with dark-red inscriptions in a foreign language. Momo suggested that the box contained gunpowder, but Tyki's entire body convulsed from an unknown, powerful emotion: his hands and shoulders began shaking uncontrollably and to stop his teeth from clattering, he bit his lower lip to the blood. If Momo paid more attention to him in that moment, he would catch sight of a sinister amber gleam in his eyes.

Tyki fled to the upper deck and took a deep puff of his cigarette to get his bearings back. He refused to acknowledge that since he left the Ark, his smoking habit was worsening by the day.

But nights were worse than days. As Tyki sat on the upper bunk in the tiny, stuffy room in the common barracks, he was beset by heavy thoughts. He conjured up an image of Road in his mind again and again, and he couldn't drive it away. Although he didn't understand her affection for him, he was someone dear to her and she was genuinely happy to see him. Even if he had a grudge against the Earl for trying to shackle him with the bonds of unconditional servitude, he acted just as cruelly towards Road by taking away the one person she had been waiting for. To make matters more fuzzy, he wasn't sure those feelings were entirely his own.

The unwanted thoughts filled him with confusion. Tyki was close to admitting his defeat and running back to the Ark to pay penance for being an errant son, but he restrained himself from making a rash decision. The world wouldn't stop spinning if he took a few days off to think things over.

Tyki groped for his glasses under the pillow and swung his legs over the side of the bunk. He jumped off noiselessly and tiptoed to the door. Momo sat on the porch with a mug of steaming-hot water in his hands, holding it close to his haggard face, and Tyki joined him on the wobbly steps.

"Can't sleep?"

"It's stuffy inside," Tyki lied. He has been lying a lot lately.

"Sorry, we don't have any tea left. We had to spend our salaries on Tam's and Eez's medicine."

"Eez? That's the kid on the bunk below me?"

"He's sick, too. Doctors said that he has a lung infection."

"How bad is it?"

"We don't know, but he has to get well soon. We'll have to move back to the mining town for winter. There's not enough work in the city, especially if the river freezes over and ships won't dock as often." Momo took a cautious sip of hot water. "What about you?"

"I think I'll stick around for a while."

"We could use someone like you… But I can tell by the look on your face that something's been bothering you an awful lot lately. What's on your mind?"

Tyki considered his words for a moment. "There's someone I left behind, that's all."

"Leaving family and friends is harder than you think, so don't beat yourself up, lad."

In the morning, they headed back to the docks. The overseer recognized them by the dark-blue overalls the three of them wore and invited them inside.

When Tyki came up for air, a clock in the distance struck noon. The payphone near the entrance to the docks rang shrilly. Tyki spared it a disinterested glance and kept on walking.


The merchant ship from Vatican was scheduled to set sail at three o'clock. The sky was overcast, and the majestic sails rippled in the wind with a merry eagerness.

The overseer told Tyki to load the remaining barrels of wine onto the upper deck after he had sent Momo, Clark, and most of the other dock workers home for the day. Tyki picked up a barrel at the warehouse, effortlessly hoisted it on his shoulder, and walked towards the ramp. At the same time, two men could be seen strolling through the courtyard in the direction of the ship. Both men were dressed in long black coats and carried themselves in a haughty manner characteristic of men of military profession; one had a heavy club attached to his hip while the other did not outwardly display any weapons. They were engrossed in a lively conversation and did not notice Tyki until they caught up with him on the narrow, rickety slope of wooden boards that bridged a wide gap between the quay and the mighty hull of the ship.

By the time Tyki realized who they were, it was too late to turn back: he had set foot onto the ramp and the men were a few steps behind him. His body began to tremble violently, he dropped the barrel to grab onto the railing with both hands, and the barrel rolled down the quay. Tyki managed to steady himself, but he quivered all over and he could barely breathe from the dreadful emotion that came over him. He could no longer think or take full control of his body.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?"

