- 5 -

The Crow whose memory has been erased or altered by the boy's Innocence didn't get far from the village.

Tyki and Road took refuge from the afternoon heat in the shadow of a lakeside hut which was too well-kept to be uninhabited. Behind it was a small garden, and the thatch on the roof was fresh and fragrant; inside the room a few steaming dishes waited on the table for the inhabitants to return, flinging off aromas Tyki—who hadn't eaten a crumb since morning—found particularly appetizing.

One of the townspeople told them that a strange recluse took up residence in one of the abandoned shacks by the lake. He matched the description of the missing Crow they saw in the fisherman's memories.

Tyki grabbed an apple from the table, and sinking his teeth into its ripe, juicy flesh, peered through the window past the arrangement of flowerpots on the windowsill and into the garden where a figure in wrinkled and faded red-and-golden attire bent over the fresh beds with vegetables. The man crawled on his knees, uprooting the weeds from his garden.

"I have to protect my garden," he said when he saw Tyki and Road enter through the back door. "Nothing else matters to me besides my garden."

"Why is he so obsessed with his garden?" mused Tyki, chewing on the apple.

"I always wanted to have a garden," the man said, picking up a jug of water, "but something got in my way. It's not important now."

Road tapped the tip of the Earl's umbrella against her shoe.

"What did I tell you, Tyki? He turned into a bumbling idiot. That Innocence is curiously dangerous. Who knows what damage it can do to a Noah." There was a wild gleam in her eyes. "Maybe I won't be bored, after all."

Road squatted down by the Crow's side, placed her palm on his disheveled head, and froze with her eyes tightly shut. Several minutes passed in heavy silence. Suddenly, the Crow jumped to his feet, releasing a flurry of bright-yellow spell-seals; Road seemed startled when she straightened up and belatedly backed away, leaning on the umbrella to regain her footing. Tyki was faster. He pushed her to the side and, wedging between her and the Crow, erected a barrier in front of them. The Dark Matter spilled forth from his hand, covering them like a pair of ragged wings with uneven edges, and the spell cards burst into flames on touching its surface. It became easier for him to call on his inner power and wrestle control of the Dark Matter after he abandoned his habit of conscious, fruitless overthinking.

Road stepped through the fading barrier and launched several candles in the air, turning their sharp ends towards her attacker. One of them pierced the Crow's thigh and he awkwardly sank to the ground, clenching at the wound with both hands.

"He's feisty. He tried to attack me as soon as I released him from my dreamworld." Road pursed her lips. "Do you remember who you are now, Crow?"

The man nodded his head. "And who are you?"

"The conversation always starts with this banal question… How about we try something different? Why did the Order send you here? Usually, an exorcist recruits other accommodators, not a Crow."

The man let out a yelp as he pulled out Road's sharp cone-shaped candle from his leg. Blood quickly seeped through his faded uniform, dripping down his leg onto the dry dust, and the dust hungrily absorbed the droplets.

"I would answer her if I were you," said Tyki after prolonged silence. He took out of his pocket a small, gilded cigar case where he kept a few of the Earl's purple butterflies, flipped it open and let the creatures fly to their freedom. "Teez eat human flesh, or so I'm told."

The Earl was adamant that Tyki took his prized butterflies with him on missions. "They'll grow stronger if you let them feed on worthy prey," he told Tyki before he and Road headed out to France.

"You brought Millennie's gift." Road smiled with a hint of mischief. "So, what will it be, Crow? You should tell us everything we need to know about that Innocence, or Tyki's butterflies will eat a hole—"

"Lero!" The umbrella broke free from Road's grip and soared into the air, indignantly shaking his head. "You told him Tyki's name, mistress Road! Now we can't let him go!"

"Oh, spoiler alert! We aren't going to let you live, but at least, you'll get to choose a fun, easy death."

The Crow laughed shrilly. "My life belongs to Central, and I'm a dead man walking after I failed my mission. Central doesn't forgive our mistakes, so do your worst."

"Teez," Tyki called out to the butterflies, "show me what you can do."

The butterflies seemed to understand him, though he doubted they possessed any semblance of a mind. They swarmed around the Crow, each like a piece of a beautiful living mosaic. One of them crawled into the man's eye socket, nobbling at the flesh, and a thin trickle of blood dripped across his cheek like a tear. The man swung his arms left and right to drive away the annoying butterflies, but they kept biting his knuckles and fingers until his skin was all gashed and sliced.

Tyki motioned aside with his hand, and the butterflies dispersed. "He's not afraid of dying, so your gamble is a bust, Road." He thoughtfully pressed the back of his index finger to his chin. "No, that's not it. He's afraid of death, but he resigned himself to his fate. He doesn't think he's getting out of here alive, or that he even should live on. We can kill him, Road, but he won't talk."

"Central has them on a tight leash," Road hissed through her teeth.

"Can't you do that neat trick to read his memories?"

"That's not how my powers work. Unless he has a deep emotional attachment to those memories, it'll take me ages to sift through everything he's seen in his life."

Tyki extended his arm, and when a large butterfly landed on his palm, he bent down so he could meet the man's haunted eyes. "What about that kid you were supposed to pick up? Don't you care about what happens to him? Aren't you at least a bit worried about what we can do to him?" The butterfly crawled onto the man's shoulder and sat there, slowly twitching its wings and waiting for Tyki's command.

The man lowered his eyes, unable to look at Tyki's stigmata. "There's nothing I can do to help that poor boy," he whispered.

"We'll make a deal with you. Your life in exchange for the kid's life. We'll just destroy his Innocence and let him go."

"How do I know you'll keep your end of the bargain?"

"You don't get to make demands, Crow. Take Tyki's generous offer because it's the only offer you'll get."

"All right, I'll tell you everything I know… Central sent me here for the accommodator of that strange Innocence. I was supposed to pay his father and deliver him to the Order. The Order didn't want to risk sending an exorcist because the Innocence damages the people's memories somehow. Someone at the science section was worried that an exorcist with damaged memories may forget his purpose and turn into a Fallen One. Instead, they sent me to seal off and stabilize the Innocence until an exorcist could get here… Since you found me, you probably know the rest. I failed my mission."

"And why were you… gardening?"

"I dreamed about my own garden when I was a boy. I don't know why it… I forgot I was a Crow. I couldn't think about anything else besides taking care of my garden." The man tore off a piece of his uniform and bandaged his wound. "Will you kill me now?"

"There's something else you need to do for us. You see, Tyki and I aren't thrilled about gardening or baking. You'll have to find the boy, take his Innocence from him, and bring it to us. And if you think about running, Tyki will leave a small reminder for you. That's the deal."

The Earl's words came back to his mind, and Tyki put a butterfly into the man's back warily, as though in fear of blemishing it. A painful groan escaped his lips, something like a slight shudder passed over his body, and for the first time, he looked stricken with terror.

"Am I dead? How long do I have?"

"You have some time, watchdog, but I suggest you use it wisely," said Tyki.

The Crow left, and Road sent several Akuma to watch over him from the distance. Tyki returned to the kitchen. A pot with warm porridge stood on the table untouched, and he helped himself to the dish that would spoil otherwise. Road climbed into a chair next to him with graceful ease and rested her elbows against the tabletop.

"You don't look particularly happy, Tyki."

"It's not very fun if they can't even put up a fight. Do you think he'll bring us the boy's Innocence, or he'll lose his memories again and return to work in his garden?"

"Who knows… Oh, you sure are hungry."

"Are you always so nosy?"

"No, only when it comes to you, Tyki. I want to know all your secrets."

Tyki threw an irritated glance at her. "Why do you want to know anything at all about me? Why don't you go bother Skinn?"

"Because of that awful, pretty face of yours."

"What's wrong with my face?"

Road's voice was dreamy but aloof, as if she were elsewhere entirely. "Your face… It's just awful."

Tyki quickly finished the meal to avoid an awkward conversation with Road, and they left the shack. Around them a warm, quiet evening set in; the sky was hazed over, and the wind veered round to the west, gently rustling in the crowns of tall trees. It didn't appear that anyone from the village discovered the corpse at the pastry shop, or perhaps the news about the shop owner's death hasn't spread yet. The fishermen at the lake were putting away their nets for the night in utter obliviousness of the clash between the forces that threatened to upend their mundane world.

"What does it mean to be the Noah of Dreams?" asked Tyki absent-mindedly as they headed back to the village. Road's Akuma showed them that the Crow couldn't find the boy at his father's hut, and he continued his frantic search elsewhere.

"Why the sudden curiosity?"

"No reason. It's something to pass the time while we look for that Innocence."

Road raised her finger as if she was about to give him a boring instruction. "What you should remember about me is that I'm the oldest disciple in the current cycle. I set the rules for all newbies."

Tyki chuckled. "If you really are the oldest, Road, you should start dressing less like a bratty girl and more like a mature woman—"

He knew that retaliation was coming and didn't try to duck Road's umbrella when she struck him in the back of the head with it. He wholly deserved it.

"You're the last person who gets to lecture me about maturity, Tyki. Being unemployed and unreliable are not signs of maturity."

"Hey, I got a job—"

Road looked like she was about to gag with disgust. "Do you want to know what Millennie thinks about your job—" Then she stopped dead in her tracks and tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. "Look, over there!"