Tyki spun around like lightning. "Exorcists," he snarled, outstretching his arm towards one of the men, and grabbed him by the lapel of his coat. "Innocence."

"What is he?"

"Look at those eyes! Is he an Akuma?"

"Innocence, activate!"

Everything around him was happening all at once. One of the men unsheathed his heavy club which flared up like a bright-green star in his hands, and Tyki had to let go of the other exorcist to shield his eyes from the burning light it emanated. At the same time, he instinctively sidestepped, leaned forward, thrust his left arm into the exorcist's ribcage, fingers first, and pulled it back, crushing flesh and bone with it on the way in and out. A fountain of blood spilled from the wound the size of a small fist.

Then the ship gave a sudden lurch, and Tyki fell backwards through the wooden boards of the bridge into the cold waters of river Thames.

He breathed in so much water on impact that he felt like his chest was on fire. He was sinking, the beacon of the exorcist's Innocence above him fading into a blur; darkness surrounded him on all sides, rushed into his nose, mouth and eyes with torrents of cold water, and he could barely discern the vague contours of the bridge.

Tyki put both of his hands in front of his face and thought frantically, 'Reject. Reject! Reject!' A bubble or a cocoon of some kind formed around him, and his body stopped sinking before he hit the muddy bottom. The water fretfully flowed around him without touching him, while he hovered on his back, with his arms splayed out, within the impregnable cocoon.

Tyki gasped for air, shaking with coughing, and he could breathe again. Road wasn't kidding when she said that he could reject any solid substance or matter. What kind of a monster was he, really?

The exorcist's dead body was sinking slowly, and it was glowing with the same bright-green light as his partner's weapon upon activation. When the body was abreast of him, Tyki noticed a small crystal radiating the stinging light that had stupefied him moments ago on the bridge. The crystal detached from the body and began floating upward when Tyki grabbed it and pulled it inside of his protective aura. It had to be the legendary Innocence he was tasked with destroying.

Tyki swam with the current for a little while until he came across a gaping entrance into the city's waterworks. He climbed out of the water onto the only dry patch of stone under an ancient arch, dropped the Innocence on the ground, and wrung out the trouser-legs of his overalls. The crystal stung his skin, and the light within it throbbed faster when he touched it. His only solace was that he didn't lose the Earl's reading glasses.

Tyki sat down cross-legged and contemplated what to do with the crystal. He could leave it in the sewers, but there was a chance that another Accommodator could find it, and Tyki took games of chance seriously. He didn't know how to destroy it. He caught himself thinking about the ordeal as though he still owed something to the Earl.

"Why do I care?" he asked the emptiness in front of him, and quaint as it was, an answer came therefrom.

"Did you really think you could run from the Noah memory? Oh, Tyki." Road said with a slight longing in her voice as she stepped through the wall. She wore an elegant school uniform, buttoned to her neck, as if she had just stepped out of a classroom. Her face bore a somber expression only for a moment before she unwrapped a huge lollipop and stuffed it into her mouth. "It tastes like strawberry ice cream. Wanna try?"

Tyki shook his head. "I don't know what you think, Road. And I'm not in the mood to listen to you gloat."

"I didn't come here to gloat or babysit you. If you have a quarrel with Lord Millennium, I want no part in it... I just wish you wouldn't struggle so much. Of all the battles you could pick, you had to rush headlong into the most hopeless and unrewarding."

"Why did you come, then, if not to give me an earful?"

"I came to make sure that you destroyed the Innocence. I can never tell whether you, newbies, are listening to our Lord Millennium or not."

"When I pick it up, it burns the skin on my hands. And my abilities don't work on it."

"Innocence is poison to us. But fortunately, we can crush it like hard candy." Road cupped the crystal in her small hands. Not a muscle twitched on her comely face, her features looking sharp and fragile in the bright-green glow. A light furrow creased her brow when she squeezed the crystal in her palm, and with a tinkling sound, it cracked into a myriad of little pieces. "All done," she added, brushing green dust off her skirt.

"Care to tell me how you found me?"

"Lord Millennium commands all Akuma. They're his eyes and ears. One of them works at the Docks because ships from Vatican often pass through here… Imagine Millennie's surprise when he saw you tangle with that exorcist." Road licked her lollipop. "But it's time for me to go now."

"Where are you going?"

Road titled her head with an expression equally inviting and deranged, and Tyki wished he hadn't asked. "I'm going to clean up your mess, Tyki. One of those exorcists is still alive, right? And Lord Millennium believes that he saw your true face."

Road didn't ask him to return to the Ark with her, and Tyki was grateful to her for it.


Tyki sat on the porch of the workmen's barracks and enjoyed a cigarette. A gentle breeze played with his curls, tickling his forehead. It was well past midnight, but he couldn't sleep even after a strenuous day at the docks. He suspected that Road killed the other exorcist who had seen his face, and though the Docks were all astir like a hornet's nest, no one suspected a simple worker of a gruesome double-murder. Yet, Tyki was irritated, fighting a visceral urge to kill again, and only cigarettes could dull the dreadful itch.

Road warned him that something like that would happen to him, and he would begin losing affinity to humans, but he brushed aside her warnings until he could not avoid the truth any more than he could avoid staring into the amber of his eyes without the disguise of his magical glasses. One day, he would have to go on a hunt for exorcists. He would have to kill them and destroy their Innocence, or his dark side would tear his insides apart to claw its way out of him.

In front of him, five or six lopsided wooden buildings huddled together, separated only by a dirty narrow alley no one thought to light with a single oil lamp or a kerosine lantern. The darkness in that alley seemed thicker than elsewhere like a blot of ink spilled across a gloomy scenery or a shadow that cast another shadow, sinister to approach and more sinister to penetrate.

Tyki slowly extinguished the cigarette and slipped his hands into his pockets. "You can come out now, Earl," he said as he walked down a short flight of stairs.

"Well, well, you have good eyesight, Tyki-boy." The Earl stepped into a pool of moonlight and raised the tip of his hat a tad. "Good evening."

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It seems to me that there has been a misunderstanding. It does not concern me where you spend your free time, but when the payphone rings, you will answer it. Do you understand, my boy?"

Tyki intended to tell the fat, ridiculous clown to get lost out of spite, but all strength suddenly forsook him, and like a puppet whose strings the puppeteer abruptly cut, he fell on one knee and bowed his head in humble acquiescence.

"As you wish, Lord Millennium," he said in a quiet, toneless voice.

"And when I give you a task, you will do your best to carry it to fruition. You will not refuse a task. You will not defy my orders. You will not slack off. These rules are non-negotiable."

"Yes, Lord Millennium."

"I think that's enough lessons for today. Off you go, boy."

Tyki couldn't move his limbs or use his power of phasing through solid matter even after the Millennium Earl dismissed him.

"Am I under your spell?"

"It's unconscionable to restrain my dearest children's free will. Why can't you accept it? After the Noah in you awakened, you have a place by my side and you live to obey my wishes. It was so ordained a long-long time ago."

Tyki gritted his teeth. "I don't feel like I have any free will."

"You have a predestined role to play in this war, and I—I… have…" Suddenly, the Earl clutched his head, and his fat body folded in half despite the sizable belly. His eyes bulged out, his monocle hung askance on his nose, but his clownish mask remained hovering in the air while his body underwent a bizarre metamorphosis. Then the Earl popped like an inflated balloon and darted across the sky towards the first streak of dawn.

Tyki took a deep breath and straightened to his full, imposing height. He wasn't wholly devoid of pride and felt a bitter sting at the memory of groveling at the Earl's feet. But some things, he supposed, couldn't be helped, and the time had come to take on his new role in the Earl's family and search for something to enjoy about it.