A black dot darted across the sky towards them, and as it increased in size, Tyki recognized one of Road's Akuma—a large, grotesque humanoid creature with the head of a frog and kitchen knives for arms.

"Master Noah," it said in a screech that resembled the turning of unoiled gears, "an exorcist is headed this way from the train station. We tried to intercept him, but he destroyed all Level One Akuma. What are your orders?"

"Useless Akuma, lero," muttered Lero, hiding behind Road's back.

"I'll take care of the exorcist," Tyki said, feeling a surge of excitement. "You should keep following the Crow in case he finds the boy's Innocence."

"Are you sure?"

Tyki waved aside Road's question with a slight motion of his hand. "Which way is he headed?"

"He should be in the coppice in about two hours, master."

Tyki recalled a lush, secluded coppice on the edge of the village. It was a perfect place to lay a trap for the exorcist. After Tyki fought the two exorcists in London, he was overcome with a singular curiosity, and he intended to satisfy it.

Road said something, but he already jumped in the air, and he couldn't hear her words.


"Hey, exorcist," Tyki said cheerfully, hiding behind the wide trunk of a hundred-year-old oak tree. His dark attire, dark-grey skin, and the Noah stigma blended well with the fog and murk save for a tiny red spark of a smoldering cigarette. "It's a bit late for a stroll."

Tyki's hunt for the exorcist went awry from the very beginning. The shadows in the coppice danced amid the leaves, quivered on the ground in myriads of fanciful shapes, and vanished with the chilly gusts of wind that left pleasant goosebumps on the bare skin of his neck in an unbuttoned collar of his shirt. It was a rare night when everything mundane seemed a tad unordinary and mysterious.

The exorcist turned his head left and right in utter bewilderment. "Who's here? If this is some kind of joke, I suggest you scram."

Tyki was too excited from the beginning. He felt that a taut string within him had finally come undone, and he was overcome with pleasant exhilaration in anticipation of a hunt for a man whose life was hanging by a thread. He wasn't quite certain what roused those emotions, but his present experience was markedly different from his encounter with the exorcist at the London Dock when the hatred of Innocence had caught him unawares like a thunderclap in the cloudless sky. This time, Tyki Mikk was in full control of his mental faculties; or so it seemed to him at first.

"I can't do that I'm afraid." Tyki sidestepped the tree and faced the exorcist on the narrow road that cut through the coppice. It was riddled with potholes and ruts, and to avoid getting mud on his shoes, Tyki walked in the air a few inches above ground.

"Are you an Akuma?"

"I've been getting confused with Akuma a lot lately. But I have difficulty believing that the Order didn't tell you anything about us." Tyki tossed aside his top hat and leaned forward, lifting the loose strands of hair from his forehead to show an even row of cross-shaped stigmata. The exorcist stood ahead of him, grim and quiet. "He still hasn't got the least clue who I am," muttered Tyki with a cigarette stump between his teeth.

"If you're not an Akuma, I have no reason to fight you, good man," the exorcist said politely. He had an ordinary, forgettable face with no distinguishing marks.

"Here's what you've gotten wrong. Two things can't be true at the same time. You either hold on to your Innocence, or I get to destroy it for Lord Millennium." The raw, powerful feeling swept over Tyki—a mix of old rage and hatred—but this time he was ready for it; his fingers and shoulders twitched convulsively, a shiver ran up and down his spine, but he kept his cool with relative ease. "And there's something you can help me figure out as well. It's been on my mind a lot lately."

"All right, I've had enough of this nonsense! If you're with the Millennium Earl, I have no qualms about fighting you."

A gigantic double-bladed scythe materialized in the air, shining coldly in the crescent of a new moon, and with a heavy sigh, the exorcist assumed a hostile stance. The weapon was unwieldy and awkward while Tyki was light on his feet, quick, and nimble. He realized his deadly advantage before the battle even began.

The exorcist swung his scythe, the silver half-disk of the blade fell upon him with a gentle whisper, but Tyki with great adroitness, leaped to the side and dove under it faster than his opponent could swing it again. They stood at arm's length from each other, and Tyki plunged his hand into the exorcist's chest, feeling the erratic beating of the heart in his fist.

Ever since he learned about his new abilities, Tyki was beset by morbid curiosity—though his curiosity wasn't extraordinary, he reasoned, for someone in his peculiar circumstances—about how he would feel when he held a man's life in his hands in the most literal sense.

The feeling was not what he expected: it was as though his nerves were on fire. The Noah inside of him roused from slumber, and for a moment he was so overwhelmed that he couldn't move or breathe. As terrified as the exorcist was of him, he used the lull in the battle to dislodge himself from Tyki and dashed back into the saving cover of darkness as fast as he could. Tyki pulled himself together and leaped after him.