"I heard a loud noise." Momo emerged from the barracks, covering a yawn. "What happened? Why are you still awake?"

"Nothing happened," Tyki snapped, looking up at the sky. "Go back inside and get some sleep."


The Eastern slums were abuzz with rumors after the fresh morning newspapers went out, and the newsstands were dappled with the headlines—each in bold capital letters on the front page—of rather meager variety: "Gruesome double-murder at the docks. Unknown intruders kill two members of a reclusive sect known as the Black Order" or "Quiet neighborhood rocked by a tragedy. Two men found dead after a showdown at the Tobacco Dock."

Tyki tossed a coin to the boy who had a heavy bag flung over his shoulder and took refuge from the tumultuous flow of the morning crowds under the signboard of a shoe shop. He unfolded the newspaper and, chewing on the butt of his smoldering cigarette, read:

"Yesterday afternoon, an unknown number of intruders assailed and brutally murdered two members of a reclusive sect known only as the Black Order. One body was fished out of the river by local dock workers. The other body was discovered on the upper deck of a merchant ship, nailed to the bottom of the mast with metal objects in the shape of ice cream cones." Tyki skimmed over the first few paragraphs detailing their injuries and scanty witness accounts that, fortunately, did not contain descriptions of him or Road. "A young prodigious Inspector from Vatican, Howard Link, suggested that these murders share a connection with the recent deaths at an inn in the Eastern slum. He declined to provide further comments to the newspaper. The Church of England expressed its deepest sympathies to the families of the deceased."

"Well, that's an interesting turn of events," Tyki muttered to himself and, fixing a pair of magical glasses on his nose, turned the page.

"There you are, Tyki! We wondered where you ran off to again," Momo came up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come of think of it, you look well-rested, considering that you've slept for three hours last night."

After his last chat with the Earl, which was cut short by the Earl's bizarre disappearance, Tyki felt as if a heavy load was lifted off his shoulders and fell into dreamless slumber as soon as his head touched the pillow. Momo and Clark had to shake him awake, and they headed to the docks in the morning, but the overseer gave them a full day off because the Tobacco Dock was closed during the murder investigation.

They returned to the city where they ate some cheap lean soup, and Tyki finally gave in to curiosity and bought himself a newspaper.

"It's like the city is cursed," said Clark, the gloomier man of the three of them. "People are murdered left and right. There are rumors of strange disappearances. You can feel the despair in the air."

'Of course, it's cursed. The Millennium Earl is here,' Tyki thought but said nothing.

They crossed the road and heard a payphone ring near one of the pastry shops.

"Guys, I'll catch up with you in a moment," said Tyki and walked towards the phone.

He waited a bit before picking up the receiver.

"I'm glad we sorted out the little misunderstanding between us," said the Earl in a low, creaky voice. "Meet Road after school at this address, and I'll open the Ark for you."


Intermission

*The curtain falls*

Road: "Millennie, how are we going to punish Tyki for stealing your favorite reading glasses?"

Millennium Earl: "My dear family, I value your opinions, so I'm bringing this issue to everyone's attention. ❤ As my eldest, dearest child, Road gets the first word."

Road: "He'll do my homework and chores for a month."

Millennium Earl: "Heh-heh! Lulu Bell?"

Lulu Bell: "Meow!"

Skinn: "He can't have sweets for a month."

Lero: "Lord Millennium, he shouldn't be allowed to take me with him on missions, lero."

Skinn: "Is that even punishment?"

Millennium Earl: "All right, my boy. ❤ Any last words before I announce my decision?"

Tyki: "Huh?"

Road: "…He isn't even listening, is he?"

Sheril: Wait, why hasn't anyone asked for my opinion? I think he should strip to his waist and serve me a cup of coffee in my bed.

Tyki: What?! There's no way you'll make me do that.

Sheril: Now you've got his full attention, Lord Millennium.

*The curtain rises*