The exorcist ran as though mortal terror gave him wings. Tyki was a few steps behind him, moving noiselessly among the trees just like another shadow. Once a flock of frightened birds rose over the coppice and scattered every which way with a loud, plaintive cry. The chase was maddeningly fast, exhilarating, but he had scarcely lost his breath.

Tyki cut off his prey near a fork in the road. The exorcist was getting tired of carrying that gigantic scythe of his around, and Tyki jumped out of a cluster of branchy trees, with his left leg slightly in front of his right, bracing himself for a quick lunge. The exorcist swung his scythe again. Tyki drew in a lungful of fresh nightly smells of hay and flowers. Then he darted to the side, leapt into the air, pushing off the edge of the cumbersome weapon, and landed behind the exorcist.

"The fun is over, exorcist," Tyki whispered and felt himself grinning.

His opponent turned his head oh-so slowly. His eyes were wide from horror when Tyki's arm ripped through his back, and when Tyki crushed his heart in his palm. The lifeless body stood upright for a moment like a solemn monument and sagged to the ground.

Tyki felt that he was grinning wider and wider, and he couldn't stop.

His head was reeling. Visions flooded his mind without sense or order, dark, deformed, and each a thing of terror. Blood rained from the sky. Dark waves swallowed the horizon. Mud rose and submerged towers. Fires raged until stars crumbled to dust. Imprinted into the back of his eyelids was a spinning, fiery carousel of destruction.

Road appeared from somewhere: she jumped off her umbrella, ran up to him, shook him by the shoulder.

"Snap out of it, Tyki!" She impatiently stomped her foot. "Don't fight it!"

"Road… make it stop."

Tyki stumbled forward, shoulders hunched, and groped around for something to lean on until he found Road's slim shoulder, but instead of leaning on her, he pushed her out of the way and clung to a sturdy tree trunk. His fingers, infused with Dark Matter, left deep burn marks on the bark. His other hand was nearly glued to his face, which was twisted in a wide, spasmodic grin like a broken mechanical contraption.

He trembled from the feverish thrill of the first chase. He recalled the tantalizing and profane savagery of the act of stopping a human heart with his bare hand. Something beckoned him to take a small step forward, cross over an invisible line into the yawning abyss, and allow himself to be consumed by it.

The world ended in agony, and the screams of the doomed people did not move the blood-red sky to pity.

Tyki collapsed on his knees. The stigmata on his forehead were bleeding again. He wasn't sure what would happen to Tyki Mikk if he gave in, and it terrified him. He might entirely vanish in the whirlpool of darkness on the edges of his mind, or just the one part of him. He couldn't let that happen.

Tyki heard Road's quiet, astonished gasp before his mind, mercifully, faded into black.

. . .Tyki didn't stay unconscious for long. He came to himself less than half an hour after he fainted—the crescent of the newborn moon was still visible through the branches, and the thick fog has not receded, so the coming of a new day was still far off.

He got himself off the ground, straightened his hair and coat, and sat back down with his head against the tree and his elbow across his bent knee. He kept staring at his gloved palm, as if it were a mirror, and something vexed and bothered him profoundly, to the core of his being, but he couldn't quite put it into coherent words. It was no use dwelling on it then.

Tyki fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. The bitter, heady taste of tobacco in his mouth anchored him in the world around him, while his other senses began to come back bit by bit—the smell of grass, the mundane noises of the thicket, and the prickle of the rough bark on his skin.

Road sat across from him, with her knees drawn up to her chest, and tugged at the dirty, ruined frills of her skirt until she ripped off a piece. Then her fingers began tormenting another part of her torn dress. She wouldn't take her eyes off him, pensive, reproachful, and angry at once.

"Say something, Road," he said at last, weary of the silence and of the intensity of her gaze that seemed to have the power to see into the very depths of him.

"You repressed the Noah inside of you, didn't you?"

"I don't know what I did."

"The awakening may take some time. It's not always quick, or pretty to watch. Skinn was in pain for days before he fully reincarnated, unfortunate though it turned out for him." Road heaved a forlorn sigh. "But the very first thing he did was order an Akuma to kill everyone who knew him when he was still a human. And I didn't have to explain to him why we serve the Millennium Earl. He gleaned the truth from his jumbled memory. You, on the other hand, Tyki…"

"You have nothing to worry about, Road. The curse of Innocence, the war with the Black Order, the three days of darkness… It's coming back to me now."

Road glanced at him with disbelief. "We shouldn't let our human identities tag along with us for the ride."

Tyki flicked the ash off his cigarette. "Did you find that Innocence?" he asked to change the subject he wasn't in mood to discuss.

"No, but we'll look for it tomorrow. The Crow is convinced that the accommodator left the village, but he's still here. And I think I know where to find him."

"Where?"

"At the church."